The Night Manager

Burr seemed to like being told to mind his own business.

"Tell us about your marriage, then. It's quite funny, actually, thinking of you being married. It makes me uncomfortable, I don't know why. You're single. I can feel it. Maybe I am too. What happened?"

"I was young. She was younger. It makes me uncomfortable too."

"She was a painter, wasn't she? Like you?"

"I was a Sunday dauber. She was the real thing. Or thought she was."

"What did you marry her for?"

"Love, I suppose."

"You suppose. Politeness, more likely, knowing you. What did you leave her for?"

"Sanity."

No longer able to keep the flood of memory at bay, Jonathan abandoned himself to the angry vision of their married life together dying as they watched it: the friendship they no longer had, the love they no longer made, the restaurants where they watched happy people chat, the dead flowers in the vase, the rotting fruit in the bowl, her paint-caked easel propped against the wall, the dust thick on the dining table while they stared at each other through their dried tears, a mess not even Jonathan could tidy up. It's just me, he kept telling her, trying to touch her and recoiling as she recoiled. I grew up too quickly and missed women on the way. It's me, not you at all.

Burr had made another of his merciful leaps.

"So what took you to Ireland?" he suggested with a smile. "Was that running away from her, by any chance?"

"It was a job. If you were in the British Army ― if you wanted to be a real soldier, useful, live ammunition after all the training rounds ― Ireland was where you had to be."

"And you did want to be useful?"

"Wouldn't you at that age?"

"I still do," Burr replied.

Jonathan let the implicit question lie.

"Were you hoping you might get killed?" Burr asked.

"Don't be absurd."

"I'm not being absurd. Your marriage was on the rocks. You were still a kid. You thought you were responsible for all the world's ills. I'm just surprised you didn't do big game or join the Foreign Legion. What did you get up to over there, anyway?"

"Our orders were to win Irish hearts and minds. Say good morning to everyone, pat the kiddies. A bit of patrolling."

"Tell about the patrolling."

"Boring VCPs. Nothing to it."

"I'm not much of a one for initials, I'm afraid, Jonathan."

"Vehicle Control Points. You'd pick a blind hill or a corner, then pop up out of a ditch and hold up the cars. Occasionally you'd come across a player."

"And if you did?"

"You got through on the Cougar, and your controller told you which course of action to take. Stop and search. Wave him through. Question him. Whatever they wanted."

"Any other jobs on the menu, apart from VCPs?"

The same blandness as Jonathan made a show of remembering.

"Buzzing around in a helicopter a bit. Each group had a piece of land to cover. You'd book your Lynx, take a bivibag, camp out for a couple of nights, then come home and have a beer."

"How about contact with the enemy?"

Jonathan gave a deprecating smile. "Why should they come out and fight us when they could blow us up in our jeeps by remote control?"

"Why indeed?" Burr always played his best cards slowly. He sipped his drink, he shook his head and smiled as if it were all a bit of a conundrum. "So what were these special duties you got up to, then?" he asked. "All those special training courses you did, that wore me out just reading about them? I get frightened every time I see you pick up a spoon and fork, to be frank. I think you're going to skewer me."

Jonathan's reluctance was like a sudden slowing down. "There were things called Close Observation Platoons."

"Which were?"

"The senior platoon in each regiment, artificially created."

"Out of?"

"Anyone who wanted to join."

"I thought they were the elite."

Short, tight sentences, Burr noticed. Monitored as he spoke them. Eyelids down, lips tense.

"You were trained. You learned to watch, recognise the players. Make hides, get in and out of them in darkness. Lie up for a couple of nights. In lofts. Bushes. Ditches."

"What weapons did they give you?"

Jonathan shrugged as if to say, Who cares? "Uzis. Hecklers. Shotguns. They teach them all. You select. Sounds exciting from the outside. Once you're into it, it's just a job."

"What was your choice?"

"Heckler gave you the best chance."

"Which brings us to Operation Night Owl," Burr suggested, with no change in the inflexion of his voice. And sat back to watch the no-change in Jonathan's expression.

* * *

Jonathan was talking in his sleep. His eyes were open, but his mind was in another country. He had not expected lunch to be a tour of the worst pans of his life.

"We had a tip-off that some players were coming across the border into Armagh to relocate a stash of weapons. RPGs." This time Burr did not ask what the initials meant. "We lay up for a couple of days, and finally they showed. We took out three. The unit was pretty chuffed. Everyone went round whispering 'three' and holding up three fingers at the Irish."

"I'm sorry?" Burr seemed not to have heard. "Take out in this context meaning killed?"

"Yup."