“That’s the way things are, where they always come from – the juicy ones and the frightening ones – out of a clear blue sky.”
Tristram said, “Understood.”
Izzy said, “Least expected.”
“It comes from a clear blue sky.”
On his screen Jonas had the message from Lily, sent up from the bowels of the building. “A clear blue sky is the time when our guard is lowered. Cannot help it, fact of life. It is when our alertness is dulled, and suspicions . . . There was a ferocious storm last night, even rattled the roof-tiles in Raynes Park, but out at sea, in the open Channel, it would have been horrendous. Imagine an open dinghy, a pump-up job, and it has seven passengers on it and it’s coming through fierce waves and swell and also crossing the twin shipping lanes. Precautions to intercept migrants are at base-level on the French side, and on ours. Anyone who goes into the water in those circumstances has a pressing reason to get here. When it is close to the beach at Deal, the weather alters and the storm drops and a patrol boat is launched. In these calmer conditions its radar picks up the dinghy. End of story? Not quite. At first light there is a sea mist and the patrol cutter cannot make a positive sighting, has to rely on the electronics. The dinghy runs aground. Local people help ashore six Iranian nationals, and they say they are Christians. Likely to plead persecution and stand a good chance of some sort of permission to stay. Straightforward. End of story. Too easy. They said a man was with them – described him as an ‘angel’.”
Jonas Merrick’s voice was staccato, matter of fact. He never used theatre to emphasise bullet points, his tone did not vary. Nor did he look at them.
“They say without him they would not have crossed. Without him they would have drowned. At the darkest moments, when they might have been swamped, capsized, no life-jackets, he led them in the singing of hymns. They are Christians, know their Ancient and Modern. As he did. He brings them within a hundred yards of the shore, then goes overboard. Swims away from them. They are the centre of attention: willing helpers, Border people, armed police, ambulances, the whole circus, and no sight or sound of him . . . Chose the worst conditions to attempt the crossing. Would have gauged our door was flapping open. That is ‘out of a clear blue sky’. I hope you understand.”
Both of them had noted that a new print had been taken of the dark still water in Africa or northern Australia. Both were able to identify the nostril and the beaded eye inside the pair of circles. He told them about a policeman and a policewoman from the firearms unit. About explanations that had been picked up when the Iranians were still chilled and in shock, and gabbling thanks to their God and to the “angel” sent to help them. He had a name and identification number, scribbled it, passed it to Izzy.
“What do we need to do, Jonas?” he asked.
“Dig, find me detail – anything, everything, and . . .”
“What’s the chance that he is a criminal, a druggie – a fugitive?” she asked.
“Just do it, just get on with it, just find me detail. Go on, hurry up.”
The audience terminated, they left his work area. The emptiness of the room echoed.
Tristram said, “Proper narky today, the old boy.”
Izzy said, “Because he’s frightened.”
Jonas heard her verdict. Thought it a fair assessment.
He had his filing cabinet open, was hauling out the cards. He had the list in front of him, all those who had gone on to become fighters; none of the names could be accused of cowering in cellars, all were soldiers of the caliphate. Around a hundred names now. His fingers moved over the cards with the blurring pace of a teller counting bank notes in former times. He had each card in view for the time needed to check the name: enough for him. The library of fighters who had gone away and who were – so far – unaccounted for was fixed in his memory.
What to go on, how to move forward? No description, no accent, only two factors to work on.
A leader, a man who inspired confidence, who stood at the front and did not back off. Could take a dinghy into a storm and had shown the amount of courage required by an extended Iranian family to follow, and who had brought them through. A different courage to that shown by Jonas when he sat beside Winston Gunn who wore an explosives vest which was later reported by the ordnance people to have had a killing zone of 50 metres diameter; he had been unprepared and what he did was impromptu, unrehearsed.
A singer, sufficiently familiar with formal church-based christianity that he knew the words and cadences of hymns and psalms, an area far outside the competence of Jonas Merrick who went to church only for funerals, and had been married in a registry office. And along with the Sunday morning and evensong training was the courage that was intensified by having time to consider the odds that were faced.
