(1995) By Any Name (27 page)

He wrapped himself in the blanket because there were no towels and returned to the bedroom.

Elizabeth was still asleep, curled on the mattress in front of the fire in an atmosphere that was too hot for comfort. Rummaging through the bags and rucksack he’d left in the corner of the room, he retrieved the electric kettle and went to the bathroom to fill it. She was awake when he returned.

‘Hungry?’ He plugged the kettle into a socket behind the door.

‘I think so. I’m having difficulty remembering food.’

‘I’ll make breakfast while you shower. There’s soap in the dish, but no towels, shower gel or shampoo and I’m sorry, but you’ll have to stand in my dirty water. I’ve left the plug in lest the sound of water running into the drains gives us away.’

‘I’ll manage.’ She recalled the happenings of the early morning, and blanched.

‘Your dressing gown, Madam.’ He picked up the other blanket from the bedsprings and handed it to her.

‘We need to talk.’ She turned her back to him and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders.

‘Later.’ He opened the rucksack and untied the bags. ‘After we’ve eaten.’

Chaloner watched the handler send his dog into the back of the Land Rover. The animal pawed at the clothes and first aid boxes, sniffed around the plastic sheathed sleeping bags and emergency rations, and suddenly became very excited.

The handler pulled a piece of raw steak out from beneath a first aid chest. ‘This chap really knows his business.’

‘We know he took some survival gear. I was hoping he left his own clothes,’ Chaloner looked around the back of the vehicle.

‘Nothing here that’s not army issue, sir.’ The handler bagged the raw steak and ordered the dog from the back of the vehicle. ‘I’ll run the dog around the area to see if there’s a scent worth picking up. But I doubt it on a main road like this.’

‘Thank you, I knew it was a long shot before we started.’ Chaloner took the coffee Sergeant Price handed him in a steel cup from the top of a flask. He was still angry – and exhausted. He had woken in the early hours of the morning, his legs and arms jerked half out of their sockets by nylon ropes that had burned the skin around his wrists and ankles. Not knowing where he was, or what to expect, he had lain awake until six o’clock, by which time the Doberman had eaten all it could reach in the pantry and begun whining to be freed.

He wanted to return to his quarters in Stirling Lines, take a shower, change his clothes and plot the downfall of the bastard who had outwitted him.

Before it had been a job, now he had been made to look like a fool, it was personal.

‘Nothing, sir.’ The dog handler returned. ‘The blizzard has carried away whatever scent there was.’

‘At least we tried.’ Chaloner replied grudgingly.

‘All we have to decide now is which way our man went.’

‘He couldn’t have picked a better place to leave the vehicle, sir,’ Sergeant Price observed. ‘He could have gone in almost any direction from here. Llandovery, Brecon, Ystradgynlais, Merthyr, Hirwaun… ’

‘He wouldn’t have got far last night on skis,’

Lieutenant Dawkins joined them, fresh faced and eager as a puppy.

‘Unless he stole a car, in which case he could have moved on to Swansea, Cardiff, North Wales, or almost anywhere in the UK.’ Price screwed the top back on to his thermos.

‘Or he could be sticking to the place he knows,’

Chaloner said thoughtfully.

‘You think he’s gone back to Brecon, sir?’ Price asked.

‘I haven’t a bloody clue, sergeant,’ Chaloner swore with uncharacteristic exasperation. ‘But one thing’s certain, we’re not going to find him by standing around here talking.’

‘Stirling Lines, sir?’

‘ASAP. We’ll contact the patrols when we’re there. Let’s hope one of them fared better than me last night.’

West stood at the side of the window and peered through the narrow gap in the curtains on to the road.

It had stopped snowing, but judging by the lack of tracks, it hadn’t stopped long. He read the watch Elizabeth had left on the mattress. Half past three.

Soon it would be dark again and he would have to decide his next move. For the moment he didn’t want to think further than this room and the meal they were about to eat.

Moving away from the window, he carried the bags to the mattress, straightened the sleeping bag and laid the food on top. Bread, cheese, knives, no plates, foil wrapped butter, ham in a plastic bag that he tore open with the knife, the great slab of greaseproof paper wrapped veal and ham pie that was now crumbling at the edges, the cartons of wine and milk, and a box of ready washed salad. Too hungry to wait for Elizabeth, he hacked off a ragged slice of bread, wrapped it round a piece of ham and started to eat.

