Authors: John Macrae
London
Spicer’s own little rende
z
vous with destiny came next day.
By seven-thirty that morning I was ready, sitting in the van parked on the right hand side of the road just round the corner from Spicer's house, dressed in white overalls and reading the 'Sun' for local colour. Anyway, I liked the girl on Page 3. Amazing what you can do with an airbrush these days. My stars said that something exciting could enter my life if I could only stop worrying about the consequences of an ill-considered action. Right.
The extra large mirror I had bought was rigged to give a panoramic view back down the avenue. The road was quiet - just the usual trickle of commuters and enough traffic not to make the van conspicuous. A police panda car drifted by but didn't spare me much of a glance, although it put my pulse rate up. I began to get nervous. It's always like that.
Don't let anyone ever tell you that they don't get jumpy. That's balls; we all get jumpy. We just pretend not to be. At one point I found myself wondering just why I was doing this, and deciding it was really for the excitement, the thrill of the illicit chase. I was beginning to worry, too. Spicer was late. Just as I stole what seemed like glance number ten at my watch, he shot round the corner, about two hundred metres back. And he was hurrying. I checked the avenue for other movers. There were two more commuters forward on the left and no-one behind except Spicer. It was clear. He crossed the road and began to close on the right hand pavement. I left the engine running and swung out from the cab, whistling. He was now about fifty yards away, not paying attention as I strolled to the back of the van and opened the doors. This was the risky bit.
Spicer looked up curiously as he neared the back of the van. I called to him in my best Scots, "Here, gie's a hand, pal…”
He stopped, irresolute. "I'm in a hurry, I'll miss my train." He seemed to look at me for the first time.
"Och, it'll no' take a moment. And I'll run ye doon to the station, if you like, afterward. I’m goin’ that way."
He hesitated. "It's only to pass me oot a box," I added. "It has to be kept level, you see." I was beginning to sweat. Come on you bastard, say something. But he just looked blankly at me.
" I can't miss my train," he whined.
"I'll run you to the station. Come on, pal; it'll no' take a minute..."
"All right. If we can make the seven fifty three." He'd bitten. And not a moment too soon I didn't want twitching lace curtains and curious neighbours noting our discussion on the pavement. Even with stick-on lettering and a smeared number plate I wasn't looking to sell tickets for what I had in mind for friend Spicer.
"What do I do?" He looked vaguely into the van door.
"Just hop in and pass me the end of the long box out. Then I can leave it on the pavement. It's no' heavy."
He peered suspiciously into the van. "Which one?"
"That one there." I jerked my head at a long white box that concealed my tools, and gave him an encouraging pat on the back to urge him into the van. At critical moments a slight push - literally - can make all the difference psychologically: ask any policeman making an arrest.
Like a lamb, he climbed into the back. I leaned in behind him and reached for the garden spray on my right tucked into the corner by the door hinge, and picked up the preplaced mask in my left hand.
"Funny sort of van," said Spicer turning to face me halfway down the van. He took in my aggressive intention immediately. His eyes widened in alarm and his mouth opened to shout. But it was too late. I spr
ayed his face and opening mouth at point blank range with a
██
% solution of
██
and
██
██
[2]
. You can buy the chemicals anywhere if you know what you need. I'd calculated a five second burst, but I gave him a little bit longer, just to make sure.
Spicer's
eyes immediately clamped shut against the spray and his breathing in had sucked a good lungful of the stuff into his chest, which cut off the shout. He was making choking noises, like a winded boxer desperately trying to suck air. I kept the mask pressed against my own face and breathed through that. Even with the charcoal filter I could smell the reek of the
██
in the mix. I stopped spraying and backed out. I didn't want to get dizzy or incapacitated too. Spicer's eyes opened and he stared at me blankly, then took a step towards the door. He swore in a thick muffled voice and his legs buckled under him as h
e moved forward. For a second, the hands clawed for me, but caught nothing but air as he fell forward onto his knees, gasping.
