The Fine Art of Invisible Detection

by Robert Goddard

  She checked her watch again. Dead on six. Where was Driscoll?

  The juddering of the van on an uneven surface and glimpses of the sea through the windscreen told Nick they were approaching their destination. The sun was up, gleaming on the wave crests. They’d arrived.

  Timing was obviously crucial. They’d laid up for nearly an hour outside a Starbucks when they’d left the A30 before heading on to Porthtowan. Nick remembered the route from his drive down two weeks before and had been able to tell Michaela they were nearly there.

  ‘So, we’re going where it all happened forty-two years ago?’ she’d asked in a whisper.

  ‘It seems so.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. But we’ll find out soon.’

  ‘Is this shaping up well for us, Nick?’

  ‘I don’t know that either.’

  ‘But we’ll find out soon, right?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  And now here they were. The van came to a halt on a slight slope. Chas yanked on the brake and killed the engine.

  A few moments passed. Butch lit a cigarette, opened the door and climbed out. Nick caught a breath of fresh sea air. The door slammed shut. Butch moved out of sight. Nick saw Dave nod, as if acknowledging some signal from him.

  Chas turned then and looked at them through the wire. ‘You’ll be getting out soon,’ he said. ‘There’ll be nothing to stop you making a run for it except this.’ He held up a gun and tapped the barrel against the wire. ‘We’ll shoot you down if you try it. Understood?’ He paused. ‘Understood?’

  Realizing a response was needed, they both nodded energetically. ‘We get it,’ said Michaela.

  ‘See, we’re in this business full time. If we fuck up a hostage handover, it hits our bottom line. And letting hostages get away before the ransom’s paid counts as a major fuck-up. It won’t be anything personal, but we won’t hesitate. It’s just the ground rules. OK?’

  They nodded again. ‘OK,’ said Nick.

  Chas looked round at Dave. ‘Anyone shown themselves?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Dave replied.

  ‘Time?’

  Dave checked his watch. ‘Six on the dot.’

  ‘Any minute, then.’

  Any minute. Nick felt Michaela’s hand close round his … and squeeze hard.

  Wada wriggled closer to the edge of the cliff and peered over. She still couldn’t see the beach directly beneath her. She wondered if Driscoll was down there somewhere, concealed from view. She looked to her right. The limping man was standing still, puffing at his cigarette. No one else got out of the van. The waves rolled in. She heard the soft whisper of the backwash on the sand. There was no other sound. She checked her watch again. One minute past six. Driscoll was late.

  And then she saw him, out of the corner of her eye. He walked into view from the base of the cliff. He was wearing his dark blue suit, which made him look both out of place and yet wholly relaxed as he strolled across the sand with every appearance of casualness.

  He was following a curving route that cleared a line of rocks and took him towards the water’s edge as he moved slowly east. He raised his right hand high above his shoulder as she watched, lowering it almost immediately.

  She glanced right. A figure had appeared on the footpath leading down from the eastern headland. She raised the binoculars to her eyes. It was Espersen, walking at a steady pace towards the van. Driscoll must have been signalling to him, or acknowledging a signal of his.

  She trained the binoculars on the van. A second man had emerged from the cab. He walked round to the side of the vehicle and slid the door open. Wada’s view of the interior was limited, but she thought she could see movement inside.

  Then she heard a noise from closer range. She lowered the binoculars and looked down towards the lifeguard station. The front doors of the SUV were open. Two men who looked like the pair who’d guarded the entrance to the boardroom at Quartizon’s London offices had left the vehicle. One of them had headed out to a position in front of the lifeguard station, from where she calculated he could see Driscoll. The other was still by the car. He opened one of the rear doors as Wada watched. And Nishizaki climbed out. He too was wearing his suit. In a sense, she supposed, this was a business meeting. For him and Driscoll.

  ‘Here we go,’ was all Chas said. Dave responded by jumping out of the van.

