Catalyst

by Mark Eklid

  Clearly, Yuvraj’s suggestion that the situation would look so much better after a good night’s sleep had been intrinsically flawed. Neither of them had been able to sleep.

  Yuvraj still believed that to call it off would be a mistake. It would blow apart all the plans they had laid, for the two of them, because they needed that money. Proclaiming their love to the world and heading into the sunset to start a new life together would be a gloriously romantic gesture but they could not live on nothing. The money they would make as part of Hardstaff’s scheme was crucial.

  At one point, at least forty minutes into the call, in his exasperation he had suggested she was being paranoid. He immediately regretted using the word. It was not so much the anger it provoked. It was the silence. Worse still, it was silent anger. He could tell. He tried to withdraw from the word and convince her that he hadn’t meant it, but it was too late. The remaining fifteen minutes of the conversation were frosty, as well as difficult, and had brought no compromise over what they should do next. They had only agreed to discuss it all again tomorrow. A further deferral was the best he had been able to manage and he still had no idea what he was going to say to Helena tomorrow which could possibly make this whole situation better.

  He dragged the curtain closed again and ambled back to his chair, picked up the blue and white covered report from where he had left it open over the chair arm and sat down. In the next room, he could faintly hear the trashy TV show his wife and their two children were watching together and, just for a moment, he wanted nothing more than to join them as they abandoned themselves in the artificial unimportant dramas of whatever awful soap opera was drifting in front of their consciousness. It seemed a far simpler option.

  Instead, he opened the report to attempt to read it again but quickly gave up again and laid it to rest on his rounded belly. It was hopeless.

  The lounge door was nudged open wider and in came the family’s border collie, trotting enthusiastically to his chair before sitting in front of him, ears pricked, demanding his attention.

  ‘Hey, Buddy.’ He leaned forward and tousled the dog’s black and white head. ‘What are you after then?’

  He need not have asked. Yuvraj looked at the clock. How did they know, to such a degree of accuracy, it was that time of the evening every day?

  ‘Oh, I see,’ he said. ‘Come on then.’

  The dog jumped to its paws again and trotted off towards to the front door.

  Yuvraj rose slowly to his feet. It might be a good time to go for a walk, he thought. It might clear my head.

  ***

  The rest of the afternoon at the café had been busy after Martin got back from visiting Mrs Dawes at the hospital and he was weary. Perhaps the last couple of days had taken more of a toll than he had realised.

  He wheeled his bike through the front door of his home and into the hallway but did not take off his helmet and jacket this time. He was heading straight back out. It was time to get rid of that damned gun.

  After the incident, Martin had decided the wardrobe in the spare room was not a secure enough hiding place for the pistol and so he headed upstairs to get the stepladders, so that he could retrieve it from the loft.

  He began to climb the steps but then stopped and climbed down again. Gloves. The previous evening, before putting it in the loft, he had rubbed at every millimetre of the gun with a cloth to convince himself, as far as he could, there was no trace of evidence to suggest he had ever touched it, let alone fired it. He also stuffed the clothes he was wearing that night into a black plastic bag and had pushed them into the loft too. The realisation that spots of the man’s blood were spattered on both legs of his trousers and his shoes had turned his stomach. He would burn them all when he had the chance but, for now, it was the only all-black clothing he had and so he reasoned that he might as well wear them again for this next stage of the clean-up operation.

  Martin pulled on the black thermal gloves he wore for winter cycling and climbed the steps again so that he could reach and push open the loft hatch.

  With the gun, still wrapped in the blue material, in his rucksack alongside a garden trowel, he reversed the bike out of the hallway, ready to set off. He had decided Ecclesall Woods would be the best place to get rid of it. There were other candidates closer to home – Sheffield was well blessed with parks and woodlands – but he reckoned Ecclesall was the right mix of far enough away, had lots of secluded areas distanced from well-trodden paths and was quiet enough at this time of the evening to suit his purposes.

  At the entrance to the public footpath, he stopped and dismounted. He was on a road that cut through the middle of the woods, with the imposing height of the trees on either side and the absence of street lighting making it feel desolate and intimidating, even though major clusters of houses were not far away. Martin was not spooked by it, though the blood was whooshing in his ears as the adrenaline flooded his body. This was just what he wanted. He checked both ways to see if any cars or pedestrians were around to notice him before turning off the front and rear lights on his bike and stripping off his helmet and bright yellow safety jacket, storing them away in the rucksack.

  He pulled up the hood of his sweat top but did not cover his face with the scarf yet, just in case he met anyone on the path before he reached the point where he would disappear deeper into the woods to do the deed. He did not want to risk alarming anyone coming in the opposite direction with his full assassin get-up. If he did see anyone, he would have to abandon the operation for tonight. He could not take that chance.

  There was no one around. He had got lucky. Martin checked all around him again and pushed his bike over the marshier ground and fallen branches to where he could dig unobserved and bury the gun where it would, hopefully, remain undiscovered for centuries.

