“Just something for your safekeeping, young man. Keep it handy and don’t lose it.”
Closing the front door behind her, Sadie Jilkes looked back at her house, checked that only the hall light was on.
She stepped off her path and on to the pavement and turned towards the mouth of the cul-de-sac, and light flooded across her. The Hunters’ door was open, and they came spilling out. The security light under their eaves shone bright. They were already, unusually, dressed for the day.
The whole family came across the road. Strange, she would reflect afterwards, that it was not the parents who spoke but their children. Nice enough kids and polite, but what would they know? What business was it of theirs? They stood in front of her, blocked her.
“Did he come, Mrs Jilkes?” asked Bradley.
“If it’s any of your concern – came and went.”
“And your front light went on and those beggars in our front room went charging out,” said Karen.
“Did they?”
The boy asked, “Was that a signal for them to come running?”
The girl asked, “At school we called that a snitch. Did you snitch on Cameron?”
“I’ve work to go to.” No way past them, her way ahead blocked. The parents stood behind their kids, quiet but showing their emotions.
From the boy, “You did the signal so they could get him?”
From the girl, “Told on your son? They’ll shoot him, won’t they?”
“We wanted to help you. Don’t you understand?” Bradley spat.
“Get him away, not have him shot. He’s Cameron, just a silly kid who took a wrong path. And you are his mother,” Karen hissed.
She pushed past them. Her world and no room for them inside it. Sadie Jilkes had a long walk to the bus-stop, but all downhill.
“I have him, I saw him. Straight ahead . . .”
A fleeting glimpse where the path beside the river ran straight, and across the river was a street of houses and a light pierced the trees, and Tristram had seen the movement in front of him.
“Just up there. Definite. I saw him.”
Behind him he heard a bubbling gulp. He halted and almost fell but kept his balance and saw Izzy a yard clear of the bank, in the stream. He imagined that in a moment, as if a dam broke, she would scream. He took a few paces back, bent and reached down, his arm snaking between stinging nettles and across smooth mud, and his hand took Izzy’s. He dragged her up. Tristram fancied that it would have been Izzy’s dignity that was the casualty. She came up easily enough. Nothing broken except pride and nothing bruised except esteem. He put an arm around her shoulder, and brushed a kiss on her forehead.
“We have to move it. I saw him.”
“It’s in the water, my fucking shoe. One of my shoes is.”
“Just manage, do the best you can.”
The path was narrow and slippery, like they trod on ice, and Tristram called in and said where they were and what he had seen, and said that Izzy had fallen in the stream but was now with him and . . . A curt response, no praise and no sympathy . . . How would it end? This was the first time either of them had been out of Thames House on an operation, come down from the third floor and become part of an arrest mission unit. Had seen it often enough in the shaky, bouncing images that came off the body cameras – some little sod spread-eagled down on the ground and the guns and voices around him. Did not think it would end as the body cameras showed it. If only half of what they had been told of Cameron Jilkes was true, if he had only a small part of the capabilities awarded him, then he would try to break away in the darkness. Not that darkness would be with them much longer. It would be a shooting job, if they were lucky. Would be a manhunt job if it fouled. Would be a shambles. He stumbled along the path and Izzy followed him as best she could: plucky girl and there were little squeals from her, there might be stones on the path or glass or brambles, and he remembered she had pink toenails, shoes off in the house and almost asleep . . . and there was a new factor in the way it would play out.
“We’re following him, Izzy, and what that means is that we are giving the guns a better chance.”
“Something like that.”
“I don’t see myself in that garb.”
“Nor me. Not running after a fugitive in the middle of the night, not going without a shoe and not slopping around in a stream. And not barging into people’s houses, and not lying, and lording it over them, and tricking that kid with a fucking ice-cream. Not right for me.”
“Nor me.”
“But I’m frightened, Tristram, frightened it’ll be down to us, that he gets through.”
“Just keep going.”
Had his hand behind him, and one of hers slotted into his. They did not hear the sounds of flight ahead of them, and did not see any movement, but thought the light was breaking, with a soft grey smear.
Wolfboy had gone west of the Peak District National Park, and had no need to hurry, and his tank had sufficient fuel.
It was a meandering route but each time he looked at his watch, and checked the satnav, he believed he had the schedule set correctly.
He wondered how he would be treated, afterwards, by the people who had recruited him, who knew what part he had played. With respect, he believed. His destination was Grantham, the town in Lincolnshire where a former Prime Minister had been brought up. Out by the crematorium was a car park that had, he was told, minimal camera surveillance.
The vehicle handled reasonably and he had become used to the vagaries imposed by the new weight it carried . . . It would be a fine man he gave the cargo to, a man to be admired.
