Collusion: Chapter 13

Ashton doubts everyone around him. Titch opens up about his sexuality – and his time in Ulster: "I don't want therapy, I don’t want to make peace with myself. It keeps me angry"

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I’ll publish a section from the novel. Chapters 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 are here for those who missed them. The story so far: What started as an investigation into right-wing football lads has run out of control. Dangerous mercenaries who have been involved in outrages in Northern Ireland and Ukraine are stalking the journalist and he still does not know who to trust

Chapter 13: Love and hate

Ashton was sullen. He had endured enough and no longer wanted to hide. “They had me in their trap,” he said. “They were a step ahead of us.”

Titch tried to lift his mood. “See, Cathy was there to watch your back,” he countered. That did not work.

She had only been on the train as a matter of luck. She had taken the chance at Laycock Green that the Finn had gone to the tube station, arriving as Ashton went through the gates. He was grateful but aware it was merely fortune that saved him.

Pierce rang in early afternoon. “I need to see you,” he said in a serious voice. There was no background noise of convivial drinking. “Can you come to my office? I’ll send a car so you’ll be safe.”

Titch was against him going but Ashton was fed up. He waited for his transport and took the tortuous journey to the City. The traffic was appalling.

Pierce’s office was on Old Jewry. They sat at a long table in a bare boardroom overlooking the Chinese visa centre. Clearly, very little business was conducted on this premises. Most of Pierce’s dark arts were practised in expensive restaurants, trendy bars and dank Square Mile pubs.

Pierce was concerned when Ashton told him about the latest incident. He knew of Bandera. “I’ve been to his museum and seen the clothes he died in,” the PR man said. “I had quite a bit to do with Ukrainian exiles during the Soviet era. They helped us undermine Moscow. Of course, that was in the mid-70s, before they moved the Bandera shrine to London. I went when it was in Nottingham.”

Ashton stiffened. “Nottingham?”
“Yes, it was a centre for emigres.”

“Titch is from Nottingham.”

Pierce leant back and rubbed his chin. “Yes, yes. I didn’t connect the dots. What’s his game?”

There was no answer but Ashton was destabilised again. “Let’s look into this further,” Pierce said. “But for now I want you to meet someone.”

He rose and left the room, returning with the man who had chased Ashton on the tube the previous day. For a moment the journalist was stricken with terror.

“This is…” Pierce faltered, “… it doesn’t matter. He was trying to make contact with you yesterday. He is one of us. Our intelligence services have infiltrated the Misanthropic Division. Your fat friend is risking blowing the operation – and that’s giving him the benefit of the doubt. Either that, or he’s working to another agenda.”

The anonymous man spoke English with a distinct Eastern European accent. “You were never in danger,” he said. “But you must not blunder into threatening situations again. Why is this Sherwood Titchfield involved and what is he trying to achieve? You must not trust him.”

Pierce took over. “There are troubling questions about your friend. Nobody seems prepared to vouch for his credentials. I think you are on the wrong side of this. Who is he working for? And what does he want from you?”

Bewildered, Ashton had no answers. “Find out who he is working for,” the foreigner said. “He is a threat to national security.”

“OK,” Pierce said, “you can go.” His manner was commanding. The man left. Once alone, the pair sat in silence for some time. Finally, Ashton spoke. “What’s happening to me?”

“I don’t know,” Pierce said. “You are caught up in something. What is it you know? Think hard. And what is this Titchfield character hoping to achieve?”

“I have no idea.”

“This goes way beyond the football lads you started with. You know something and I think this Titch fellow set you up and is orchestrating the intimidation of you. He needs a snippet of information and you still have not worked out what it is. I don’t think Orlanda is the target.”

“Neither does he,” Ashton said.

“No.”

“We concluded that Killer, sorry Wilson, was buying guns on the Continent and smuggling them in. Why, I’m not sure. We think he approached Armstrong to acquire a Loyalist cache of weapons. But it makes no sense for groups like FLAG and ExSat to arm up. Are they planning a series of political assassinations? Or do these cranks think war’s looming?”

