There were few civilians present. Mostly soldiers in uniform, stiffly upright as the bugler played the final haunting farewell. There was a wreath from the Prime Minister, and Davidson took time from his packing to attend. Frost was there too. Both stayed back from the graveside, and neither introduced themselves to the family.
Mary walked away supported by her mother and father. She had had two large brandies before coming, and could tell herself she had borne herself well. As she climbed into the large black car the public side was over. She could weep, leaning heavily on her mother’s shoulder.
And she could say, ‘Why in heaven’s name did they choose Harry? He was lovely, precious to me, nothing special to them. They could have chosen a thousand men in front of him. Why did it have to be Harry?’
By the time they had gone, dispersing in their different directions and leaving the covering of flowers over the heaped-up earth, the evening was bearing down on the day. And across the water the truce that runs to heel with the daylight was coming to an end. A few more minutes and the darkness would have engulfed the Falls, the Murph, Andytown and the New Lodge. The young men were preparing to draw their rifles, receive their orders, move out onto the streets. Later a policeman would be killed, and a pub be destroyed by explosives. The life and death of Billy Downs changed none of that, nor the brief entry into his world of Harry Brown.
THE END
About The Author
Gerald Seymour spent fifteen years as an international television news reporter with ITN, covering Vietnam and the Middle East, and specialising in the subject of terrorism across the world. Seymour was on the streets of Londonderry on the afternoon of Bloody Sunday, and was a witness to the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.
Gerald Seymour is now a full-time writer, and six of his novels have been filmed for television in the UK and US. HARRY’S GAME was his debut novel.
For more information about Gerald Seymour and his books, visit his Facebook page at
www.facebook.com/GeraldSeymourAuthor
Also By Gerald Seymour
Harry’s Game
The Glory Boys
Kingfisher
Red Fox
The Contract
Archangel
In Honour Bound
Field of Blood
A Song in the Morning
At Close Quarters
Home Run
Condition Black
The Journeyman Tailor
The Fighting Man
The Heart of Danger
Killing Ground
The Waiting Time
A Line in the Sand
Holding the Zero
The Untouchable
Traitor’s Kiss
The Unknown Soldier
Rat Run
The Walking Dead
Timebomb
The Collaborator
The Dealer and the Dead
A Deniable Death
The Outsiders
The Corporal’s Wife
Have You Read . . . ?
CONDITION BLACK
In the final months before Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1991, the only man who stands in the way of the total collapse of the Middle Eastern situation is a young FBI agent hot on the heels of a deadly assassin working for the Iraqi government.
THE FIGHTING MAN
Gord Brown, a former SAS soldier and Gulf War veteran comes to the aid of Guatemalan resistance fighters caught up in a hopeless war against a brutal military dictatorship. Also pitted against them is another veteran, an American helicopter pilot who owes Gord his life, but, in the depths of the South American jungle, the past is forgotten.
THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER
In the depths of the Arabian Desert, American and British counter-terrorism experts are desperately searching for one man. If they fail to find him, he will re-emerge in a teeming western city, carrying only a suitcase that will wreak havoc and devastation when detonated.
THE WAITING TIME
THE OUTSIDERS
‘Once again demonstrating his ability to probe the moral murkiness of the spy trade and create an absorbingly diverse ensemble, Seymour crafts a sophisticated, reader-teasing tale.’
The Sunday Times
MI5 officer Winnie Monks has never forgotten the death of a young agent on her team at the hands of a former Russian Army Major-turned-gangster. Ten years later, she hears the Major is travelling to a Spanish villa and she asks permission to send in a surveillance unit.
There is an empty property next door, perfect to spy from – and as a base for Winnie’s darker, less official plans.
But this villa isn’t deserted: the owners have invited a young British couple to ‘house sit’ while they are away.
Jonno and Posie think they are embarking on a carefree holiday in the sun. But, when the Secret Service arrives in paradise, everything changes.
‘Those [Seymour] sends off into dangerous territory are, in fact, his readers. With each book, we enter a dangerous universe, and are totally involved with utterly plausible characters, faced with moral choices that are rarely straightforward.’
Independent
A DENIABLE DEATH
AN EPIC NOVEL OF HIGH COURAGE AND LOW CUNNING, OF LIFE AND DEATH IN THE MORAL MAZE OF THE POST-9/11 WORLD.
‘Gerald Seymour is the grand-master of the contemporary thriller and A DENIABLE DEATH is his greatest work yet. Gripping, revealing and meticulously researched, this is a page-turning masterpiece that will literally leave you breathless.’
Major Chris Hunter, bestselling author of Extreme Risk
YOU WATCH. YOU WAIT. THE HOURS SLIDE SLOWLY PAST.
A WHOLE DAY. THEN TWO.
YOU LIE UNDER A MERCILESS SUN IN A MOSQUITO-INFESTED MARSH.
YOU CAN’T MOVE, LEAVE, OR RELAX.
YOUR MUSCLES ACHE FROM CLENCHING TIGHT FOR SO LONG.
IF YOU ARE DISCOVERED, YOU WILL BE TORTURED THEN KILLED.
AND HER MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT WILL DENY ALL KNOWLEDGE OF YOU.
‘Great storytelling . . . you just have to read this novel . . . absolutely gripping’
Eurocrime
THE DEALER AND THE DEAD
THE ARMS DEALER BETRAYED THEM.
THE SURVIVORS WANT REVENGE.
‘The Dealer and the Dead is Seymour firing on all cylinders and his rivals need, once again, to look to their laurels’
Independent
In a moonlit field near the Serbian border, Croatian villagers waited for an arms shipment that would never come. They will never forget that night, or the slaughter that followed.
Eighteen years later, a body is discovered in a field, and with it the identity of the arms dealer who betrayed them. Now the villagers can plot their revenge.
For Harvey Gillott, it was all a long time ago. But now the hand of the past is reaching out across Europe, to Harvey’s house in leafy England. And it’s holding a gun . . .
‘The final scenes are brilliantly orchestrated . . . Without doubt, The Dealer and the Dead is one of the finest thrillers to be published so far this year’
Yorkshire Evening Post
THE COLLABORATOR
CORRUPTION. BETRAYAL. REVENGE.
‘A dense, intensely satisfying thriller from one of the modern masters of the craft, Seymour’s latest novel will remind the world just how phenomenally accomplished a thriller writer he is.’
Daily Mail
Eddie Deacon has a new girlfriend. She’s beautiful, clever and Italian.
And then she disappears.
What Eddie doesn’t know is that Immacolata Borelli is the daughter of a merciless Naples gangster. She can no longer live with her conscienc
e and has decided to collaborate with the police to bring down her own family.
But the Borellis will not lose their empire without a fight. They will use or destroy anything and anyone to prevent her from talking.
Including Eddie.
‘Tight writing and meticulous research . . . Seymour paints the streets of Naples and their dark denizens with an artist’s brush that lingers equally on the grime, the glitter and the blood’
The Times