Gatecrasher

by Robert Young

  'I don't mean there's anything wrong with your conclusions and certainly not your methods,' she said taking a sip of wine. 'I just mean that the whole idea is crazy and seems even more insane because we're involved in it. A few days ago I was up to my eyeballs in filing bloody paperwork. And now?'

  Her words trailed off and Campbell noted the expression on her face.

  'I've just remembered something.'

  'What?' he asked.

  'Well, like I said, a few days ago I was sorting paperwork. Griffin asked me to go and sort through the paper archive to see if anything had been taken from there in the break in but it hadn't been touched. Anyway, it's a boring job you know, just making sure paperwork is all still there and in order. Especially when its all years old and you don't recognise the names and the information and so on. So your eyes wander.'

  Campbell nodded.

  'Well I saw a few things that probably tie in with what you were saying earlier.'

  'Really?' Campbell felt both relieved and excited at the same time to hear some corroboration of his theory.

  Sarah was staring up at the ceiling, her hand over her mouth. 'I can't believe I didn't think of this earlier. What you were saying about things getting shifted around before final delivery in Liberia? Well I saw records relating to goods shipments being delivered to Tunisia. Then right next to it there was some contract note for a different carrier, moving the same stuff from Tunisia on to Guinea. We didn't actually ship it ourselves but we sub-contracted someone to do it for us. It didn't seem strange at the time I saw it; that's not unusual for us. Sometimes it's easier to use established local firms. We'd done the main job of getting it onto the continent so after that we sometimes use other companies to do the next bit.'

  'Where does Guinea come in?' asked Campbell eagerly.

  She grabbed a map from the papers on the table and showed him. 'Guinea is right next door to Sierra Leone. It shares a border with Liberia too.'

  'You sure? You saw all this in the records there?'

  'Yep! That's straight from the horse's mouth Daniel.'

  Campbell nodded but said nothing. If he felt vindicated by what Sarah had said, he certainly didn't feel all that pleased about it. In fact, Campbell realised, despite all the evidence he had uncovered, he was still wishing that he was wrong.

  Another hard gust of wind banged against the walls and rattled the panes. And then there came a distant but unmistakable sound of glass breaking from somewhere outside.

  Campbell was upright in an instant, the wine almost spilling from his hand.

  'What the hell?' Sarah mumbled and the two of them stared in the direction of the door and the yard beyond. 'Probably a fox in the rubbish bins or something,' she offered uncertainly.

  'Mmmn. Probably,' he replied but stood up instead of sitting again. 'I'll just check it out.'

  She made to speak but remained silent and he was moving quickly across to the door, stepping into his shoes and shrugging his shoulders into his jacket.

  Cold, wet air swept into the room and Sarah padded across to the door as Campbell stepped out into the gloom, her hands drawn up around her against the chill. Pushing the door closed until there was only a crack a few inches wide she peered into the night after him but he was out of sight quickly amid the darkness and the swirling rain. As she strained her eyes there was a sudden bright strobe-flash of lightning almost instantly followed by a sharp, loud crack of thunder. For a moment she thought she caught sight of a leg trailing around the corner of the cottage but the flash was startling and the image was gone as quickly as she had seen it.

  Sarah closed the gap in the door a little more as she felt her skin pinch into gooseflesh and she wrapped an arm across her chest to try to block the cold.

  Minutes passed. She began to shiver but opened the door a little wider to peer out. The soft light from the windows barely penetrated the darkness though she could make out the shape of her car and the high hedge lining the narrow lane beyond.

  Suddenly there was a muffled sound off to her left, the opposite direction in which Campbell had gone. She hesitated and then opened the door wider, moving forward but instinctively moved back again as the wind whipped at her, driving cold rain into her face.

  'Daniel,' she called out but was drowned out by the hiss and fizz of rain against the ground and the low howl of the wind.

  She began to move forward again but before she could the doorway was filled with the drenched shape of a man, rain streaming down his face, his dark hair plastered against his forehead and his hands in front of him were streaked slick with blood and water. Shocked, she stumbled backwards into the room, almost falling.

  'Cut my hand on a broken bottle,' said Campbell as he stepped inside.

  Sarah opened her mouth to speak but said nothing as he slipped off his drenched jacket and back heeled the door closed noisily behind him.

  'W-what?' she stuttered.

  'Wind blew some empty bottles over by the bins round the back. Cut myself on one,' he explained and blinked hard at the water running into his eyes.

  41

  Friday. 1.30 am.

  The bottle sat on the hearth was empty and glittered the fire light into the dark room. Campbell lay on his back on the floor in front of the dying flames. Sarah was stretched out similarly on the sofa above him her feet level with his head. They both stared up at the ceiling, both silent, both deep in thought.

  Sarah would be, he knew, extremely apprehensive about what he had asked her to do. It meant abusing her position in the worst way and she could, very likely, lose her job. The only thing that seemed to quiet her own fears were the risks that Campbell himself was prepared to take. Sarah could, for the most part remain anonymous and hidden whilst Campbell was already known to at least one group with a vested interest in getting hold of the data and who would do almost anything to get it.

