(1995) By Any Name (13 page)

‘You wouldn’t have killed me?’ she asked quietly.

‘Maybe if I had to, in order to survive.’

‘You’re limping. Your ankle?’ she asked remembering the sprain.

‘And a bullet graze,’ he murmured carelessly.

‘I’ll see to it.’

‘It is just a graze.’

‘Which could become infected if it’s not cleaned properly. Sit down.’ Shell-shocked by the news of Dave, she found it easier to cope with the practical and immediate.

‘You should be running as fast and as far away from here and me as you can. But I warn you, after hearing that news it might not be enough to keep you alive.’

‘I could stay and try to help you.’

‘That could be even more dangerous.’ He returned to the sofa, propped his leg on the coffee table and rolled up the bottom of his jeans.

She studied the angry open red scar that was still weeping. ‘This needs cleaning and binding.’ She opened the door to the kitchen.

He leaned back, pulled out the gun he’d jammed into the waistband of his jeans and set it on the cushion beside him. ‘And afterwards?’

She glanced at the gun. ‘As you constantly reminded me yesterday, you have a gun.’

‘It only has nine bullets.’

‘Let’s hope no one comes after us with more.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ross Chaloner detected Heddingham’s presence in the building minutes before the lieutenant-colonel reached the inner sanctum of the Command Cell. There was a sudden drop in the noise level outside the door. The stamp of feet and clicks that accompany a snapping to attention was audible, even above the ring of footsteps over vinyl floors.

Chaloner swung his feet down from the desk, rose and tugged at the bottom of his camouflage jacket.

Standing to attention alongside Simmonds, who was mannequin-elegant in the army-civvies uniform of grey trousers, black blazer, white shirt and regimental tie, he felt like a dog-eared, action man.

‘Sir.’ He saluted in synchronism with Simmonds when Heddingham entered the room.

‘At ease.’ Heddingham eyed Chaloner as though he’d been expecting something better.

‘Chaloner, sir. We met yesterday.’

‘Your CO gave you a glowing report. Hope you live up to his judgment.’

‘I’ll try, sir.’

The colonel sat behind the desk.

‘How did the meeting go, sir?’ Simmonds asked with all the authority of the second-in-command.

Heddingham ignored the question. ‘Have there been any sightings?’ he enquired.

‘None, sir,’ Simmonds replied.

‘What have you been doing to earn your keep, Chaloner?’

‘Waiting for information about West’s background and an actual sighting, sir.’

‘Our subject purported to have amnesia, Chaloner.

So how do you suggest we acquire that background knowledge?’ Heddingham enquired caustically.

‘I have no idea, sir,’ Chaloner replied blithely.

‘Have you two have been sitting on your arses, the whole time I’ve been in London?’

Simmonds stepped back warily, eyeing the waste-basket that had been mercifully emptied of fast-food wrappings less than half an hour before.

‘Sir,’ Chaloner answered, feeling duty-bound to respond to a superior’s criticism.

Heddingham pursed his lips. ‘I’ve heard rumours about your regiment, Chaloner. Too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Well, you’ve been seconded to the real world now, and I expect the people under me to pull their weight at all times. Understood!’

‘Sir.’

‘I know your type. All action, gung-ho and maverick ideas. You know how to say “sir” and how to make your superiors believe you’re complying with orders, even when you’re not and have no intention of doing so.’

‘Sir,’ Chaloner repeated.

Inspector Barnes rapped on the door and entered accompanied by Pickett. ‘Any news?’

‘Unfortunately not, Barnes,’ Heddingham snapped.

The Inspector closed the door. ‘So our man has gone to ground.’

‘The question is where?’ Chaloner walked to the map.

‘Wales.’

‘Why Wales, sir?’ Chaloner asked Barnes.

‘I saw a box of photographs of Welsh towns and cities lying on his bed in the hospital. The ward sister said that Dr Santer was using them to prompt West’s memory. It’s possible she succeeded, and that’s why he went berserk.’

‘Pure conjecture,’ Heddingham dismissed.

‘With respect, we have nothing else to go on, sir,’

Chaloner observed.

‘Wales covers a lot of ground,’ Simmonds chipped in.

‘The file relating to Brecon was out of the box,’

Barnes perched on the edge of a desk.

‘That’s interesting,’ Chaloner rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

‘That he could have connections to Wales?’