A formidable man. A serious man. A man of exceptional danger . . . and a man who had alighted on Jonas Merrick’s desk. He was justified in being “narky”, and would have been an idiot not to have been “frightened”. Outside his window, the storm was already history, clear blue skies had fled, and a dreary day had descended on the Thames and light rain fell.
He looked for a match, anything that would begin the process of identification.
The wind was tangling Cammy’s hair, and whipped of his bare legs, revealing the scrapes and the scars and the places where the big blood-sucking flies had bitten and left discoloured spots. There was a scar by his right knee where Ulrike had put in five stitches after probing around for shrapnel.
First he had gone behind the beach huts, had found a path where the autumn’s leaves still swirled, then walked down a residential street, where most of the people who lived there would have still been in bed or pottering around in dressing-gowns making the first cup of tea of the day. Past the castle with the old cannon in revetments on the walls and a sign stating that it was closed for the winter. He thought it a God-forsaken place . . . thought Deal held nothing for him. Wanted to get moving. He was able to manage a lurching run, and started to get blood into his legs and wind into his lungs. The town had more charity shops than he’d remembered. With the wind came the rain, which was useful. Kept the pavements near deserted. He stepped aside for a couple of Zimmer frame punters, and avoided a girl pushing a buggy. The only guy who looked at him was opening up a gallery, wearing a jacket and tie. No one else whom he passed seemed surprised that he wore a woman’s coat, not long enough to cover his knees and not much more than a cover for what old people would have called his modesty.
He came to the charity shop that the coat’s owner had named for him, down at the far end of the main street in Deal and opposite a fine church, now closed to religious worship. He hustled the coat closer to him, and sagged down in the doorway. In the gloom he could see racks of clothing, mostly women’s, and a couple of bookcases filled with paperbacks, and tables loaded with bric-à-brac. He owned nothing except for his trainers, his underpants, his wrist-watch which had been taken from a dead Syrian officer and was good quality, and his empty wallet . . . He would hitch to Canterbury, and his mum would give him cash for the journey to his target. Nobody moved him on, nobody challenged him, but a couple of dogs sniffed at him before being yanked away on their leashes, and a child walking reluctantly with a hurrying, smoking mother made a face at him. His stomach growled, but his mum would feed him when he reached home. His mum did great food and he could remember each of the favourites she served up for him, and he’d recall those tastes every time he had eaten the dry hard bread that was available to them in the field, or what they called lamb but was goat. Ulrike had cooked well but would only do it if there was a birthday, or a victory, and if a small store had been liberated and she could sweep up an armful of spices . . . A police car went by but the driver did not even glance at him, and . . . Two women arrived.
It was two hours since he had crawled ashore, and might have been a full hour since he had had his face washed by the dog and been given the coat, and had undressed under the esplanade wall. One of them
unlocked the door. Both stepped around him, and went through to the back of the shop and the lights were switched on.
He heard one say, “Maude said he was a fine young fellow, but he never spoke to her, not a word. There was a landing this morning . . .”
The other said, “Was on Facebook, they were Iranians, came through that storm – God, lucky to be alive – and he must have come with them . . . but they said he swam away.”
“Don’t know what language he’ll have. What do you think?”
“Wouldn’t know . . . Syrian, Egyptian, or another Iranian. Not a clue.”
“Well, Maude will want her coat back – and he’ll need some clothes, and we’ll not turn him away. Makes me shudder just thinking where he’ll have been and what he must have gone through. Anyway, time to get the show on the road . . .” She spoke to him slowly, loudly and accented each syllable, like he was an idiot, but she was not threatening. She was a tall woman, had green streaks in her hair and wore a floppy necklace of large stones, a tight sweater and a modest skirt, and smiled. “Come on in, friend. Let’s be having you.”
The other was younger, and Cammy noticed the rings near blocking her right nostril. “Don’t be worrying, friend. That’s what you are, a ‘friend’, and we don’t hold with chasing people like you away. In you come.”