  He knew also, that in order to get himself out of this situation he would first have to stick his head further above the parapet. The only bait he had was himself.

  He wondered who else wanted this thing? To whom was the information valuable? If Gresham and his cronies were so keen on getting it then it followed somebody else must want it too otherwise how else would it have any value to them in the first place?

  Would Sarah go through with what he had asked of her? She seemed as if she knew what he was going to ask before he had even said the words, knew that by letting herself become as involved as she had that she was all the way in now, all or nothing. In the short time he had known her he thought he saw a strength and determination in her character, a goodness and sense of right and wrong that gave him faith that she would not walk away without helping.

  The thought comforted him and for the first time in days he felt the burden he carried lighten a little as he shared it. It was too late now to wonder if he should have involved her - if he even had any right to - but somehow he knew that he'd had to do so. He knew that he really did not have anyone else to turn to. Since Gresham knew everyone that was important to Campbell, the only thing he could really do was to get himself away from them all, to remove them all from the firing line. To put Sarah in it was terrible he knew, but she did, he reassured himself again, have her anonymity. There was no reason for anybody to link him to her, no reason for anyone to ever know who she was or what she knew.

  Gradually they drifted toward the cusp of sleep and his thoughts wandered and became irrational and surreal as his subconscious began to overlap. He tried to fight it back, feeling somehow protective and duty bound to look after her now that he had put her in harm's way. But what could happen here in this warm, safe place? And what could he do in this state anyway, utterly exhausted and beaten up?

  And then the fire in the grate wasn't dying down any more, it was growing and licking up around the walls and there was somebody with them in the room but it wasn't Sarah he saw moving. The dark looming shape of a man appeared at the periphery of the room and he moved back away to the stairs and was climb
ing them and all Campbell could think was, is this real? Was this a dream now? Was it really this hot?

  Campbell's eyes snapped open as his instincts kicked in and told him something was wrong. The fire in the grate was still fading away and the room was quiet but for the sounds of the storm outside. He looked around, saw that Sarah's eyes were closed, saw the soft orange light of the fireplace and the glint of the glasses and bottle. The dream had set him on edge.

  The figure moving up the stairs flashed again through his mind and he snapped his head round in that direction to see the black shape of a man at the top of the staircase. The top half of his body was obscured by the ceiling, but his lower half was visible and his right hand gripped an enormous knife, its curved edge serrated.

  Campbell sprang up and gripped Sarah's arm without looking and he bolted for the door.

  42

  Thursday. 11.45pm.

  She followed him without question and she matched his pace because she was fit and because her whole body was alive with the alertness that fear and shock give. They didn't go for the road or the car and somehow, as he pulled her in the other direction toward the field away from the lane and toward the coast, she knew he was right. They would never have time enough for opening the car doors, for climbing in, starting up, pulling away.

  That afternoon, as the light left the day, Campbell had stared through the windows of the cottage and could see the coastline not two hundred yards away. Sarah had told him that they were some hundred feet up and that the cliffs to the sea below were steep and sheer. But in places there were gaps where the gradient was more forgiving and you could climb down, and that further along there were even steps cut into the rock and mud leading down to small inlets and intimate little coves and beaches.

  She didn't look back as she ran. Keeping up with Campbell was enough of a task as it was. His eyes were focused dead ahead of him, checking the ground and trying to read the surroundings in the dark.

  The pain in his bare feet was sharp and Campbell felt the cold rain slashing against him as he sprinted and the wind came at him and he knew that Sarah must have felt worse even than he did. But to stand and fight whoever that had been in the cottage, whatever grave threat he brought to them, would have put her in yet more danger.

  His mind was clearing by the second now; the sleep and the drink suddenly vanished as he ran through this icy night. The path he had seen earlier was not too far in the distance. He thought maybe they would find one of those coves or beaches to slip down into or perhaps it would lead them to another house or cottage or even a town.

  Looking behind him he noticed how much faster they were moving than he realised and how much ground they had already put between themselves and their pursuer. But he knew he couldn't keep moving like this much longer and he knew that Sarah probably couldn't either at this pace but whoever was chasing might be able to go all night. No, they would have to use the darkness to their advantage and they would have to find a place to hide and wait it out in the cold and wind and wet and hope that he didn't find them.

  They hit the cliff path sooner than he expected. It was not paved but a rough worn path of gravel and soil and the loose stones cut his feet but he tried not to slow down and he didn't let Sarah's hand go as he moved and kept her with him.

  'I can't see a thing,' she hissed as they stumbled over the uneven ground but he shushed her sharply and she fell silent again. Here where bushes and trees narrowed the pathway into a corridor they would need to stay as silent and invisible as possible in order to drop quickly into a hiding place, unseen.

  A stand of trees and thick undergrowth rose up on top of the slope in front. Campbell took them up over the lip of the hill and then, when he thought that they had dropped out of sight on the other side, ducked hard left into the trees. They waded through the leaves and brambles away from the path and pressed close behind the trunk of a large oak tree, pulling Sarah close to him.