Barnes asked Chaloner.

‘That he might have connections with our home training ground.’ Chaloner picked up a stick of blue chalk and drew a circle around the town of Brecon.

‘Do you want to move the Command Cell to Brecon, Lieutenant-Colonel?’ Barnes asked hopefully.

The investigation was playing havoc with his budget and policing schedules.

‘Not until we have a definite sighting,’

Heddingham declared. ‘If we up sticks and move on every whim, we could miss our man completely. It’s bad enough to helicopter-hop between here and Whitehall without adding another couple of hundred miles to the journey.’

‘It might be worth alerting 22 SAS Training Wing, Stirling Lines, Hereford, sir.’

‘And no doubt you think you’re just the man to do it, Chaloner. Can’t wait to get home, can you?’

Heddingham sat back in his chair and eyed the captain disparagingly.

‘We have no other leads, sir. If something better should turn up I could be back here in a couple of hours.’

‘I suppose you may as well go,’ Heddingham conceded ungraciously. ‘Get your own regiment to do any donkey work that needs doing, and report to me the instant you discover anything.’

‘Shouldn’t someone go with him, sir?’ Simmonds suggested.

‘Fancy a trip, Simmonds?’

Simmonds found it difficult to ignore his superior’s sarcasm. ‘As a psychiatrist, I hope to be there when West is cornered, sir.’

‘Very well, and take an aide with you.’

‘No need, sir.’ Chaloner picked up his beret.

‘There’s plenty of willing bodies in Stirling Lines.’

‘And no doubt it would delight your CO to hear you making so free with his command. If you find nothing, I’ll expect you both back here by nightfall.’

West and Elizabeth decided to begin their search for clues to his identity in the basement. There was only one window, and as it let in a negligible amount of light, West risked switching on the light. A single, naked bulb hung from the ceiling. The cellar walls were the original stone, the floor paved with cracked and crumbling red quarry tiles.

Elizabeth looked around. ‘I wonder what was stored here originally.’

‘Nothing. It was a bake-house.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Like the route to this place, the key behind the loose stone, and my knowledge of this town, I don’t know how I know, but I am sure,’ he answered.

The high ceiling was festooned with old Victorian kitchen racks, from which hung the paraphernalia of sporting and outdoor life. Wet and dry suits, motorbike leathers, wax jackets, oilskins, various types of helmets, rucksacks, coils of rope, grappling hooks, ice picks, as well as an enormous collection of odd-shaped tools that might be used for mountaineering or caving.

Below the racks were shelves that housed an array of boots, including motorbike, walking and climbing; tents, groundsheets, kerosene stoves, canoes, engines and inflatable boats.

‘There’s enough stuff here to equip an outward bound centre,’ Elizabeth declared as she checked along the shelves.’

‘And two motor-bikes.’ West wheeled one out.

‘Nothing but the best; a Harley Davison.’

‘You know about bikes?’

‘Enough to tell you these are scrambling models, built for riding over rough country. Look at the size of the tyres.’ Leaving the bike he picked up a claw hammer and prised the front off a wooden case.

‘Rifles.’ He lifted one out. ‘Someone shoots seriously.’ He thumbed a box of ammunition in the bottom of the case. Lifting down the largest pair of walking boots, he kicked off a trainer and laced it on.

‘It fits.’

‘So it’s likely some of this equipment is yours.’

‘Possibly. But there are no invoices, bills or name tags that I can see.’

‘Nor me,’ Elizabeth concurred. ‘But there might be upstairs.’

They left the cellar by a side door that opened into a small hallway. The stairs rose steeply to their right.

He followed her into the living room after locking all the downstairs doors. They began with the black-ash storage units. While he opened cupboard doors at one end, she searched a bank of drawers at the other.

The top drawer contained receipts dating back over five years, all for items of sports equipment and climbing gear. All bore the names of suppliers in South Wales, but none the name of the purchaser. And there were no credit card details. Everything had been bought for cash. The drawer below the receipts held an assortment of felt tip pens and biros. The rest were empty.

West opened a cupboard full of china.

‘Expensive.’ She lifted out a simple black and white cup. ‘Someone has good taste.’

