Collusion: The Final Chapter

A tumultuous showdown brings the story to its climax

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I’ve published a section from the novel. Chapters 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 are here for those who missed them. Violence and death bring the tale to an end

Chapter 17 Up On The Roof

Someone pushed him roughly from behind. Ashton stumbled further into the room and Killer stood up. He motioned with the weapon for the journalist to sit on the couch. When he did, Pierce came through the door.

“I’ll bet he thought he was getting pussy tonight,” Pierce said crudely to the former soldier. They both laughed. “Well, I think we can say he’s well and truly fucked.”

“Orlanda?” Ashton spoke without thinking. It was involuntary. His mind was blank.

“Over at the BBC doing Newsnight,” Pierce said. “I made sure she was booked. She won’t be back here anyway. She is still under protection across the Square. No one is coming to help you.”

That sounded ominous. “So she’s part of this?” Ashton said. “I’ve been played all along?”

“No,” Pierce sneered. “She’s as stupid as you. She’s exactly what they called her: a traitor.”

“But her email?”

Pierce laughed. “She thinks it’s been hacked and she can’t get into it. I have control over the account. I told her to block your texts and calls, too. She never wants to see you again. You can take the knowledge that she despises you to the grave.”

“And what about her? Are you really going to poison the water supply?”

“We are,” he said. “She told me that you and your fat friend had worked it out. I’ve convinced her that you’re both insane. You and your girlfriend are going to be victims of a terrorist attack. Her demise has been arranged.” Pierce looked nastily towards Killer.

“You’ll both be in the newspapers again. With a lot of other people if things go to plan. The national outrage will be off the scale.

“Just think, you’ll help drive this country out of Europe. The Government will fall and we will have a stronger regime. You’ll have played your part in making this country great again.”

Ashton was outraged. “Orlanda a traitor? You’re the treacherous one. You’ve been working for Moscow for years. Where did you get the biological weapons you’re using? It can only be from the Russians. You’ve been using trips to Ukraine as cover. We know all about you. Your mate the mayor of Odessa is Putin’s man. Titch knows so the intelligence services know.”

“Your fat friend,” Pierce said, “should have told you that there are many arms of the security services. His is subordinate to mine. I am working in the interests of the state.” He turned to Killer. “Do it now.”

Killer tossed the gun to Pierce and stunned Ashton with a punch. He tied the captive’s wrists with plastic restraints and sat him on an upright chair, securing him to the wooden backrest with another tie. He did not bother with the legs and went and took the weapon back.

He laid the gun on the table and began putting on a pair of surgical gloves, looking at Ashton in a quizzical way. “I’ll explain to you because we’re friends,” Pierce said. “He’s just going to touch your skin with a swab. It will kill you in minutes. It is the same chemical that we will put in the water supply. It will appear you died in tomorrow’s attack after breaking into your ex-lover’s apartment with mischief on your mind.” Killer produced a vial and placed it on the table next to the gun. He picked up the weapon.

“This is right out of Putin’s playbook,” Ashton said. “But I’m not going down quietly.”

“End this,” Pierce said.

The Geordie put a strip of gaffer tape across the prisoner’s mouth. “I need him,” Killer said. “I want him on the roof as bait for Fatso. You can wait here. When I’m finished I’ll bring him back down and we’ll do it here.”

Pierce was unimpressed. “What if you meet someone in the lift?”

“It’s two floors. We shouldn’t going up. Coming down? I’ll bring them back here and kill them, too.”

The expression on Pierce’s face changed and Ashton expected him to reassert his authority. Instead he backed down. “I suppose it would be good to eradicate this Titchfield goon. But don’t be long.”

Killer hauled his prisoner to his feet. “I’ll be as long as it takes,” the Geordie said without a shred of respect. “Make sure you are waiting here.”

He dragged the captive to the elevator. For a millisecond Ashton hoped that the lift was occupied or someone would open their apartment door but he realised that would only mean another person would die. The lift was empty. The block was silent.

