by Oliver Tidy
Opposite the paper’s offices there were several cosy little coffee shops and eateries. These vied for the attention and trade of the workers of the district’s offices. Each was trying to outdo its neighbours with its promise of a splash of exotic colour and flavour in the grey of a working day – little oases of distant cultures, cuisines, refinement and refreshment.
He selected one on the strength of the staff appearing to be of an ethnic community that originated in a far-flung corner of the globe. He reasoned that they might pay him less attention than some bored worker of more local extraction who might just spend too much time watching the news channel – although he would have had to profess to seeing few such specimens on the London streets that morning.
He ordered a coffee, borrowed paper and pen, and took a seat at the breakfast bar inside the front picture window that looked out over the street. He had a good line of sight to the paper’s front door. This pleased him. So far so good. He took a few minutes composing his note to Susan and then beckoned over one of the staff. He looked about fifteen with the expression and complexion of someone who had been born and raised in a distant stagnant land and was still in awe of the modern civilised society of the Western world in which he now found himself living in a different kind of poverty.
‘Want to earn twenty pounds?’ said Sansom, guessing that he would be lucky to be on anything above the minimum wage.
The youth eyed him suspiciously and then replied in only slightly tainted English and a little sullenly. ‘What for?’
So much for appearances, thought Sansom. ‘I need a message taken over to the newspaper offices across the road.’
Sansom realised that he had misjudged the level of material deprivation of this youth as he fished out an expensive-looking mobile smart-phone from his pocket and proceeded to twirl it around between forefinger and thumb – a sort of modern day bead-ticking.
‘Why don’t you ring them?’ he said.
‘I don’t like phones. It must be hand delivered. You want to do it or not?’
The youth looked around, working out whether he could be spared. Sansom was the only customer. ‘Big story, is it?’ said the boy, perhaps wondering if it might be worth more than the twenty Sansom was holding.
‘Forget it,’ said the soldier, meaning it and getting to his feet. He’d try somewhere else and reminded himself about books and covers and misguided judgements.
‘Calm down, calm down. I’ll do it.’ The youth waved Sansom back to his stool.
Sansom sat. The youth put out his hand. Sansom pressed the folded message into his open palm.
‘You have to give this into the hand of Susan Manson. Understand?’
‘Yeah, I think that I’ve got that. They won’t let me in, though.’
‘Why?’
‘Security, duh. Times ain’t what they were, man.’
‘So be inventive.’
The youth frowned. ‘Twenty ain’t much.’
‘It’s all I’ve got.’ Sansom wasn’t lying, much.
‘OK,’ said the boy. ‘Money?’
Sansom tore the twenty in half and gave one to the boy.
‘How will you know that I delivered the message?’
‘You get the other half when she comes here.’
‘What if she won’t?’
‘She will.’
‘Who do I tell her it’s from?’
Sansom thought. ‘Mrs Tallis.’
The youth appeared to be warming to the little bit of excitement in his day. ‘All right.’ He looked like he might have a bit of mischief about him and Sansom again had his doubts.
But it was too late. The youth had disappeared behind the counter. He reappeared a minute later with a little food bag that advertised the establishment, winked at Sansom as he crossed to the door and went out. Sansom watched him cross the street and approach the newspaper building. He was stopped by private security. They looked in his paper bag and waved him through.
*
It was a measure of Smith’s increasing anxiety that he dispatched the two men he had summoned to his room to go and get the journalist immediately. Sansom’s continued presence at large was making the powerful civil servant fractious. He couldn’t see anything to be gained from ordering surveillance and playing a waiting game instead. Sansom was going cold on them and he was prepared to clutch at any passing straw. He was aware that it could be nothing, but Smith was suspicious to his core. If someone was asking about him – a reporter to boot and close relation of a man who he had murdered – he wanted to know why. He collected his hat and coat and began his own short journey to the little safe-house that the tax-payer financed for just this kind of meeting.
*
Susan made her way back to her desk via the ladies’ and the coffee machine. She checked her phone and was mildly perturbed to find only two missed calls from a number that didn’t look like a mobile phone number – nothing from Sansom. Surely he had managed to find the charger. She knew there was one in the drawer. She checked her emails, replied to a few, chatted with a female colleague and then her desk phone rang.
The front desk had an order of food for her. Could she come and pay for it? It was from a Mrs Tallis. She rummaged in her handbag for her purse and felt her heart rate increase.
Susan eyed the young man suspiciously. She knew the place whose name was emblazoned on his shirt. It was only across the way. She approached and told him who she was. He held out the bag for her.
‘That’ll be twenty pounds, please.’
‘What? What’s in there, the crown jewels?’
‘Even better. A note from a bloke in a stupid disguise. He’s waiting in our place for you. He said you’d pay.’
She paid, took the bag and he left, whistling. She read the note and wondered again at Sansom’s foolishness. What the hell had he risked a trip there for? All he had to do was sit tight until she came home. She returned to her desk, dumped the food bag on it and grabbed her bag and her coat.
