The old man came closer, had not looked up and their eyes had not met, but the dog gazed at him, seemed to interrogate Cammy.
Cammy would be a suicider. Had seen them often enough. All boys, thin as rakes and murmuring to themselves, and might have been dosed up, fidgeting. All had handlers who spoke for them and received the instructions on where in the line they were to run to, at what moment they should reach the checkpoint they would demolish, when they should go forward in the armoured vehicle. Cammy was sitting in Kingsmead Park, close to the Leisure Centre where he had learned to swim, was among the late daffodils, and a river, clean and fresh, flowed ahead of him, and he reflected on suiciders. He had thought most of them dosed up because they had no conversation, just nodded in rhythm, and most – God’s truth – were useless. They seemed to have no names and were given no respect. Were just detritus and might achieve a moment of advantage in a fire-fight and might not . . . If they wore vests or drove an armoured vehicle then there was a second detonation system programmed in, and should the suicide funk out then the big man, far back and safe, could press a button and do the job the kid had failed to carry out. They would have made promises, the would-be suiciders. All about promises . . . would have made promises and would not be able to renege on what they said. Were committed, could not back down. Himself? Neither could he back down . . . Could not consider it . . . One option was to go home, go in by the front door, sit in a chair and wait for the police to come. Another – to go into the city, through the old gate, and give some flannel as to his business and then sit in the area reserved for the choir and look to see if the priest came back, or had already shopped him. Have himself carted out of the cathedral, marched past the tomb of the Black Prince – the warrior. And another – could go into the city and past the Miller’s pub and on to St Peter’s Street, over the bridge and on to the High Street, out past the city walls and turn up at the police station: “Had enough, was scared, want to jack it in, and promises mean nothing”. He laughed out loud. The thought of it . . . and saw the faces of his brothers. Laughed some more at the thought of ditching his word . . . How would it be? Would be fast. What would he feel? Nothing.
Would have been his laugh that attracted the dog. Just a few yards away now . . . The old man seemed dressed in clothing similar to his. The sun warmed him. He arched his back, stretched, felt joints creak. They’d say his name, wouldn’t they? Say it at the Station where they flew the drones from, and say it back in Syria where people who had known him in the fighting days would learn it from their texts, and there would have been guys who had reached as far as Afghanistan or were in the Benghazi enclave of Libya, they would all hear his name and rejoice in him. Would know his name in the Choir School and in the big comprehensive he had ended up in, and would speak his name and see his picture all the way down the cul-de-sac and to his mum’s house, and she’d hear his name. It was a promise . . . the sun was warming the back of his head and the side of his face.
The old man ambled nearer, led by the dog.
It was how it would be, his mum would hear his name.
The bus was on time.
She had a window seat and a view of the park. It was cold enough outside and warm enough with the bus heaters on for the windows to have misted, but she’d used her sleeve to wipe the glass and had a view of the park and the distant play area.
Sadie saw her son. Saw the man who had stopped and spoken to her, who had brought her, and saw what she thought was the dog from the next road up to hers. Saw her son, certain of it, sitting on a bench and arching his back like he was trying to get stiffness out of it, and he’d have walked, or run, from Sturry village. It was all clear to Sadie, clear as the first fierce peep of the sun that came up over the river and topped the trees and lit the park. Everyone around here loved the park because it was claimed that developers would have built over it if ordinary people had not protested. No fool, Sadie, she understood. She could see a uniformed man and woman standing beside a car, the sun catching the metal of their weapons. Understood that the dog was the trick the man used to get close to her son, to Cameron.
She reached up, rang the bell. Twice. Not a designated bus-stop, but maybe the driver was in a good humour. The bus braked. A door opened. What to say? Could not say, “My boy’s down there and the security police are up close to him, and might call up the firearms and they might shoot him dead, my son.” She hopped down from the bus. As she started to track back along the hedge bordering the stream, she called back.
“Thanks, pet, just forgotten something.”
