“That is her. That is Sadie Jilkes.”
“What do we do?”
“I go and have a brief word with her. We live off hunches and instincts and more often they direct you, me, towards the correct destination. A tide in the affairs of men that taken at the flood leads on to fortune. Anyway, something like that.”
He passed the dog to Babs, opened his door quietly, then leaned back inside.
Jonas said, voice little more than a murmur, “They have excellent capabilities of disguise. They can lie in the water, still as a floating log, only showing a tip of a nostril or glint of an eye. I do not locate it by hiding on the bank. Nor do I find it by wading out and splashing around. Much better to take advantage of the crocodile’s intent. Might be a wildebeest at a water-hole, or a young deer that is alone, naive, does not read the danger signs, or even a goat tethered by a shoreline and enabling hunter, possibly, to confront the crocodile . . . A useful image, the tethered goat. Mrs Jilkes is acting out the part of the goat. I’m sure you follow me. Get the brute out of its cover and then, chuck a big net over it, subdue it, negate the power of the gnashers, cart it off to a zoo and put it in a cage. That’s my idea of the best place for crocodiles . . . and I’ll be fine.”
He stepped out from the car. Hardly wanted two tooled-up young police officers, pumping adrenaline, accompanying him. Heard the dog scratching at the window behind him and thought it could probably do with a square of grass and a gulp of fresh air. Mrs Jilkes was in front of him, walking slowly into the darkness beyond the street light. He accepted that, in his dealings with the young officers, he posed as an expert and a man with a well-full of experience. Was in fact a novice. Had spent his working life corralled in an office, his attention on screens and his card index system and a phone clamped to his ear. It was an inexact science. He thought of the coming contact with the mother of a man subsumed with loathing, with anger. She might spit in his face.
“Mrs Jilkes? Mrs Sadie Jilkes? A moment, please.”
She stopped, turned. Jonas stopped beneath the street light. She would have seen him clearly, his face and his clothing, should have been reassured. No preamble, no messing with her, no soft soaping. Jonas looked into her face. Her eyes quizzed him, her jaw set in defiance. A tough woman who did not need a bouquet of gilded lilies, and whose life was hard . . . He ducked his head as if respect were owed her.
“We believe, Mrs Jilkes, that he is very close. If I am wrong, as I may be, then we face a time of maximum danger. But I believe my assessment is correct – that he is here to see you. You are, of course, at liberty to reject my request but you would then have to live with the consequences . . . It would help me greatly if . . .”
He told her what would help him greatly, and looked for a reaction and did not get one, saw only the weariness in her face. She said nothing: did not agree and did not reject. She walked away. He thought she might have started to limp as if a blister or a bunion pained her. He was confident. Had to be. Stayed in the darkness until she had turned the corner and was on her way to the last home in the cul-de-sac.
He went back to the car and the dog jumped across the back seat at the pleasure of reunion.
Babs asked, “How did it go?”
“Time will tell.”
Dominic said, “Difficult to subdue the brute, that crocodile, even when netted. Why not just shoot it? Turn it into handbags and dog food?”
“And then it is in the territory of mythology and legend. A glorious death at the hands of the tyrants, bullies, despots. I prefer the cage. Endless days without hope turning into months, then years. How did it go? Not long until we find out.”
He settled in the back seat. He felt old and tired, clung to his instinct that seemed – now – fragile.
Chapter 13
The phone beeped. The dog grunted as if annoyed.
Jonas heard the voice of the AssDepDG, clipped and well-schooled, clear but with an undisguised hint of nerves. “Just going to bring you up to speed.”
“All quiet at this end – but not for long if I am correct in the assessment.”
“Like a morgue here, all except for the control areas. Everybody we can turf out and put in the field is now assigned.”
“We are waiting. I remain confident.”
“What would you like first? The almost bad news, or the definite bad news?”
“I’ll take ‘almost’. Is it relevant to me?”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. We are operating in a fog. One of those where you hold your hand out in front of your face and cannot see it. We have a target in Leeds who should be doing the washing up in an internet café, except he is not. He is off the radar. We reckon he’s the facilitator . . . You want the second option, ‘definite’?”
“I’m listening.”
Jonas could picture the man alone in the pint-sized office awarded to an AssDepDG, all the rooms around him silent and empty, no footsteps in the corridors, and no voices around the coffee machine. Maybe he would go outside, using the side door and stride around the perimeter fence of the gardens, letting rain drip on him smoking a cigarette. Jonas imagined the AssDepDG dragging a filter-tip, then tossing it in a gutter, then returning to the building, checking the control area: his reward would have been shaken heads, no change of situation.
“The courier I told you about . . . the Germans have lost him, and the Dutch and the Belgians have not picked him up, and the French are still checking. Actually, it’s a couple, and mislaid with them is this bloody missile launcher. It makes for a difficult situation, Jonas.”
“If you say so. They’ll be picked up at a port.”
“You show, Jonas, very tolerable optimism. We are going through the protocols, procedures of notification for an automatic stop . . . God, Jonas, you should know that. Matters of that type take time, take fucking authorisation. I hope that we have the necessary in place.”