Pierce shook his head. “I have no clue,” he said. “Let’s try to find out.”

*

Orlanda looked exhausted. She was distracted and unable to focus properly on Ashton’s questions about her day. Conversation stalled. “Should I just go?” He was sympathetic but a little aggrieved, too. “No,” she said. “Just don’t talk. There’s been too much talking. And I can tell by your voice that you are troubled, too.”

He was not the most intuitive person in these situations but he moved to sit beside her and put his arm around her. She nestled in and they let the stillness draw them together. It felt more intimate than the sexual act and he gently stroked her hair until she drifted into a light sleep. Then his phone buzzed and broke the moment.

“Where are you? I’ve been worried,” Titch asked. Orlanda disengaged and left the room. “I’m over at the Square,” he replied. “I might stay.”

“That’s fine but we need to get moving and find out what’s going on. We’ve lost all day. Let me know when you are coming over.”

He hung up, rose and went into the hall. Orlanda was in the small galley kitchen, standing at the sink looking out the window into the distance. “Did anything happen today,” he said gently.

“Nothing different from every day.” A huge sigh swept her body. “A senior member of the government told me he’d break me and make me pay for what he called treachery. It was bullying. He stepped close to me and invaded my personal space. He was so full of spite that he sprayed me with spittle when he was speaking.”

“What did you do?”

“I asked him to please stop spitting on me.” She shook her head. “We have too many of our own problems to help each other, Mike. Perhaps the best thing would be for us to have a few days apart to try and recharge. At the moment I’m not good company. Neither are you. We are both preoccupied. It’s unhealthy.”

Ashton knew she was right but felt an empty, yearning feeling. “What does this mean?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Nothing. Something. I’ve always been a solitary person. I’m not good at sharing pain.”

“Me neither.”

There was little more to say. She had conducted the conversation facing away from him. He turned her round and kissed her gently on the lips and headed for the front door. As he opened it she spoke. “Mike.” He looked up and she nodded. He returned the gesture sadly before withdrawing into the corridor. He did not have the slightest idea of what had just happened and what she meant. More confused than ever, he called Titch. “Fuck it,” he said. “I’m going the pub.”

*

They sat at the tall table close to the women’s toilets. It gave a good view of the door. Ashton got there first and drank a pint of Mondo’s Dennis Hopp’r in rapid time. When Titch walked in he did not offer to buy the new arrival a drink. That was unusual. The big man noticed and returned from the bar with a glass of beer in each hand. “So how is the lovely Ms York?” he asked, sipping a Tiny Rebel Stay Puft.

“How would I know?” Ashton said. “Stressed. Unhappy. Like us all.”

“The honeymoon over?”

Ashton glared. “Tell me about the Ukrainians,” he said. “You failed to mention that the Bandera museum was originally in Nottingham. The place you say you come from. What exactly is your relationship with them?”

“A mere coincidence, dear boy,” Titch said, taking a hefty gulp of porter. “You’ve been talking to your friend Pierce. Now his contacts in the region are worth exploring.”

“He’s always made it clear that he’s rabidly anti-Russian.”

“No, no, no, no,” Titch said laughing. Ashton was disconcerted at how unconcerned his drinking partner was in the face of what he thought would be a big revelation. “Anti-Soviet. He’s found Russia very accommodating since the end of the Cold War. He has plenty of friends in the Kremlin. I suspect he has been playing both sides for a long, long time. Maybe even before the Iron Curtain came down. These days he’s an expert in money laundering.”

Titch let that bombshell sink in and then added: “He raised a lot of money for the Leave campaign, didn’t he?”

Ashton nodded. “The source of his wealth is very opaque. Consultancy? He refers to his PR company as a ‘boutique’ firm. Essentially, he runs it as a one-man band. Where did the cash that funded Brexit come from? Or the money he donates to the Tory party that helps buy all those contacts? I wonder if those in the Ukrainian émigré community that he has befriended and financed know about his links with Moscow. I’m not entirely sure who he’s working for but I don’t think it’s our side.”