At the ninth floor, he was manhandled up another set of stairs and Killer unlocked the door. There was light rain in the air. “I’m going to put a bag on your head,” Killer said and slipped the cloth over Ashton’s ears. It caused him to panic and squirm but that was pointless. A blow landed on his temple. He blacked out.

He was not sure how long he was unconscious but when he woke the precipitation had grown heavier. The hood was wet and he began convulsing as if he was being waterboarded again. Time once more became intangible and he twitched and shuddered uncontrollably. He was no longer human. All sense of comprehension left him except for an awareness of acute agony.

*

Titch was preoccupied. Every instinct told him that something ugly was about to happen. Cathy was watching the Finn but the people with the power to make big decisions were no longer picking up their phones when he called.

He travelled to the Square wearing his Public Health England livery and went straight to the top of the building. The lock was easy to open. He checked out the roof but there was no sign of any activity. It was just before 9pm.

He walked towards the river and wondered how Ashton was getting on with Orlanda. He stopped dead. Why was Ashton going round to the flat? It was highly unlikely that the MP had been moved back into her own apartment while the environment was so tumultuous. Or that she would be back from Parliament so early. What was going on?

Titch was furious with himself. He had been very preoccupied with the threat but he should have told his friend to stay away from the complex. Either it was a trap or Orlanda’s security had broken down again and that signified danger in itself.

Backtracking, he moved towards the entrance to Orlanda’s block. As he neared the door, he noticed something unusual. There was a body lying in front of him. He drew nearer and could see it was hooded. He recognised the shape. Was Ashton alive or dead?

*

Ashton did not hear anyone approach and his connection with reality had almost been severed when Titch pulled off the hood. It took a moment to compute that the looming presence standing over him was his friend. By the time he was sentient again it was too late. Killer had landed a blow of such power and brutality that Titch fell to the floor. The big man looked up at his assailant, who kicked him savagely in the face.

The attacker had miscalculated. Titch jerked his head backwards and the boot glanced off the bone rather than crushing it. He spun on his back like a breakdancer and swept Killer’s legs from under him. With remarkable dexterity, Titch was back on his feet.

His opponent leapt up, too. Titch assumed a stance akin to his Tai Chi posture. Ashton realised that he was adept in more vigorous martial arts than the one in which he claimed to be an expert.

The men weighed each other up. Killer moved forward and threw a punch towards his rival’s neck but Titch blocked it easily and responded with a kick to the ribs that made the recipient gasp for air. Getting his breath back, Killer laughed. It was recognition that he was facing an able adversary and that he had been complacent. He had assumed his relative youth would make this an easy contest.

Titch cut the chuckle short with a disguised left hook that Killer saw coming early enough to deflect and he stepped inside the punch. He landed two blows in the vicinity of Titch’s solar plexus and butted him on the nose before dancing back out of range.

It was just as well he moved away: Titch launched a foot high and hard and it missed Killer’s head by a fraction. Ashton watched in dread. The Geordie’s reflexes were just a shade sharper.

Killer stooped under the kick and rose with his fist ready to strike into the exposed groin but Titch was already moving and, with a dancer’s lightness, spun and roundhoused the younger man on his cheek. The blow skimmed off Killer’s shoulder, though, and unbalanced Titch. He slipped on the wet surface and the ExSat man took advantage by making crushing contact with Titch’s temple. This time there was no getting up. Ashton saw that Killer was wearing a knuckle duster. He had come prepared. Titch had let his guard down when he saw his friend trussed and bound.

The hood was placed on Ashton’s head again. He was less agitated because he was so concerned about Titch’s fate. He heard Killer talking, breathless, to someone. “Get up here. Now. I need your help shifting the fat bastard. He’s too heavy for me. Yes, I know the plan was to wait another couple of hours but we need to do it now.” There was silence. “Yes, you can kill them. Just get up here.”

In a matter of minutes, Ashton heard the footsteps of someone else on the roof. A man with an east European accent spoke. “He put up some fight,” he said smugly. “You look terrible.”

“Shut up,” Killer said. “Have you got the chemicals?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Let’s finish this business off and do the deed.”