  He struggled through the debris and between the trees until he reached what he felt might be as good a place as any. He lay down his bike and walked on, a few paces deeper. Martin took a last look around and pulled up the scarf to cover most of his face. There was no sign of any living being, nor a sound other than the creak of the trees as the wind whistled and bent their upper reaches.

  Taking a deep, fortifying breath, he pulled the rucksack off his back and kneeled on the ground to take out the trowel. The soft earth yielded willingly as he dug and he piled it neatly beside the ever-deeper hole, thrusting and scraping at the ground with almost frantic progress in his desire to complete the task as quickly as possible until he had dug so deep that he had to lay with his cheek practically against the surface to stretch and reach the bottom.

  Breathing heavily and sweating from the burst of exertion, he rose on his knees and put his hands on his hips to allow himself a few moments of recovery. He looked down on the hole he had made. That should do the job. Once he had covered it over again, there should be no reason that he could think of why the ground would ever accidentally give up its secret. He laid the trowel down beside him and reached back into the rucksack, pulling out the bundle of blue material and unwrapping it to reveal the pistol.

  Even though the sight of it no longer shocked him, he remained wary of it, as if it had an aura of destructive power. Martin certainly knew well enough now what it was capable of. He picked it out of the cloth and gripped it by the handle again, keeping his index finger well away from the trigger this time. He held it to eye height and twisted it in his hand, so that the light of the half-moon through the still bare branches of the trees glinted off the dark metal while he inspected its form for one last time. He shuddered, recalling what happened the last time. Time to bury this thing for ever.

  Martin shoved the material into the rucksack but his heightened senses alerted him to another sound. He froze. It was coming from behind him, a shuffling, sniffling noise – like an animal. He twisted quickly, alarmed, and there, three feet away, was a black and white face. A dog. It looked straight at him, curious about what it had found but showing in its eyes that it was happy enough to treat it as a pot
ential friend.

  The surprise made Martin leap to his feet, gun still in hand. He heard the voice. A man’s voice.

  ‘Buddy, where the bloody hell are you going?’

  As Martin spun, terrified, to where the voice had come from, he was suddenly hit by the stark white light of a torch, making him squint and pull up both arms to shield his eyes from the dazzling glare. He was held, exposed and powerless, in the beam for no more than a few seconds before it was extinguished again, leaving him back in the dark with the disorientating flash spots from the torch filling his vision.

  He heard the voice again, yelping in panic, followed by the sounds of stumbling steps as the man fled through the trees as fast as he could or dared. The dog stayed for a moment or two longer, staring at the stranger, before seeming to realise that this newcomer was not, apparently, going to make friends and that the person who was its friend was rapidly getting further away, so it set off after the man.

  Martin was left alone again, his eyes readjusting to the natural light and his mind adjusting to what had just happened.

  Get away from here!

  He scooped up the rucksack and threw the gun and trowel into it, attempting to fasten its clips as he scrambled back towards his bike, away in the opposite direction from where the man and his dog had fled.

  Out of the woods and back on the main road, Yuvraj Patel darted behind the cover of a parked van and peered tentatively around it to make sure he was not being pursued.

  He was blowing hard, from a mixture of agitation and being totally unused to taking a late-night dash through the woods, and there was mud on his hands and knees where he had twice tripped and fallen in his desperation to get away.

  Buddy had quickly caught up and cantered easily to join his master. He panted slightly, his tongue lolling beyond his lower jaw, but his eyes said ‘That was fun! Can we do that again?’

  Yuvraj was in no hurry. He stared, wild-eyed, towards the footpath entrance and pressed himself against the van for security. He stayed there for ten minutes, having to urge Buddy to stay quiet three times, before he began to feel reassured that the mad gunman was no longer on his trail.

  He unzipped his coat and reached for his phone in the inside pocket. It was late and it was breaking their code of when they could and should not call each other but he had to speak to her now.

  ‘Hello, Helena Morrison speaking,’ she said flatly as she answered. He knew she was well aware who was calling. His name would have popped up on the screen. Darrell must be within earshot and she did not want to give anything away.

  ‘It’s me,’ he confirmed.

  ‘Oh, hi!’ Helena replied, keeping up the pretence. ‘Just hold on a sec while I move away from the TV.’

  He heard her stand and start to move and heard her say ‘Just council business, won’t be long,’ to Darrell as she closed the door behind her and headed up the stairs.

  ‘Yuvraj, what the fuck?’ she said with irritation as he heard her close another door.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  Something was wrong. She picked up on his anxiety down the line.

  ‘What is it? What’s happened?’

  He was relieved he did not have to break through her annoyance before telling her.

  ‘He came for me as well,’ said Yuvraj in hushed tones. ‘He tried to kill me.’

  Helena felt her heart leap into her throat but said nothing.

  ‘He must have been watching me to get to know where I always take the dog for a walk at the same time of night and he was waiting for me in the woods. I saw him standing there with the gun in his hand and I swear he must have been ready to pull the trigger but I think I startled him by shining a torch in his face and I was able to get away. He was a short guy dressed completely in dark clothing and had a scarf or a neckerchief to hide his face. It had to be the same guy.’