Cammy came out of the trees beside the stream. He passed the back of a new housing development: a pristine collection of townhouses and apartments, rows of parked cars, and lights above the parking areas. They had been building it when he had gone away. Beyond was the park, and benches down by the stream. So tired. Needed to rest and to wash his face and hands, clean the mud off his clothes . . . Then would walk to the station and buy the ticket with his mother’s money, and would sit or stand on the train, and would be rushed to London . . . Then? It would be good to feel the weight of the launcher in his hands, and all fast and all finished quick. Driving the vehicle through the fence and then the chase, and maybe having to cross the full width of a concrete runway, shouting behind him and occasional shots that would be aimed too high, too low or too wide. They would give him – when he took possession of the weapon and the vehicle – pictures of the buildings that were his target. He would not actually get up to them, certainly not into them, but if he were within 200 yards of them, probably single storey, prefabricated and without windows, he could crouch and aim the launcher, go through the sights and lock on the target and squeeze the trigger and feel the thunder blow and the flash of the flame from its exhaust. Could follow the flight of it, track it until it hit – then load the next, and fire, and load again. Might let go four of them, even five, if the couriers had managed to bring that many bombs for the thing. That, Cammy estimated, was when the first of their bullets might hit him. Not likely, with the first one, to be a killing shot. Many more would follow. Might fire 25 into him, might creep close, and him long gone, and fire shots into his head . . . as it would have been at Flores off the Azores, the Atlantic islands.
A master who taught English at the college had been there. He’d had a fine voice, and had made the poetry alive. A ship in Elizabethan times, Sir Richard Grenville its master, 53 Spanish galleons and the Revenge alone, a day-long savage fight and a final capitulation and the buccaneer carried aboard the enemy flagship, mortally wounded, and them still cautious, fearful of him, even as death came. Remembered the teacher’s ringing voice: Was he devil or man? He was devil for aught they knew, But they sank his body with honour down into the deep. They would stand around him, wary long after life had gone, and there would be a sort of awe, and . . . That was how it would be – and his promise had been given.
He was staggering. The strength bl
ed from his legs.
The wind blustered, and the sun would soon show. Remembered what Stanislau liked to say: I want to snatch the sunset and hold it. Cammy would see a sunrise, not a sunset.
It was Kingsmead Park. His mind on Nunc Dimittis, and challenging were the verses of “The snares of Hell”, and others were starting to compete, and his head rolled and his walk was feeble. Ahead of him he saw a bench.
They had parked. They had their weapons. They stood by the car, Jonas at the front.
Beside the parking area was the gateway to a nursery school, and a well-equipped play area.
The dog strained on the lead, was probably hungry. Well, the dog would have to wait for its breakfast.
The place, Dominic told him, was Kingsmead Park. Babs had it on her phone and said it was considered a precious place by the locals because it had been saved from developers by public clamour.
Jonas said, “Time to get this show on the road.”
They had been in the car park a full five minutes when the lone figure emerged from a track beside the new housing development. Babs had let loose a sharp short whistle between her teeth, but quiet, and done it as a mark of admiration, something like that, and there had been a half-smile on Dominic’s face. The figure had passed beneath a street lamp and had been lit well, and had not hurried. Dominic said that the target man, their Tango, was “knackered”. Babs thought he was “about all in”. Jonas thought appearances, in the grey and difficult light of dawn with the first sunlight not yet falling on the open spaces of the park, could lie.
The dog tugged on the lead. Would have wanted the grass.
Dominic cradled his H&K across his vest. Might have dropped the man at this range and in that light, might not. Across the stream were bungalows with pretty gardens, and trees with a flurry of blossom in their branches, and then a main road, a bus passing along it, the first of the day. Babs was doing a fast check-list of her kit, and they armed their weapons. Jonas supposed that was necessary – they had sufficient distance from the target and he would not have heard the sounds. He told them where they should be, what they should do, and listed eventualities, and gave them one of his better smiles. The park was deserted . . . but not for long because the early joggers and dog walkers would be out soon.
Dominic said, “What you ask of us, Mr Merrick, is against all the training we have gone through.”
Babs said, “This is the tipping point, and we are supposed to have primacy.”
Dominic said, “Something we were told when our group was qualifying. The last viceroy of India was Mountbatten, a top wartime commander, huge clout, and he told his personal protection that he was going down to the bazaar in Delhi that morning, needed to calm fears as independence and separation came nearer. His officer said he should not, he would not permit it. Mountbatten pulled rank on him. The policeman said that he was not going there, final. ‘I couldn’t care, sir, whether you get assassinated or not, but I do care about my reputation when I am responsible for you . . .’ He did not go. That argument clinched it.”
They watched as Cameron Jilkes made his way across the open park.
Jonas said, “Tough on your reputation if this goes sour . . . Don’t like repeating myself. Wasting breath, but time to get the show on the road.”
Chapter 16
He jerked the lead, and the dog fell in beside him. Jonas and Vera had never owned a dog, so he had no experience of how to walk one, but this seemed a decently trained little thing.
Spring was coming. Would be earlier here than in London. The cherry blossom was not yet out at home. Ahead of him were some early flowers, and in the gardens of the bungalows the colours were starting to brighten. The sun was rising, good as gold and prompt. It was 0543. Would have been a problem, a greater problem than all of those others that queued up to attempt to frustrate him, had it been pitch dark, or had the rain not lifted.
