The Gardener Read online

  THE GARDENER

  Tony Masero

  Writing as Michael D’Asti

  A John Chayne Novel

  A Hand Painted Publication

  Copyright © 2012 Tony Masero

  First Published 2012 Solstice Publishing

  Editor: Nik Morton

  Smashwords Edition

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  Publishers Note: This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and events other than historical are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real person, places, or events is coincidental.

  Prologue

  Hot, dusty and hellish.

  Three-day-old sweat, stale and crusty, lay under his body armor. John Chayne squats, looking wearily down at the toes of his scuffed combat boots. They make an artistic collage amongst the sheaves of scattered papers on the floor. Everything frozen in a coating of pale yellow dust. Newspapers, magazines, printouts and obscure memos covered in Pashtu hieroglyphics. It all looked like a photographer’s winning background shot to the war in Afghanistan.

  Alongside his secure corner of respite, a hole the size of a moon crater had blasted away the side of the building. Its ragged edges soot-splashed around exposed breezeblocks and nests of twisted re-bar. A taste of high explosive still hangs. Heat trapping the air, holding the scents of both death and destruction in a leaden bond. He sighs, rubs his unshaven face. He is waiting. Idly, he sifts the papers through his fingers.

  There, surprisingly, he finds an English copy of The Lady magazine. Imported, no doubt, to sustain the pretensions of some Oxbridge-trained official lately occupying this devastated ministry building. Dusting it off, he studies the cover picture of a lush, green garden set amongst rolling downland. It all seems as distantly removed from his present situation as the far side of the sun that beats down so relentlessly outside. He fans through the pages.

  Lady-This and Lord-That at the coming out party of their double-barreled daughter who wears a way-too-short black number and holds a loaded champagne flute between her smiling buckteeth. Aged gray-haired ladies in smiling ads for stair lifts and elasticized hosiery, vie with delicate articles about Monet and Alfred Lord Tennyson. A million miles away.

  Situations Vacant Domestic

  Isolated Country House in Scotland. Self-sufficient, fit male gardener/gamekeeper needed during occupancy and vacancy of main house. Excellent live-in cottage available on the grounds. The successful applicant will quite often be left to his own devices and must be capable. Apply in writing with CV and references to C. McBraith, Langroith, Scotland. Ref: JCHE

  The PPR communicator squawks in his ear, but he misses the garbled words under the choppy patter of approaching automatic fire. He stuffs the magazine quickly inside the neck of his body armor. He sees them. Four of them. Only four? Dirty brown jackets and collarless white shirts, heads swathed in black scarves and that ever-present and necessary fashion accessory, an AK47. They are running across heaps of rubble, ducking and diving, stopping only to fire at their unseen pursuers.

  Chayne knows who has brought them to light. It is his own team who are their hunters. It is working like a dream, just as he had planned it. Bring them into the open, then I’ll tap them one by one.

  Dear Mr. McBraith,

  I am nearing the end of my service with Her Majesty’s Forces and am now looking for employment in civilian life...

  One of them has a rocket launcher and is raising it to his shoulder. One shot. Chayne raises his L85 rifle. Pop! The 5.56mm shell drops the fellow where he kneels. Traverse left. Pop! Pop! The leader falls in a tangle, flopping and bumping on the broken bricks. Right a degree. Pop! Miss. Pop, pop, pop! Burst of explosive blood and the man is as still as a stone.

  The idea of being left to my own devices particularly appeals as, after twenty years in the Services, I am sure some adjustment time will be needed...

  Last one has gone to earth. Where is he? That’s it... keep the crossfire coming. Don’t let him wriggle away.

  Hammerheads hit the wall above him, a tattoo of dust and chipped cement bursting in a rain that drops all around him. Damn! I’m in the slot.

  He drops back, stuffing himself into a dark corner.

  I have taken, and hold an Open University Degree in land maintenance and animal husbandry, as it was always my intention to take up some kind of farming lifestyle on leaving the Army...

  Poom! The shockwave deafens him and he is rocked across the room by the battering of the stun-grenade explosion. Dust fills the air like a mist. It is difficult to see. Two, he thinks. They’re inside, with him. Deafened, he cannot hear a thing, but sees the muzzle flashes in the fog as he rolls to cower behind a jagged lump of cement and twisted steel that sits like an iceberg in the center of the room. The wall behind is shattered in a pounding cascade of blasted cement as the wild automatic fire traverses the room.

  Chayne grimaces. Enough! A snarl distorts his lips as he rises through the dust cloud, firing from the hip on automatic. They fall away, ripped, spinning in a collapse of ragged clothing. He continues firing long after they are still. Only when he realizes he is biting down on a bleeding lip does he stop.

  Therefore, I should be most pleased to hear from you at your earliest convenience.

  John Chayne. Cpt. Retd.

  Chapter One

  Charles McBraith sweats.

  He grips the brass bars of the bedstead in both hands and works hard. He should never have taken that little blue pill. The bloody meeting! He was due in an hour and a half. But, by God! She is so beautiful.

  The rocking creature beneath him groans softly, her lidded, half closed eyes fixed on some distant point of pleasure.