Cammy did not have to answer. He shrugged out of the coat. He stood naked except for his trainers, and his underpants that sagged wet on his hips.
One said, “Not a bad start to a morning, but rain forecast. Quite dishy.”
The other said, “And look at his body! All those scars and stitches . . . Excuse me, bloody hell, is that a bullet hole?”
“Not anything else I can think of, pet. In and out, and going through flesh, that’s real luck. A charmed boy . . . What do you reckon?”
He was beckoned, came forward. He set his eyes to hangdog, pretended that he understood nothing, was a harmless fugitive.
The other said, “I’d guess about the size of the stuff that widow from Walmer brought in last week.”
A towel was tossed him. The one with the streaks in her hair made a gesture for him to drop his pants, and to kick off his shoes. They seemed intrigued by his wounds, not by the rest of him . . . The brothers used to see Ulrike in stages of undress, and the boys would not necessarily cover up because of her. He did as he was told and then started to towel himself, did it hard to get the blood flowing. One of them, as an afterthought, went back to the door and lowered the blind and left the sign on Closed. They started to rummage for socks, shoes, underpants, a T-shirt, and a shirt. He started to dress. The shirt was held in front of him, like he was a mannequin.
One said. “A good jacket came in at that time. Sort of tweed. A forty chest be all right?”
“Perfect.”
“What would you say for trousers?”
“I’d say a thirty-two waist and a thirty-one inside leg. Have we got that?”
A giggle. “Shall we give him tae tie?”
A chuckle. “Why not?”
He dressed. Hardly a surprise to be kitted out in the clothes of a pensioner: a checked shirt and a jacket with a fleck in it, a sober tie and brogues. He ate a cheese and lettuce sandwich, and had a swig of coffee from a flask, and was given an anorak. They laughed a bit, shy now. Perhaps they feared they patronised him. He wanted to show his appreciation, but did not speak. An extra pair of socks was stuffed in his jacket pocket, and a small bar of soap, and a little plastic razor.
One said, “We’re not all bigots and racists here. Get to London and try to find some of your own people there. Don’t think he understands a word of what I’m saying.”
The other said, “Like to think we’re all God’s children. You are very welcome.”
Cammy ducked his head, hoped they interpreted it as a gesture of appreciation; the street door was opened for him, and he left them using their toes to manoeuvre his underpants towards a waste-paper bin where his trainers had already been dumped. He went out on to the street, shrugged into the anorak and lifted the hood so that much of his face was covered. He knew the route he would take. He walked back up the High Street. They would return the lady’s coat. They would talk about their pleasure in performing a basic act of kindness. It would have happened in any small Syrian community where hospitality was an obligation and a welcome always given. It did not fit with his view of his home city up the Dover road. Kindness and generosity had twice been shown him. Not that it would deflect him when he reached his target. Then there would be no kindness, no generosity.
“So, that was the Five lot.” Dominic, in their rest room, grimaced.
“Coming up in the world, I’d say,” Babs pouted.
The phone was back in his cradle. It had taken fifteen minutes to route the call from London through a secure system, and the area of sofas and easy chairs, with a coffee machine, had been abruptly cleared of every other constable, male or female, who might have been enjoying a few minutes’ relaxation. They had been turfed out, and the room given up to Dominic and Babs, their gear still festooned over their uniforms – guns and gas, cuffs and Tasers, spare ammunition, all of it. But had assumed that their initial report, gone into the system, would take a day, maybe a week, to be noticed. No names given, but a man and a woman had shared the grilling down the phone line.
“I don’t reckon we over-egged it . . .” Dominic showing apprehension, like they had played their cards too big. “Said it as we saw it, heard it.”
“Nothing wrong with what you said, what I said. Swear by it.”