“At my end, I remain confident.”
“Your boy down there, he will need – if your prediction is correct, Jonas – a facilitator. Whom we have lost. He will also need a weapon with guaranteed hitting power. And that is also lost. Is your target, locating him, our best chance?”
“I think so.”
A pause on the line, an intake of breath, a moment of consideration. Then the reason for the call. “Jonas, I value your judgement, but . . .”
“If you value it then you will ride with it.”
“He was, in that theatre, a formidable fighter and a very fair tactician.”
“So we are told.”
“Quite a reputation in the combat zones.”
“Which means that the next few hours offer the best chance of taking him down.”
“I am saying, Jonas that I am forced to believe this is the moment to beef up where you are. I’ve gone along with you, your concept, but I am – sorry to say this – puking at the risk involved. ‘Beef up’ means putting in some serious resources, but police resources in the main part. By dawn, I can have a couple of hundred officers there, at least five more gun teams, can close off the whole bloody place. Should he be there. That’s the other side of the coin. Is he actually there, actually coming, actually prepared to risk his neck on a visit to his mother, actually going to present this opportunity to us? It is what I want to do now, Jonas. Saturate the place.”
“Put in the Parachute Regiment, maybe a Commando of Marines, rustle up a company of Gurkhas. Excellent idea, but wait until dawn, otherwise they’ll be blundering around and we’re bound to have some ‘blue on blue’ casualties . . . Yes, saturate the place. First class.”
Why? Why had he praised the idea that was anathema to him? Unmarked vans loaded with H&K armed cops, roadblocks materialising, and all looking for a skilled and practised expert in evasion. Cameron Jilkes, as Jonas believed, had exfiltrated the Syrian battlefield, had worked his way across an Arab land mass, had crossed Europe, had traversed the Channel in an open dinghy, had probably reached the city he had adorned as a chorister, would see his mum a
nd sign off his life. He had a target that he would walk through Hell – had already done so – to reach. Obvious to Jonas that the man would identify the cordon, turn and slip away.
“Pleased to have you on board, Jonas. Hoped you would not challenge it, the concept . . . If he’s there.”
“I think he’ll come. If he does, then his mother will feed him. He will be anxious and exhausted and will crash out. Probably sleep till midday, flop about for a bit, then think of moving on. He will be in a comfort zone – and you will have organised a perimeter, put it in place, but not early.”
“First class. Thank you, Jonas.”
The call ended. He thought the AssDepDG a good man, well stacked with dignity and humility, and right now likely to fill his pants under the weight of the stresses challenging him. If the blood started to flow, if the triage doctors were casting around for guidance on who was worth spending time on and who was already on a death conveyor belt, if the nation was gawping at TV images of stricken buildings, weeping families, then a gale of accusations would buffet the AssDepDG: “. . . You followed the assessments of one Jonas Merrick, a junior member of staff, and with no command experience; followed his advice without any examination . . .” He shivered, pocketed his phone and the dog settled. It would be all over, well before any ring of steel was in place.
“You feeling all right, sir?” Babs asked.
“Never better,” Jonas answered her, grimly.
They’d exchanged glances. It had surprised them that there had been no attempt from the back seat to keep the conversation private – “need to know” – and both would now have accepted that they had grandstand seats, a privileged view, of what might or might not happen. They were, Dominic and Babs, going to be a part of the end-game, simple enough and easy to understand – but scary. She eased out of the car, said something about the need to get in the dark among the bushes.
She had her phone. The H&K bounced on her chest, hurt the flesh under the bullet-stopping vest. Sent a text message. Thought they were entitled to know the rank of this guy in the back of their car, and seemed to have too many answers.
Back in the car, she turned to him and smiled. “You still feeling all right, sir?”
“About the same as the last time you asked me . . . Difficult, isn’t it, the waiting?”
Cammy had reached the cemetery behind his home.
He threaded through the first line of gravestones.
He walked on grass, took care he did not trip on fallen stones or vases or flower holders. As he remembered, it was the older graves that he would find first, those with the higher and more ornamental crosses and angel figures with the drooped heads of the dead. He would have to head for the far side. His shoes were leaden and he would have left a trail of mud from the field. Not that it mattered.
Could have been a century of the dead lying here, and supposedly at peace, at rest, the pain of living taken from them. He knew where he would pause. Although darkness was around him, he seemed to remember where he should be, had recall of the sights and the silences of the cemetery. There were men who kept the place tidy with petrol-powered strimmers and rakes and shears and wheelbarrows: like it mattered, was important, how the dead should be left. Not in Syria . . . not when the corpses were from outside the ranks of his battalion, the foreign fighters, and absolutely not when the bodies had been of their enemy; they were left for the vultures – flying nearly as high as the cursed drone planes – and the wolves and the feral dogs, and even for villagers who would creep out from holes under their buildings and strip anything of value worn on a wrist or around a neck, or secreted in a wallet. Cammy felt the pain of leaving shallow scraped graves for Mikki and for Tomas, and for Dwayne. Each more hurried than the last, and no time for respect or for anything that was sombre and marked the farewell to a good friend, a brother. Raw hands, bleeding, after wrenching at stones, or sharp flint rock to cover their bodies. No foragers, no wolves or dogs and no vultures over the Sturry cemetery.