She would stand and watch, see how it played out on this day, her unsung anniversary. And thought of him as a stranger. Would not interfere, would be late for work, would watch.
Jonas sidled to the bench.
He dripped an image of a harmless old fool, out early because he could not sleep, had brought the dog with him, probably his best friend. Lonely and harmless, searching out company. Would talk the hind leg off a donkey, that sort of man – tedious but without malice, no threat.
Quietly, little soft words, Jonas urged the dog forward: a cheery enough little soul. The lead went taut: he smiled at the young man and pleaded that the dog had a mind of its own. And came closer.
“Lovely morning.”
The sort of anodyne greeting, common courtesy, that he might have employed in a caravan park.
“She’s a right rascal, no harm to her, love you to bits.”
Jonas thought he barely registered with Cameron Jilkes. Had death in his eyes and his chin trembled, and his eyes were bloodshot. His tie hung sideways but the collar button on the shirt was fastened. Filthy shoes and mud splattered up to his thighs. Jonas reckoned it a good a time to make his approach.
“Rough old night? Been on the bottle, have we? Wish I still could, but the bladder prevents it. Moving through, are you?” Innocent and pseudo-friendly and playing the game of the bus-stop bore, doing it well, and the dog was now against Cameron Jilkes’ knee, and nuzzled against him.
“Little terror, she certainly is.” Jonas gazed down at the dog, and let his eyes move across Cameron. There was, of course, another way. He could have backed off and waved Dominic and Babs forward and they’d have come at a fast jog and would have been bellowing to their target to freeze and submit, would have demanded he went down on his face, his hands away from his body, and the target might be intimidated and go to surrender-mode . . . Or might leap up, kick the dog clear and lunge a swinging arm at Jonas if he were idiotic enough to intervene. And he’d be down and into the stream and across it and then lost in the next street or the one going off to the right, then a left turn . . . he’d know them all. It was his home city. Cameron Jilkes free and running, and the forces required for a manhunt and a lockdown were not yet in place . . . He took his time.
“Don’t mind her, do you? Course you don’t. Don’t mind me, do you? Just stopping for a moment, taking the weight off the knees.” Jonas sat on the bench, not too close, not yet.
Jonas thought the young man beside him was outside the limits of his experience . . . quite dissimilar to Winston Gunn. That boy would have been a reluctant volunteer, had had his brain rinsed, washed, tumble-dried, was frightened and missed his mother, and would not have known how to back out. In the months ahead would he thank his God that Jonas Merrick, peeved at compulsory retirement and a token drink in the atrium of Thames House – at the end of a lifetime of hard graft – had sat beside him. Unplanned, unexpected, and Jonas had needed to make few considered actions, all done by instinct – which was why the Health and Safety gurus in the building had given him the mother and father of bollockings for endangering himself. Rather liked the boy, Winston Gunn, now alert and alive with his assumed identity and liable to throw his arms around Jonas Merrick’s neck, hug him as if that were the best gratitude he could offer. And visits to “neutral locations” to see his mother, and . . . Nothing was the same, no factor matched.
“Little terror, always hungry. Never has enough t
o eat. You’ve stuff in your pocket, haven’t you?” The dog strained closer to Cameron Jilkes and its nose snuffed and pressed against the young man’s pocket. Jonas sensed annoyance, but needed the dog close up and causing distraction . . . If the one-time fighter ran and failed to get clear, if the guns came after him, then he would have the chance to steel himself and would go for the old one, the tried and tested solution, that of “suicide by cop”. Could fake the sudden movement that seemed to be going after a weapon hidden inside his jacket. Could appear to be reaching into a pocket where there might well be an explosive vest’s contact device, and might be in a bus-stop queue or outside a primary school gate just as the mums and kids were gathering. This parcel of parkland, here, would be the first opportunity for a “safe” shot, no ricochets and no collateral, and might be the last. Not how he wanted it to end. Jonas could be stubborn, rarely changed his mind when an intention was fixed. Did not want him dead, too easy for him.