  Anne Longridge. A tall, athletically limbed secretary. Shining black hair, down and rumpled now, splayed out over the crisp white pillows. Arms spread carelessly wide. Shaking silicone firmed breasts rising to meet him.

  McBraith savors her excellent body, staring down the length of himself as he pumps. Still, he isn’t in such bad shape himself, he decides. Least not for the downside of forty.

  Dear Captain Chayne,

  Thank you for your letter and all the enclosed personal information. I think it would be worthwhile for us to meet and discuss matters in more detail...

  The twice weekly squash game helps. That exercise bike Clem had bought him for his birthday had been a good idea too. Safely ensconced in the office, he can work out while holding conference calls on the network. Excellent!

  If we were able to meet at the house in Scotland, it would be helpful. My wife and I are usually there most weekends. Failing that, I am available in the London office only on dates to be confirmed through my secretary...

  Would he never finish? But it was certainly doing the business for Anne that was for sure. McBraith smirks secretly with satisfaction at his macho stamina, even if it is drug induced. But the damned meeting... the Africans won’t be happy if he is late. Freedom fighters! Those bastards act like royal potentates and expect to be waited on hand and foot, thanks to all the cash they’ve raped from their country’s reserves. But they were buying a lot of hardware. Millions! It represents millions.

  I find myself most happily impressed by your details, and if we can agree on a suitable fee, then I should like you to start as soon as possible...

  He was losing pounds here, but all in a good cause. He would have to tell Clem to expect this army laddie. See how they get along, and young Robert too. Who were they having up this weekend? Have to ask Ann
e in a minute. Sounds like she’s rising to finality at last. It would be great to get away again. Seal the deal and escape to some peace up there. Who would have thought that a boy from the back streets of Glasgow could make such a pile? Enough to buy a country house and acres of land, even a herd of deer; McBraith of Clydeside Docks, Laird of the Manor. It made you laugh.

  My wife Clementine, our son Robert, and I look forward to seeing you at Langroith if at all possible. Please find a map and travel directions enclosed herewith.

  Yours sincerely,

  Charles McBraith. CEO Centurion Armaments International plc.

  Yes, at last. Yes, yes, yes. Oh, fucking yes!

  Chapter Two

  Chayne sees Clem McBraith looking at him with an appraising eye. Sitting comfortably, knees together, with a dainty bone china teacup and saucer clasped carefully in his big hands, he can imagine what she sees: Solid. Face battered. Tanned. Short army regulation hair bleached by the sun.

  “Perhaps you’d like something stronger?” offers McBraith.

  Chayne looks up. Clem notices something else she likes, a momentary flash of openness. Innocence?

  “No thanks. I don’t drink.”

  “Really?” ponders McBraith. “Think I will, though.” He pours from a crystal decanter into a heavy glass goblet.

  “Are you married, Mister.... I’m sorry, do you prefer Mister or Captain?” Clem asks her first question.

  “Just Chayne is fine. One gets used to surnames in the Army. And no, I’m not married. Not anymore. My wife died some years ago.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  Justine... Justine. Chayne cannot share her end with anyone. Not even now. After all this time, her image moves across his mind and overlays for a moment the face of Clem McBraith. They are not alike. Clem McBraith is a tall blonde. Elegant, pleasant voiced. Middle-English accent, neither too high nor too low. An aura of honesty hangs about her. Something else too. A cool sadness?

  Justine was different. Small and vibrant. A tangled bush of dark curling hair that fell half way down the coffee-colored skin of her back. Tough. Passionate.

  “So, how was it in the Army?” asks McBraith. “I noticed your CV didn’t say much about it. Hush-hush stuff?”

  “No, not at all. Pretty boring really if you’re not involved. My area of expertise was Stores and Supplies. Quartermasters Depot, logistics, transports; that sort of thing. How to get twenty tons of frozen chickens from Portsmouth to Bahrain in twenty-four hours. I spent most of the time punching computer keys.” There was no way he could let them know his real command. The squad he had belonged to did not exist. Had never existed and never would. And besides, that ghost was behind him now. It felt good to step out from the darkness.

  “Well, I suppose an Army must still march on its stomach,” laughs McBraith.

  “Indeed.” In spite of his brashness, there is something charismatic, something likable about McBraith. Chayne cannot decide what it is as yet. But it is there. There is enough of the street still left in him to keep him amongst the land of the living. Maybe a few more years of the good life, of success and money and things would change, but right now...

  The boy, though, was another matter. Robert. Maybe nine or ten. Somber looking kiddie. Sitting beside his mother. Ever watchful, saying nothing.

  “What sort of software did you use?” It speaks. Oops! Pale skin, tiny hunched back. It’s an anorak. A computer geek. Chayne, in reality, is computer illiterate.

  “Um... Mostly rather specialized software developed by the Ministry of Defense,” he adlibs, totally in the dark here.

  “Do the apps have a name?”

  Chayne quirks an apologetic lip. “ 'Fraid I’m not at liberty to talk about any of that, sorry.”