*
Sansom watched the youth descend the steps. He strolled lazily with an exaggerated gait back towards the cafe. He looked pleased with himself and like he knew he was being watched.
‘She’ll be over in a minute,’ he said when he came in. ‘Wanna pay me now?’ Sansom handed over the other half of the note. At least the kid had tried for him.
Sansom was staring out of the window, waiting for her to show as the car pulled up outside the newspaper’s offices and parked on the double yellow lines. There was something familiar about the vehicle and it gave him a bad feeling.
*
Susan punched her code into the security door and slipped through, shrugging on her jacket. She exited the revolving glass door and hurried down the stone steps. She shielded her eyes from the harsh glare of the sunlight as she looked along the road trying to locate the cafe where Sansom was waiting. She paid no attention to the two dark-suited, stocky figures with their crew cuts and designer sunglasses who got quickly out of their illegally-parked car, hardly daring to believe their luck that the target they had come to collect had walked, literally, into their arms.
‘Miss Manson?’
The suddenness of the address took her by surprise. ‘Yes?’
Identifications were flashed and withdrawn. She got a glimpse of shoulder holster in the action and felt a stab of fear.
‘You’ll come with us, please.’
‘Why?’
‘National security.’ One of them already had the back door open.
‘I won’t.’ The other took her firmly by the arm. ‘Get off me.’ Her voiced was raised now, the seeds of panic taking root.
*
It happened so quickly. One moment she was there in front of him, the next they had her in the back of the car and it was moving away from the kerb. And then Sansom realised where he had seen the vehicle or one very similar to it. Then it had been occupied by Smith’s men and parked outside Gerald’s.
When the youth next looked up, the stool Sanso
m had occupied was vacant. The man had even left his dumb hat and scarf behind. And he hadn’t said thank you. People these days.
***
19
Sansom ran. He didn’t even think about the attention that a running man would draw. His instinct was back in control. He just knew that he must keep the vehicle in sight. Traffic was slow but it was still moving faster than he was and it could keep it up a lot longer. He spied a black cab, its light on, no passengers. He flagged it down and climbed in.
‘Where to?’ said the driver.
‘Just follow that red saloon,’ said Sansom.
The old driver hit the brakes hard. ‘Out you get,’ he said. ‘I’m a taxi service not the emergency services.’
Sansom watched the car ease along in the river of metal and rubber ahead, thinking of the gun he had left behind.
He was running again. The car had disappeared but traffic had ground to a halt. Thank Red Ken for the traffic lights. And there it was again – a glimpse of black roof. He gained on them and, in danger of catching them up, slowed to a trot. It gave him a chance to look around and catch his breath. An old bicycle leaned up against a shop front. It wasn’t secured to anything and it was transport. He was already astride it and pedalling hard before he also realised that it would give him a bona-fide reason for being in traffic and on the road. Cyclists in central London drew less attention than running men in jeans and jackets.
From his elevated position, he could see far enough ahead of the car to understand that he should be able to keep in touch with them for a while. Even when they broke away from him, he would catch them with the help of the lights and he could thread in and out of other vehicles during the stops where they had to stay put. But he couldn’t hope to go on like that indefinitely. He would need an alternative and it would have to be motorised.
There were idling cars everywhere, windows down in the city heat, with single occupants who didn’t look like they would put up much resistance to being dragged from their vehicles. But in the congestion, he wouldn’t get away very quickly – not quickly enough to avoid the attentions of the naturally-outraged displaced driver and possible reprisals from an impromptu gathering of well-meaning citizens and then it would all be over for him and her. He saw that he’d have to bide his time behind them and then time the acquisition of a vehicle to perfection if he didn’t want to lose them. It was not a plan to inspire optimism in its outcome but he could see no alternative. Again he lamented the absence of a weapon.
Traffic stopped. He held back three cars wondering whether to risk getting ahead of them and buy himself a small advantage. But then if they turned, he’d be screwed. Energy would have been expended and he’d have to double back with the logistical complications that would involve. There would also be the chance that they might recognise him.
The density of traffic increased. They all crawled along together. Then a few hundred yards of intense physical activity for him followed by a few seconds’ rest and then the same. After four of these, his legs were burning. His lungs, the bellows fuelling his exertions, struggled to maintain their output. The sweat was running freely down his face and stinging his eyes. He felt the nervous energy that had sustained him through the several hundred yards or so dissipating. His Hobson’s choice of bike could have been better suited to the job – one gear was fine for Sunday afternoons in the country but crap for sprint racing.
Once more the flow of traffic was arrested. They were running parallel with a park. Sansom left the road and pedalled hard on the well-worn pathway that ran under the trees. He was a hundred yards ahead of them when he noticed the traffic moving again. He was on his last reserves and the stream of traffic that had been picking up for the last two sets of lights was now flowing along more briskly.