Ashton heard the cocking of a pistol. “You said I could kill them,” the foreigner said.

“Why, aye,” Killer replied. “You like to kill prisoners, Valtteri. You did a lot of that in Donbass. Never saw you in combat. You disappeared when the bullets were flying. You always reappeared for the killing.”

Valtteri laughed. Nervously. “Please do not point the gun at me,” he said.

“You were always eager to show how much you hated Russians,” Killer said. “Establishing your credentials. And all the time you were working for them. You’re a GRU colonel.”

There were two, dull reports from the pistol and a body thudded down on the roof. Ashton inadvertently took a deep breath and sucked in a wedge of cloth. Just as he was going into meltdown, the bag was ripped from his head. His eyes adjusted to the scene.

Titch lay seemingly dead. Ashton could not see him breathing. Valtteri was definitely deceased. He was sprawled close to the wall and had spun in death so that a huge exit wound gaped in his back.

“Now for the reckoning,” Killer said, lifting Ashton to his feet. “Back to the flat.”

They retraced their steps, Ashton staring at the two bodies. Thankfully no one needed the lift. They went back to Orlanda’s flat. Pierce was visibly shocked to see Killer’s beaten face.

“Is it done?” he said angrily.

“Valtteri is in the process,” Killer replied. “I’ve had an idea for this one. Throw him out the window. That will keep police and security occupied while Valtteri does his stuff.”

Pierce weighed up the idea. “I like that,” he said. “Lovelorn reporter kills himself. Even if that traitorous bitch survives, it will destroy her career. I like it very much.”

“Open the window for me,” Killer said. “Take a look outside. Make sure no one’s around. We’ll choose our moment.”

He threw Ashton to the couch and walked over as Pierce pushed up the top rail of the lower sash. “Have a quick look,” he said.

Pierce popped his head out and said, “No one about in this rain.” He moved to come back in but Killer suddenly stooped, wrapped his arms around Pierce’s lower legs and shifted the PR man’s weight to the exterior of the flat.

“He wasn’t wrong,” Killer said. Pierce was swearing and pleading. “Him on the couch. He wasn’t wrong.”

Pierce composed himself. “Pull me inside. This isn’t funny.”

“You’re working for the Russians. You have been for a long time. Valtteri is dead. The poison we picked up in Belgium was in Porton Down the day after we got back to Britain. It came from Scientific Research Unit No 2 in Moscow. But you know that. You arranged it through Syria and set up the Chechens. You are the most senior GRU man in the west.”

“No,” Pierce said.

“Yes. Your network, here and in Ukraine, is being wiped out. Goodbye.”

With a jerk, Killer launched the body into space. Ashton heard the scream and then the ugliest thud to ever reach his ears.

“Now for you,” the Geordie said. “Why were you following me? Why did you go to Ulster?”

He ripped the tape from Ashton’s mouth. “The truth is the only thing that can save you.”

“I was working on the FLAG story,” Ashton said. “I thought ExSat were trying to buy guns from Loyalists.”

Killer assessed him. “Sandy Row,” he said, flatly. It was not a question.

Ashton, his thoughts still dislocated, was confused. “Sandy what?”

“Sandy Row,” Killer said aggressively.

“Never heard of him.”

“Not a him. A place.”

There was the sound of commotion in the Square.

“Ah,” Ashton said realising. “I’ve heard of it, sorry. Belfast. Loyalist area. Never been.”

“You thought I was trying to buy guns.”

“That’s what Armstrong used to do. The South African cache. And when you ran out of the pub when you saw me, I thought that was the reason why.”

Killer made a face, annoyed by even the suggestion that he would run away from anyone.

“I spoke to a man in Loughgall,” Ashton continued. “He said I was wrong. He told me you were more likely to get them from Serbia. One of your mates who waterboarded me had an Ulster Freedom Commando tattoo.”

“They weren’t my mates,” the Geordie said. “Nothing to do with me. The boat?”

“Just a beer run. I told you in the Royal Standard of England I was going to do one.”

Ashton could see Killer remembered his words. There was plenty of intelligence in his eyes now.

