by Dan Latus
He tensed and stood still. His eyes, and then his nose, confirmed it. Where his van should have been, there was an empty space. The acrid, smoky smell still hanging in the air told him what had happened to it. He stared with disbelief for a moment. Then he turned and started back to the car quickly, his heart pounding and his head swimming. They had beaten him to it. Somebody had.
Back on the road, he drove fast for a half hour. He headed south on the M6, instinct telling him he needed to put some miles on the clock. At the Tebay service area, he pulled off the motorway, stopped, and sat back to think. The caravan was gone. No use speculating about what had happened. His safe place couldn’t have been safe after all, and now it no longer existed. They were closing him down. He swore bitterly.
The last vestige of doubt had been swept away. Orkney, and now this. They were after him, all right. God knew why.
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and thought about what to do next. He needed information. Badly. At the moment, he was running blind, knowing nothing. He couldn’t go on like this.
There were people he could contact. One or two. Not officially, perhaps, but on a personal basis. Official channels would have to remain no-go areas for now.
First, though, there was something else he needed to check. He used the internet café in the service area to contact a storage depot in Slough. A 24/7 facility, it was where he kept another secret cache, this one of more personal stuff. Quickly, he gave the password and moved on through the pages to the one he wanted: the record of transactions.
He shook his head and stared at the screen with disbelief: empty. Gone. Every sodding thing taken out two days earlier – and not by him. Bastards! How had they known about this place?
He didn’t bother even looking at his bank accounts. If they had got to his Slough storage bunker, they would certainly have got to his bank accounts and either closed them down or emptied them.
So now he had nothing left.
Almost nothing, he corrected himself. Just a car, a bag of money and a gun. Looking on the bright side, he thought grimly, you could do a lot with that.
He also had Lisa, of course. So, really, he had a lot more than nothing. He had everything that mattered. It was just that Lisa couldn’t help. He had to keep her out of it.
Over an early breakfast, a thought came to him. Here he was on the edge of the Lake District, where Callerton – his old boss – lived somewhere in retirement. He even had a phone number for him on his mobile.
He switched on, which was a risk he had to take, and found the number. Then he switched back off and fed the number into one of the disposable phones he had picked up in Edinburgh. He glanced at his watch. Just after six. Too early? Fuck it! He’d wake the miserable old bastard up.
Chapter Five
The next lot of rain came sweeping across the land like a moving curtain, hiding everything in its path.
‘Every fifteen fucking minutes,’ Murphy said with disgust. ‘It’s worse than Ireland.’
Jackson buzzed the window closed and watched as the moving wall of grey-white enveloped the nearby farmhouse, then the barn next to it, and kept on coming until it felt like they were sitting beneath Niagara Falls.
‘Ring him,’ Murphy said suddenly.
‘What? I can’t hear you.’
‘Ring him! Tell him.’
‘Tell him what?’ Jackson shrugged. There was no point trying to conduct a conversation until this lot moved on. No point phoning anybody either. He reached for a bottle of water.
Ten minutes later, things had calmed down. It was still raining heavily but the noisy downpour at the leading edge of this latest weather system had passed them by. He made the call.
‘He’s gone now,’ Jackson was told. ‘He left on the Seacat from South Ronaldsway.’
Jackson raised an eyebrow as he digested that bit of news. So they’d been wasting their time, sitting here like this?
‘Get back onto the mainland. I’ve got somebody else doing things, but he’s going to need help.’
‘Doing things? What things?’
‘We’ve been eliminating his bolt-holes and his bank accounts. He’s running out of places to go and the things he needs to keep ahead of us.’
Jackson sighed. ‘We’ll probably have to stay overnight, and come back tomorrow. The ferries….’
‘I realize that. I’ll let you know when we get another sighting report. And try to keep up next time!’
Jackson grimaced and switched off.
‘What did he say?’ Murphy asked.
Jackson told him. Murphy said, ‘So we’ve been wasting our time?’
‘We’ve made him move on. We must have been close. Anyway, he can’t stay ahead for ever.’
Murphy said nothing for a moment. Then, ‘You said that about the fucking rain. You said it couldn’t rain forever!’
Jackson grinned. ‘If only he’d been there in Prague, we wouldn’t have had all this chasing to do. It would have been over and done with.’
‘And we could have stayed there a bit longer. I liked Prague.’
‘A bit cold, though. Remember?’
‘Not all the time,’ Murphy said, chuckling as he remembered. ‘It got pretty warm in that flat when we turned up and they realized they’d come to the end of the road.’
‘Yes,’ Jackson agreed. ‘It got pretty warm then. We did a neat and tidy job.’
‘Apart from the one that got away.’
Jackson nodded and leaned forward to start the engine.
Chapter Six
The voice was tired and distant-sounding.
‘Yes?’
No identifiers, he noted with a wry smile. Old habits.
‘You told me to call you – anytime.’
He let that lie for a moment, time for it to sink in, his voice to be recognized.
‘It’s been a long time. How are you?’
