The bus was almost empty; he did not have to talk. He had used most of the £5 on his fare. The cathedral tower was in the distance as they skirted the housing estates on the edge of the city.
He would see his mum, then would move on. He would be in the city in a few hours, had a schedule worked out in his mind, then would move on. He stepped off the bus and kept his head down. It was his own ground, his own territory.
Jonas fidgeted, rapped a pencil on his work surface, was annoyed with himself for displaying his stress.
Tristram said, “They’re just two coppers – ordinary, conscientious plods – and this is their valued judgement.”
Izzy said, “They were there within a few minutes, no one else had done much of a debrief before they pitched up. The boat people are Iranian and Christian, two adult males, two females and two children – don’t have the family alignment yet. They were in Bordeaux, in a café, and a guy who was sheltering there and had no money was going to be slung out by the manager. The family felt some sympathy and it was a deal of convenience. The guy ‘borrows’ a vehicle, drives them to Dunkirk. They had a smuggler contact there.”
“Had a price agreed, complete rip-off. There was a powerful wind over there last evening. Only an idiot would take to the water.”
“The guy takes over negotiation, will pay one tenth of the price. Does some ‘persuading’ on the goons, a weapon at the top goon’s throat, and they take the dinghy, an inflatable, and launch.”
As he listened, Jonas Merrick played games in his mind: worked up a profile of a man who would go to sea in those conditions, would ally himself to a helpless gaggle of unfortunates who could offer him nothing other than a way of crossing the Channel in secrecy.
Tristram said, “The Iranians called him an angel. He went into the water – mid-channel – when a kid was washed overboard. He brought the kid back . . . If this had happened off the coast here on a Bank Holiday Monday then people would be talking about medals. They’re sick, all heaving their guts up.”
Izzy said, “Vomiting everywhere, and baling for their lives, and terrified, and they’re hit by the bow wave of a monster container ship and they’re damn near dodging other craft. He starts to sing.”
A frown settled on Jonas’s forehead. Slight, but pursued by a twitch of his eyebrows – as if greater concentration was being brought to bear on what they said. He stared into the middle distance and his eyes took in the crocodile’s head and the smooth waters of a lagoon. He was hearing little that was new and had not figured in the report directed to him by Lily down in the bowels of the building; he needed flesh on bones, meat on them.
“They all join in. Hymns. In English.”
Tristram said, “So, the plods wanted to know who he was – what he called himself and everything they knew about him.”
Izzy said, “Who is this guy belting out Ancient and Modern into the elements? They seemed to realise they’d spilled too much, had nothing more out of them.”
“Like a tap turned off. Like they protected him. Couldn’t get another syllable out of them . . . The ‘angel’ stayed anonymous.”
He told them to go down there. Immediately. Felt a cold on his neck and did not know whether he would be lucky, every time lucky. Snapped at them to go, go fast.
Chapter 6
He spoke to himself, and to the crocodile pinned to the wall. Quietly but not in as measured a tone as he would have wished.
“Not a quitter. Not if he went through that storm.”
He glanced down occasionally but not from necessity. He knew the names on the list, and was familiar with their backgrounds and motivations. All of them represented a high degree of risk.
“If he were a quitter he would have taken a look at that storm, turned over in his sleeping-bag and closed his eyes. Waited for another day, or night.”
There were three cards that he kept flicking back to, where his eyes would linger momentarily then go back to the beast with the scaled skin and the awkward and uneven teeth.
“He’s not coming back because he’s missing home, because they don’t serve cod and chips in any café along the Euphrates. He’s coming back to hit and to hurt.”
Jonas usually liked it least when the work space beyond his partition walls buzzed with voices and the squealing of chairs being shunted around, and the odd claps of laughter or peals of humour, and liked it even less when voices were raised in dispute: then, he would permit a slow snarl to drag across his face and he would believe they were beneath his attention . . . Not that morning, quiet bounced off his walls.
“He comes back to hit and to hurt. It dominates him, consumes him. No other explanation. Forget anything about him softening, wanting to put it all behind him . . . He’s spent years out there in rough combat, he’s a changed man.”
But that day Jonas would have liked to have heard the bustle of the team’s voices. Would have killed to have felt that he was not alone . . . Of the three cards that he examined there were two that had a few of the necessary markers, and one that stood out. He detested the idea of “rucksack preconceptions”, and when he had youngsters under his tutelage he would rail against the idea of a closed mind, fitting facts to the outlines of prejudice and the distortions that came from blinkered thinking. He would continue to stamp on a conclusion, give it every opportunity to wriggle away, and when it was almost crushed – as would have been any living creature that was unfortunate enough to find itself between the jaws of that brute pictured on his wall – then he might accept that the idea held substance. He needed certainty.
“Nothing soft about him. Enveloped in anger. Never going to say, ‘Sorry and all that, seemed a good idea at the time. Want to settle down now, have a second chance, drive a delivery van, rear some kids, put it all behind me. Oh, the killing? Someone else did that, I was just a bottle-washer.’ Not that sort of man.”