“He thinks the same about you.”

“He would, dear boy, he would,” Titch said draining his glass. “But I’m not the one with ugly bedfellows.”

“Can you prove all this?”

“Not yet. But every time you’ve been compromised he’s known your location in advance.”

“Not yesterday,” Ashton said at length. “Anyway, I don’t believe it. He’s many things but he’s an English patriot. I hate it but it’s undeniable.”

“Some of these Brexit types will accept the help of anyone to achieve their unhealthy obsession. And I wouldn’t be certain about his patriotism.”

While Ashton was at the bar he considered whether to tell Titch about the meeting at Pierce’s office and his conversation with the man who had chased him on the underground. For the time being he decided to keep the information to himself. Once more, he did not know who to trust. Paranoia was rampant again. He felt claustrophobic and was desperate to go outside but he was scared of what he might find on the street. Two men were smoking in the doorway of the pub and one kept glancing inside. Ashton began to shake. He was sweating and close to a panic attack. A drinker jostled him while trying to get through to the bar to order. The young girl serving noticed his distress and asked whether he was OK. He could barely answer.

Titch observed what was happening and came up behind and placed two gentle hands on Ashton’s upper arm. He guided him back to the stool he had vacated and sat him down. “Breathe deep,” the older man said. “Calm down. Regain control.” The girl brought the beer to the table.

“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know who to trust.” There were tears in Ashton’s eyes. “I feel like I’m having a breakdown.”

“You and the rest of the nation,” Titch said with grim intensity. “You’re safe.” He patted his friend on the shoulder and Ashton relaxed a little. The sensation would not last long because Titch had not finished. “For the moment,” he added. “For the moment.”

*

The phone rang at 7am. It was Orlanda. “I was unfair on you last night,” she said. “I was feeling the strain. Come and see me later. Bring an overnight bag. We can have a nice evening.”

That brightened Ashton considerably. The night had been restless with little sleep. He went upstairs and heard the sound of flamenco coming from the top floor. The wailing voice made him think of Titch in the bedroom in Granada, roaring tunelessly in the dark, trapped in a nightmare.

His host came downstairs in a cheery mood. “Let’s go out for breakfast,” he said. “A full English.”

Ashton doubted the wisdom of walking the streets. “Only you and I can know where we’re going,” Titch said. “I’ll be able to tell if we are being followed.”

They walked down Rampayne Street, crossed Vauxhall Bridge Road and headed for the Regency Café, a famous venue that Ashton had often passed but had never entered. The art deco frontage was familiar from its appearance in TV shows and movies. It was photogenic and its popularity put Ashton off. Titch loved it. “Full of black cab drivers,” he said. Inside, the chatter of cabbies bounced off the tiled walls. The big man appeared to be a regular and he was greeted by the staff and other diners. They sat near the far wall, Titch facing the door. He peeked out of the window over the top of the red check curtains and nodded. “We are on our own,” he said. “Nothing to worry about.”

“How did you get into surveillance?” Ashton asked. “I mean, you don’t seem the sort of man who blends into the landscape. It doesn’t make sense.”

“I was always good at hiding,” Titch replied. “Think about it. A life in the closet prepares you for it. Sexuality defined my being.”

Titch chewed and Ashton waited for him to continue. “I spent most of my existence concealing my true nature from the world,” he said in a mournful tone. “Closeted homosexuals are used to fading into the background. I turned my personal problems into a career. I have spent more than half of my life fearful of revealing who I am. So it was easy.”

This reply shocked Ashton into silence. He knew life as a gay man was difficult but had never thought deeply about what it actually entailed.

“I knew I was gay from the first time I felt an attraction to someone else,” Titch continued. “That had to be hidden. I learnt not to draw attention to myself. At school, in the army. At home. The Det was a natural progression. I was very good at it.”

“You don’t seem to look back fondly on your time in the service?”

