And the years had made their mark on this quartet. Al Hawke least of them, outwardly; there remained something of his near-namesake in his bearing, in his nose too. He was tall, and age hadn’t bent him yet; there was still strength in those arms, power in those legs, and his eyes were as clear and cold as a frozen lake. In his grey chinos, white shirt and dark jacket—tonsured like a monk—he looked, and still moved, like a man with purpose, someone in whose way you’d not want to be standing. But an element of doubt had moved in with the passing years. If Al was still the man she’d want watching her back, should such a need return, he was no longer capable of the feats of stamina that had once been his trademark. And while this was hardly a surprise, or shouldn’t have been, the fact that he too had grown aware of this pained her. The Als of this world should remain convinced of their strength. It was one of the things that made them Als.
As for Daisy, even her lost years hadn’t stolen her beauty, though it lay below the surface now, hidden from casual glances. Hair that had been long and dark was short and grey, framing a pinched face that once had been softly rounded; her eyes, too, no longer glittered. The Irish lilt was gone. It had never been pure affectation—Daisy’s grandmother had been from Cork, and the accent was hers for the taking—but had been discarded now, as if she had shed anything that might anchor her to the past. Indeed, she might easily have shed her whole life, leaving an empty skin on the pavement. As ever, that memory provoked anger: that here was someone who had given the best part of herself to her country, and in the giving had ensured that lives were saved and buildings stayed standing; that there were bombs that had never gone off. And in return, here she was; a damaged person allowed to become lost. If they hadn’t reached her in time, she’d have ended her life in that dismal no man’s land below the overpass, as much a discard as the broken cars surrounding her.
Avril herself had grown old in her own way; not so much a diminishment, more a concentration. Or so she hoped. Certainly there had been no dilution of feeling. Emotions coursed through her the way they always had done, and there were days she opened her eyes in the morning and thought herself sixteen again. But this never lasted more than a second or two. And those days were growing rarer.
Whether CC still found within himself the remnants of his younger being, it was hard to say. Right now, he had the air of a tutor addressing a seminar group. They might have been young adults, wary of disappointing him.
“Pitchfork was the beginning of the end for us. All talk of Avvy being a Second Desk, of Al moving into security—”
“I never wanted that—”
“But it would have been a promotion, Al, and it went away. As for me, it was the last op I was given. Nobody said anything, but everyone knew, and the sooner I accepted it gracefully, the less embarrassment there was all round. And Daisy, well, I’m sorry, my love. It was a bad time, and none of us want to rehash it. But we were made pariahs, and why? Because we had a nasty job to do, and we did it well. Dougie Malone was a psychopath, but the gods in their glory decreed that we use him, and use him we did. And for that, we paid with our careers.”
“CC,” Avril said softly. “We know all this.”
“You’ll allow me my tendencies, love. One of them being a fondness for clarity.”
Al said, “Much more of this, and I’ll be opening that bottle before we’ve warmed the microwave up.”
“We’ll be drinking soon enough. But fine, let’s hurry along. Like all operations good and bad, Pitchfork came to an end of its useful life, we all know why.”
“Good Friday.”
“Yes, thank you, Good Friday came and went, and in its aftermath the powers that be heaved a sigh of relief and put Pitchfork out of our misery. With full honours. Charles Partner was First Desk, and signed off on it himself. David Cartwright was there, as were the minister, the Cabinet Secretary, a lawyer or two. The meeting was Mozart level, the highest classification at the time, which meant no minutes were kept. The recordings were wiped, no transcript made. Not even a record of who was present. This nasty slice of history was buried deep as it would go, and curses muttered over its remains. In a better-arranged world, Pitchfork would never have been mentioned again. The very word would have dropped from the dictionaries. But that’s not what happened, was it?”
He gazed round: the expectant tutor. His students refused to cooperate.
