Conspiracy

by Adrian Wills

  Blake was first to come to his senses, ripping the gun from Okeke’s clasping hand, and struck him across the temple with it. He heard the crack of bone and Okeke’s body went limp. Blake rolled him away, towards the lip of the black hole, and with one final effort, pushed him over the edge. Okeke plunged into the blackness and vanished with an echoing scream.

  Bowater was kneeling at Jenni’s side, holding her head in the crook of his arm. The colour had drained from her face and a crimson stain spread across her t-shirt from her shoulder.

  ‘What have you done?’ Bowater stammered, stroking his daughter’s face.

  ‘We need to stop the bleeding and get her to hospital,’ said Blake.

  ‘You did this.’

  ‘No,’ said Blake. ‘This is all your doing.’ He raised the gun and aimed it at Bowater’s head. ‘But she’ll survive.’

  Blake’s finger tightened on the trigger. A single bullet between Bowater’s eyes would end it all. He thought about the family killed in Iraq, the lies and deceit that had followed, and all the lives that had been destroyed as a result. He thought about Kyle Hopkins’ family, a mother now raising her children without a father. He thought about Ryan Fletcher, Jake Stone, and Anthony Okeke, all dead because of Henry Bowater. And he remembered his friend, Harry Patterson and his wife, Helen. Lost forever.

  Blake’s anger simmered, all his hatred and disgust bubbling hot through his veins. Every part of his soul was screaming at him to pull the trigger, a final act of vengeance for all those lives he’d taken.

  A man like Bowater was never going to be brought to justice. He was too powerful. He had too many friends in high places. But Blake had the option to deal out his own kind of justice. A summary justice. He had all the evidence he’d ever need to justify it to himself.

  ‘I should kill you right now,’ said Blake.

  ‘You can’t, I’m the fucking Home Secretary,’ Bowater screamed.

  Blake hesitated for a fraction of a second. Jenni groaned. He fired three times, the gun kicking back in his hand.

  Three bullets landed harmlessly in the ground somewhere behind Bowater’s head, Blake’s anger and frustration partially spent. He couldn’t do it. For all the evils Bowater had perpetuated, Blake was in no position to kill him. It wouldn’t be right. It would make them the same, and that thought sickened him.

  He pocketed the gun, turned and ran hard in the direction of the house before he changed his mind.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  As Blake stumbled over the uneven ground wishing he’d thought to pick up Okeke’s torch, he wondered how long it would take Bowater to make it back and raise the alarm. He reckoned on a five-minute head start. Ten at best. He just hoped it would be enough.

  He pin-pointed the house, silhouetted against the moonlit shimmering sea and took a bearing slightly to the east. Eventually he spotted the chimney of an abandoned pumping-engine house from a disused tin mine spiralling into the sky like a monument to the region’s industrial heritage, and headed directly for it, scrambling through thorns and brambles which snagged his clothes and scratched his skin. Crashing out of the undergrowth like a wild boar, he stumbled onto the coastal path and bounded along the mud track as it dropped steeply, his feet skidding across the rocks and dirt in his haste.

  At the ruins of the old mine he’d identified on a recce earlier in the evening, he darted inside and recovered the rucksack and rope he’d hidden. He coiled the rope around his arm and tossed the rucksack on his back before heading towards the edge of the cliff.

  He secured one end of the rope around a large rock and tossed the other over the side, his breathing laboured and sweat soaking his clothes. He pulled on a pair of leather gloves, tied himself to the line with the carabiners and dropped over the edge, ignoring the spike of terror that always surged through his veins when he abseiled. The Special Forces had made him confront his vertigo, but he’d never fully conquered it. At best, he’d learned how to bottle it up and trained his mind to ignore the paralysing fear.

  Blake let the tension out of the rope and with three kicks against the rock face, bounded onto a small beach below. He found the dinghy wedged in a tight crevice above the waterline littered with old drink cans, bottles and unidentifiable lumps of plastic washed up on the surf. Blake dragged it to the water’s edge where freezing waves washed over his feet and numbed his toes.