Titch reflected on the question. “You do and see things that undermine your humanity. It never leaves you.”

“When we were in the villa I heard you shouting and screaming during the night. Do you have a lot of bad dreams? Or,” Ashton said brutally, “was it because you tortured and killed that man we caught in the Albaicin?”

“I go back to places in my sleep,” Titch replied, staring out of the window again. “The same incidents come back to me again and again. We were watching a house in Antrim and somehow the IRA discovered us. Three of them ambushed three of us. One of my colleagues was killed and the other badly wounded. Two of the attackers tried to escape across a field and an SAS unit intercepted them. The other was lying on the floor, unarmed, pleading for help. I walked up to him and shot him. He was 17.”

“But he’d tried to kill you,” Ashton said. “You had every right.”

“He looked me in the eye just before I shot him. That look stays with you. I wasn’t even angry. It was just cold, naked hate.

“He seemed to be a normal enough teenager: played Gaelic football, did well in school, was polite and never in trouble. The political situation made him what he was. It made me what I am, too.

“The modern word is ‘radicalised.’ I didn’t understand until later why he was radicalised. When I learnt about the civil rights movement, the institutional prejudice in the political system in the Six Counties and thought about the impact of our – the army’s – actions in the province, I thought ‘why wouldn’t he fight?’ That does not mean I condone or support Republican terrorism. Quite the opposite. But I get why it happened. I could not say that about the other side, the side I helped.

“Once, we were watching a house. We knew the UVF were coming to kill a Republican target. He was a Sinn Fein activist; not a terrorist but part of a developing nationalist political and middle class. We were under orders not to intervene.

“Anyway, the guy they came for wasn’t in. The gunmen knocked on the door and got no answer. So instead of leaving, they thought, ‘well, we’re in a Catholic area, let’s not waste the trip.’ They went next door and a woman opened up. They barged in and we heard the shots. And we just watched.

“There was a young lad in the kitchen. He was also 17. A bullet severed his spine. The UVF left him for dead and got away and we carried on watching. The ambulance came but the kitchen was too small to get a stretcher in. They improvised and put the boy in a body bag to lift him out. As they were coming through the front door, the father arrived, saw his teenage son in a body bag and had a massive heart attack. He died thinking his son was dead. We could have stopped it. So many lives were ruined.”

He turned back and met Ashton’s gaze. “We were supposed to be the forces of law and order. There was this family, non-political, just trying to live their lives, and we sat back and watched as evil men ripped apart the fabric of their existence. We knew who the shooters were. We could have taken the killers off the board. But we protected them and let innocent citizens die and become paralysed. That makes us as evil.”

“Didn’t therapy work.”

“I do not want therapy,” Titch said defiantly. “I don’t want to make peace with myself. It is important that I retain the memories in their raw state. It keeps me angry. It keeps me motivated. It gives me purpose in life.”

Ashton took a deep breath. “You don’t want peace?”

“I don’t deserve peace,” Titch said. “But I will try to help others achieve it until my dying day.”

They walked back in silence and, although neither man said anything, they knew they were stopping off in the pub. They had two pints before midday, barely spoke and left when the office crowd began arriving for lunch. At the mews they separated at the bottom of the stairs.

“What are you doing this afternoon?” Ashton asked.

“I’m going to lie down,” Titch said. “Listen to my music for a while and think about what to do next.”

“I might have a nap, too, and get ready to see Orlanda tonight.”

“Oh, I don’t intend to sleep, dear boy,” Titch said. “I intend to think. I almost never intend to sleep. When it happens it is too often an agonising accident.”

*

The heavy meal and the pre-noon beers left Ashton sluggish and jaded. He slept heavily until late afternoon but woke refreshed.

Orlanda was much brighter when he arrived. They ordered Chinese takeaway and were tuned in to the other’s conversation. “I didn’t mean to push you away,” she said, but he shushed her to silence.

“No apologies,” he said. “We were both wrapped up in our own issues and preoccupied. And we are still getting to know each other.”