  A few seconds later, he slid the side door open. Daylight flooded in. He placed one foot on the sill and leant in. He unlocked Michaela’s handcuffs first, then Nick’s. ‘OK,’ he said when they were both free. ‘Out you come. Slowly.’ He stepped back.

  They clambered out of the van. Nick’s limbs were so stiff from sitting in one position for hours on end he nearly fell over. He pulled himself fully upright and squinted along the beach past Butch. He could see a figure in the distance, moving towards them, close to the water’s edge.

  Dave drew a gun from inside his boiler-suit. ‘Stand where you are until we say otherwise,’ he growled.

  ‘We’re going to do exactly what you tell us to do,’ said Michaela. ‘Isn’t that right, Nick?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Wada lowered the binoculars. She looked down at Driscoll. He’d slowed and turned his head towards the cliff, as if watching something. She tried the binoculars again. He was squinting. She had the impression he was lining himself up with something below her. Then he stopped and looked straight ahead.

  She followed the direction of his gaze. At the other end of the beach, two people had emerged from the back of the van. One of them was Dr Morrisette. The other was a man of about forty. Nick Miller, Wada assumed. She’d never seen him before, but there was something about his face, when she studied it through the binoculars, that reminded her of someone else: Driscoll, of course. He was his father’s son.

  She lowered the binoculars. Espersen had halted his descent from the eastern headland. It was difficult to judge distance at that range, but she reckoned he was about thirty metres from the 4WD. The van – and the four figures gathered around it – were about ten metres beyond that. A fifth figure climbed out of the driver’s side of the van as she watched and looked up towards Espersen, then back along the beach.

  Wada switched her gaze to the lifeguard station and the car park behind it. Nishizaki and the second security man were walking slowly towards the beach. Nishizaki pointed to the first security man, who was already on the beach, and directed him to go ahead with a jerk of his hand. The man started moving.

  He was heading towards Driscoll, who was standing, arms folded, apparently waiting for him. He looked down at the sand as Wada watched. He seemed to be looking at something close to his feet. She trained the binoculars on the spot. But all she could see was a small pile of mussel shells thrown up by the tide.

  Suddenly, Driscoll turned his head and looked directly up at her. In the second before she pulled the binoculars away, he seemed to smile.

  Nick stood stock still. And Michaela stood stock still next to him. He was aware – and he knew she was aware – that the next few minutes would determine whether they were going to be released unharmed. He tried not to think about what might go wrong. The figure he’d seen at the other end of the beach had stopped moving now. A white-haired man, wearing a dark suit, standing with his arms folded. Driscoll. It had to be. His father. This was the closest he’d ever been to him. But still they were a long way apart.

  Another man, tall and bulky, came into view then, striding across the beach from a building that backed on to some dunes: the lifeguard station. He was heading towards Driscoll, casting a faint reflection of himself in the wetter stretches of the sand, where a brook flowed out to sea.

  ‘Everything look OK?’ Dave called to Chas, who’d left the van and moved round to the front of the vehicle.

  ‘Everything looks fine,’ Chas replied.

  Wada watched the first security man approach the spot where Driscoll was waiting and stop a few metres from him. He said something to w
hich Driscoll replied, then he pulled out a phone and spoke into it. Wada glanced back at Nishizaki. He had his phone to his ear. He was also heading towards Driscoll, leaving the second security man back by the lifeguard station. He was walking fast, impatiently, it seemed to her, water splashing up from his shoes as he strode through the rivulets of the brook.

  The first security man closed in on Driscoll, who stretched out his arms sideways. The security man began frisking him. The process lasted no more than thirty seconds and evidently gave no cause for concern. He stepped away and, looking back at Nishizaki, gave a reassuring nod: Driscoll wasn’t armed. Nishizaki nodded curtly in response and strode on towards them.

  Nick gazed along the beach. A second man was moving towards Driscoll from the direction of the lifeguard station. The first man was standing right next to Driscoll. It looked as if he’d just patted him down, searching for a weapon, maybe, and evidently finding none.

  ‘Who are they?’ murmured Michaela.

