Stalkers

by Paul Finch

  ‘This isn’t exactly the normal spot for a rendezvous of this sort,’ Heck said.

  ‘Who is it we’re hooking up with?’

  ‘Now that we haven’t got some eavesdropping cabbie to report back on us, I suppose I can tell you.’ So he did — about McCulkin, and the agreement reached with him. As he spoke, they proceeded down a path that circled round the derelict boathouses and ran for hundreds of yards along a low dyke.

  ‘Okay, so this McCulkin is your grass,’ Lauren said. ‘Is he reliable?’

  ‘He has been up until now.’

  ‘But there’s still something about this you don’t like?’

  ‘It’s always good to exercise caution, but this …’ Heck indicated the desolation around them. ‘This smacks of overkill to me.’

  They were on the north Kent coast, a scenic but notoriously bleak and empty district. Somewhere ahead of them, still a couple of miles off, was the Thames estuary. On the far side of that sat the massive petrochemical complex at Canvey Island. There wasn’t likely to be anyone closer than that — at least, no one engaged in legitimate business.

  ‘If we’ve got reservations about this, why are we keeping going?’ Lauren asked.

  Her own reservations owed more to the gradual sinking of the dyke and the disintegration of the footpath. It was still vaguely visible, beaten through the weeds and tussock grass, winding gamely on ahead, but it was now requiring them to skirt around ponds and leap over ditches. The creek they’d spied was a dozen yards to their left, but was broadening out and filling with water; its banks looked dangerously swampy.

  ‘Because we haven’t really got any choice,’ Heck said. He grimaced as his foot plunged to the ankle and spurted brackish water up the back of his jeans. ‘All I can say is — the bastard had better be here, or I won’t be impressed.’

  The path turned west and they followed it for another mile before it brought them down into a shallow bay. The Thames now lay in front of them, though they didn’t feel that they’d arrived on a riverbank so much as at a point where land ended and the sea began. From this last piece of soggy ground, they could see clear across to the Canvey Island oil and gas terminals and, looking east, to the distant open spaces of the North Sea.

  Heck checked his watch; it was five past three, which meant their contact was late.

  Almost on cue, they heard the throb of an approaching engine and, glancing left, spotted a small outboard chugging towards them with a solo figure at its helm. It was McCulkin, still dressed — now incongruously — in his overcoat and cap, which had somehow remained on his head despite the coastal wind. He cut the motor about thirty yards from shore and let the vessel glide the rest of the way in, though he stopped it with a paddle ten yards short.

  ‘Can’t risk letting it run aground,’ he shouted. ‘Sorry, you’re going to have to get your feet wet.’

  ‘Bit off the beaten track, aren’t we?’ Heck called back.

  ‘Yeah, but I knew you’d find me okay. You never disappoint, Mr Heckenburg.’

  ‘I don’t see any sea fort.’

  McCulkin pointed. ‘Just round that headland.’

  ‘Sea fort?’ Lauren asked.

  ‘Who’s she?’ McCulkin said.

  ‘A friend.’

  Heck waded out, Lauren following, which was difficult with the river bottom deep in soft, slimy sediment. When they reached the boat, McCulkin had to help them aboard.

  ‘Your friend?’ he said testily. ‘This isn’t a daytrip we’re on, you know.’

  ‘Stop moaning,’ Heck replied. ‘I need my back watching just like everyone else.’

  ‘You said only you and me would know about this.’

  ‘I lied. Don’t act surprised — you told me I had to play dirty.’

  McCulkin regarded Lauren warily. ‘You trust this darkie?’

  ‘Hey!’ she said.

  ‘Don’t point your finger at me, girl,’ he snapped. ‘After sixty years having to live among you lot, I’ve earned the right to call you what I want.’

  ‘Which you won’t be doing while I’m around,’ Heck interjected. ‘This lass has done as much good in the last few days as you have in your entire career, and she hasn’t asked for a penny in payment. Now let’s keep it friendly, or there’ll be less work coming your way in future.’