“What would you have done to me on the boat or if you’d caught me in Belgium?” Ashton asked.

Killer snorted. “It depends on what you told me. And whether I believed you. OK. This is what is going to happen. I’m going to release you. Then I’m going to leave. After five minutes, you leave too. The police will work out the suicide came from this flat before too long.”

“Suicide?”

Killer sighed and raised the gun again. “Don’t be a prick.”

Ashton nodded vigorously to indicate he understood. “Just one thing,” he said. “Not from a journalistic viewpoint, but who are you working for?”

“Queen and country,” Killer said, cutting the ties and scooping up the remains. He put them in his pocket and pulled out the vial of colourless liquid. “Only ever Queen and country,” he said, flicking the fake poison into the air and catching it.

“What about Orlanda?”

“She trusted a Russian operative. She can live with the scandal. Now, final rules. Five minutes. You never saw me, ever. Write a word about me and I will kill you. Understand?”

Ashton nodded his head.

“Oh,” Killer said, stopping at the door. “That mate of yours. I worked with him in the Balkans,” he said. “He’s good. But he’s unstable. I’ll tell you a story about him.”

Ashton shook his head in disbelief.

“He’d been watching a Serb ethnic cleanser. We were there as backup. This guy went fishing at a reservoir. So your mate called us in to make the arrest. But you know what? Before we got there – and we were just three minutes away – he broke cover and shot the target. He said the Serb had a gun. He had. But this fella – Titch, you call him these days? – chased away the companions and shot him six times. Aye. If he’s still alive, you tell him Winkie said hello. And he owes me a favour.”

He left the room and Ashton heard the front door open and close. Then, to his horror, Killer came back. “One last thing,” he said. “You’re not going to win the league.”

*

Ashton was still attempting to compute what had happened when strange noises came from the corridor. There were massive thuds, bangs and grunts. It sounded like someone was tumbling from wall to wall. He wondered if police had intercepted Killer and the assassin was disabling them.

His first instinct was to stay put until the commotion ended. He looked out the spyhole but could see nothing. Then a blur flew across his eyeline.

A shiver of recognition ran through his body. He instantly knew what had happened. He opened the door and looked out. Killer had Titch cornered at the end of the corridor and the younger man appeared braced to end the duel.

But Titch moved more rapidly that Ashton could have imagined. He ducked away from a punch and swung a kick that caught his opponent on the knee. The contortions of the big man’s body seemed to defy the laws of physics but when he turned around to administer the coup de grace his face was pulped with blood and unrecognisable. Killer had already moved, too, and he reversed the setback quickly. He aimed a rabbit punch at Titch’s neck that knocked him against the wall. Killer stepped back for a moment and prepared for the next phase of battle. Before either man could move, Cathy leapt out of the stairwell and whiplashed a punch that landed on Killer’s jaw. He staggered a little and then slapped his attacker under the chin with the back of his hand. She sprawled down the corridor. Titch was struggling to get up. The intervention had bought him time but not enough. Killer steadied himself and prepared to finish the fight.

But Cathy fumbled under her shirt and produced a Browning pistol. She cocked it and levelled it at her target. Blood ran from her mouth and nose.

Ashton finally unfroze.

He called out. “No, he’s a good guy. He saved me. Titch, stop this.”

The main combatants eyed each other while Cathy waited for guidance. “We’ve met before but you don’t remember me,” Killer said. “You won’t forget me now.”

He backed down the corridor. “We will meet again,” he said. “Count on it.” With that, he disappeared down the stairs.

Titch started after him. “No, no, no,” Ashton said. “And we need to get out of here. But we have to clean you up. Pierce is dead, thrown out of the window in there.” He pointed to the flat. “Your blood is all over the hallway. The police will be here soon.”

“Get me a towel from inside,” Titch said. “I suspect someone will be here to clean up before the police arrive. We should not be here when they arrive. Cathy, you go.”

She laughed. “No,” she said. “How many times do I have to save you?”

In the lift down to the basement Ashton explained that the plot to poison the Square had been infiltrated and compromised by the authorities. “That explains why my contacts stopped talking to me this weekend,” Titch said.