  ‘Nishizaki and some goon of his, I guess.’

  ‘I don’t get how this is supposed to play out.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘Shut the fuck up,’ growled Dave.

  ‘It won’t be much longer,’ said Chas. He gave them a tight little smile. ‘Then we’ll have to say our goodbyes.’

  Wada saw Driscoll raise his hand. Nishizaki stopped about ten metres from him, with the security man between them. Driscoll raised his arm aloft. Switching her gaze to the other end of the beach, she saw Espersen raise his arm in response. She looked back at Driscoll and Nishizaki. Nishizaki raised his phone to his ear. A moment passed. Then there was movement back at the other end of the beach.

  Nick heard the beep of a phone. Chas pulled out his mobile and answered. ‘Yeah? … Yeah, right … OK.’ He ended the call and looked towards Nick and Michaela. ‘Time to move, you two. Walk slowly round here.’

  They started moving. As they rounded the front of the van, Nick saw a black four-wheel-drive parked a short distance away, shielded from him till now by the van. And he saw a figure heading down the footpath from the headland above them: a loose-limbed, muscular-looking man in windcheater and jeans, with short-cropped hair and a growth of beard.

  ‘It’s Espersen,’ murmured Michaela.

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘He works for Driscoll.’

  ‘Walk over to the car,’ said Chas.

  They headed towards the 4WD. Espersen would have got there before them, but he pulled up and called to Chas, ‘I want them inside the car. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ said Chas. ‘But you stay where you are until I get the word from down there.’ He nodded over his shoulder towards the trio at the other end of the beach.

  ‘Good enough,’ said Espersen.

  ‘You can get in,’ Chas called after Nick and Michaela.

  Michaela took the nearside rear door and climbed into the car. Nick walked round to the other side. He caught a glance from Espersen as he did so – blue-eyed and piercing. Something in it made him hesitate.

  After watching the movements at the other end of the beach, Wada lowered the binoculars and looked down to the group on the beach directly below her. Driscoll hadn’t moved. Nor had Nishizaki, who beckoned for Driscoll to approach him. But still Driscoll didn’t move. Nishizaki said something into his phone, then strode forward.

  He was within reach of Driscoll when he suddenly pulled up and said something. Driscoll didn’t appear to reply. He simply raised both arms in the air above his head.

  ‘OK,’ was all Chas said into his phone. Nick glanced up the slope at Espersen, who was looking along the beach. Nick followed the line of his gaze. There was Driscoll in the blurry distance. As Nick watched, he raised both arms in the air above his head. Something prompted Nick to look back at Espersen in that instant. There was an object nestling in his palm. His thumb moved over it – and pressed down.

  A massive roar split the silence. Wada glimpsed a fountain of sand and a gush of flame and black smoke. Then a wall of hot air struck her. She squeezed her eyes shut and felt her hair being blown back.

  As she opened her eyes, the smoke and the rumbling echo of the explosion rose into the sky above the beach. Grains of sand fell around her in a fine rain. She looked down. Driscoll, Nishizaki and the security man had vanished, swallowed by an eruption from beneath. There was a crater where they’d been standing, filled with smoke.

  She couldn’t grasp for the moment what had happened. But one thought surfaced before any other. This was Driscoll’s doing. This was his plan.

  It had been him or Nishizaki. And he’d found his solution. It was neither of them.

  A massive roar split the silence. Nick saw a fountain of sand and a gush of flame and black smoke at the other end of the beach. Driscoll and the two men who’d been standing with him vanished into it, swallowed whole by the explosion.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Chas shouted. But he didn’t move. Neither did Butch. They gaped, like Nick, at the sudden spout of destruction.

  Only Espersen was prepared for what had happened. He reached the 4WD in several long strides and leant across the bonnet, levelling a gun at Chas, who turned slowly and stared at him, slack-jawed in bewilderment.

  ‘What … the fuck’s going on?’ he mumbled.