After that there was little to say. They went to the bedroom in a matter-of-fact manner and lay holding each other for a long time before even kissing.

There was a void of aching disappointment in both. Whether they could fill this vacuum in the long term was open to question but for this night they fulfilled each other with tender, intense love. These few hours were a respite from reality, which would arrive with heavy-handed nastiness with the dawn.

*

Back at the mews, Titch had retrieved the CCTV from Highbury and Islington station but the man who followed Ashton did not show up on any records. “That tells us a lot,” Titch said. “He’s working for someone. But who?”

Ashton said nothing but felt guilty.

Titch had also been doing some research on Pierce. The Brexiteer had many business contacts in Russia and had been in receipt of numerous consultancy fees over the years. There was nothing unreasonable in his tax records except that he paid very little of it. “He’s very keen on reclaiming control,” Titch said sourly, “as long as he doesn’t have to pay tax in this country. Tax is for poor people.”

They spent all morning trying to figure out their next move. “Well, there’s one thing left to do,” Titch said. “ExSat could well have switched their attention away from you.” Ashton feared what was coming next. “Perhaps you should go home, go about your normal life and see what happens.”

“So I’m bait again?”

Titch grinned. “Yes. Let’s try it for a couple of days. I can get you round-the-clock surveillance for 72 hours. Well, almost round-the-clock. I think we can call your minder off when you sleep over with the Right Honourable Ms York. Go have a drink with friend Pierce, too, and see what he’s got to say. We’ll take a serious look at his movements.”

Ashton went back to his flat in early afternoon. As soon as he opened the door Titch texted. “Alert working.” The room smelled musty. He wedged the entrance open to air the living space and then thought better of it.

After about 10 minutes he went and stood outside. It worried him that there was no indication that he was being protected. Nothing was unusual. Mo, the man from the adjoining flat, came up the street and was delighted to see him. “Settled your problems with the repo man?” he asked with a grin. “No one else has been asking about you, Ash. Your face looks better.”

There was no hint that the neighbour had sold him out or was planning to inform anyone of his presence. “There’s been nothing unusual?”

“Nowt mate,” Mo said. “Been very quiet here.”

He phoned Pierce and left a message that he was back home. The lure was out. Then he left a voicemail for Orlanda that was a succession of pointless words; the tone conveyed the meaning.

He showered – he had developed a method where he avoided water splashing onto his face. At Titch’s or Orlanda’s, when there was another person in the house, he felt more secure while washing. Alone, he did not want to risk another anxiety episode. In the past days he had become an expert in the use of dry shampoo.

After cleaning up and changing his clothes, he decided to test whether Titch was lying to him. For 10 minutes he walked around the streets of the estate, doubling back through blocks and frequently stopping to survey the landscape. There was no one unusual around – either in a protective or threatening role.

He texted Titch. “No one is watching me. I’m on my own.”

Some 90 seconds went by. “You should have kept that nice blue John Smedley for your date with Orlanda tonight,” came the reply. “Cathy says it sets off your eyes. And I hope you gave my regards to Mo.”

The rain was slanting down, keeping people indoors. Ashton walked to the open area between Chaucer and Coleridge Houses and looked around for his shadow. There was no one in sight. Frustrated, he gave a two-fingered salute to nobody in particular. His phone pinged. “No need for that,” Titch texted. He did not feel secure but at least he was not alone.

Pierce phoned about 5pm. He was sober, which was just as well because he was driving back to London from a meeting. It was a short conversation and they agreed to get together the following day. Orlanda messaged at 8pm to tell him to come around in an hour. Life felt almost normal – if dating a Conservative MP could ever be customary for him.

*

Tonight it was takeaway curry. Ashton wanted to pay but was conscious that his bank account was running down. He made the gesture and then reluctantly allowed Orlanda to pick up the tab. She noticed and addressed the issue. “I know money is a problem for many people but it is not to me,” she said. “You should not feel embarrassed. You have huge earning potential and one day you’ll be buying, I’m sure.”

