Provo. Gordon Stevens

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      ‘Patrick Saunders, Philipa Walker.’

      Access Saunders and she might access Saunders’s sources. Access Saunders’s sources and she might access the private worlds of the Prince and Princess of Wales. Access those worlds and she accessed PinMan.

      ‘Should I bow or curtsey?’ Walker’s question was tongue-in-cheek and slightly challenging.

      Saunders smiled as she knew he would. ‘Bucks Fizz?’

      ‘Why not?’

      * * *

      Belfast was quiet.

      Nolan turned the unmarked car along Springfield Avenue – RPG Avenue as the locals nicknamed it. The Browning was in her waist holster and the MP5K was on the floor to the right of the driver’s seat.

      Work since the operation at Beechwood Street had been routine and on a downward spiral. Partly because after Beechwood Street everything seemed an anticlimax; mainly because she was winding down to the end of her Belfast tour. Not just her Belfast tour. Her last tour. She had already bent the rules, or persuaded others to bend them for her, so that she could stay on. Now London had decreed otherwise, had said that today was her last undercover day in Northern Ireland. Two weeks’ leave, then they would pull her out.

      There was something about the operation on Beechwood Street – occasionally the unease seeped through the block she had put on it, occasionally she found herself back there with McKendrick by the driver’s door and Rorke in front. Mostly at night, when she was alone and trying to sleep, but occasionally even when she was working, when she was in the undercover car, particularly when they were ordered into the Ballymurphy area. Now it crept up on her again, black and cold, like a fog on the moors on a summer’s day. One moment the sky was blue and warm, then the faintest strand of mist and the almost imperceptible finger of cold. Then it was upon you, engulfing and entrapping you.

      She turned the car south and fought off the feeling.

      ‘There’s a rumour you’re leaving as well.’ She glanced across at Brady. Only once had they talked about what she had had to do in the car in Beechwood Street, and that was to invent a story which would explain how she was able to reach his Browning. Then they had agreed never to mention it again. And Brady had told no one. Because at the end of the day there were a lot of things more important than a laugh between the boys, and at the top of that list was the fact that she had saved their lives.

      ‘Possibly.’ Brady had been with the RUC for nine years, the last three in E4A.

      ‘Someone said Special Branch.’

      Brady laughed.

      ‘When?’

      ‘Couple of months.’

      It was six in the evening, the end of the shift. If they were pulling her out perhaps they should have done so after Beechwood Street when she was on a high, she thought. Now she was leaving as if the Belfast tour hadn’t been part of her, or she part of it. There was no elation at what she had done, no relief that she was getting off the tightrope, just the immense and overwhelming feeling of anticlimax. Tomorrow she would slip away on leave. When she returned she would have her last talk with the CO, be told where she would be posted. And nobody would even notice.

      ‘Fancy a drink?’ It was Brady.

      They turned into the barracks at Lisburn.

      ‘Thanks.’

      They parked the car and went to the team room. The corridor was empty and the room deserted. Hell of a way to go, she thought as she signed off. They left the block and went to the mess, Brady slightly in front of her, knowing what she was feeling. There would be a couple of people at the bar, he knew she assumed, they’d spend half an hour sipping beer, then she’d slip away by herself, nowhere to go and no one to go with. He opened the door and allowed her to go first. The room was full, the teams waiting for her – the men and women who would remain on the edge, the men and women who’d provided the back-up for her and for whom she had provided back-up.

      ‘Bastard,’ she whispered to Brady, and began to laugh.

      The following morning Nolan collected the hire car and drove to the town where she had been born and where she had grown up. It was her first visit since the start of her Northern Ireland tour. That night she told her parents that she was on leave from Europe; the next day she drove to the west coast, on the other side of the border, where she had spent the occasional holiday as a girl.

      The beach curved in an arc round the bay, the water was cold and the sand a glistening white. The October sun was warm – an Indian summer, she remembered her parents had called it. She took off her shoes and walked along the edge of the water, thought about why they were pulling her out of Northern Ireland and what she would do now.

      It was obvious why they were pulling her, she told herself. Women were normally only allowed one tour, perhaps two. Yet the guys were allowed back – she felt the resentment rising. The guys were allowed back for tour after tour . . .

       She wouldn’t be able to do it, she knew. McKendrick was framed in the driver’s window and Rorke was standing in front. Brady’s hands were on the steering wheel so he couldn’t reach his gun, and if she went for hers they would see. The only chance was the MP5K by the driver’s door, but to get to it she would need a cover. She couldn’t, she knew again . . .

      . . . the strand was so deep in her subconscious that she was not fully aware of it, was only aware of the defence mechanism it threw at her. It was as if she was running a security check on the computer, keying in the request, the computer flashing back that the information she wanted was blocked . . .

       . . . a coffee after, she told herself. Large and Irish. Plenty of Black Bush . . .

      . . . the tide washed in front of her. Twenty yards away a boy and girl played on a log which had rolled across the Atlantic, the seaweed hanging from it and the shells crusted round it.

      So what now? Promotion probably. Germany again. Nice little desk job. And sheer absolute unadulterated bloody boredom. Perhaps she should resign, the thought came suddenly and unexpectedly. Cash in everything, get on a plane, and see where she ended up.

      The office was empty, the boys out on a job, Nolan supposed. It was five minutes before the meeting. She cleared the few items from her locker and walked along the corridor. The colonel was sitting behind his desk, the paperwork in front of him and the blow-ups of street maps covering the walls. He was in his early forties and big built, his civilian suit slightly crumpled, the jacket hanging behind the door.

      ‘Good leave?’ He waved his hand for her to sit down.

      ‘Fine.’

      ‘Your next posting.’ He spoke quickly, his voice matter-of-fact.

      Germany, she knew. Time to call it a day.

      ‘Two-week refresher at Hereford, then The Fort.’

      SAS at Hereford, MI5 at The Fort.

      Somebody up there loved her, she could not believe it, wondered who. The relief was spinning through her head. And after The Fort, who knew what or where? No desk job, though.

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