  ‘Your employer and my employer are dead,’ said Espersen. ‘But you’re alive and I’m alive and so are Dr Morrisette and Mr Miller. The explosion will have woken the village. We won’t be alone here for much longer. Probably someone is already calling the police. We all need to leave. With no shots fired. Otherwise it ends ugly for everyone. You understand?’

  Chas looked as if his reactions hadn’t yet caught up with events; as if understanding anything was pretty much beyond him.

  ‘You and your two friends need to get into your van and drive away while you still can.’

  ‘Did you … set that bomb off?’

  ‘I did what I was told to do. Now you need to do the same. In the next ten seconds.’

  ‘The fuckers have … screwed us,’ said Dave, stumbling into view from the other side of the van.

  ‘Are you going to go quietly or not?’ demanded Espersen. ‘The man who hired you is dead. You’re not going to get paid. So write the job off. And leave now. It’s the sane thing to do. And you are sane, aren’t you?’

  Chas grimaced, as if swallowing something he didn’t like the taste of. ‘Fuck it,’ he said, glaring along the beach at the plume of smoke. ‘Let’s go, boys.’

  ‘What the fuck went wrong?’ wailed Dave.

  ‘Doesn’t matter. We should hit the road.’

  Chas headed for the van. Butch, who’d said nothing throughout, followed him. And Dave followed as well. They all climbed in. Chas started up, reversed across the road, then took off in a spray of sand.

  Espersen put his gun back inside his windcheater and turned towards Nick. ‘We need to go as well. Get in the car, Mr Miller.’

  Nick didn’t move.

  ‘We really need to go.’

  ‘Driscoll just died,’ Nick said numbly.

  Espersen nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You set this up?’

  ‘I did what he told me to do. I buried the explosive in a waterproof canister under the beach before dawn yesterday.’

  ‘And you detonated it?’

  ‘As instructed.’

  ‘He was my father.’

  ‘So he told me.’

  ‘Why … why did he do this?’

  ‘It was the only way to protect you. Nishizaki would never have stopped. This way … he’s been stopped.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘We need to go.’

  ‘No.’

  Michaela slid across the back seat of the car. She pushed the door open. ‘Get in, Nick,’ she said. ‘Please.’

  ‘I’m staying.’

  ‘We have to go. I need to do some serious thinking about how to handle the whole Emergence thing before I find myself being cross-questioned by the police.’ />
  ‘I’m not asking you to stay, Michaela. It’s my decision. I’m not stopping you leaving.’ He started walking towards the beach, and the pyre in the distance.

  ‘You shouldn’t go down there,’ said Espersen.

  ‘I think I have to.’

  ‘Nishizaki came with two men. The second one could still be a problem.’

  At that moment, Nick saw from the corner of his eye a silver-grey people-carrier speeding away from the car park behind the lifeguard station. ‘Isn’t that the problem going away?’ he shouted over his shoulder to Espersen.

  ‘You should still come with us, Mr Miller.’

  ‘Listen to him, Nick,’ Michaela called.

  But he wasn’t listening to either of them. He didn’t look back as he reached the beach, and started walking towards the spot where his father had just died.

  Wada gazed along the beach and stopped holding her breath. For several long minutes, it had looked as if things were about to get even worse. But the stand-off between Espersen and the kidnappers hired by Nishizaki had ended peacefully. And now they’d driven away.

  So had the second security man, as soon as he’d recovered from the shock of what had happened to his boss and his colleague. He’d got most of the way to the site of the explosion when he’d seen something that had caused him to clap his hand to his mouth, hurry back to the lifeguard station and speed away in the SUV.

  Wada had a good idea what he’d seen. There was an object lying on the beach, thrown twenty metres or so by the force of the blast. She didn’t want to look at it through the binoculars. She was more or less certain it was a forearm and hand, with the burnt sleeve of a jacket still attached.

  She’d felt sick for a moment, but the sensation was fading now. At the other end of the beach, Espersen was also driving away, but with only one passenger: Dr Morrisette. Nick Miller had stayed behind and was walking towards the plume of smoke that was rising from the crater in the sand.