They hurried across the car park and exited the building close to Ashton’s flat. Once inside Titch washed himself down and assessed the damage to his body. “Not too bad,” he said. “Broken nose. Maybe cheek. Definitely broken ribs. Knuckles are a mess.”

Cathy shook her head. “I’ve bailed him out so many times,” she said. “But he’s my undercover boyfriend. At least we didn’t have to kiss on this job. Sort yourself out and let’s have a drink.”

Ashton was dumbfounded. “That, dear boy,” Titch said, “was most vicious combat. I think I put in a very acceptable performance. The young lady is right. I think I deserve a pint. Shall we go the pub?”

Ashton looked in the mirror himself. His face was once again badly battered. “We look like a fright.”

“I think the fright is over for now. To the pub.”

*

They sat at the same table by the pillar from where they had seen Killer and Armstrong together. Unlike that day, the pub was almost deserted.

“He said a number of strange things,” Ashton said. “Everything you said about Pierce’s Russian connections was right. But after he’d finished, he asked me some weird questions and ended by saying he’d done you a favour.”

“Me?” Titch said. He was drinking La Tache, from Ale Apothecary in Oregon. It was expensive – nearly £70 for a 75cl bottle – but he clearly felt he deserved something special. Ashton stuck to Dennis Hopp’r. Cathy drank Rothaus wheat beer, very quickly.

“He told me a story about you in the Balkans. He said you executed a Serb ethnic cleanser despite calling in the arrest team.”

“Ah,” Titch said. “Then he must have been SAS. I am even more impressed with my performance tonight.”

“Is it true?”

“Yes. But I can’t see what favour he could have done for me.”

“Lied to protect you?”

“No need. The Serb pulled a gun. I had reason to believe the surveillance had been compromised and it was possible he would escape. There was an investigation. I was vindicated.”

“He also asked me about Sandy Row. I was confused. He said something like ‘winkles said hello.’”

That caught Titch’s attention. “Say that again.”

“Winkles.

“Could he have said Winkie?”

“Yeah,” that sounds right.” Ashton was confused.

“I should have put two and two together,” Titch said. “William McCullough disappeared at the end of last year. He was a Loyalist leader who we think was caught up in a feud.

“Remember the children’s rhyme ‘Wee Willie Winkie?’ Well, it’s a common enough nickname in Ulster Protestant circles. When this Winkie went running through the town at night people ended up with bullets in them. If Killer has done me a favour, then he must have disposed of him.”

“Why?”

“Because I killed Winkie’s father,” Titch said casually. “For the UVF. I helped out in a Loyalist civil war.”

Ashton took a deep breath and then a deeper gulp of beer.

“It explains a lot,” Titch said, ignoring him. “Including Armstrong’s involvement. The now respectable Sir John must have used Wilson to solve the problem in Belfast. No wonder we were going down the wrong path. You seem to have stumbled into two distinct murderous conspiracies. That takes some talent.”

“What now?”

“Life is about to return to normal,” Titch said.

“I don’t want your normal,” Ashton said.

*

There were a number of posts on social media describing police activity at the Square. There were even a couple of fuzzy photographs. Nothing made the newspapers the next day.

Titch filled Ashton in on Thursday night.

Valtteri and his accomplice – Pierce’s Eastern European operative who followed Ashton on the tube – were in the serviced apartment. When the Finn left, the plan was for Cathy to wait for the other occupant of the room. As he left the Square, the GRU man was picked up by four men who looked like they were from the intelligence services. At that point, Cathy headed to the roof because she had seen no reply to her texts. She found the dead body and blood spots leading to the stairs and followed them down.

“There was a separate operation going on,” Titch said. “They used us as a distraction. It seemed to work. Pierce became fixated on you and did not see the danger was closer to him.”

Ashton shook his head and Titch continued. “Over the next few days there will be a series of raids across the country rounding up right-wing activists, particularly those connected with the Misanthropic Division. They are the small fry, though.