He braked hard to a stop under a big sycamore at the side of the road and heaved the air in and out of himself trying to stabilize his system. He wiped the sweat from his eyes with his sleeve and watched for the black saloon. Five cars, four cars, three cars, two and Sansom was out in the road, pushing the bicycle a little ahead of him. He heard the warning blast of the horn, the squeal of rubber and then sacrificed the faithful steed that had got him there with a final push into the path of the oncoming vehicle. He went down himself in a bid to confuse them. He was counting on his belief that the last person in the world the driver would be expecting to run over that day was Acer Sansom. The car pushed the twisted metal a couple of yards with a grinding shriek before coming to an abrupt stop. People were looking over, rooted to their positions, waiting for someone to make a move, a lead to follow. Following cars were braking hard to avoid collision, some successfully, others not so. It all added to the disorder.
Sansom was back on his feet and charging. As the driver climbed unsuspectingly out of the vehicle Sansom hurled his whole body into him, leading with his head. Trapped between the hurtling missile-like form of the soldier and the fully opened car door, the man’s body was obliged to accept and absorb the impact. He was unconscious before he hit the road. The agent in the back with Susan had thrown up his hands to protect himself in an automatic response to Sansom’s blind-side impact. The valuable seconds that this cost him in his reaction time, coupled with his slowness to respond to the threat outside the car, enabled Sansom to have the driver’s pistol out of his shoulder holster and pointing at his confederate’s face before he could draw his own weapon, which Sansom had to assume was hidden beneath his jacket. Recognising in an instant who their attacker was and therefore knowing he was about to die, he covered his face with his arms.
Bystanders, over their initial inaction, were moving slowly towards the centre of attention, as some always would. They innocently had no idea of what was unfolding, who was involved, what had been thwarted and what was to come. Sansom wiped blood out of his eyes.
‘Susan. I need you to drive.’
‘Don’t shoot him,’ she shouted. She had her hands clamped to the side of her head and her face was a mask of terror.
‘If you get out and drive, I won’t have to.’ Sansom was doing his best to remain calm and encouraging, but any second he could see he was going to have to shout at her. ‘Now, Susan.’
Smith’s agent in the back began to lower his arms. ‘Keep them up.’ Now he was shouting. ‘Susan?’
She tried the door but it was child-locked. Sansom flicked the switch in the driver’s door. She was out and stumbling towards him. She was crying. She got in behind the wheel and Sansom slid into the seat she had vacated. ‘Get down,’ he said to the man. He pushed the hard metal of the barrel hard into the man’s neck and kept the pressure on. ‘Keep your hands over your head. You don’t have to die.’ Then, ‘Susan, just drive.’
She turned the key in the ignition, but the engine was still running. The grating of the mechanical objection rent the air. The car lurched over the buckled bicycle and away from the spot in her nervousness with a little squeal of rubber on the warm tarmac. Sansom risked a look out of the rear window and was satisfied to see the traffic at a standstill. Good citizens crowding around the fallen man and no doubt wondering to each other what the hell had just happened.
‘Slow down, Susan.’ She slowed. Sansom turned his attention to the man prostrate on the seat beside him. ‘I’m talking to her but I’m watching you. Don’t even nod to let me know you understand.’ Sansom noticed the wedding band on the hand clamped over the skull and took a guess. ‘You’re a married man. You don’t need to die for this. Slow down, Susan.’ She slowed. ‘Turn next left.’ She turned. It was a quieter road – residential. ‘Keep going, Susan. You’re doing great.’
‘Where are we going?’ she said.
‘Just keep moving. Slow down.’ He applied more pressure to the man’s neck; an indication that he was about to address him.
‘You got children?’
A muffled, ‘Yes.’
‘You’re doing great, Susan. Take the next left. Slow down.’ Back to the man: ‘You’ve got something to live for the
n. Keep thinking about them. Don’t stop thinking about your children growing up without you. Susan, stop over there behind the bins.’ It looked like a place where they might have a little privacy. She pulled in and cut the engine. ‘I’m sorry, Susan, I’ve got to kill him,’ said Sansom. He felt the man tense under his pressure.
‘What? No!’ she moaned.
‘He won’t tell me what I need to know. And I can’t let him go.’
‘I will,’ risked the man. It was stifled by the upholstery, but Sansom had heard what he wanted to, what he had hoped to. Sansom needed to relieve him of his weapon.
‘Susan, child locks on, please. Now.’ The thud indicated it was done. ‘I need your weapon,’ he said, increasing the pressure on the man with the barrel of the pistol. ‘Listen.’ Sansom cocked his pistol, keeping it still firmly pressed against the man’s skull. If he hadn’t heard it and recognised it, he would have felt it. ‘You understand what that was?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you know that now it will only take a fraction of the split second that it would have done before for this pistol to go off if you fuck with me. Concentrate on your children.’
He eased his hand under the man who turned himself helpfully just enough so that the pistol could come out from its holster. Sansom felt better.
‘Where were you taking her?’
‘Smith.’
‘Why?’
‘He didn’t say.’
‘How does he know about her?’
‘He didn’t say?’
‘Where is Tallis’s mother? What happened to her?’
‘No one’s seen her.’
None of his questions so far was important enough to get irritable about the unhelpful answers he was receiving.