He felt only a minimal sense of pleasure as he set off across the damp grass that had been recently cut and looked a picture. Early on he had to stop because the dog needed the moment for a break, then they were on the move again. It would be the matter of an interception . . . Easy for Jonas because the young man came slowly, each step an effort. That was merely an observation in Jonas’s mind because he had no feeling for Cameron Jilkes, was neither hostile nor sympathetic. He thought that the opponent – the correct description for a young man sitting across a chess board from him – would not have eaten hot food, had had little to drink, had likely lain up and taken cover since coming ashore on the coast at Deal, and his head would have been ringing from the denunciation meted to him when he had crawled in through the back garden and come into his old home. Obvious that it had been a pitifully bad welcome he’d faced or his mother would not have flicked switches, done the signal.
A hard all-weather path led from the housing development along the river; it cut across the grass and exited the park in a corner, opposite a leisure centre. On the far side of the path were simple, basic benches and around them the daffodils were coming to an end: Vera would have liked it here, would have settled comfortably with a book and would have had the sounds of the stream as company . . . The route that Jonas and the dog took meant, all things being equal, that he would reach the path at a point about level with the bungalows on the stream’s far side, and he would be just a few paces in front of Cameron Jilkes. He held the lead firmly in one hand, and the other went into his pocket. A few quick movements and he had successfully slipped his right wrist into one of the open cuffs, then he dropped the lead on to the dog’s back, had fastened the cuff, locked it, and had retrieved the lead. Rather self-conscious, because he did not know what language was appropriate for a dog, but he muttered something about good behaviour, and “well done”. They were walking again and the interception point seemed right. He had his right hand in his coat pocket and could feel the other open cuff, and the fastening on his right wrist was hidden by his sleeve. He did not hurry and the dog sniffed consistently but did not drag him.
He had glanced to his right, not often, but had managed to check out the appearance of Cameron Jilkes. Would have been a fine looking boy had it not been for the ravages of Syria: eyes, mouth, cheeks, posture and laboured walk, all reflecting where he had been and the cost paid. And how different, where he was now. A world away. Jonas assumed that every corner of a village or a town in Syria had been a battlefield and carried the wounds of the fighting in demolished structures, and in every oasis out in the deserts most of the trees would have been snapped off by the blast from bombs and missiles. Jonas had never been to Ireland but was an encyclopaedia on its tragedies, deaths, scars, and reckoned that in each community, at every crossroads, there had been a killing – a Paddy O’Rawe or a Billy Wilson . . .
Here, the ground where Jonas would make his move, he assumed, and smiled at the thought, that little had happened other than a Mrs Smith managing some knitting while she passed time, where a Mr Jones planned better feed for his under-performing marrows . . . those sort of pastimes. Good territory for Jonas because an opponent’s guard would be down. He noted that Cameron wore an old man’s clothing. Conventional trousers, a shirt with a check in it, a tie that was loosened and hung askew, and a jacket that might have been a genuine Harris tweed or at least an imitation. He assessed the former owner was now deceased, and that a house clearance had put the garments into a charity shop, assessed again that the charity shop would have been close to where the young man had come ashore: he’d have arrived wet and shivering, at the door of a Deal charity shop and the staff would have taken pity on him, would have kitted him out, and done it carefully because the clothing hung well on him. He would have every charity outlet in the town of Deal checked out, and their casual volunteer workers identified. Their time, the staff’s time, would come, and he made a note of it. Maybe that afternoon, if all went well, maybe the next morning, they would be interrogated – would probably face charges.
Cameron Jilkes sagged down on to one of the rough
wood benches. Seemed to flop, then checked his watch, would have been satisfied that he had time for a brief rest before moving on to the railway station.
The dog was allowed to sniff some more, and Jonas guided it with fractional flicks of the wrist. It was an obedient little soul and did as it was directed.
Aching in his back, and in his legs, and aching because of the welcome he had failed to receive back home, Cammy slumped.
Saw an old man meandering towards him, a dog on a lead. Just an old man out early with his dog . . .
He would sit here for five minutes or ten, not more. Would draw the air down into his lungs, take strength from it. The first layer of sunshine came over the grass and nestled on his face. In five minutes or ten, no more, he would go down to the stream and crouch and wash his hands and see how much mud was on his jacket, and might dump it and might not . . .
The old man followed the dog. Seemed to talk to the dog but Cammy could not hear what he said. He had glanced around, had done a full rotation before sitting on the bench. If there had been police, he would have seen them. They’d have been in black dungarees and would have had German Shepherds, and they’d have had firearms. He had looked, not an idiot, far from it, had seen nothing . . . A couple came from the path beside the housing estate but they veered away, went towards the Leisure Centre – would have been shagging and would have come across country because they were too early for the buses. He’d seen them, checked them, and they held hands. It was a pretty little dog. His mum would have liked a dog like that. His mum could not have a dog because she was out too early in the morning and back too late in the evening, and slept when she could. He did not want to think of his mother, and whether she had a dog, or did not . . . hurt him to think of her.
The Crocodile Hunter Page 35