  ‘I’m not sure I want more work if this is the way you’re going to play it,’ McCulkin said. ‘It’s bad enough one of you knows about this, but two of you … I’ll be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.’

  ‘And the people you’ll be looking for will be rotting in prison. That’s the whole idea, isn’t it?’

  McCulkin didn’t seem convinced. ‘I asked if you trusted her?’

  ‘Implicitly.’

  ‘And no one else knows about this meeting at all? Especially none of her lot?’

  Lauren glowered at him, but said nothing. The average white person had no concept of the sort of casual racial prejudices that ‘her lot’ still encountered in Britain even in the enlightened twenty-first century. But to meet overt and unashamed examples like this was now quite unusual. Unfortunately they needed this bitter, shrewish little man; otherwise she’d be tempted to chuck him overboard.

  ‘No one,’ Heck confirmed.

  Reluctantly, McCulkin started the engine and they set off again, turning a wide circle and heading towards the aforementioned headland. Heck and Lauren sat on a low wooden bench at the stern. Bilge sloshed around their feet. Much of the vessel’s metalwork was corroded, its paint flaking off in scales. McCulkin had to stand up to control it; where his chair should once have been, only rivets were visible.

  ‘Where’d you get the boat, Pat?’ Heck asked.

  ‘Meaning did I nick it?

  ‘Put it this way, if you didn’t, you were robbed.’

  McCulkin hawked and spat overboard.

  ‘Where the hell are we going?’ Lauren whispered. ‘A sea fort?’

  ‘Blacksand Tower,’ Heck replied. ‘It’s basically a fortified gun-emplacement. They built a number of them to fire at German aircraft navigating towards London along the Thames. They were called TESDUs, or Thames Estuary Special Defence Units. Most of them are now gone, but a few remain. They’re all derelict, of course.’

  She stared past his shoulder, focusing on something that had just come into view. He turned to look. The fort had appeared around the headland. It was located maybe three miles from shore, and from this distance it was a lowering mass of rusted girders and weathered, moss-eaten brick. But the closer they got to it, the more they were able to distinguish. It consisted of four towering edifices, the nearest one a massive stone cylinder, which was something like the tower of a medieval castle but lacking the crenellations at the top. Heck guessed that this would once have served as the fort’s admin section and barracks. The other three towers, which were probably the gun-towers, looked more representative of the modern world; they were octagonal steel superstructures sitting on top of massive concrete legs. Each was of a uniform height — about ninety feet, Heck estimated — and all were located about fifty yards apart, connected to each other by high steel catwalks.

  Heck watched closely as they approached. The whole thing was a scabrous ruin, streaked with dirt and seagull crap, but it was impressive all the same.

  ‘Who is it we’re meeting, Pat?’ he asked. ‘Surely you can tell us now?’

  ‘He used to work for them,’ McCulkin replied.

  ‘Worked for who?’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘You mean the Nice Guys? You don’t even like saying their name, do you?’

  McCulkin clammed up as he steered them towards the concrete tower. A landing platform was visible on its south side, a timber raft held to the mighty structure by chains. The lower section of the tower, up to about ten feet in height, dangled with bright green river weed. Above this there was a tall aperture that might once have had a door fitted in it. A steel stair ran up to this.

  ‘I don’t see any o
ther boats,’ Lauren said. ‘You sure this bloke’s here?’

  ‘He’s here,’ was McCulkin’s grunted response.

  They were now far from shore, and the wind was stiffer and colder. This close, the fort cast an immense shadow. Waves slapped against its foundations; the cries of gulls and guillemots echoed eerily from its parapets. McCulkin cut the motor and again the boat glided the remaining distance. He brought it hard against the timber raft — there was a dull thud, then he jumped out and roped it to a hook.

  ‘Bit of an expert, isn’t he?’ Lauren observed.

  ‘When you’re brought up in the docklands,’ Heck replied.

  ‘This is it,’ McCulkin said, rather unnecessarily.

  He tilted his cap back and stood waiting for them, tensely.

  ‘You nervous about something?’ Heck asked, climbing out.

  ‘Are you not?’ McCulkin replied.