I backed away, the mask still across my mouth, and the spray poised, in case he needed another burst. He didn't. He knelt and stared sightlessly at me, the whites of his eyes rolling up, then slowly fell forward and collapsed face down. He twitched a bit, then was still. I gave another quick burst to his nose and mouth and clambered hastily out, locking the doors behind me. I felt a bit dizzy from the anaesthetic, but a few lungfuls of clean, fresh air cleared my head.
Then I quietly walked round to the driver's door, listening to my heart thudding, yawned and stretched to give the avenue a final once over before driving carefully away from the kerb. At the T-junction at the bottom of the road, I checked my watch. It had taken one minute, thirty-five seconds from start to the corner. My pulse was about 140 I reckoned, but it had worked.
Phase two of the plan had critical timing. The mix was only guaranteed for 10 minutes. I drove to my pre-recced site in a muddy car
park, and parked up. I was well inside the time margin. The Fablon logos went in the bin and then I phoned his store, whining that,
'Mr Spicer wasn't well today but would probably be in tomorrow. He had to go the doctors...' There was a nice irony to that. A bored woman took the message.
Then I backed the van up to a wall on the waste ground used as a car park and opened the back doors. Spicer lay comatose sprawled on the floor, his mouth dribbling. I waited 90 seconds for the air to clear and then sniffed cautiously. It was clean enough to enter and I clambered in, opened the top ventilator and pulled the doors shut behind me. I didn't want anyone snooping in now.
Spicer's pulse was a steady 60 and his breathing was regular. As quickly as I could I rolled up his sleeve and gave him 10cc of ketamine intravenously,
then
dropped the syringe
and swabs
into the plastic dustbin. While I waited for this to take effect, I stripped him off and did my field scrubbing up. I needed to; personal hygiene was not his strong point, to judge by the sta
t
e of his underpants. It took about seven minutes but by the time I was ready he was in full anesthesia. I checked his pulse and respiration. The vital signs looked good, so, noting the time I drenched the area in Hibitane, took a deep breath and went to work.
It was a strange operation and the difficulty of working kneeling in the back of a vehicle against a time limit didn't help. The other complication was that I didn't want him bleeding everywhere like a stuck pig, which, when you're working alone, isn't easy. I gave him a tourniquet like you wouldn’t believe, just to be sure. It took a painstaking 20 minutes and when I'd finished, I pumped him full of every antibiotic known to man and stitched as neatly as I could. I'm afraid it wasn't a pretty job, but then I've only got the usual SAS three months experience in casualty. The big problem was the artery. There was less bloo
d than I'd expected though -- but I had been careful.
I checked his vital signs again and found, not surprisingly, that he was in shock. One of the dangers of
████
mixes is that they can depress the patient's whole cardiac system. Still, he looked all ri
ght, considering. I gave him
a few
ccs of
████
with a fresh syringe to keep him going, put him into the silver mountain survival blanket and closed the
Velcro
seal. He lay among the blood smears, white faced and hissing flat little breaths: but he wasn
't going to die on me through post-operative shock.
I checked the time again. It was just 9 o'clock. I took a pull at my hip flask, which I'd filled with coffee and whisky. It was cold but sharp and I felt the warmth of the liquor biting my stomach. I gave myself a two minute break while I watched Spicer, then cleaned up slowly, using the water in the jerrican and lots of Aquasept. I didn't want to catch anything off him, and for all I knew the bastard could be carrying HIV or anything.
People tend to be careful going towards the enemy but slack when they're pulling back. No such carelessness was going to endanger me. I carefully stripped off the once sterile plastic apron and the overalls. I wrapped them separately in newspaper and put them into the ever useful little plastic dustbin, along with the instruments, the soiled swabs and Spicer's clothes and his odds and ends, all wrapped in newspaper. When I rolled up the polythene floor cover, the back of the van contained only the pale figure of Spicer, mummified in his space blanket, a plastic dustbin crammed with a lot of messy and
embarrassing
evidence, an empty jerrican, and the long white box.
