The Double Tap (Stephen Leather Thrillers) (39 page)

       
She opened the leather-bound volume and slowly went through it. ‘Here we are.
Chi Chi
. The fourth line.’ She read it silently, then looked at him. ‘You must be on your guard. You must be careful. Things can very easily go wrong.’

       
‘Tell me about it,’ laughed Cramer. Her face fell as he laughed and he immediately composed himself. ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t laughing at you. It’s just that under the circumstances . . . you know. Obviously I’m going to be on guard.’

       
She looked at him seriously. ‘The
I Ching
is referring to your question, remember? It is with regard to the question you asked that it is offering advice. This is not fortune-telling, Mike Cramer. The
I Ching
only answers specific questions asked of it.’

       
‘I understand, Su-ming.’

       
She picked up the notepad again and drew a second hexagram, changing the fourth line from broken to unbroken. ‘This is now
ko
. Revolution. A combination of
tui
, lake, over
li
, fire. The image is of a lake over a volcano, when the lava bursts through the water is vaporised. Great change. It’s not a bad sign, the opposite in fact. It suggests that the present situation is about to give way to a more beneficial one. An end to sadness. But you yourself must make the change possible. It must first come from within.’

       
Cramer nodded. ‘An end to sadness,’ he repeated. ‘That can’t be bad, can it?’

       
Su-ming closed the book carefully as if she was afraid of damaging the pages. ‘I suppose not,’ she said. ‘Was the advice helpful?’

       
‘Of course. I must be careful, but if I try hard there’ll be a happy ending.’

       
Su-ming looked at him with narrowed eyes. ‘You sound as if you don’t believe what you’ve been told.’

       
Cramer shrugged. ‘It’s the sort of advice I’d get in a fortune cookie. Or in the horoscope of any tabloid newspaper.’

       
‘Your mind is closed,’ she said brusquely. ‘If you refuse to listen to what the
I Ching
has to say, how can you hope to be helped by it?’

       
‘I’m just not sure how throwing coins can give me the answer to a problem that I have.’

       
‘Because everything in the universe is connected,’ said Su-ming.

       
‘Well, I’m not convinced,’ he said. ‘It’s like when you read my palm. I don’t believe that the lines on my hand are an indication of what has happened to me in my life, much less a guide to what lies ahead of me.’

       
Su-ming picked up a small leather bag with a leather drawstring and dropped the coins in one by one. She put the bag on her bedside table and held out her hand. At first Cramer didn’t realise what she wanted, then he slowly held out his own right hand, palm upwards. She bent forward, her face only inches away from the palm as she traced the lines with her index finger. Occasionally her fingernail scraped his skin and he felt a tingle run down his spine like a mild electric shock. He shivered, but Su-ming didn’t appear to notice. She stared at his palm for several minutes, then released his hand.

       
‘So?’ said Cramer, his curiosity piqued.

       
Su-ming raised her eyebrows. ‘So what?’ she asked.

       
‘So what did you see?’

       
Su-ming shrugged. ‘I was just checking.’

       
‘Checking? Checking what?’

       
She tilted up her chin. ‘There’s no point in telling you if you don’t believe, is there?’

       
Cramer nodded slowly as he realised that she was toying with him. ‘Right,’ he said. He stood up. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

       
Su-ming picked up her coins again and smoothed them between her hands. She avoided Cramer’s gaze. ‘Are you frightened?’ she asked.

       
‘Frightened?’ he repeated, genuinely confused by her question. ‘Frightened of what?’

       
‘Of what lies ahead,’ she said.

       
Cramer rubbed his chin. ‘Allan’s trained me well. I stand a pretty good chance of getting through it.’

       
Su-ming looked up sharply. ‘That’s not what I meant, Mike Cramer,’ she said.

       
Cramer swallowed. His mouth had suddenly gone dry. She continued to look at him, waiting for him to reply. ‘Yes,’ he said eventually. ‘Yes, I’m frightened.’