  Lauren jumped up beside them. The platform rose and fell — this part of the Thames was strongly tidal, and the swell came straight from the North Sea. They glanced up the stair towards the entrance. Rusted bolts hung at regular intervals down the pillar on its left-hand side, revealing that there had once been a door there. But access to the interior was still restricted: masses of barbed wire might have made an impassable barrier had someone not gone at it with a pair of clippers, clearing a narrow path to the room beyond.

  ‘After you,’ McCulkin said.

  Heck went cautiously up the stair, which was not anchored down and shifted under his weight. At the top, he peered through the chopped wire into a dark, dripping interior.

  Lauren appeared at his shoulder. ‘You sure you trust this guy?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’ve already said this arrangement is abnormal. Even I’m getting that now. I’ve got to tell you, Heck, I don’t like this at all.’

  ‘Me neither.’ He pressed forward, sidling along the path and entering a surprisingly confined holding space, its cement floor puddled with oily water, a few empty barrels occupying one of the corners.

  To their right, a metal ladder ascended into dimness. They gazed up, and as their eyes attuned, made out hanging chains and dangling strips of canvas. The underside of the floor above was composed mainly of riveted steel, though there were some gaps in it. Heck moved to the foot of the ladder. Twenty feet overhead, it passed through a hatch and vanished, but light was visible up there — probably daylight filtering through the grimy first-floor windows. He tested the ladder, which seemed sturdy, and began to climb it, acutely aware that the clanks of his footfalls were probably sounding all the way to the top of the tower. When he was about seven feet up, he glanced back — Lauren was standing down there alone.

  ‘Where’s McCulkin?’ he asked.

  She looked around. ‘Don’t think he even came in.’

  An engine growled to life outside.

  ‘Shit!’ Heck yelled, jumping back down, racing for the door. He skirted through the wire and descended quickly to the timber platform, but it was too late. The boat was already motoring away, a good thirty yards distant. McCulkin was hunched over the wheel, but he glanced back towards them nervously.

  ‘You arsehole!’ Heck shouted. ‘What the hell are you playing at?’

  Lauren jumped down onto the platform alongside him. ‘He can’t seriously be leaving us here?’

  ‘McCulkin! You think this is going to solve anything, you little shit!’

  But McCulkin was already out of earshot.

  Heck dragged the blue phone from his pocket and bashed in the number of the red one. Rather to his surprise, it was answered.

  ‘What the goddamn hell do you think you’re playing at?’ he demanded.

  ‘I … look, I’m sorry,’ was all McCulkin could say. ‘I didn’t … I didn’t want this, I … I had no choice, I mean … when your family are under threat …’

  The words ended mid-sentence. There was a thump in Heck’s ear as the phone at the other end was dropped into the bottom of the boat. He gazed out over the water. The small outboard was still close enough for him to see McCulkin stagger to its gunwale, his head shapeless and lolling, his hair a glinting crimson mass — and topple over the side.

  A second of stunned silence followed.

  The boat continued towards the distant shore, now under its own volition. McCulkin’s body was briefly visible, bobbing like a buoy, before it sank, leaving his cap floating on the surface alongside a blurred red stain.

  ‘Fuck,’ Heck said slowly. ‘Fuck … he’s been shot!’

  Lauren’s eyes bulged in shock. ‘How was he, but who shot … I mean, out here?’

  The answers to these half questions were provided in short order.

  Heck had no sooner tapped 999 on the blue phone when a second shot was fired — presumably from a weapon fitted with a silencer, because they didn’t hear its report. The phone was smashed from Heck’s hand, scattering in fragments across the landing platform. He snatched his hand back; the bullet hadn’t penetrated his flesh, but had struck a stinging blow, which felt as if it had come from overhead. Disbelievingly, he peered up towards the topmost parapet of the tower.

  Something gleamed up there.

  It was the sun. On the barrel of a sniper rifle.

  Chapter 32

  Heck ducked backward, dragging Lauren with him. A silenced slug impacted on the spot where he’d just been standing. The plank footing was punched clean through.