I peered out to check the coast was clear before getting into the cab and driving out.
The dustbin was easy. Checking the time carefully, I eased into the arches by Charing Cross. Sure enough the gang was there, as they were every day at about this time, with the big Westminster contractor’s disposal lorry grinding slowly down Northumberland Avenue, digesting its load of rubbish. I stopped at the corner and put the bin on the kerb, taking care not to let anyone see inside the van. Then I pulled over and waited. Two minutes later the dustmen came round the corner and seized the bin. With wry amusement I watched its contents flung into the huge grinder and the bin unceremoniously dumped back on the pavement. Spicer's debt to Society had been repaid to Westminster City Council.
*
*
*
Once I'd confirmed the evidence was destroyed I drove up to Shepherd's Bush and backed up against some bushes I'd
recced
. At that time of the morning I was mercifully alone. This was a moment of maximum danger and I knew it. As quickly as I could I checked Spicer's final state, and dragged him into the middle of a clump of shabby bushes. He was still out. Then I drove the van to the car wash and cleaned the back out while I waited to go through. Time was against me. I left the van in a car park, put the keys in a pre-paid typed envelope and mailed them. It then only remained for me to make the phone call. I dialled the Standard, and eventually got the news room.
"Yeah, what is it?" said a bored voice in what he clearly thought was a yuppy accent.
I could almost hear him saying, ‘Gep Yah’.
He sounded like a young reporter trying to come across tough, so I gave it to him once, in best hard Glasgow.
"Listen. Listen once, Jimmy, and listen good, for I'll no' repeat this. Do you remember Spicer, the kiddy groper?" The voice at the other end made gurgling noises. I cut in. "Shut your mouth and listen tae me, sonny Jim. Well, ye'll find him in the bushes off Shepherd's Bush market." I gave him the exact address. "Have ye got that?" The voice gurgled some more. This time it sounded more like an excited young man out of his depth. A click came on the line and the quality of sound altered. We were probably going on to tape now.
"Aye - and one mair thing, sonny. Tek an ambulance and a doctor with ye when ye go with the polis. He'll fuckin’ need them." I hung up.
From there I caught a tube to Charing Cross and made the fast Dover train by five minutes. By half past twelve I was having lunch on the ferry and staring out across the oily calm Channel as the day trippers giggled over the motorway meal. The hire car was still by the dockside. By three o'clock I was driving into France, and by four thirty I was in Brussels. I spent an enjoyable if quiet hour collecting evidence of my trip to Belgium. I mailed some more postcards and was back at the hotel by seven.
The dark receptionist was on again,
and we giggled over a piece of Belgian lace, allegedly bought in Brussels for fifty euros. For my mother.
"Why, M'sieur," Claudine protested, (we were at the 'Claudine/M'sieur' stage of our relationship by now; last night she had been 'Mam'selle'), "M'sieur, you could 'ave bought that for 'alf the price away from the Gran' Place. Everyone knows that the Grand’ Place in Brussels is double price."
I agreed - but I was only a silly tourist. Claudine would remember me, should anyone ever ask. I hoped that by tomorrow morning, we'd both remember each other much, much better.
After all, it was a holiday.
I was on leave.
London
I hate going back to work after leave.
It always seems to take me about a week to get used to doing what other people want and not what I choose. And after the shock of being threatened with the heave ho last
t
ime I got back from leave, I was wary. This time, however, it was different. I walked into Group the following Monday with an unusual mixture of trepidation and
curiosity
. Having spent the rest of the week deep in the Ardennes I hadn't seen an English newspaper.
Even my stars were encouraging;
'Is it all too much? Remember, your future is for as long as you live.. listen to others' words of wisdom to guide that bright and shining future....'
Sounded good.