A little interest had crept into the voice. That was encouraging.
‘Troubled. I was wondering if it would be extremely inconvenient for me to visit you?’
Short pause; then:
‘When? Today? Now?’
The voice was sharper now, sleep perhaps being pushed back, along with the covers.
‘If possible. I’m not far away, you see.’
‘And it’s urgent, I assume?’
‘Very.’
‘You don’t know where I live, do you?’
The voice was getting crisper by the minute.
‘No.’
‘Brackenrigg Cottage, Nether Wasdale.’ Pause to glance at watch or clock. ‘Say about eleven?’
‘Fine. See you then.’
He was about to add a pleasantry, but Callerton had switched off. Brief and to the point. Old habits again.
The timing of recent events was niggling away at him. So, soon after 7 a.m., he rang the farm, knowing the working day would be well underway by then. Mrs Ainslie, who together with her husband owned the place, answered.
‘Oh, Mr Gibson! Terrible news, I’m afraid. I was wondering how we could contact you.’
‘Mrs Ainslie?’
‘The caravan – your caravan! It burned down. It’s gone, I’m afraid. There’s nothing left.’
He expressed astonishment.
‘How did it happen, Mrs. Ainslie?’
‘We don’t know. We have no idea. We only wish we did. The fire service and the police have both been to investigate, and we’re expecting them back again today. But they haven’t said anything about what they’ve discovered.’
‘Nobody hurt, I hope, Mrs Ainsley?’
‘No, thank God! None of the caravans are occupied at the moment.’
‘So there’s been nobody there, on site?’
‘No one at all, the past week or two. My husband thought he might have heard a car the other night, just after it got dark. And there seemed to be fresh tyre tracks in the morning, but we didn’t see anyone. It’s a bit scary, actually. We can’t understand what’s happened. And we’
re so very sorry, Mr Gibson.’
‘It’s not your fault. Don’t you worry about that, Mrs Ainslie. So when did the … the fire happen, exactly?’
Just in time he had stopped himself saying ‘attack’ – when had the attack happened?
‘Wednesday night, early on. We heard an explosion, and then there were flames shooting into the sky. Whether it was a gas bottle….’
‘Probably.’
But unlikely, he thought grimly. Not the initial spark, anyway. Not the cause of it.
‘Well, never mind, Mrs Ainslie. It was an old van and there was nothing of great value in it. I’ll get the insurance company to contact you about a replacement. If that’s all right with you?’
‘Yes, of course it is. We’re just so sorry this has happened, Mr Gibson.’
Not as sorry as I am, he noted grimly as he switched off. My best climbing boots were in that caravan.
Wednesday night then, he thought afterwards, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. That was what he had wanted to establish. The bastards had certainly moved fast. Even before he was back in the country.
Firing the caravan had saved them time, as well as denying him the use of whatever he might have had in it. Searching it instead could have taken them hours, as well as making them visible.
He parked outside one of the two pubs in the tiny hamlet of Nether Wasdale. Then he took a stroll. It would be better to find Callerton’s cottage himself, rather than leave someone with the memory of him asking where it was. By now, he had given up worrying that he might be being overly cautious. In his position, there was no such thing as too much caution.
He soon found the cottage. It was a few minutes’ walk from the pub, down a lane that seemingly led nowhere very much. He smiled. Typical of Cally! Leaving London hadn’t been enough. He had sought obscurity and isolation – and found them both.
It was a grand spot, he reflected, as he stood at the gate a moment and gazed around. Perfect; the fells, the lake, the ancient sycamores gnarled and twisted by wind and snow. Well deserved, too. Callerton had done his bit for Queen and Country, and then some.
He opened the gate and walked up the path towards the open front door. The old man would be ready for him. He always had been big on time keeping. Coffee would be ready, too, probably. Nothing alcoholic yet, though. Unless his habits had changed in retirement, that wouldn’t happen until lunch was on the table.
He used the heavy door-knocker and eased the door further open, calling a greeting. There was no reply. Smiling, he paused, listening. Nothing. The silence continued. He called again, louder this time. Still nothing.
Alarm bells began to ring in his head. He frowned and stepped back. He brought out the Glock he had brought from Prague and checked it.
Cally wouldn’t do this, he was thinking. The old man wouldn’t fail to respond to a visitor’s greeting. He wouldn’t not be in either, not when an arrangement had been made and his visitor was exactly on time. He would be here, ready and waiting. Something was wrong.
He moved along the side of the house and looked through a window into what seemed to be the main living room. No one there. He moved on. Round the next corner was the kitchen window. He looked through it, winced and felt sick. He closed his eyes for a moment.
Callerton was there. He was slumped over the kitchen table, immobile, in no position to receive visitors ever again.
The back of his head was a mess. Even from the window he could see that. A bullet, almost certainly, and whoever had fired it had been standing right behind him.
So they’d got here before him. Christ, they’d been quick off the mark – again!
