The Dead Yard Read Free Page A

want to. I guessed Paris because of your fags. Easy," I said to Jeremy a

little warily.
    "What else?" he asked.
    "You went to Harrow. Not on a scholarship, your father probably went to Harrow and his father

before him. Your granddad probably used to tell you stories about how Winston Churchill was in

the remedial class when he was there."
    Jeremy laughed and choked on his cigarette. I continued.
    "You’re wearing a linen jacket. Expensive, but more than that, a kind of uniform. You knew you

were going to have to go to Spain to see me, but you took the time to change from English clothes

into something more sartorially suitable. Why? Why not shorts and T-shirt, or a polo shirt, or a

cotton shirt and chinos? Hmmm. You feel you have to wear a jacket because you’re on duty. You

look like an army officer but you’re in civvies. Maybe you were in the army or maybe the RAF, you

don’t seem like a navy man anyway…. So why are you here? You work for the government. You and

your wee secretary have flown all the way to Spain. You don’t have a tan, you’re not even red,

you came here right from the airport. To see me. Huh. Why? A job. You need me for a job. You’ve

come to make me a job offer."
    Samantha whispered something to Jeremy. He nodded. I was impressing them with this

bullshit.
    "Who do I work for?" Jeremy asked.
    "I don’t know."
    "Think about it."
    "Why should I?" I asked petulantly.
    "Why indeed?" Jeremy said, smiling.
    "Ok, let me see…. Christ, I have it, it must be the Old Bill. You work for the cops."
    "Not the police, why would the police want you?"
    I sat forward on the edge of the bed. Yeah, he was too much of a patrician for the cops. He

was a highflier, he worked for—
    "British bloody Intelligence," I said.
    Jeremy’s jaw opened and closed. Samantha moved a little closer. Jeremy turned round to look at

her.
    And then I saw I was being dicked. I’d been wrong. Samantha was the superior officer. Jeremy

was the underling. She was watching both of us, using him as a barrier to assess me, seeing if I

was right for whatever it was they wanted me for.
    Well, enough of that for a game of soldiers.
    "Hey, Sammy, why don’t you do us a favor, get your boy out of here and we can talk business,"

I said.
    Jeremy looked startled. Samantha tried not to appear nonplussed.
    "We do think we’re clever, don’t we?" she said, mispronouncing her
R
s in that way

they teach you at only the most elite of English boarding schools.
    I said nothing.
    "You may leave, Jeremy. Please wait for me outside," she ordered. Jeremy stood, winked at me,

and knocked on the door. The guard opened it and let him out. Samantha moved to Jeremy’s seat and

picked up the file he had left on the chair.
    British Intelligence. Well, well, well. I suppose they wanted someone with insight into the

workings of the rackets in Belfast. If the peace deal everyone was talking about came off, then

they’d want to make sure all those bored paramilitaries in Ulster didn’t move into organized

crime and drugs. I could be very useful on that score. Or maybe they wanted someone to spruce up

their training programs for undercover ops. I could probably do a job like that. I was army

trained and I’d interrogated the shit out of people before. Might be a nice little earner if I

played my cards right. The FBI kept me safe but they didn’t exactly keep me flush.
    Samantha skimmed through the folder, pretending to notice things for the first time.
    "I don’t have all day, you know. I’m very anxious to find out if Stella can learn to love

herself again," I said, holding up my novel.
    Samantha smiled and continued to thumb my file.
    "You’ve been quite the naughty boy, haven’t you, Michael?" she said, her tone as condescending

as if she were a Victorian missionary and I, a recidivist cannibal chieftain caught with a hut

full of human heads.
    "Depends what you mean by naughty."
    "Killing several