       
She nodded. ‘An end to sadness,’ she said. ‘Remember that, Mike Cramer.’ She threw the coins and they fell silently onto the bed. Cramer walked out of the room as Su-ming drew a line on her notepad.

Lynch left the M4 and followed the A483 over the River Tawe and into Swansea. The sky was beginning to darken and he wanted to reach Llanrhidian before nightfall. Marie gave clear instructions that took them through the city centre and onto the A4118, the main road that cut through the fifteen-mile long limestone peninsula. She had the map on her lap, neatly folded with the area they were driving through uppermost. Lynch didn’t know whether or not she’d been joking about being a Girl Guide but her navigation had been faultless.

       
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to drive, Dermott?’ Marie asked, massaging the back of his neck with her right hand.

       
‘I’ll be okay. I prefer driving to being driven.’

       
‘Most men do.’

       
Lynch threw her a quick glance. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

       
‘Nothing.’

       
‘You’re saying that driving is a male ego thing, is that it?’

       
Marie held up her hands. ‘Hey, if the cap fits  . . .’ She laughed and squeezed his neck harder. ‘Don’t be so sensitive. Besides, you’re a very good driver.’

       
Lynch grinned, then just as quickly, frowned. ‘You wouldn’t be trying to massage my ego, Marie, love, would you?’

       
Marie laughed. ‘Just your neck, Dermott. Just your neck. We take the B4271 after Upper Killay. The A road goes to the airport and then to the south. We keep heading west.’

       
‘How far?’

       
‘To Llanrhidian? About eight miles. What’s the plan?’

       
The question set Lynch thinking. He’d been so busy getting out of London and worrying about the mess he’d left behind that he’d scarcely thought about what he would do when he got to the point on the map where Cramer’s helicopter had landed. For all he knew, Cramer could have been whisked into a car and driven anywhere in Wales or beyond. ‘We’ll take a look around, see if we can work out where he went,’ he said.

       
‘That’s the plan?’ she said.

       
‘It’s not really a plan,’ said Lynch.

       
‘I’ll say.’

       
Lynch cleared his throat. ‘Do you have any suggestions?’

       
‘No suggestions. I just want to get him. We’ll find out where he is and we’ll get him.’

       
Lynch shook his head. ‘No, Marie, love. I’ll do it.’

       
Marie nodded slowly. ‘Whatever you say.’

       
‘I mean it. I don’t want you anywhere near him. He’s a trained killer. He’s one of the most dangerous men you’ll ever meet.’

       
Marie raised an eyebrow innocently. ‘What, more dangerous than you, Dermott?’

       
Lynch grinned despite himself. The road to Llanrhidian was narrow and winding and he drove carefully, aware of how easily he could lose control of the spirited Golf GTI.

       
The village was tiny and looked down upon a long stretch of salt marsh which ran into the Loughor estuary to the north. To the west were the gaunt ruins of a castle. ‘What’s that?’ Lynch asked, nodding at the ruins.

       
‘Weobley Castle,’ Marie answered, looking at the map. ‘The place we’re looking for is to the east, just the other side of the B4295.’

       
They drove by the village pub. Lynch resisted the urge to stop. While he would have enjoyed a pint and a rest from driving, the pub was in such an isolated spot that the arrival of two strangers would be bound to attract attention. Marie stared at the map, rechecking the coordinates that Lynch had given her. They followed the B4295 past a sprawling caravan park, then Marie pointed to the right. ‘There,’ she said.

       
Lynch peered through the windscreen at what appeared to be nothing but farmland, most of it freshly ploughed. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked. Marie nodded. Lynch braked. The road curved around to the right, and as he guided the Golf into the curve, a high stone wall came into view. ‘Could this be it?’ he asked.

       
She nodded. ‘According to the map, the coordinates are about half a mile inside the wall.’ Lynch slowed the car to little more than a walking pace. Marie twisted around in her seat and tried to look past Lynch. ‘What is this place?’ she asked.