There was a youth, second-year computer studies at Westminster University, had done time in Pentonville for credit card fraud and inside had played in a rock band which was thought by the authorities to be helpful and likely to wean him from potential radicalisation. Wrong: he had taken the black flag shilling, and had travelled to Syria . . . Another had worked in an uncle’s record store in Wolverhampton, and was known for his knowledge of vinyl and had an interest in guitar playing until an imam had snared him, and he had gone and there were reports that he had died in an air strike but not confirmed. And there was another . . . the card that he most often went back to, and . . . The silence was broken by the iron-tipped shoes rattling down the corridor, hesitating momentarily by the door, and the squeak as it opened and closed. The AssDepDG was at his entrance. Jonas did not turn to face his visitor but addressed the wall, the beast.
“Not there yet. But confident that we are close to an identification. Will it come soon enough? Don’t know . . . If I’m right then you will be told.”
The footsteps moved away. The door into the corridor was opened, then closed. He was alone. It would be at least another hour before the pair of them reached the Kent coast where the family were temporarily held. No point in Jonas decrying their ability, their minimal experience: they were what he had. Stretched like a bow string to almost breaking point, reserves committed . . . The three that he had identified for further interest had a common musical background: it was a frail and fine thread with which to work, but the last was more promising. He breathed hard.
“And you are alone. And you may be frightened.”
He gazed at a photograph . . . not that the appearance of any young man would be the same now. Would have aged, and the features would have attracted a hardness, and the eyes would have gone as cold as any predator’s . . . It was a pleasant face that Jonas looked at.
It was too early in the day. Cammy had no wish, yet, to go through the city.
Time enough later for the indulgence of an old haunt and a place of nostalgia. He had trekked up a hill and had passed the formal main gate of what had been Her Majesty’s Prison, Canter
bury. He was now hunkered down, behind bushes, and gravestones, like rows of sentinels, shielded him from the few who wandered along the path to the door of St Martin’s.
He knew it well. It was dark, shielded by trees, and pretty much as he remembered it. It was a place of his childhood, a refuge. He could sit there, rain or shine, steaming hot days or chilly with frost on the grass between the stones, and he would be hidden. He knew this place because it overlooked the high red-brick outer wall of the gaol. His mother had gone to the prison every Thursday morning, for 11 o’ clock visiting. He and his half-sister had been dragged along during school holidays. Once, only once, had Cammy been inside. Had smelt the piss, and the disinfectant, and the stale air, and had heard the clang of iron gates slammed shut, and the rattle of keys. The first time had been the last time and he had sat at the table while his mother had tried to make conversation with her eldest child, and he had seemed indifferent to where he was, and had hardly wanted to talk. His half-sister had cried quietly until his mother had kicked her shin. Cammy had not spoken and had stared at the floor. Going in and coming out, queueing with other families, and seeing the smaller faces and bowed shoulders of the inmates, Cammy had made a decision. Never going back. The next time they had come, he had slipped his mother’s hold on his hand and had sprinted up the hill and had gone into the churchyard and made a den for himself and avoided a gardener who tidied and swept, and had been waiting at the prison gate when his mum and his sister had emerged.
His mum had tolerated his defiance. The next year Cammy had won his short-lived scholarship to go to the college high on the hill above the city, and the next year had seen his half-brother come home, loaf and lounge about in the day and disappear at night. The year after the next year, his half-brother had been taken to Maidstone gaol, a Category C offender, another stretch and not the last and his mum had not fought Cammy over attendance. He assumed his mum had hoped that taking him to Canterbury gaol at an impressionable age would turn him away from a life of crime. Truth was, Cammy had rather enjoyed his half-brother’s company and lifestyle, everything about him except for the years of imprisonment.
He was hungry but he would be fed when darkness fell on the city, when he would go back to his home on the estate above Sturry on the city’s outskirts. He would walk there, had a fast loping stride that could cover ground; was able to trek long distances even when the weight of the heavy machine-gun was biting the flesh on his shoulder . . .
Canterbury prison was now a builders’ site. Men worked in high-visibility orange. Far beyond the cranes were the cathedral’s towers. He would go there, then home. He thought it would be useful to be still and to watch, and he had time to kill.
Perhaps it was that ability, to assess and make judgements, that had propelled Cammy in his role as Kami al-Britani into the rank where his counsel was accepted by the group. If he said how it would be, then there would be no dispute from any of them: not from Mikki or Tomas, nor from Stan or Dwayne, or Pieter – not from Ulrike. Missed them, missed them so bad. Had made his promise while the hatred burned fiercest. Would get to the target, would have it in his weapon’s sight, would shout out all their names – and he would fire. Had nothing without them but for the determination to avenge . . .