“Won’t be long. Couple of minutes, then I’d better be pressing on.” He sat on the bench. Let loose a little sigh of relief as if it was welcome to get the weight off his knees. He played the part well, feeble and without malice. He could smell him. It was that rank odour of a body coated in sweat and grime.
“Don’t mind me, will you.” Jonas sat upright, seemed relaxed and was not, and the dog pressed its snout against Cameron’s pocket.
“Bloody hell, Dad, look.”
Trace driving, Dave beside her, and their kids in the back. Instead of heading straight into town, where they’d get a parking space at that hour, she’d knocked the schedule back a few minutes to go by the Leisure Centre and drop Karen off for a fast hard swim to get the night’s events out of her system.
“It’s them, Ma, isn’t it?”
Karen had seen them first, and Bradley followed the line of her arm, and Trace had slowed to get into the lane that would take them to the Centre’s drop-off bay.
Like the nightmare of the night was resurrected. Dave had them. He said, “Kids are right, it’s them. Don’t know where she’s been, but it was wet – snooty bitch – and he’s there large as life. They’re with cops. See them.”
Trace pulled in, went up on to the pavement, ignored the traffic offence, pretty rare for her. “Got it, cops and guns . . . There’s an old guy over by the benches and he’s got a dog with him. See it?”
“On the bench, you reckon that’s Cameron, love?”
“Could be . . .” and Trace came off the pavement, and did a U turn and drove into the car park and reckoned, rightly, that if they took a space at the back then they’d not be noticed.
“We just keep our heads down,” Dave said. “I mean, we’re sort of part of it. Didn’t want to be but are. We’ve the right to be here, see it finish.”
Not a great view from their car, but adequate. They could see the saloon car in front of them and a woman cop, black overalls, kneeling by the front fender, a rifle at her shoulder, and another cop, a young guy using the roof of their car as a resting place for his rifle, his eye in the sight. Sitting on the tarmacadam beside the front of their car were the couple that had been in their home, mud-spattered, wet, quiet, as if unwilling to distract in any way as a crisis moment approached. Beyond the car was open grass and sunlight and fading daffodils, and the bench. Sure enough, Cameron sat there. Sure enough also that some old idiot had wandered into the middle of a police operation, might blow it.
They’d never had a dog. Cammy could remember the dogs at the gaol on the other side of the city that patrolled the outside wall, big bastards with bared teeth and straining at their lead. The dogs in Syria were as adept as the vultures in clearing up carcases: they did the job in the towns and the high-flier birds did it in the desert. Nobody in Syria kept a dog as a pet and any of them that hung around where there was food would have been carpeted in fleas, and showing their ribs . . . They were just foul and when there were too many the recruits would be sent out with rifles to improve their shooting skills.
This dog had started to irritate Cammy. It had already pulled a slice of bread from his pocket. This time he had been transferring it to his mouth when the dog had slobbered over his trousers: he had given the bread to the dog which had been dumb because that only further encouraged it . . . He supposed the old beggar next to him was gagging for some meaningless conversation. He might have said, “Good to meet you, old boy. My name is Cammy, and I was once from Sturry, just up the hill from here. Right now, to those that matter in my life, I’m Kami al-Britani. I was in Syria. They had the muhajireen, the foreign fighters, the ones that did the hard yards. I was in that lot and with some great guys, my brothers. We didn’t take any of that religious shit, nor any of the political crap – just did fighting. Doubt you’d know, old boy, about an adrenaline surge, but believe me it’s what gets in your system when you’ve a weapon on automatic and hammering your shoulder. We were in a crack katiba, that’s a battalion, and we had a quality emir. All of us had a reputation as the best. It all went arse-up . . . you following me, old boy? The tide turned and we were bombed and had missiles coming after us. It failed. We quit. Went on the road, looked to get out. I lost my brothers, each last one of them. The best of my brothers was a German girl, and she was the last to buy it. A drone took her. Know what a drone is, old boy? It’s a weapon platform, flown by some bastard thousands of miles away. When it’s hot outside, the bastard has air-conditioning in his make-believe cockpit. When it’s snow, fog or ice, the bastard has central heating . . . There’s an RPG-7 launcher being brought into the UK, and the bombs for it, and a vehicle’s been armoured up for me. In a few hours, I’m going to drive it, with the launcher across my legs, and I’m going into that place where the bastards fly the drones. Am going to take them down . . . So why don’t you just piss off and take your dog with you, and leave me to get on the road?” Could have said that, and doubted the old boy would have known what he was talking about. The irritation grew.