Her eating habits fascinated him. “Do you live on takeaways?”

She laughed. “Sort of. Normally I’ll have lunch in Portcullis House. Often I’m out at a function or a dinner in the evening. When I’m alone I’ll have a healthy snack.”

It went back to university, she explained. “I ate in the great hall almost every night. I could afford it, the food was nutritious and it saved the hassle of cooking. The habit was hard to break.”

Her experiences were so different from his that they were almost alien. The arcane mores of Oxford colleges fascinated him. She guffawed at his obsession with subfusc and was a little surprised about his interest in the famous alumni of her college. “You’re starstruck,” she said with delight. “When I met you I thought nothing would impress you.”

“You did,” he replied.

He found it hard to comprehend the Oxford tradition of college families. “When you arrive, you’re assigned college parents from the year above and in your second year you get children.” This much he understood.

“So you act as mentors to the freshers?”

“Yes, sort of,” she said. “But it goes beyond that. You have college marriages.”

“With boys you are having a relationship with?”

“Oh, no!” She laughed. “They are mainly non-sexual. You can be married to another girl. And a boy as well! Or two boys.”

“OK,” he said, disbelief in his voice.

“And you can adopt, and be adopted, by someone else. Oh, and if you’re married to someone you find you don’t like, you divorce.”

“It sounds like a recipe for swinging.”

“No, no, no, you don’t get it. It’s not sexual. It’s just fun.”

“And do you keep in touch with your college family; husbands, wives, children and, presumably, grandchildren?” A brief wave of jealousy and disapproval had passed. He had begun to see the humour in it.

“Of course. But like all families, you can become estranged. They say you can’t choose your families but I chose mine – at least the ones I adopted in college. And made some bad choices. One of my adopted sons is now a special advisor to one of my senior colleagues and has some very disturbing views. God help us if his boss gets anywhere near power.”

Orlanda was equally beguiled by Ashton’s boyhood memories. He told her about his first 10 years when he was living in tenements. She was fascinated by the creativity of underprivileged kids. He told her how the older boys turned a small car park that was divided by bollards into a makeshift tennis court by balancing a plank over the three-foot-high circular roadblockers and painting lines on the tarmac. “I suppose we were lucky,” he laughed. “No one could afford cars.”

“We had a grass court at home,” she said, a little abashed. She was amazed at the intimacy of tenement life and the way families bedevilled by poverty interacted and survived. He too had an extended family to whom he was not related by blood, but his consisted of aunties, uncles and cousins. “Things were never quite the same when we moved to semis with gardens,” he said. “We called the empty space between the rows of flats ‘the block.’ It was where the factories had once stood before they got knocked down. There’d be scores of kids running round there. We’d play 30-a-side football matches on the tarmac. We didn’t know we were poor. It wasn’t until I met people…” He paused.

“Like me,” she said softly.

“Well, not quite like you,” he said. “But, yeah. Who said childhood ends the moment you realise you are going to die? Mine ended when I understood I was poor.”

“I have never had to live with that sort of challenge,” Orlanda said. “But you’re intelligent and hard working. You must have known you would do well in life?”

He shook his head. “I grew up around people with brilliant brains, who worked day and night for next to nothing. They had limited horizons. There was little expectation at home or in school and that limits aspiration. I got lucky.”

“It’s easier for me to understand your anger,” she said. “Put like that I don’t blame you. I had not thought about it in those terms.”

“Very few people do. We all view the world through the prism of our own circumstances. But at last I’ve found a Tory politician who’ll listen. And one I admire. Your strength, refusal to be bullied and composure under pressure are inspiring. And you’re gorgeous.”

“Sexism rears its ugly head,” she said, leaning over to kiss him. “You make me happy. Time for bed.”

Orlanda had not wanted to open herself up so quickly but it was done. It was too late to go back.

• Chapter 14: The demon drink

• My other novel, Good Guys Lost, a very different story of gangsterism, the music industry and working-class Liverpool, is available here