She walked into the room, wet hair dripping down her back, as he was biting into his second doorstep sized sandwich.

‘Coffee?’ He flicked down the switch to boil the kettle for the second time and produced two tin mugs he’d appropriated from the Land Rover.

‘With milk and sugar?’

‘Of course.’ He pulled half a bag of sugar out of one of the sacks and pointed to the carton of milk.

‘You’re a genius.’ Tucking the blanket high under her arms, hooking the loose end into the top to secure it, she sat on the mattress, picked up a knife and chopped at the pie.

‘Sorry, there are no plates.’

‘Hands were made before plates,’ she mumbled through a full mouth.

He sawed off another hunk of bread and cut himself a piece of cheese.

‘I’m afraid to ask where you found all this.’

‘There was a Mercedes parked in the drive so they can afford to stand a loss in a good cause. That’s if you consider us a good cause,’ he added dryly.

‘Of course we are. This is absolute bliss. Warmth and food. One day on that hill has taught me to appreciate the simple things in life.’

‘Some people would call a full stomach and a warm room luxuries.’

‘Like who?’

He knew she was testing him. ‘People who rarely experience either and have to fight for survival. And that’s just what I’ve reduced your life to – a fight for survival.’

‘I’m doing nicely at the moment thanks to you.’

‘We can’t hole up here forever.’

‘No, I suppose we can’t.’ Tearing a piece of the pie wrapping she dropped the chunk she’d been eating on to it. ‘What do you intend to do?’ she asked, dreading his answer.

‘I don’t know. But what I do know is it’s inevitable that we’re going to be captured.’

‘You’ve managed to successfully avoid that happening so far.’

‘We’ve been lucky. But with the manpower they’ve got searching for us, sooner or later we’ll be caught like rats in a trap. And I don’t want to be driven up a blind alley where… someone… ’ he faltered, only just stopping himself from saying “you”

‘could get hurt.’

‘You can’t be considering giving yourself up?’

‘On my terms.’ He cut two more pieces of ham and handed her one.

‘What terms do you think you could negotiate with the armed hordes they’ve sent after us?’

‘I won’t know until I negotiate.’

‘You wouldn’t even be thinking of giving yourself up if it wasn’t for me.’

‘It’s no use running when there’s no place left to run to. I thought I’d find at least some of the answers in Brecon. I have to face facts. I don’t know who I am, or what I’ve done to warrant having half the army and all of the police force after me. The temperature on the hills is below freezing. The weather’s foul, with probably more blizzards and snowstorms on the way. The only reason I’ve stayed alive this long is because I’ve proved myself an expert thief and ruthless… ’

‘You did what you had to, in order to stay alive.

There’s no crime in that,’ she interrupted.

‘Is that your personal or professional opinion?’

‘Both,’ she asserted forcefully.

‘Moralists and the law would say you’re wrong. I should never have taken you hostage much less allowed you to jump from that ambulance.’ He ran the knife blade over the lump of cheese tracing patterns on the smooth golden surface.

‘You couldn’t have stopped me from jumping after you. We’re here, and now we have to decide where to go and what to do next,’ she asserted practically.

‘I’m not going to regain my memory, am I?’

‘I honestly don’t know.’ She finished her coffee and leaned back on her hands. ‘Don’t look at me like that. That’s the truth. As I said to you that first day in the hospital, you could remember in the next ten minutes, hour, day… ’

‘Or never?’

‘Or never,’ she agreed quietly.

‘We could try hypnosis again.’

‘You’re afraid to pull the plug on the bath lest the sound of running water alerts the neighbours, yet you’re prepared to risk the noise of hysteria?’

‘Can’t you order me to be quiet?’

‘I could order you to do a great many things, Captain,’ she answered, glancing at the insignia on the suit he’d laid out on the bedsprings, ‘but I doubt you’d obey me.’

‘Captain?’ he mused.

‘Did it sound familiar?’

‘Vaguely.’

‘Perhaps you hold – or held – that rank.’

‘The question is in which army.’

She shook coffee powder into her cup and switched on the kettle. She didn’t want another coffee, but she needed to do something – anything rather than face him and think through the consequences of what had happened between them.