A desk unit contained ordnance-survey maps of the Brecon Beacon area, with cross-country routes highlighted in luminous marker pen. Alongside the maps were a stapler, a stack of envelopes and writing paper and a book of postage stamps. Another cupboard was filled with DVD’s, mainly comedy, and action. The cocktail cabinet was stocked with bottles of spirits, including extra-strength navy rum.

She stood back and studied the rest of the room.

‘Short of lifting the carpet and looking beneath the floorboards we’ve checked everything.’

He walked to the window and glanced out at the narrow balcony. A green plastic table and four matching chairs were stacked against the wall.

Nothing could possibly be concealed beneath their spindly legs.

‘Kitchen?’ Elizabeth suggested.

They trawled through cupboards and found saucepans, utensils, cutlery, Formica tablemats, tea towels, cleaning materials, a stock of tinned and dried food, and a freezer filled with convenience packs of ready meals, bread, bacon and butter.

‘I wish my kitchen looked like this,’ Elizabeth murmured.

‘In what way?’ he asked.

‘Rubbish free. There’s not a screwed-up supermarket receipt, no money-off coupons, not a chipped mug in sight. This is colour-supplement living. No one could live in it for long without messing it up.’

They continued their hunt in the floor-to-ceiling cupboards in the passage, searching through piles of pillows, bedding, duvets, blankets and towels, all of which were clean, laundered and neatly folded. They found enough toilet rolls, toothbrushes, toothpaste and soap to last an average family for six months, and supplies of Kendal Mint cake and slabs of hard bitter chocolate that West recognized as hill walkers’survival rations.

Elizabeth moved on to the first bedroom. There were four in all. The one she’d slept in was the smallest, and the only one without direct access to the corridor, opening as it did from the third bedroom.

Two rooms had twin beds, one a double, hers a single.

Apart from the beds they were all furnished in identical, white bedroom suites. The dressing tables, wardrobes and bedside cabinets were empty apart from anti-moth sachets, hangers and bedding. And in every room, the mattresses were stripped bare beneath the bedcovers. West lifted the covers and heaved the mattresses on to the floor, but still found nothing.

‘Looks like a holiday let,’ Elizabeth declared finally.

‘Holiday let?’ he queried.

‘An apartment that’s regularly rented out. Did you notice there’s a separate access to the basement?

Where did you find the key to that?’

‘Behind the loose brick along with the other keys.’

‘The bathroom,’ she said suddenly. ‘There could be a prescription with a name on.’

The only medicine they found was a chemist’s bottle of aspirin. There was also a pack of plasters, a tube of antiseptic cream, a few disposable razors and a deodorant spray.

‘Healthy lot,’ Elizabeth closed the cabinet door.

‘Evidently,’ he concurred despondently.

‘But we do have something,’ she said, in an attempt to lift his spirits.

‘What?’

‘Remember when I showed you that first photograph of Brecon, you said “Michael”. If I start using that name, you might remember more.’

‘You didn’t see the street sign when we turned in from the main road?’

‘No.’

‘We’re in St Michael Street.’

‘Is that it?’ Peter Simmonds peered down through the helicopter’s rain-speckled windows at a sprawl of low-built buildings set inside a large compound.

‘That’s it. SAS Regimental HQ, Stirling Lines, Hereford.’ Chaloner planted his feet firmly on the floor, bracing himself for touch-down.

‘And you’re sure your CO will co-operate with us?’

‘He will have had the directive by now.’

Simmonds gave him a hard look. ‘Both you and I know there’s several ways of obeying directives.’

‘This is a training centre.’ Chaloner gripped the sides of his seat as the helicopter gave a sickening lurch. ‘An exercise with a real objective is always better than one without.’ The helicopter landed on the pad, he slid back the door and dived out of the cockpit, keeping his head low until he’d cleared the rotor blades. A sergeant with grizzled grey hair showing beneath his beige beret stood outside the nearest building.

‘Sir.’ He snapped to attention as Chaloner approached.

‘You remember Major Simmonds from the hospital?’

‘Yes, sir. Welcome to Stirling Lines, sir.’

‘How are things, Sergeant Price?’ Chaloner asked.

‘I dare say they’ll be livelier than they have been, now you’re here, sir.’ The NCO grinned then jerked his head towards the door. ‘They’re waiting for you inside.’

‘We have our manpower?’

‘As many trainees as you want. Not that any of them are up to much.’

‘You say that every selection training intake.’