       
‘I can’t see.’

       
‘There’s a gate up ahead.’

       
Lynch accelerated smoothly. They passed a faded wooden sign affixed to the wall. ‘Did you see that?’ Lynch asked, looking over his shoulder.

       
‘Sorry. I missed it.’

       
Lynch stopped and reversed the Golf down the road. The lettering on the board had once been dark brown but it was now streaked with greenish mould. LLANRHIDIAN GIRLS’ PREPARATORY SCHOOL, the sign said, but a white strip with red lettering had been plastered across the board announcing that the building had been sold, along with the name and telephone number of a local estate agent. Marie took a pen from her handbag and copied the name and telephone number into the back of her diary. Lynch put the car into first gear and drove down the road towards the entrance to the school. They were about twenty yards away when he saw the two men standing just inside the wrought-iron gates. They were both in their late twenties and wearing leather jackets and jeans, not standing to attention but not lounging aimlessly, either. They were both looking at the Golf.

       
‘Kiss me,’ said Lynch.

       
Marie moved quickly. She leaned over and planted a kiss on his cheek and hugged her arms around his neck. Lynch accelerated and they passed the gate. He checked his rear-view mirror but the men didn’t look through the gate after the Golf.

       
‘What was that about?’ Marie asked, releasing her grip on his neck.

       
‘Didn’t you see them?’ Lynch asked. ‘Two men, Sass by the look of them.’

       
‘Are you sure?’

       
Lynch gave her a withering look and she slid down into her seat. ‘Now what do we do?’ she asked.

       
‘We wait until it gets dark,’ he said. ‘If they’re guarding the place, he’s probably still there.’ Lynch felt a growing excitement as he drove alongside the stone wall and he fought to control it. ‘Find us somewhere where we can look down on the school so that we can get an overview, okay?’

       
‘Sure. There’s a hill to the north. We should be able to see it from there.’

       
Lynch turned to look at her and he saw that she was smiling. ‘What?’ he said.

       
‘What do you mean, what?’

       
‘I mean what are you so happy about?’

       
Marie ran a finger along his leg, scratching the material of his jeans. ‘You said “we” for the first time.’

       
Lynch snorted softly and looked back at the road. She was right, he realised. He’d started thinking of her as part of the team. Whether or not that was a good thing remained to be seen.

Bernard Jackman looked up at the blonde stewardess and took the small glass of orange juice that she was offering. He gave her a broad smile but she was already moving on to the next passenger. Even in first class the service was perfunctory and the smiles plastic, but Jackman didn’t care. He flew more than fifty thousand miles a year on scheduled airlines and regarded travelling as nothing more than a means to an end. All he cared about was that the plane arrived on time and that it didn’t crash into the sea along the way.

       
He watched the stewardess walk down the aisle, dispensing drinks and more artificial smiles. Jackman was used to false smiles. During his time as an FBI profiler he’d interviewed hundreds of murderers, and rarely did they seem out of the ordinary. There was little to separate the serial killer from the man in the street, on the surface at least. Jackman had met serial killers who looked like kindly grandfathers, others who were as charming, handsome and charismatic as chat show hosts, and even one who was every bit as voluptuous as the stewardess. Jackman knew that it was only when you began to delve inside their heads that you discovered what separated the killers from their prey, the sheep from the wolves. He’d spent thousands of hours interviewing convicted killers, winning their confidence, peering into their minds, becoming their friend, so that he could discover what made them different. One of his bosses had said that a good profiler was like a chameleon, that when a profiler and a killer were together in a cell it should be impossible to tell them apart. Their mannerisms, their body language, the way they talked, should be virtually identical. The same man had also warned of the dangers of spending too much time in the company of serial killers. They had the same fascination as a flame to a moth: the profilers had to be careful how close they got, lest they got burned.