The man said, “Yes, better be on my way. Going to be a lovely day.”
The dog was still at Cammy’s pocket. He checked his watch. Trouble was that Cammy found an odd form of comfort from having the man next to him, felt safer, and he reached down and ruffled the dog’s coat. Would allow a few more minutes to slide – but not many.
Tristram said, “It’s not for me.”
Izzy said, “Am thinking the same, not my life.”
“See it through, and . . .”
“See it through, finish the day.”
“I didn’t think that . . .”
“Nor me. I didn’t think it would be like this.”
“They need a different animal. It’s not what I am.”
Her clothing hugged her body, and she knew she stank, and her trousers were drying slowly and her skin was cold, like she was a fish on a slab, and he looked half out, concentration blown away, and the confidence seemed to have peeled away from him. He thought that they’d write the same letter and . . . The target had turned, looked straight into Jonas Merrick’s face, and he thought the guns in front of them were readied, eyes at the sights, and the barrels still, and the fingers hovering on the triggers’ guards.
She said, “I have no idea what will happen. Am just so fucking frightened.”
Cammy looked at his watch. Did the calculations. How long to walk to the station, how long to buy his ticket, and then how long on the platform. Stretched again, and thought of the back street route he would take to get to Canterbury West.
The dog sat in front of him.
Thought of his brothers. Was on a park bench with an old boy beside him who seemed lonely as hell, except for a dog. Wondered if the old boy had had brothers. Remembered all of them . . . Ulrike who used to say Stay calm. It is never a crisis. Could feel her body against his when they slept in the dirt together. Pieter, who he always went to for advice and who he loved and who would say Never look back. Never chase the past. And Tomas who would grin, try to laugh and then mutter, Better to hang together, not separat
ely. And Dwayne from the Canadian outback with the heavy-lidded miserable eyes who would tell them, Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse. Mikki who would clap his hands when their mood was down, and punch their shoulders and shout at them, Life is short. Live it. And Stanislau from the city of Minsk who liked to say, I want to snatch the sunset and hold it. Loved them all . . . wondered if he could snatch a sunrise and hold it, clasp it in his fist.
From where Cammy sat, he could see the Bell Harry Tower.
Words came to his mind, lodged in his throat. Be thou my guardian and my guide, And hear me when I call: Let not my slippery footsteps slide, And hold me lest I fall. Good words. He soaked up the quiet around him where most of the daffodils were almost spent, and the sun was warm on his back. The world, the flesh and Satan dwell Around the path I tread: Oh save me from the snares of Hell, Thou quickener of the dead . . . He flexed himself to stand.
“What a very decent voice you have,” the old boy said, and smiled into his face.
He pushed himself up, felt the wobble in his legs, stood still and stretched some more. He had not realised he had been singing.
From Dominic, “I’ve a bad angle. You?”
From Babs, “Difficult. Not one I’d choose.”
Both had the target standing and immediately in front of the target was Merrick, who had shared so little with them. He stood, and Jonas obscured the aim they had on the chest of Cameron Jilkes.
“Sorry, but it’s gotten worse.”
“Correct, gotten a whole lot worse.”
“Like we’re out of the game.”
“What a man once said, ‘They also serve who only stand and wait’. Talking about us. But it’s all about to happen and – Sod’s Law – we’ve rotten angles.”
Jonas said, “It’s been really nice to meet you.”
He was not answered.
“I think we’ll have a decent day, good sunshine.”
The Crocodile Hunter Page 36