  The noise of the rain hitting the trees and the ground around them made it sound like it was raining ball bearings. Sarah pulled herself closer in to Campbell and he felt for the first time how cold she was. He turned to her in the darkness, her hair dark and dripping, her clothes sodden and clinging to her. She looked back at him and there was fear in her eyes but there was trust too.

  Campbell could see over the lip of the hill and back the way they had come and could make out the bouncing black shape of somebody following along the path. Next to him she had begun to shiver and her teeth were chattering and her breathing becoming more audible as her body shook.

  Sitting listening to her he knew that when he came past them she might give them away and he knew he had a decision to make.

  Standing, he made it.

  'Stay here and be quiet,' he told her.

  'Daniel...' she protested but in the darkness his eyes answered her and she crouched lower against the tree trunk. Campbell moved off the way they had come.

 

 

 

  The darkness out here, away from the city and the lights of his home, was thicker, colder somehow. Blacker.

  Above him he knew that the stars were bright and clear over the fat heavy cloud and he wished that he could stand staring up at them all night, just drinking in the tranquil silence. The freezing rain and harsh wind chased away such thoughts now as thunder cracked through the night again and he crouched low in the bushes watching the black shape of his pursuer dashing up the path.

  Campbell pressed himself low to the ground to stay out of sight, not willing to trust the wind and the rain and the night to hide him. He had no plan. He had no thoughts to attack this man or confront him but Sarah's breathing and her shivering would have brought the man right to them and they could not keep running like this. Here above the beaches and coves below and the fields around them he knew that there were no other houses nearby that they could get to for help. He had seen no lights in the darkness as they had crested the hill, only more empty miles of the same dark pathway and the white sea smashing the base of the cliffs below.

  He could hear the footsteps of the other man now as he came and he could see him moving up the slope toward where Campbell hid. Did he move now? Did he wait until he passed and then jump him? Take his chances fighting the man?

  Campbell was scared. He hadn't been in a real fight since he was at school and the minor scuffles and scrapes that he had got into over the years had all amounted to little more than shoving and raised voices. He had played rugby for a couple of years after University which was often pretty rough though never particularly dirty or genuinely violent but he had turned an ankle badly and not finished the season or re-joined the team the following year. That was about it other than the beating he had taken from Slater and Gresham the night before, which as fights went, was as one sided so they came.

  The man was almost at the top of the slope now and Campbell could hear his breathing and as he tensed and his thoughts raced, the man slowed almost to a stop and began peering into some undergrowth to his left. Campbell, ahead and to the man's right watched with interest. Had he seen them go for cover or was he just guessing? No matter, it had bought him a few moments to think.

  Carefully feeling around the floor he closed his hand over a rock the size of his fist and then hurled it along the path toward the undergrowth, a few feet along from where the man was standing.

  He turned to the noise and moved quickly to the spot, bending slightly to peer into it. There was a clattering sound that quickly followed as the stone dropped over the edge to the rocks below. The man stood still for a long moment. Perhaps he would think that they were making their way down to the cove.

  Still he paused at the bushes, looking off into the darkness.

  Come on, thought Campbell, take the bait.

  Nothing.

  Finding another stone on the ground, Campbell again hefted it toward the same spot. But then something awful happened.

  As the stone flew up through the trees that hid him,
it clattered into branches and the man turned and then began making his way quickly along the path.

  Right toward Campbell.

  In seconds the man was within feet of him, and though he had not seen him yet would spot him quickly and he knew it.

  In two strides Campbell was on him. Stumbling slightly over the uneven ground he connected his shoulder solidly into the man's side and took him off his feet. As they hit the ground, Campbell heard, rather than saw, the knife jarred loose from his attacker's hand and clatter across the path and into the darkness. They rolled across the rough ground and as they came to a stop on the wet grass, Campbell brought a knee up but it failed to make a serious contact and thudded into a thigh.

  The other man responded quickly and began hammering fists rapidly into his back. Campbell's adrenalin was rising and the bones and muscles of his back soaked up the blows without troubling him. Struggling on the ground, both of them tried to pick themselves up and as they moved Campbell felt an elbow crack into his ribs and he almost yelped in pain.

  This wasn't missed and he felt a fist jab into his chest sharply again and this time he did make a noise but managed to stop himself from crying out.

  Galvanised by pain and fear and surging adrenaline Campbell swung a fist at his attacker which landed uselessly on his shoulder, merely rocking him backward. Campbell had a split-second to look him over as they wrestled and tried to stand and he wondered if he knew the man, had he seen him before? How had he found them? Had he followed all the way from London, from his flat back in Fulham? But there was no time to think where he might have seen him before because he was coming at him again, hands clawing at his throat.

  Pulling away he lost his balance and slipped on the grass over onto his back and the other man was quickly on top of him. He used his momentum to roll and dragged him over and then as the man's weight moved right above Campbell he kicked out, shoving his feet hard into his assailant's midriff and straightening both legs, sending him sliding across the wet grass and away.