  “That will all be rather secret, Robert,” explains McBraith. His tone is kindly. Considerate. There is no sense of impatience or condescension. “Chayne will have had to sign a pledge not to disclose anything about that sort of thing. So he has strong legal and moral commitments that binds him into saying nothing about it.” He looks for a nod of confirmation from Chayne.

  “I see.” The boy is disappointed. “Couldn’t he just lie, though? They always do in the movies.”

  “Today, Robert,” McBraith speaks to the child, but is assessing Chayne across the table. “Maybe yes, in today’s moral climate many people believe their promises means nothing. They feel they themselves signify nothing globally, and therefore have nothing to give. That’s the attitude you will see on the TV or movies, but I think Chayne is more a man of his word. When he makes a promise, he means to keep it. Isn’t that right, Chayne?”

  “When it matters.”

  Chayne senses the atmosphere. The father loves the son. They are apart often. The son finds it hard to relate. Something is amiss between husband and wife. A tiny rift. The beginnings of a disaster, perhaps? None of his affair, though. But best to be aware. To be aware is to be prepared.

  Time to change tack. “I wonder,” he asks, “might I see the accommodation?”

  McBraith downs his whisky in a single gulp. “Of course. If you’ve finished your tea, we’ll go now.”

  “You’ll stay for supper, I hope?” Clem asks, slight smile playing on her lips. “It’ll only be something simple, I’m afraid, but you’re more than welcome to join us.”

  “We could have live-in help, of course,” McBraith explains. “But Clem insists she will do it all. This is our escape from the humdrum razzle of city life. And I have to say, she’s right. Every time we come up here it’s a tonic. I go back totally refreshed.”

  “You’re most kind.” Chayne acquiesces with a rare smile.

  The cottage is almost hidden by a stand of Scots pines, an old whitewashed stone structure, and black-framed diamond paned leaded windows. The outside is weathered and in need of a coat of paint. Inside is a different matter. Totally refurbished. Modern kitchen. Hardwood floor. Subdued side lighting. Ikea furniture. Open fireplace with logs ready to go. Chayne approves.

  “You like?” asks McBraith.

  Chayne nods. “I can see where I’ll have to start.”

  “Ah, a lick of paint outside and she’ll be fine. Come on, we’ll walk a while and I’ll show you the lie of the land.”

  They break through the tree line and the ground stretches away to distant forested hills and beyond that, the blue of mountains. It is a dazzling evening. Setting sunlight burning the heather in a blaze of gold. The isolation is absolute. Somewhere amongst the nearby woods, water flashes in the last rays of light, and dun-colored deer meander slowly down to drink.

  “Beautiful, huh?” McBraith breathes deeply. “I love it so.”

  “It’s fine,” agrees Chayne. “I feel at home already.”

  “You’ll take it on, then?”

  “How could I not?” smiles Chayne. They shake hands. Done deal.

  Supper is a candlelit affair. Not from choice, but the generator has failed. McBraith apologizes and explains that the electricity supply is erratic out here. A single supply line too far out on the grid to be well maintained. So it is scrambled eggs and beans on toast cooked over a camping stove with bottled gas. It is obvious to Chayne that they enjoy the primitive nature of this existence after all the fancy entertaining and wining and dining of London restaurants. A cozy atmosphere imbues the dimly lit kitchen. He, who has eaten far worse in much more trying conditions, thoroughly enjoys it all.

  “When can you start?” asks McBraith as he opens his second bottle of a good Cabernet Sauvignon. The cellar, Chayne notices, is well stocked.

  “More or less immediately. Final severance with the Army is only down to some paperwork now.”

  “Great. There’s a Cherokee Jeep in the garage you can use, and you’d better check over the gun cupboard. I’ve a couple of shotguns and some ammunition I keep up here. I’ll let you have the keys to everything before you go. Move in when you like. We’ll be off back to London on Sunday evening, so you’ll have to fend for yourself after that.
”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll manage.”

  “Will you be lonely?” asks Clem.

  Chayne shakes his head. “I don’t believe so. I’m looking forward to some time out from bachelor quarters and sharing with a bunch of characters who think it’s fun to live for weeks in the same pair of socks.”

  “I’ll get Anne, my secretary, to settle the paperwork. Contract, licenses, insurance, bank details and so on.”

  At the mention of her name, Chayne notices a subtle shift in Clem’s gaze. A distraction. Indifference? Maybe. But therein lies the problem.

  “Right you are,” he says.

  “I’ll get her to send you a company mobile phone as well. We can’t rely on the lines up here. Come the snow everything freezes to a stop.”

  “Heavy?”

  “Oh yes, you wouldn’t believe. It’s beautiful, but a total shutdown. No winter wonderland, so be prepared for more of a Siberian wasteland.”

  “Well,” says Clem, watching him over the rim of her wineglass. “The larder is fully stocked, so just help yourself until you get settled.”

  “Sure,” says McBraith. “And anything you can do to get that bloody generator going, we’d be grateful for.”

  “Did you ever kill anyone?” Robert asks. Sudden question from his corner of the table. The pale face in the shadows watches him intently.