Of course the usual great mound of files greeted me;
action files, briefings, papers for comment and, most interesting, the press summaries. Even though our little organisation is kept at arms length, we still operate just like the rest of the Services, and our paperwork reflects it. So after the usual just back from leave chat with Charles Townsend, the only other occupant of our little four man action response group, I settled down with an unfeigned groan to the two foot high stack of files.
Charlie looked up sympathetically. "Amazing, isn't it? Here we are, supposed to be four of the best in the business" - he jerked his head at the other two empty desks - "and they're still loading us down with bloody paperwork. We might as well be staff officers in MoD."
"Never mind, Charlie. I thought that's where de Court had gone, anyway? Write a pretty paper for a minister and they'll promote you too, if you're a good boy."
The pompous de Court wasn’t there. He’d been promoted and gone to MoD. It was the shortest stay in Group history, but for the rest of his career pompous Henry's record would show that he was once a Special Operations Officer in SAS Group. Without ever having done an operation. With a career move like that and his Greenjacket annual confidential reports, I expect that the ambitious shit would end up as Chief of the Defence Staff one day. Serve him right.
Charlie grinned. "Forget it. Anyway, I've sorted through your junk. You've an appointment with the Director at 1400 today. Otherwise it's all the usual rubbish."
"What's that about? Welcome back? Another antiquarian literary challenge for Whitehall?"
"Don't ask me mate; it's need to know and no-one's telling me. How was Italy by the way?"
“Need to know ,Charlie, need to know.” Trying to be casual, I asked, "So, anything in the press summaries? I've been out of touch with the news for over two weeks - I only got back from the Continent last night," - which was true.
"No, nothing at all. Only the usual Middle East peace talks crap. It looks like the Americans are getting serious about Iran. Oh yes, they're going to do some more redundancies for the services. Oh, and you'll like this - there's a mad gooley-grabber on the loose."
"Redundancies? For who?
"Dunno. It's all in the
papers
. Usual rubbish. Defence cuts. But the phantom gooley grabber's more interesting"
"Gooley grabber?"
"Yes.
Remember that paedophile who killed the girl and got off?"
I looked blank. "You remember, she committed suicide, and the father went to jail for attacking him? About a month ago? Well, some maniac castrated him"
"Castrated him?"
"Yes, the press was full of it a week or so back. It was a real nine days wonder. They reckon it's some Scottish gang. They did a pretty slick job of it, too."
I registered surprise and approval to match his. "That's different. Anything else?"
"No, that's the most interesting thing that's happened during your leave. Now, I've some work to do..."
Inwardly I heaved a sigh of relief and turned to the files. As soon as I had absorbed the red flagged 'Please come and see the Director at 1400 on Monday' signed by the Chief of Staff, I dumped all the files with rivetting papers asking for comments on "Use of Special Forces in Out of Area or Peacekeeping Operations" and similar drivel in the out tray. They were what I needed to escape from, I reckoned. Then I read the press sheets.
We get copies of a daily media summary and I arranged them in date order from the day I left UK. Then I retraced the impact of my little bit of private cosmetic surgery, while the foul office coffee started my first headache of the day.
Being a season with little news, Spicer's come-uppance had been manna to the bored journalists. The tabloids had gone in for stark headlines -
'REVENGE'
screamed one, and
'
CASTRATED!
’
was in others, while the broadsheet heavies had played up the illegality of my revenge. Under a headline,
'Police Fear Vigilante Attacks',
the Times talked about
'The mutilation of Mr Albert Spicer by unknown assailants yesterday has given rise to police fears of a series of vigilante attacks on those suspected - but acquitted - of serious crimes exciting keen public interest
.' The piece moralised on in elegant prose in the same vein. I logged on to our crappy old computer and crawled through the
news reports
on line. There was no shortage of coverage.
Mrs Meekin's comments when she was interviewed though by the SUN were fairly clear; "Serve the bastard right...one of the happiest days of my life." But then, you could hardly expect
her
to be politically and morally correct, could you? The SUN's headline was '
JUSTICE
'. Without a question mark, I noticed...