  ‘Quick!’ Heck charged back up the stairs. Lauren was only a yard behind him, but another shot ricocheted from the stair’s handrail alongside her, hammering it out of shape.

  ‘Who … who the hell is it?’ she stammered as they plunged back inside the tower.

  ‘Who the hell do you think?’

  ‘Deke?’

  ‘Murdering bastard lured us here. But what really worries me is how he got to McCulkin.’

  The full import of this didn’t immediately strike Lauren. Their initial predicament was terrifying enough. Inside the base of the tower, they were sheltered from the parapet above. But of course they were stuck here. There was nowhere else to go, and it surely wouldn’t be long before the sniper descended. Gradually however, the meaning of what Heck had just said dawned on her.

  ‘What do you mean, “how he got to McCulkin”?’

  Heck mopped sweat from his forehead. ‘I’ve been worried there might be a leak in my department. Now I know there is. McCulkin was our confidential informant. No one outside the National Crime Group could possibly know about his connection to me.’

  ‘But that’s ridiculous; why would some copper …?’

  ‘Because whoever he is, he must be involved with the Nice Guys.’

  ‘Heck, you can’t be serious.’

  ‘It’s the only explanation. It explains a few other things too.’ He glanced out through the entrance. McCulkin’s outboard was a distant dot headed towards the smudged, brown coastline. The bloody traces of McCulkin himself were no longer visible on the rippling waters. ‘Lauren, how good a swimmer are you?’

  ‘You’re suggesting we swim?’

  ‘Not to the shore. Round to one of the other gun-towers. It’s only about fifty yards.’

  ‘Swim in the Thames? What about the current?’

  ‘The alternative is waiting here until miladdo comes down. There’s nowhere to hide that I can see, and we’ve got no weapons. We’ll be like fish in a barrel.’

  Even as Heck said this, there was a clang from somewhere overhead. Then another, and another — heavy feet were descending a metal staircase. Glancing up, they saw shadows of movement flickering through the gaps in the ceiling. Despite this, Lauren was still struggling with Heck’s suggestion.

  ‘Swim …?’

  He took her hand, and met her eye to eye. ‘This guy’s coming down here to kill us, Lauren. Both of us. Even if we swim, I reckon we’ve only got two or three minutes to make it to one of the other towers before he gets us in his crosshairs.’

  Slowly, unwillingly,
she forced a nod. ‘Okay … okay.’

  It was late afternoon, so the incoming tide helped them. Not that an exhausting effort wasn’t required. The nearest of the gun-towers, which was the west one, seemed a nightmarish distance away. Ploughing towards it fully clothed, through ice-cold water, was an ordeal neither of them was prepared for. All the same they swam, shoulders aching, wave after briny wave slapping them in the face and mouth. They constantly craned their necks to look back, to see if a tall, blond-haired figure had appeared on the landing platform behind them, but it was difficult to tell. The stone tower was receding, and the path they were following curved away from it. As the platform was on the south side of the stone tower, it would soon be only partially visible. That was the good news. If the killer didn’t spot them straight away on arriving there, he might not spot them at all. This goaded them to greater efforts, and now at last, the colossal, skeletal structure of the west tower was approaching. Again, the cries of gulls echoed down. The sun glinted red on its rust-covered sides.

  ‘Heck!’ Lauren tried to shout, coughing out water. ‘Heck … there’s no landing-stage. How do we get onto it?’

  Heck didn’t answer, just grunted his way forward, arm over arm.

  The four concrete legs of the tower projected outward and down from the huge superstructure on top. They had no visible base, and descended straight into the river. But in the very middle of them, a switchback stair hung swinging and creaking in the wind. It came almost to river-level, but whether they’d be able to reach it and climb up, Heck didn’t know. He trod water as he looked back over his shoulder. The stone tower was now forty yards behind them, and any figure on the landing platform would have to be standing at its southwest corner to see them. From this distance, Deke would be a matchstick man. But if he was equipped with a high-powered rifle — Heck thought again about the Dragunov he’d seen in the house at Kingston — he’d still be able to pick his targets off, especially if they were clambering wearily up this ladder and thus framed against the sky.