  He waded out up to his thighs, hauled himself on board and paddled hard, kneeling in the bow with a single oar like a kayaker to fight the tide trying to push the boat back to shore. He glanced over his shoulder only once, half expecting to see a dozen police cars with their headlights blazing and blue lights pulsing. But the only light came from a solitary window in Bowater’s house on the headland.

  Blake breathed a sigh of relief. He laid the oar down and started the outboard motor which fired into life on the third attempt. He feathered the throttle until the pistons settled into a smooth hum. Then he released the clutch and the dinghy picked up speed, heading into the ominous darkness.

  Using the stars as a reference, he scanned the horizon and eventually spotted a single bright light ahead. He made a fine adjustment to the rudder and throttled the engine fully open until he was buzzing over the choppy surface with cold salty spray hitting his face and the hull slapping the water.

  The outline of the fishing boat slowly revealed itself. A white wheelhouse with a tangerine roof took up most of the deck. The skipper was silhouetted by an internal light. Blake cut the engine and, as he drifted alongside, the skipper tossed him a line and lent him a calloused hand to pull him on board.

  ‘I thought there were going to be two of you?’ he said.

  ‘Things changed,’ said Blake, with a pang of remorse.

  ‘Okay, well there’s a change of clothes below. And you’ll find a flask of coffee in the galley.’

  Blake nodded his thanks, his teeth already beginning to chatter. He tossed the rucksack into the dinghy and let it loose. It turned slowly through ninety degrees and vanished into the darkness. He hoped the authorities would find it washed up on shore in the next few hours and assume he’d been drowned at sea.

  Below deck, the trawler stank of rotting fish, diesel fumes and engine oil. Frayed fishing nets and coloured buoys littered the floor, but at least it was warm. Blake found two canvas bags on a table, both full of clothes. Another reminder he’d failed in his promise to save Fletcher. Inside one he found jeans, a grey t-shirt, a twill checked-shirt, underwear, thick socks, a chunky sweater and a heavy-duty waterproof jacket. Under the table Blake discovered two pair of black boots with steel-caps. Both were a size too big, but he pulled on a pair and with the laces tightened decided they’d do the job.

  ‘I had to guess at your sizes,’ the skipper said, sticking his head below deck when Blake had stripped out of his wet clothes and changed into the dry kit.

  ‘Spot on,’ said Blake, with a smile. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Right, I’ll get us underway then, shall I?’

  ‘Slight change of plan.’

  The skipper raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh?’

  Blake’s original intention had been to head into Falmouth where he would catch the early morning London train with Fletcher and deliver evidence of Henry Bowater’s crimes straight to Patterson before beginning the process of building Fletcher’s new life.

  ‘Can you take me to France?’

  ‘That wasn’t part of the deal.’

  ‘I’ll pay you, of course.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Another grand, if you can get me in below the radar.’

  The skipper stroked his chin. ‘I can do it for two. Anything less wouldn’t be worth my while,’ he said, apologetically.

  ‘Okay, done.’ Blake reached to shake the skipper’s hand. ‘But I need to land somewhere quiet where we won’t be noticed.’

  ‘We can reach Brittany from here.’

  ‘Perfect.’

  ‘And I know the ideal place to land you, if discretion i
s what you’re after.’

  The skipper disappeared into the wheelhouse and returned with a marine chart which he spread across the table under a hurricane lamp swinging from the ceiling. He ran a dirty finger over the ragged contours of the northern French coast. ‘Landeda,’ he said, pointing to an inlet due south of where they were anchored.

  ‘How long to get there?’ asked Blake.

  The skipper sucked in his cheeks and whistled the air out through pursed lips. ‘Weather’s looking all right,’ he said. ‘I reckon we could make it by lunch if we went through the night.’

  ‘I’d prefer to get there under the cover of darkness.’

  ‘We can go slower.’

  ‘Do it.’

  The skipper gathered up the chart and tucked it under his arm.

  ‘Did you say something about coffee?’ asked Blake.

  ‘In the flask. Help yourself.’