He assumed that his mum still came to the grave. Cammy remembered that she would go into the back bedroom, stand on tiptoe, look out over the little garden at the rear of the house and might see the raised earth and the wooden cross. By now the earth would have sunk and there might be a proper stone in place; likely that Cammy’s half-brother would have paid for it.
He went towards the grave. Bats flew around him. His half-sister was a few places to the left, and a couple of rows behind a big stone on which was the carved message that for years had made Mum need to wipe her eyes: If tears could build a stairway And memories build a lane We’d walk right up to Heaven And bring you home again. Not that Mum would have allowed anyone to see a single tear, would turn away to hide it. He did the counting, to the left of a child’s grave and paused, then went right . . . There was now a stone but only a few inches high and the earth had settled and grass grew, and one rose was fresh in a vase. Must have been cut and placed within the last 72 hours because it had not drooped and the petals were still tightly bound. Not that his half-sister had meant much to Cammy. But she had been Mum’s favourite child. He stood there in the darkness and the rain was on his face and his ankles were sodden and the stubble was growing fast on his cheeks . . . And himself? By the next evening, he would be – whatever was left of him – on a mortuary slab and the post mortem would take place the following morning. And when they had finished chopping at him and slicing him, they would order a cremation and the ashes would not be given to his mum. They would be frightened, after what he’d achieved in the morning, that his name would become a rallying cry and his grave become a shrine. Needed to be certain of that because it would be hard in the last moments.
He supposed that his footprints would be clear in the muddy grass around his half-sister’s grave. Not important. He stood and listened. As the leader of the brothers he had always preached the need for moments of quiet, for time spent hoovering up the sounds of the night: a dog might bark and should be avoided; a sentry might cough and should be approached from behind and speared with a knife; a twig might break, leaves might be scuffed as an enemy changed position, easing his weight from left foot to right; a weapon might be armed; or a match scraped and the flame hidden in cupped hands . . .
Vicky, good and warm and welcoming Vicky and all the crying and yelling had been fake and for her husband. Vicky had said that the spook people had been around to hers. He thought they would be crap, thought also that if they kept watch it would be from a car facing the front, and that the guns would be up the road. Not here . . . believed if they had been all around the house, telescopic sights on him and image-intensifier lenses picking him out, that he would have known it, sensed it. Good to have been with Vicky but the rainwater was stinging the scrapes on his face from the chair.
He mouthed something to the low stone and dropped his fingers on to it, traced the indentations, read her name, wished her well; had not much else to tell her.
Wondered what he would say to his mum, when they hugged, her warm and dry and him cold and wet . . . He reached the overgrown hedge at the back of the cemetery. Paused there, again, to listen.
Sadie Jilkes, home from work, would eat toast, drink tea, then sit in her chair looking out through the French windows into her back garden. It seemed that the rain eased and the panes no longer ran with falling streams . . . She knew which way he would come.
The plate was still on her lap and she could not be bothered to place it on the table, nor could she be bothered to put the empty mug there which was balanced on her thigh. There was a considerable amount that Sadie could no longer be bothered to do. There was an empty vase on the table; there were hardy annuals outside in the beds from which she could have cut flowers but had not. The grass outside was too long and she had a push mower in the garage but could not be bothered to use it. Weeds choked the beds – she had not cleared them for weeks . . . Funny that amongst the chaos of the garden the rose bush flourished. It had been a present from her elder son. Her elder son ha
d formed an alliance with a guy who owned a market garden. He grew roses, legitimate, and also grew cannabis plants under glass or in plastic tunnels, and it had been thought a great wheeze, sure to be safe, overlooked. The guy was inside on a five-year stretch but, long before, her son had brought her the rose bush, had planted it himself, had shown an aptitude she’d not have acknowledged. Most weeks in the summer she would use kitchen scissors to cut a stem, lop off the leaves and then place it in the vase on the grave. That was the way her younger son would come, and she expected he would pause by his half-sister’s stone.
As she looked out of the window and waited to see a shifting shadow, in her mind she played the image of the man who had stopped her as she had trudged up the hill from the bus-stop. Not a frightening man. Had he been, she would have hurried away.
A sort of guarantee had been given him. A price came with it. She had thought it a good deal and the best one likely to be offered.
He had seemed a man who could be trusted and had had a kindly tone in his voice . . . She thought that had her elder boy been with her, and not banged away in a cell, he would have warned her: “Beware the ones you think are sensitive, friendly. Sure as day follows night, they’re the ones who’ll screw you”.
She watched the window. And knew what she would say. Had it clear in her mind.
Knew also that a young man and a young woman had taken over the front room of the Hunters’ house. Knew also that in a few hours she would be up and dressed, clean clothes, washed but not ironed, and would be away down the hill to catch the bus at the Margate road stop and be taken into the city for her first shift. In a few hours it would be the start of another day for her, and her life would have moved on.
The Crocodile Hunter Page 29