“Pierce opened accounts at British banks in the early 2000s and the pattern was simple. Money was transferred in from Russian companies and moved out the same day to New York. From there it was switched to the British Virgin Islands – or Delaware – and then sent back to London or distributed in the States to right-wing organisations. Some of it went back to Russia via Ukraine. Billions moved like this, all dedicated to undermining western democracies. And, of course, it made your mate fantastically rich.”

“I thought his death would be all over the media.”

“Oh it will, dear boy. It will. You are awfully naïve for a journalist.”

Three days later Barry Pierce’s death was announced. He had suffered a short illness and had unexpectedly passed after the discovery of a particularly aggressive tumour in his liver, the stories said. The memorial service was small and private in accordance with his will and wellwishers were asked to contribute to cancer research.

The tributes were effusive and all the broadsheets did long obituaries that emphasised his patriotism and mourned that he had not lived to see the Brexit he craved. Orlanda York was quoted in a number of articles, saying that “he was almost family.”

On her Facebook page, Orlanda wrote that although they disagreed on Europe and she was in the more moderate wing of the party, Barry Pierce had been a “mentor who helped me negotiate the difficult waters of Westminster as a novice MP.”

Ashton read it and felt sick. She would never know how close she had come to death. He did not hear from her, although he would see her occasionally on TV. Brexit, as expected, was delayed and the political temperature dipped for a while.

On the next Monday night Ashton and Titch met in the pub. “I have something for you,” the older man said brightly. He produced a folder. “The Official Secrets Act. You have a good story but I must insist that you never write it.”

And there the episode ended for Ashton. Except it never ended. The experience changed him completely. Not for the better.

*

Orlanda York announced that she was stepping down as an MP at the next election. She wrote that she was “exhausted by the invasion of my privacy and the vitriol that has become commonplace in both political and personal life.”

There was no shortage of job offers. The newspapers speculated that she might accept a role at the United Nations or run a charity. Ashton was amused when he read that an Oxford college was considering her as their first female Master.

He felt a yearning desire to hold her that was physical. It hurt him to think that she still believed he had betrayed her.

Titch returned to Spain. “I shall be back in June, dear boy,” he said. “You should come out for another visit. The pool will be up and running. It will be much more relaxing. We will get to the flamenco this time.”

Ashton felt ill at the thought. “And when I come back, we should talk. We worked well together. Perhaps you could help me in my business. After all, you’re no longer a civilian.”

“I’m no longer innocent,” Ashton said, truthfully. “I am diminished as a person.”

Titch just nodded and sipped at his beer.

Epilogue

The last thing Ashton expected was for Liverpool to reach the Champions League final. The last place he wanted to go back to was Spain. But, in work terms, it was a boon. The opposition was Tottenham Hotspur. Two Premier League teams facing off in Madrid meant double the interest at home.

He managed to secure a couple of commissions to do news stories on fan behaviour before and after the game. No one expected trouble but the Spanish police had a history of heavy-handed reactions when dealing with British supporters. Just three months earlier, rubber bullets had been fired at Celtic fans in Valencia and while everyone, especially the local authorities, was keen for a showpiece final to pass off without incident, there was enough potential for disorder to make editors want to ensure they had people in place in case the worst happened.

He arrived in Madrid on Thursday and was booked into an apartment until Monday. An acquaintance from when he covered the sports business beat provided a corporate ticket. Ashton was grateful. Like most of his friends, he had missed out on the club ballot. Holding a season ticket no longer guaranteed entry to big games.

There was little news to write about. Everything passed off peacefully. He stayed in Gaztambide, a busy student area close to the university, and spent his first night in Taproom Madrid, which featured an eclectic range of beers. Titch, Granada and the civil war felt thankfully remote. But he could not escape the past so easily.

On Friday morning Ashton blundered upon the Arco de la Victoria. He was heading to visit the memorial to the International Brigades at the University but came on a different sort of monument. The area around the university was where, in November 1936, Franco’s armies met severe resistance for the first time but the towering, ugly structure left no doubt as to the eventual victors with its dominating, threatening grandeur. Even more depressing, when he reached the simple, silver and red shrine to the anti-fascist forces, it had been vandalised. After the cemetery in Granada he half expected it but it was still dispiriting.