By the following day, Spicer had obviously been interviewed in hospital and the press reports reflected this. I had become, 'a Scottish gang, probably from Glasgow', and the whole affair had been 'meticulously planned and executed', which was nice. There seemed to be little sympathy for Spicer. He was described by various hospital spokespersons as, 'ashen faced,
’
'weeping with shame,' and 'shaken.'
He was, according to one report, also thinking of suing the Metropolitan Police for failing to provide him with adequate protection. He’d probably win.
The cartoonists in particular, had a field day, taking their own revenge by inventing improbable castrations of a number of likely political and showbiz targets on, "
Not another Balls Up?
" themes. One headline to a tongue in cheek Spectator piece had even caused a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission, according to the Standard; it had read, '
Paedophilia: a Modest Proposal?’
The whole story had petered out a few days later following the flare up of trouble in the Middle East, and a serious crash on the M1 involving some celebrity north country soap actress with an unusual past. You can guess which made the headlines in the tabloids.
Two strands stuck in my mind as I ditched the files before going for my compulsory check-out at the gym. One was a remark by Spicer's doctor praising my crude surgery as being, 'typical of emergency surgical procedures or hasty battlefield techniques', which was a bit too close to the truth for comfort.
Second was a grim note by the senior police officer dealing with the case which had got a lot of publicity. 'We're going to have to get these men and put them away, whatever the public feel,' he had said in a TV interview. 'You can't have unofficial vigilante groups taking the law into their own hands. Next time they could do this to a totally innocent person. I mean, where's the rule of law in that?"
As he had been boarding the Glasgow train 'to check with his Scottish colleagues' at the time I wasn't unduly worried. Anyway, it was a one off. I wouldn't be doing anything like that again. And Spicer had deserved it.
Everyone said so.
But my chance meeting with Detective Sergeant Plummer was more worrying. Harry had been doing one of his routine liaison visits to Group to drop off a yet another print-out from the National Criminal Intelligence Service
computer
, and we had bumped into one another in the front office as I came back from the gym. Naturally we had talked and equally naturally he had asked me if the last list he had given me had been OK. "Yes, great, very useful, Harry. I passed it on to Tony" - one of my colleagues - "He's the one mainly interested in UK nationals."
"Oh." Harry paused. "You remember that bloke, Spicer, the one you got by mistake?"
I had pretended vagueness. "Oh, yes - I think I remember."
"The one who had got off for the sex crimes," persisted Harry. "You must remember. You scrubbed his name out of the NCIS print out."
"Oh, yes, now I remember. You gave me the wrong Spicer. Why?"
"Well, it's a bit odd, really. He got done just after that."
"Done?"
"Castrated. A very neat job. Surely you read about it? It was in all the papers."
By then I had been sweating. "Yes - I remember reading a bit about it when I got back from leave. Some Scottish gang, wasn't it? That's what the papers said. Why do you ask?"
Harry was non-committal. "It just seemed a coincidence, that's all. Whoever did that wasn't normal." He tapped his head. "And they were specialists, too. Ball-slicing: it's not your normal cri
m
inal's style."
I shrugged. "What's normal these days? But I didn't know that Special Branch bothered about these things."
"We don't; but I've got a lot of mates in the CID; and they reckon this one is different."
"It does seem a bit sick ... didn't he say he was going to sue the Met? Mind you, I expect that this bloke - Spicer deserved it."
Harry nodded, thoughtfully. His eyes never left mine, and I felt uncomfortable, conscious of his stare. God knows why: he couldn't know anything. It was just my own guilty knowledge; what the lawyers call
'mens rea'
.
"Some might say so." Harry Plummer's policeman's face didn't flicker. "Some might say he deserved it, but it was still a crime."
We'd parted amicably, but I thought of that conversation as I bounded up the stairs to see the Director.
Somehow I felt uneasy.