He pushed his tin mug towards her. She shook powder into it and filled it from the boiling kettle, conscious of him watching her every move. Unable to stand the tension between them a moment longer, she finally looked into his eyes, and saw confusion – and pain mirrored in them.

‘What happened between us… ’ he began.

‘Happened,’ she interrupted, not wanting to add to his problems. ‘It was one of those things, ships that pass in the night and all that.’

‘Perhaps, but that doesn’t make what I did right.

Not even knowing my own name, I should never have touched you.’

‘I’m not sorry,’ she said defiantly.

‘You might be if you knew more about me.’

She set the mugs on the floor and moved towards him. Linking her hands around his neck she stared into his eyes. ‘I can tell you exactly who you are.

You’re a kind, gentle, decent man. You’re incapable of doing anything underhanded, dirty, or as foul as murder.’ She conveniently forgot Dave’s warning that psychotics were among the most charming people in the world. ‘Be honest, the only reason you want to give yourself up is that you care about me. In the middle of all this mess, with God alone knows who after you, you haven’t knowingly hurt a single person… ’

‘I shot two soldiers in the hospital and one in the house in Brecon.’

‘Only because they were firing at you, and even then you shot to wound not kill.’

‘I wish I could believe you.’

‘People’s characters don’t change just because they’ve lost their memory.’ She kissed him lightly on the lips, before moving away.

He clenched his fists around the empty rucksack, squeezing it with all his strength. It would have been so easy to follow her and take her into his arms.

‘You went to all the trouble of stealing this food, yet neither of us has eaten very much.’ She scarcely knew what she was saying. Aware of his desire for her, she was fighting to suppress her own feelings.

‘I want to try hypnosis one last time. If you’re afraid of noise, I’ll muffle my face in blankets,’ he added.

‘What if you become hysterical and throw them off? What if it doesn’t work like last time?’ she questioned seriously.

‘I’ll turn from prey to hunter. Find an army patrol, and ask if any of them knows who I am.’

‘You really think you’re an army officer?’

‘If I’m not, why is everyone in a uniform in such a damned hurry to kill me?’

‘Because they think you’re a murderer.’

‘Whoever killed those soldiers knows I’m not. But they say it takes one to catch one.’

Not wanting to get caught up again in the endless argument as to whether or not he was a killer, she said, ‘all right, you win. Let’s clear away this food so you can lie down. Then we’ll try hypnosis one last time.’

‘I heard you excelled yourself last night, Captain Chaloner.’ Lieutenant-Colonel Heddingham was a model of self-control. The only sign of anger was in the grim set of his lips.

‘I apologize, unreservedly, sir.’

‘You apologize!’ Heddingham spat out the words.

‘You present West with a gift of your Land Rover and all it contained, and you apologize!’

‘Sir,’ Chaloner replied briefly, focusing on Simmonds’ bald head.

‘And now you’ve made your apology, what do you intend to do to capture the man?’

‘Go out on patrol on the Beacons, sir.’

‘We’ve had patrols out combing the Beacons for two days, what makes you think you’ll be any more successful than they’ve been?’

‘The suspicion that he’s gone to ground somewhere in the hills. I’ve had experience of identifying and neutralising enemy observation posts, sir.’ Chaloner wasn’t boasting, he’d had plenty of experience in doing just that, in desert, arctic and jungle conditions, but he also had no more idea as to where West was hiding than any other man in the Command Cell. He had studied maps of the area until his eyes could no longer focus. He had imagined himself out on the Beacons with a rucksack of emergency rations, sleeping bags, and survival equipment, and plotted moves that made less and less sense as he thought the situation through.

If West was a terrorist working for one of the Islamic fundamentalist organisations, as everyone in authority seemed to think he was, then why hadn’t he high tailed it to London as soon as he had escaped from the hospital? There were embassies who would be delighted to give sanctuary to a warrior fighting a Jehad. Going to Brecon made no sense, staying out on the Beacons even less. Yet if West had any intention of leaving the area, why steal survival equipment, with a Mercedes going begging outside the guesthouse? A car that would have presented no problems to the man who had stolen the estate-car they had found in the garage of the flat in Brecon.

‘If you’re hoping to avoid the flak that’s going to be flying out of the Ministry in this direction at the end of the day by heading for the hills, you’re being over-optimistic, Captain,’ Heddingham warned.