Special Branch held the cellphone loosely as he took the call that had awakened him. “Yes,” he said curtly.
“The Inspector asked me to phone you first, sir,” a familiar voice said, “we have a major incident here.”
“Go on, sergeant,” Special Branch responded to unmistakeable tension in the caller. He listened carefully, neither interjecting nor questioning while Strontian’s police sergeant reported the shooting to death of journalists at the Community Centre. “Noel took the handgun with him,” a long pause. “He’s taken the victims’ car, a white Volkswagen. We have to regard him as armed and dangerous.”
“The Corran Ferry doesn’t run after dusk, I know,” Special Branch said, “so it will take me around forty minutes to get to you. Don’t stop doing what you’re doing. Carry right on. Any idea where the man is now?”
Special Branch listened and nodded, “I’ll head straight there. Don’t let anyone near him meantime.” He threw back the bedcovers.
Forty minutes later, he pulled over behind the revolving blue light on a police landrover and wound down his window as a uniformed officer approached. A white Volkswagen sat in the same layby as the police vehicle. The night was very still and the moon luminous.
“Good evening, Detective Inspector,” Fergus said courteously, “he’s sitting down on that little hillock over there. He’s very quiet, sir, not moving around or saying anything although he knows I’m here. The Inspector is on his way, should arrive any time.”
“Ok, son, good,” Special Branch waited while his vision adjusted to the moonlit conditions. Better to pretend that he had no prior knowledge of this man. “I’m going to talk to him,” he said. “Your sergeant told me the name is Noel. Anything you can give me about him?”
“Well, sir, he was an officer in the regular army. I believe he served in Afghanistan.”
Special Branch stared at the young constable. “Stay here, son. Keep the Inspector here, too, when he shows up. You did the right thing parking quietly next to the car. We want the traffic to flow normally. Last thing we need is people selling tickets.”
“Yes, sir,” Fergus responded dutifully.
Special Branch crossed the road and padded softly up a heathery slope to within ten metres of the dark figure sitting, bowed forward, knees drawn up and encircled by both arms. He could not be certain whether Noel still held the gun.
“Noel,” he said quietly, but distinctly, “I’m a police officer, a Londoner like you. Are you all right?”
Noel lifted his head and the moonlight caught tears on his cheeks. There was a stillness in him as he sat staring directly at the silvered silhouette. He spoke softly. “Are you armed?”
“No,” Special Branch said. There was a pause before the gentle question. “What happened back there?”
“I tried to look after my people,” Noel said, “and the Establishment killed them, casually, from above. They kill people impersonally, you know. An unmanned machine does it fairly efficiently. They do it because they can, because they are sans peur et sans reproche. They are untouchable,” his voice was calm. He seemed quietly reflective.
“Tell me more, Noel,” Special Branch spoke in silver light at the top of the rise. The wind breathed and tasted faintly of woodsmoke.
“The face of the executioner is always hidden,” Noel adjusted his clasp of both knees and Special Branch saw the pistol hanging loosely from fingers of one hand. “That’s a Bob Dylan lyric.”
“You need to help me here, Noel,” Special Branch said.
“They kill our boys and their boys. They kill women, kids, bus parties, wedding guests, whatever, all from consols in an air-conditioned room somewhere. It’s zero risk and leaves no evidence apart from the missile fragments. It is ideal for ‘plausible deniability’. Another line of defence is that ‘shit happens’. It is in our best interests to kill first and be sorry afterwards. The dead are ‘collateral damage’. Forget law. Extra-judicial killing is a part of our culture now. The eye in the sky has crawled into our psyche. Seems only minutes ago I heard a driver using the phrase.” Noel looked around him, then went on, “The media pretend impartially. Well, it encourages the most pragmatic view. Bloody Press, the bloody complicit Press. Media reports are unemotional and brief. Where is the outrage? Where are the great crusaders they boast of?” Noel’s speech quickened, his voice rising in calm night air. “You think of the flood of euphemisms that are in use. ‘Active defence’ is the illegal hacking of a computer. ‘Blue on blue’ and ‘collateral damage’ are deaths by military blunder. Types who never experienced action swank through corridors behind rows of medal ribbons on metal racks pinned over their left tit. Bastards like that covered up a killing in Lashkar Gah, did you know?”
There was a long silence. In the moonlight, Noel could be seen sitting and rocking gently, knees bent, arms wrapped tightly around both legs.
“Take it easy, Noel,” Special Branch said slowly, “easy now son. Tell me about this place called Lashkar Gah, that is how you pronounce it, right? Tell me what that’s about.”
“Don’t come any closer,” Noel’s voice grew louder. “These newspaper bastards that caused it. Why the hell didn’t you make an arrest? Just to get a few pictures for an ignorant public that needs a daily cock pulling or a pussy rubbing by the media bastards…Stay back!” Noel raised his Browning and Special Branch froze a half-step nearer than before.
“What the hell are you talking about, Noel?”
“You’re just a copper, another ‘Establishment lackey’ as a friend of mine puts it. You’re just cover for these bastards. You pretend you don’t know that newspaper chopper blasted the fire behind those poor buggers at the farmhouse? Pull the other one. Everyone in the Commission knows what happened and you Establishment bastards sit on your broad arses doing sweet fuck all. So fuck you, fuck you…” he could not articulate further because the barrel of the Browning was in his mouth. Special Branch saw a sudden glow through fair skin as the gun fired. Its report flattened cool night air.
Noel’s body lengthened, lifted violently backwards, and then lay, arms outstretched in thin heather. A cloud drifted over the moon. The distant sound of wildfire came with a flicker of breeze.
Special Branch stood shocked on the knoll unable to move. A car braked to a halt as a youthful voice called anxiously, “Sir, are you ok, sir?”. He became aware of Fergus and the local police inspector putting their arms around his shoulders.
He turned slowly away and allowed himself to be led to his car.