  The recurrence of the nightmare sent Helena dizzy and she fell into her office chair before her legs gave way under her.

  ‘Oh god, Yuvie! Are you all right?’

  Yuvraj glanced down at his palm. There was a streak of blood among the mud. He must have cut it on a stone or whatever as he fell.

  ‘Yeah, I’m OK,’ he said. ‘Helena, I’m so sorry for suggesting that you were overreacting. You’re right. This has to end now. First thing in the morning, I’m going to phone Cranford and tell him that we’re out.’

  14

  They were definitely on the same page now. No amount of money was worth taking an assassin’s bullet for.

  Helena was still reluctant to leave Darrell alone in the house but Yuvraj argued that it was of paramount importance that they presented a united front to show Cranford they were absolutely not going to change their minds. She could see the sense in that. To reinforce the point, they decided they would meet at a pub roughly midway between their two homes and travel on together.

  At the end of a jittery night, Yuvraj made the call first thing. Hardstaff was not happy. He did not want to give up his Saturday morning, but Yuvraj persuaded him that it was an issue of the utmost urgency which could not be resolved over the phone and he gave in. The closer it came to the key decision day for Swarbrook Hill, the granting of approval from the planning committee, even the nerves of the unshakeable Cranford Hardstaff were being stretched. There was so much at stake. No detail should be overlooked. Nothing should be taken for granted.

  He said they should meet him at the Botanical Gardens at ten.

  Helena and Yuvraj stood in front of the middle of the three domes of the Victorian glass pavilions and waited. They had arrived two minutes early for the meeting and it was already fifteen minutes past the agreed time. Cranford was playing a little power game, no doubt.

  Helena shivered, her hands thrust deep in the pockets of her dark grey winter coat, partly through apprehension but mostly because of the icy wind that had torn in from the north overnight, sending temperatures dipping. She stamped her feet, cursing herself for not having worn thicker socks, as she glanced repeatedly towards the entrance to the gardens.

  ‘Where the hell is he?’ she asked, not expecting a reply, and risked exposing her fingers to the biting gusts to tug her purple bobble hat further down over her ears.

  Yuvraj was trying not to show how much he felt the cold, but he could not control the agitation that had been building within him all night and had started to consume him since he made the phone call. He felt it was his responsibility to take the lead in presenting their demands to Cranford and had been rehearsing what he would say over and over in his head but, because he was well aware how intimidating the veteran leader could be, he feared he might fluff his lines. Still, it had to be done.

  He looked at Helena as she continued her foot-stamping jig, like a frigid flamenco dancer, and wanted to take hold of her so they could share what remained of their body warmth, but they dare not risk being seen. All their secrets had to stay that way.

  A large figure emerged around the corner of the far pavilion and the chill cut deeper into Yuvraj.

  ‘He’s here,’ he said.

  Helena turned to see for herself.

  ‘Thank god for that.’

  Hardstaff was in no hurry. He wore a heavy black overcoat with a fur collar and his stern face peered from beneath a dark fur Cossack hat, making him look like Stalin’s unkind uncle. They watched as he moved closer to them with the malignant threat of an advancing iceberg, their trepidation mounting as the distance closed between them, until he stood, large and imposing, in front of them.

  ‘This had better be important,’ he announced, making it clear they would not be offered an apology for having been kept waiting.

  ‘It is,’ Yuvraj replied, mustering his resolve. He checked around him for anyone close. ‘Is this really a good place to talk? It’s a public space.’

  Hardstaff frowned. His predator instincts smelled fear.

  ‘Hiding in plain sight,’ he growled. ‘Nobody bothers you here. They’re too busy looking at the plants.�
��

  A broad, discomfiting smile spread slowly across his fat face. ‘Besides, I like it here. It’s nature - the best kind of nature. Everything is kept together in orderly groups, there are proper paths and there are labels on everything so that you know what you’re looking at. We should charge people to get in. Remind me to raise that with Parks and Recreation.’

  Hardstaff turned and set off down the steps towards the path that split the large lawn in front of the pavilions.

  ‘Come on, let’s walk and talk,’ he ordered. ‘It’s freezing and I don’t want to spend all day in this fucking place.’

  Yuvraj scurried after him and Helena followed, though less urgently.

  ‘There have been developments, Cranford. You were aware that a man with a gun appeared at Helena’s door on Wednesday and shot her husband?’

  Hardstaff ambled along the path, his attention seemingly more focused on the fountain and the faint sound of the water that trickled from its tiers.

  ‘I heard, yes.’

  ‘Well, the same gunman – we think it was the same gunman – came after me yesterday. He was waiting for me while I was out walking the dog.’

  Yuvraj paused, expecting the impact of the news to strike home. Hardstaff sniffed the air and looked to the skies for a sign of rainfall.

  ‘And…’ he prompted, wearily.

  That was not the reaction Yuvraj expected. ‘And that means we think someone knows about Swarbrook Hill. Someone knows and they are warning us. We’re being threatened, Cranford. Helena had a funeral wreath sent to her home.’