  Blake was pleased to find it was black, hot and sweet. He drank thirstily from a tin mug, feeling its restorative, warming effects almost immediately as the trawler’s engines kicked into life with a throaty throb that reverberated and rattled through the hull. A noisy motor cranked up the anchor and as the vessel picked up speed, pitching and yawing through the swell, Blake rolled up his old jacket as a pillow and lay down on a bench by the table. In less than a minute, he’d drifted off.

  He had no idea how long he’d been asleep when he was jolted awake by the roar of a helicopter, its rotor blades thumping through the air so loudly the noise drowned out the sound of the trawler’s engines. He sat bolt upright and blinked sleep from his eyes. The trawler was pitching violently like it had been caught in a sudden squall and a bright light seeped down the steep staircase.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ Blake yelled poking his head into the wheelhouse and shading his eyes from a blinding spotlight that had turned night into day.

  ‘Keep your head down,’ the skipper yelled back. He was hanging half in and half out of the cabin, staring at the chopper above and shielding his eyes with his hand. ‘I think they’re looking for you.’

  With his heart beating fast, Blake slunk below deck, suspecting the helicopter was part of a manhunt trying to find the attacker who’d threatened the Home Secretary at gunpoint, shot his daughter, and killed his close protection officer. They would have found the abandoned rope leading down the cliff by now and guessed he’d escaped by boat. Maybe they’d even found the dinghy. If they decided to board the trawler and conduct a full search, he was fucked. He didn’t even have a weapon, and even though the hull was cluttered with nets, buoys, rope and plastic containers of all sorts, there was nowhere to hide.

  He edged into a dark corner behind a stack of blue buckets and waited, the noise so loud he could hardly think. He had no evidence of Henry Bowater’s crimes, either in Iraq or Devon. There was only Kyle Hopkins’ body, but that proved nothing other than he’d been shot in the head. Without testimony from one of the surviving soldiers there was nothing on Bowater. Nothing whatsoever.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  The fridge was as good as empty. Parkes had left in a hurry when the team had been convened in Tavistock to investigate Kyle Hopkins’ disappearance, and all she found on her return was half a pint of milk, curdled and lumpy, three shrivelled carrots and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. She grabbed the wine, slammed the fridge door shut and poured herself a large glass. She’d been looking forward to getting home and out of the hotel at last but found now it merely reminded her how empty her life had become. No one to welcome her with a hot meal or a shoulder to cry on. Only the prospect of a takeaway sitting alone with her thoughts and regrets in her cold, damp flat. She’d been suspended pending a full investigation into Jake Stone’s death and knew her career was as good as over. She should never have been talked into something so stupid by Blake.

  She threw herself on the sofa, tucking her dressing gown under her legs, and studied the menu from the corkboard in the kitchen, settling on her usual chicken chow mein with a side order of prawn crackers. She sighed as she reached for her mobile and was surprised when the phone rang in her hand. It was a number she didn’t recognise and swore under her breath. Never a minute’s peace in her job. ‘DC Parkes,’ she answered without thinking.

  ‘It’s Blake.’

  Parkes sat up straight like she’d been pricked with a needle. ‘Blake? Where the hell are you?’

  ‘That’s not important right now. Did you find Kyle Hopkins’ body?’

  ‘Yes, but. . . your face is all over the news. They’re saying you tried to kill the Home Secretary.’

  ‘It’s not true.’

  ‘And that you killed Ryan Fletcher and one of Bowater’s close protection officers.’

  ‘I don’t have time to explain right now, but it’s not what they’re saying. Where are you?’

  ‘At home. Where do you think?’ she snapped. ‘Hubbard’s wound down the investigation.’

  ‘What does he think happened to Hopkins?’

  ‘That he was plotting with Fletcher to kidnap Henry Bowater’s daughter for a ransom, but that they fell out and Fletcher killed him.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Blake. ‘That’s some theory.’

  ‘And he thinks Fletcher recruited you to finish the job.’ There was a pause on the other end of the line. Parkes heard Blake’s breathing, slow and steady. ‘You still there?’

  ‘And what do you think?’