It couldn’t have been Jackson and Murphy, though. They hadn’t had time to get off Orkney and down here, even if they had known this was where he was coming. Someone else, then. Another team. Or just one man. Less suspicious. The arrival of a team might have alerted Callerton.
The question was, where was the gunman now? Here still? If not, then not long gone. There hadn’t been time. Quite possibly still around, waiting for him to arrive.
He glanced back round the corner of the cottage. No one had appeared to seal off his exit route. He hesitated, weighing up his options. They were limited and straightforward: either he left immediately or he took a look inside first.
He thought quickly. There was just a faint chance the old man might have prepared something that might help. So he’d better chance it, and look inside before he left.
He wiped his face with his sleeve and checked the gun again. Then he headed back to the front door and stepped into the front porch, calling out as if he was unaware anything was wrong.
The cottage was small. Two storeys, with probably only two rooms upstairs. The gunman, if he hadn’t already departed, wouldn’t be upstairs. The priority spaces were all down below. The living room. The kitchen. What else was there? Probably a scullery. Possibly a separate dining room, but it would be a small one.
‘Cally?’
He called again and rattled about a bit in the porch. Then he laid down on the floor and eased his head around the living room door. Nothing. No one. He slid slowly into the room on his belly, and lay still.
As well as cupboards, a dresser, and free-standing bookshelves, there was an old, upright-style, three-piece suite on wooden legs. From his position on the floor, he could see the legs of a man kneeling behind the settee. The gunman had not left.
He pushed the door hard, forcing it back to crash against the wall. A man leapt up from behind the settee, arms braced to fire the gun he was holding.
There was no time, no time for anything at all. The air filled with dust, as bullets hit the wall and the door, where he should have been standing. Harry fired, and kept on firing until the gun pointing at him flew through the air, and the man who had been holding it slumped to the floor.
He scrambled across the room, ears ringing, pulse racing, and kicked the dropped gun aside. Then he stooped and felt for a pulse: there wasn’t one.
He straightened up and took a few moments to recover and let his pulse rate begin to drop back down. He wriggled his shoulders and stretched, working some of the tension out of his body. Then he leaned down again to see what he had shot.
The man was a stranger to him. Perhaps 30-ish, shorthaired and tidy-looking. He wore jeans and a casual outdoor jacket. There was nothing in his pockets to say who or what he was; only car keys and spare ammunition. All in all, that was a pretty good indication of who or what he was. Leave no trace. That was a cardinal rule for the cleaners.
A minute or two had elapsed by then, and no one else had appeared. He stood up and went quickly though the cottage, room by room, satisfying himself that no one else was in the building. It seemed to have been a one-man operation, as he had guessed. Not top notch either. They had just sent whoever was available and could get here in time.
But why? What the hell was it about? This seemed even more senseless than the killings in Prague. Cally was not a player, not any more. He’d been out of it for several years. He shook his head, feeling utterly depressed. He had liked the old man. Respected him, as well. His murder now was so pointless.
Pulling himself together, he took stock of what he knew and could see. Cally must have accepted his killer’s credentials. He would never have let the man inside the cottage otherwise.
Perhaps consultations with people from the department had still happened from time to time? It wasn’t impossible. Cally was – had been – a living archive. They might well have needed to consult him occasionally.
He returned to the kitchen and studied the scene there. Callerton was seated at the table. It looked as though he had been going through his morning’s paper, The Times, when the bullet had arrived. He had been waiting; waiting for his eleven o’clock visitor.
He glanced at the open page, grimaced and shook his head. Pen in hand, Cally had been reading an article on Siberian gas fields in the business section. He had even circled the subheading. Keeping an eye on his i
nvestments?
A last glance around. Then he turned and made his way outside and headed back towards the car. There was nothing here for him now. Nothing at all. Perhaps there wouldn’t have been anyway. It was doubtful if Cally had still been in the loop.
But in that case why had he been murdered?
And surely it was no coincidence that the shooting had happened shortly before he himself had been due to arrive to talk to him? No, of course it bloody wasn’t! They must have known he was coming. They would have been monitoring the phone.
Not his phone, though. Cally’s. He himself had used a cheap, disposable phone, and got rid of it as soon as the call was finished. It would have been Cally’s that they had been monitoring.
They had probably guessed he might try to contact the old man. Once he had actually done that, they must have decided it was an opportunity to get rid of them both; himself and Cally.
But he couldn’t even begin to guess as to why. No idea at all.
He shook his head. What was more, try as he might, he couldn’t get one step ahead of them. So far, they had anticipated his every move. They were boxing him in.
At least they still didn’t know about Lisa. He faltered. They didn’t, did they? Surely not?
He realized then that he had no idea. He shivered and suddenly felt very cold. Until now, he had assumed that if he kept away from Lisa, and didn’t contact her, she would be safe. Now he just didn’t know any more. It was terrifying.
Chapter Seven
He headed back to Northumberland on automatic pilot. There was nowhere else he could think of going. He returned to The Running Man, a place with which he had no known connection, and where nobody knew him. The one night he had spent there lingered in his memory now as a time of peace and tranquillity.