Cammy had no idea of the situation affecting his security now that Syria was far behind him. They had lectures from guys representing the Amn al-Askari people but that was about the intelligence needed for planning attacks up the road. Once they had been addressed by a plump, bearded man from Amn al-Kharji which did foreign intelligence, anything beyond the battlefield. Often enough they were visited, even in the front line, by the more sinister of the organisations, Amn al-Dawla, who did the counter-intelligence of tracking down spies and informers, and it was a nightmare for all them around Cammy that they be betrayed. But he knew nothing of the intelligence-gathering systems in place back here, but he was suspicious, cautious. Had slid from the dinghy, and then swum up the shoreline, but had no knowledge of whether his name figured in briefings, whether he was forgotten, whether he was tracked, or whether he was an old file on a dust-covered shelf, deep in a hard drive library, and not looked at. Did not know. But assumed the worst, always good to look for the worst.
Time passed. He was not seen, attracted no attention, and the afternoon came and his stomach hurt, and ahead of him was the cathedral. And in the span of a day and night he would be far from here, and preparing to strike, and the hours slipped by and a man came to shut the gate to the churchyard. When the cranes on the site were still and when the high-visibility jackets were gone, he would move. He had the ability to sustain patience, and would need the rest before the following day came, his reason for living.
“You know what I’m thinking Mags?”
“Sorry, love, not a clue. What are you thinking?”
They were well on the road and the camper was travelling smoothly and within the speed limit, and traffic flowed easily around them. Baz drove carefully, and frequently checked his mirrors, and Mags had kicked off her shoes and had her feet hitched up on the dash in front of her. They were beyond Aachen and short of Maastricht and closing on the internal European frontier. On schedule and going at a speed that matched the habits of an elderly British couple returning home to the UK after a pleasant few days on the Continent – and bringing with them a little cargo.
“I’m thinking that we might have company.”
“You sure of that, Baz?”
“Not entirely sure, but almost sure.”
“You got the nose for it, love, if we have company.”
He explained. There was an Audi in their lane, dark green paintwork. A good colour because it did not stand out. Three back from them. Did not come closer, nor did it drop further behind. Very soon, they would be leaving German territory and going into Dutch jurisdiction . . . which was an opportunity, as he told it. He had her clicking at her i-Pad, checking the map.
“Just sort of need to nail it down.”
“Best idea, Baz, just that – nail it down with a bloody great hammer.”
He did not have to say that “company”, a police tail, would be a severe handicap to their hopes of a better funded lifestyle for their remaining years. Pretty obvious to both that the package they ferried was not cigarettes or cannabis skunk, and the weight of the item was such that there had been a sweat sheen on the forehead of the lad who had slung it toward Baz in the back of the camper. Obvious that it was weapons; weapons, in Baz’s limited experience, paid well. Where weapons were used was not a consideration in his mind, and she had dismissed it. “We’re just the delivery team, love, and how it’s used is not our business.” And he had thought she meant that the contents of a package were unlikely to disturb her beauty sleep – well, what there was of her “beauty”, and he chuckled. He told her what he wanted, and she started to plot the route for him . . . First he had to make sure.
Still in Germany. Still cruising, and had been holding that central lane for the last 40 klicks. A sudden flick of the wheel as they were coming towards a junction for the centre of Aachen, and they went into the inside lane, and he slowed the camper. He was checking his mirrors, and was rewarded. There were headlights flashing in the middle lane, the reaction of annoyed motorists. The Audi had left its lane and, alongside appeared a BMW 5 series, in the same green, and a guy was yammering into his sleeve. Baz had his confirmation. He went back into the middle lane and the Beamer and the Audi were left to sort themselves out.
“You want to know a bit more about what I’m thinking, Mags?”
“Tell me.”
“I’m saying to myself that we have German company. Chance is that soon we will have the Dutch doing the job. And another chance is that we’re going to have attention all the way to the Channel. That will be how it works.”
“They were too complacent, love?”
“Can’t fault that, Mags. We just potter along and they forget their procedures. Except we’re not as dumb as they’d like us to be.”
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“Too right.”
What they had never talked about, had not needed to, was a future for the pair of them if they ever went into the net. Talked about the good times and what the money would bring, and where the winters could be spent and where sunshine and cheap booze could be factored in; did not talk about arrest, separation, meeting in the cells below a courtroom, being shipped off to different gaols – no conjugal visits – and big lonely stretches of time and growing old . . . and none of the money safely cached and waiting.
Baz said, “The Germans won’t go on to Dutch ground. They’ll hand over at the white line and the Dutch will take over. Bet you, if we were still on this road, heading for Zeebrugge, and looking out for them then we’d see the Dutch. Just a couple of old people aren’t we, half senile, no wits. Tell you another thing, this will be a special operation, limited access, nothing for general radio alerts. Piece of cake, Mags.”
“Go for it then, love.”
The last turning off before the frontier, Baz was holding the centre lane. The turn was sudden and the truck behind him was a whisker off a collision. He stabbed across the slow lane and on to the filter road, went on to a roundabout and was accelerating, foot down, took a left turn into a suburban street on the outskirts of Aachen, and past a school where flocks of kids were emerging, and more rights and more lefts, and Mags singing out the direction. Then south, off towards Belgium, her finger tracing roads leading into France.
The Crocodile Hunter Page 14