In the afternoon he checked out the central areas around the Plaza Mayor where the fans were likely to gather. It was very low-key so he walked to the Reina Sofia museum of art. He was there for just one reason: to see Picasso’s Guernica.

When he first entered the room that contained the masterpiece, he was shocked. It was one of the most familiar paintings in the world but, in his mind, Ashton visualised it in colour, with blood, flames and gory red severed limbs. The bleakness of the monochrome left him stunned. The vibrancy of life was sucked away by war: it reminded him of the trenches, where the mud reduced all visual stimulus to shades of brown; or the aftermath of an explosion where dust coated the rubble, the dead and the survivors. In black and white there was nothing to distract from the horror. He understood. When the bag was placed over his head and soaked with liquid, there was only darkness and flashes of terrifying, deathly white light.

He lost all sense of time as he stood in front of the canvas. People came and went but they were barely noticeable. They were intangible spectres from another, delusional, world where the occupants clung on to myths of happiness, peace and safety. That place no longer existed for Ashton. Titch was right. There were men out there who lived in a state of war and, once you became aware of this, you can never be at ease again. Eventually the repeated vibrating of his phone in his hip pocket brought him back to the present. His friends had arrived. They were ready to hit the town. The good times had started. For them.

The day of the match came and went in a blaze of heat. That was disheartening, too. The majority of diehard supporters travelled to Madrid with only the most remote dreams of acquiring a ticket. Most watched in bars. Liverpool won, Tottenham lost and life went on. The city settled down again.

On Sunday evening Ashton returned to the Taproom and whiled away the evening with a few beers. His work was finished so he drank more freely but not excessively. Some stragglers from the UK were in and he chattered with a few, fighting a winning battle with his psyche to stop brooding.

The barman placed a beer in front of him, the house Kolsch. He had not ordered it. “A friend bought it,” the man said. Ashton looked around but could see no one he recognised. The buyer would probably make himself known at some point so he shrugged and accepted the gift gratefully.

He was feeling pleasantly tipsy but his bladder was full so he slipped off his stool and walked to the toilets. The gents’ was empty and he stood at the urinal, closed his eyes and embraced the pleasure a drinker feels when expelling liquid. Now he was relaxed.

A voice behind him spoke. “You having a good time, Scouse?”

“Yeah,” he said, before the accent sunk in. It was Geordie. He spun round.

Killer was standing there, smiling. “Enjoy the drink I sent you?”

Ashton began to shake. All over. “Yes. Thanks.”

Killer laughed. “No, you’re shitting yourself. Don’t worry. You’re safe.”

“Why are you here?”

“I know a lot of Scousers,” he said. “Fought alongside plenty of them. I like to keep in touch.” Killer was amused. “I went the match – congratulations, by the way. The ticket was through the Ukrainian FA.” He laughed. “My Shakhtar ultra mates have good connections.”

Ashton fell back on silence as his only defence. “I’ve been out of the UK for a while,” Killer continued. “My bosses thought it best. I’ve got a bit of work on the Costas coming up so I thought I’d come here. The Russians love their sun.”

“And your job is killing,” Ashton said boldly.

“My job is killing,” the man said, agreeing without any hint of a boast. “The time will come soon when I’ll be back in Britain. Brexit will keep me employed, one way or another. There’ll be plenty to do in the Six Counties. Fun and games coming in Ukraine, too. Anyhow, I thought I’d say hello.”

The toilet door opened and a drunken youth came in.

“I will see you again, I’m sure,” Killer said. “I’ve got a feeling about that. When I meet people in toilets it doesn’t usually end well. But if you keep to our agreement you’ll be fine. Oh, and tell your mate he’s not too old for a rematch. Or he could even buy me a beer for helping him out with his problems in Belfast. Tell him we can talk about the old days. I know he’s got some serious stories to tell. Well, until next time…”

Then he was gone. If only the terror would disappear so easily and quickly. Ashton now understood. Fear was to be his constant companion. For ever.