  She hesitated. ‘I don’t know. Why did you disappear?’

  ‘Do you really need to ask after everything you’ve just told me?’

  ‘If you’re innocent, why run away?’

  ‘Because as it stands, I have no way of proving I had nothing to do with this. Are you alone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then listen to me carefully. Trust nobody. This is bigger than anyone can imagine, and if they think you’re involved, they’ll come after you too.’

  ‘Who? You’re scaring me. What are you talking about?’

  ‘What’s happened with Dobson and Van Dijk? Are they still in custody?’

  ‘Dobson’s on remand. He’s been charged with murder, but Hubbard insisted on releasing van Dijk. He couldn’t see any reason for holding him.’

  ‘He’s in danger,’ said Blake.

  ‘From who?’

  ‘I can’t tell you over the phone, and it’s best you don’t know right now. I’m going to find a way to prove my innocence, but I need some time to think. My unit’s been disbanded, and my boss is dead. I’m on my own.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Parkes, struggling to keep up. ‘Just tell me where you are. I’ll pick you up. You can stay here until you get yourself sorted out.’ She thought she heard the murmur of voices in the background. It sounded as if he was maybe in a pub.

  ‘It’s too dangerous. I’ll be in touch when I can.’

  ‘They’ll find you, Blake. There are cameras everywhere. Have you even seen the papers? Your picture’s all over the front pages.’ Parkes flicked on the TV with the remote and switched to one of the rolling 24-hour news programmes. A serious-looking reporter was standing in the dark on a cliff top in Cornwall. They showed a CCTV image of Blake taken from the hotel where they’d stayed, then rolled in some footage of a bleak house on the headland and cut to an interview with Henry Bowater and his daughter, Jenni, a scared-looking young woman with rainbow coloured hair cut in a bob. Her arm was in a sling, and her father had a protective arm around her shoulder. ‘And it’s the top item on all the main news programmes.’

  ‘Elodie, I have to go. Don’t tell anyone I called. Just watch out for Sean van Dijk and keep your head down. Understand?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘It’s time to say goodbye. Thank you for everything.’

  ‘Blake?’

  The line went dead.

  Parkes checked the screen of her phone, but he was gone. She tried calling the number back but was greeted by an automated foreign voice. She didn’t need to speak French to understand she was being tol
d the number was unavailable. She tapped the phone against her chin as the now familiar grainy image of Blake filled the TV screen. The picture slowly zoomed in on his face, his eyes furtive and his shoulders slumped, looking anything but innocent.

  ‘Blake, what have you got yourself involved in?’ she asked herself, no longer feeling hungry.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  The phone and its battery hit the water in the harbour with a splash and disappeared under the surface below a stream of tiny bubbles. With a long journey ahead, it would be an inconvenience to be without a phone, but it was more important that Blake remained anonymous. A mobile in his pocket would make things far too easy for anyone trying to track him and disappearing would be difficult enough with CCTV on every street corner.

  Blake counted the last of the cash he’d earlier changed into Euros. It didn’t come to much, but if he restricted his spending it would tide him over until he could borrow or earn some more. He certainly wasn’t going to risk drawing money out of his account and giving away his location to Interpol.

  For now, he’d invested in a cheap pair of woollen gloves, a thick hat and treated himself to one last, decent meal before his enforced rationing. He’d found a low-key restaurant overlooking the harbour and ordered a rare steak with fries and a cheap bottle of red wine. One last luxury. While he ate, he orientated himself with Brest’s commercial port in the east where he was confident he would be able to pick up a lift for the first leg of his journey south.

  The sun had dropped from the sky several hours earlier and with it the temperature had plummeted. With a strengthening breeze picking up, he pulled on his hat and set out at a brisk pace to get his blood pumping. He’d trekked the sixteen miles from Landeda the previous night, along deserted country lanes after the skipper of the fishing trawler had set him ashore on a concrete pier jutting out into a narrow estuary. There had been a brief disagreement over the payment Blake had promised, but couldn’t afford to pay, but the skipper eventually accepted Blake’s assurances he would settle his dues when he was able to find a bank.