A shrug from Babs but pronounced enough to rattle the gear suspended from her shoulders. It was standard procedure for a firearms pair to attend each landing by migrants making it ashore either side of the port city of Dover. Had seemed ridiculous, a waste of time and effort and resources, when confronted with a little huddle of wet, shivering, cringing, people who seemed to think they had made it to some sort of Promised Land. All the firearms units said they felt embarrassed, awkward anyway, to have weapons bouncing on their chests when they tried to help the Border Force unit, or an ambulance crew, and the people who had come off the sea were scared of them and cowering . . . They had come into the rest room and had not yet hooked their boots up on the coffee tables when they had been alerted to the call from London. As if they were both chastened. They had heard from folk on the esplanade that the dinghy had materialised out of a sea mist and then made its final drift to the beach. The Border Force cutter, they’d been told, had never had a visual sighting of the craft, only a radar link had identified it. Must have been the moments before the mist had thinned that the joker had rolled over the side and gone into the water, and would have had to swim hard to get clear of the cluster of well-wishers and supporters and uniforms gathering around the family. Would have gone ashore perhaps 200 yards, or more, further up the shingle, then legged it. They had been up there, had cruised in the car, had not seen a fugitive, then had done their report – had repeated into the phone everything they could remember, done it between them.
It was a sobering moment. The odds were that neither Dominic nor Babs would ever fire a weapon – other than perhaps an incapacitating Taser – in a situation where the intention was to inflict a fatal wound. They were taught that a “disabling shot” was never acceptable, they would fire only to kill – had never done so, nor had any of the other officers who drove the armed response vehicles in that sector of the county. The likelihood was that Dominic and Babs would never be confronted with a situation where the Safety was off, the red laser beam settled on the target, and a finger tightening inside the trigger guard: that was what they had been trained for.
A man who had taken that degree of risk, gone into the sea to avoid being snared in the official net, would have had a powerful reason to avoid them. Would have been a serious player. Would have been a man representing the reason why they were sent on each call out for a migrant landing. Might have been the sort of man that in changed circumstances they would
have been required to “take down”, might have been the moment which the endless, repetitive training predicted. Did not know how they would be, either of them, if called upon to kill a guy posing a supreme threat, whether they would take it in their stride, whether they would crumble, whether if either of them fired they would then find the urge for “high fives” irresistible.
He had been out on the London road, going south and west from Deal, and had reached a tree that gave some shelter from the increasingly persistent rain. Already his trousers were soaked at the ankles, and his hair would once more have been plastered down. A van had stopped for him.
Where was he going? Canterbury.
Why was he not on a train or a bus? Had been out the previous evening, had been in a bar in Deal, pocket picked, no money and no cards.
What was in Canterbury? His mum was in Canterbury. Was coming back to see her having been “away”. The van had the wipers going and the central display showed sharp short showers for the rest of the day, and after the forecast a local radio programme had resumed with saccharine tributes to birthdays – and gave the date. The date was the trigger. He told the van driver that the next day was his mum’s birthday. Seemed to give him some credence.
Where had he been? Down on the Mediterranean (which would account for his weathered face). Needed to talk, but only to answer questions. Not being evasive and creating suspicion, but more as someone who was shy. Had worked in bars in the south of France and in Italy at the Adriatic coast resorts. He would have said that it was wise to beware of chatting with strangers; a man could easily be taken into a string of lies that would then trip him. He said the minimum.
The surprise was that the van driver seemed another stranger showing goodwill and generosity. He was not going to Canterbury but would do a short detour – “Not a problem, mate, no problem at all” – then would drop him on the A257, around Shatterling or Durlock, and he’d get a bus from there into Canterbury. The van driver must have felt good that day – like a bond had come up, or a promise was going to be honoured – and had wriggled in his seat and brought a five pound note out of his hip pocket and had palmed it to Cammy – “Think nothing of it, mate, can lose that on expenses and not even be trying”. He had come from a world where death came casually and frequently, where suspicion was rampant, where strangers were questioned, interrogated . . . He had been dropped off at a bus shelter. A bus had come along in half an hour and his stomach groaned again in hunger, but he had eaten that morning in the charity shop, and going without food or drink, for a day and a night, was not remarkable.
The Crocodile Hunter Page 13
