Tracers (33 page)

FIFTY-TWO

T
he address on the garage bill led to an anonymous terraced cottage on the edge of a small development. Open fields spread out into the darkness in front, and a few houses showed lights to the rear. The properties either side were dark and silent, and in the glow from the street lights the area looked neat and well maintained.

Harry parked a few doors along and walked up the front path. He pressed a button to one side and heard a bell ringing inside. There was no answer. He tried the handle but it was locked. Leaving Rik to keep watch, he went to check the rear.

The back gardens were small and laid mostly to patios or decking, with gravelled beds sprouting ceramic flower pots and exotic grasses. Harry pushed through the gate and negotiated the gloom to the back door. When he touched the handle, the door swung open.

He stepped back, eyeing the windows. He couldn’t hear anything, as there was just enough ambient night noise to block any sounds from inside. He turned and walked back to the front and led Rik to the car.

‘Back door’s open,’ he said quietly, and opened the rear of the Renault. He leaned inside, then swore softly.

‘Problem?’ Rik joined him and immediately spotted the metal box with the combination lock. ‘What’s that?’

‘What does it look like?’ Harry muttered, and tried again to open it. But the mechanism was jammed solid. He ran his fingers round the combination dial and felt a sliver of metal wedged firmly into one side. This was no accident.

Rik looked at him. ‘It’s a hot box!’ He sounded shocked. ‘I was meaning to ask you about that—’

‘Ask me some other time. We’ll open it later.’ He looked back towards the house. There was still no sign of life. In spite of his reservations about carrying weapons, having the backup of a gun right now would be an enormous psychological advantage. ‘Come on.’

Leaving Rik to cover the front door again, he made his way to the back and stepped inside. The only sound was the ticking of a heater. The air smelled musty and dead. He brushed his hand across the wall by the door and flicked on the light. He was in a small kitchen, tidy except for a plate and wine glass standing in the sink. The base of the glass was crusted with dried red wine.

He walked through the cottage and opened the front door.

‘Anything?’ Rik was scowling, but looked fully alert.

‘Doesn’t feel like it,’ Harry whispered. He gestured towards the stairs. ‘I’ll do up there.’

He went up the carpeted stairs before Rick could ask more questions. He reached the landing and stepped into a bathroom. Empty. He crossed the hallway and found a small bedroom containing a single bed, a cheap pine desk with a PC on the top, and a chest of drawers.

He stepped into the last room and switched on the light.

Jennings was lying across the bed, dressed in a shirt and pants. His legs were white stalks, hairless and devoid of colour or muscle tone. He looked as if he might have been dressing to go out. A pair of shiny black brogues stood by the bedside cabinet, and a tie lay across the pillow. A suit was hanging on the front of a single wardrobe.

Harry called down. ‘Up here.’

Rik joined him and moved across to the bed. A small hole was visible in Jennings’ throat, just below the chin, and a heavy trickle of congealed blood had wormed its way down one side of his neck. Another had run from the corner of his mouth and puddled on the coverlet. Harry checked the skin around the wound. There were no signs of scorch marks.

‘He was shot from the door,’ he concluded. ‘Small calibre. Doesn’t look as if he had time to react.’

They checked the house from top to bottom, but other than the PC, there was nothing to help them in their search. The PC would have to go to Ballatyne for his experts to go over and analyse in depth.

‘You want me to take a look?’ Rik offered.

It was tempting, if only to get a jump ahead of Ballatyne. But Harry shook his head. ‘Jennings will have used codes or password protection. We don’t have time.’

They gave the house another once-over, each taking the rooms previously done by the other. This second search revealed a small paper carrier bag by the side of the pine desk in the spare bedroom. It was empty, but when Harry peered inside, he saw a tiny triangle of paper under the edge of the cardboard stiffener at the bottom. He pulled it out. It was a single, new fifty-Euro note.

He studied the bag. It had crease lines down the sides, as if it had once contained something heavy and roughly oblong . . . like packs of banknotes. Was this what Jennings had been killed for – a pay-off that had turned nasty?

Harry dialled Ballatyne’s number and reported their findings. The duty officer coolly noted the details, including the number off the fifty-Euro note, and said he would pass it on. ‘We’ll notify the police, but we’ll have our people check the place first.’ He added that it might be unwise for them to be found in the vicinity.

‘This bloke doesn’t waste time thinking on moral dilemmas, does he?’ said Rik. ‘It was just like the others: in, do the job and out again.’

‘Similar. But there are two differences. He got here before us and he took something away with him.’ The same signature was here just as surely as if he’d spray-painted his name across the walls.

Dog
.

The hostel near Victoria was in darkness by the time Dog returned. A digital clock in a shop window read 02.30. He’d been unable to sleep, his mind full of what he had to do tomorrow. He hadn’t intended being out this late, but time had slipped by unnoticed, his thoughts piling in on each other as he considered his future after he’d taken care of Rafa’i.

He pushed at the front door, half expecting to have to hammer on the glass to rouse someone, but it swung open without resistance. The cubicle where the night-porter-cum-security-guard watched a tiny television was deserted. Grateful for small mercies, he moved past the desk and walked quietly up the stairs, feeling the pull of stiffness settling in his leg muscles. He was tempted to do some warm-down stretches but it would have to wait. He needed sleep more.

He entered his room and stripped off, then took a shower. He made it part of his routine whenever he was able to, cleaning himself with almost ritual care, ready for whatever lay ahead. He enjoyed the soothing effect standing under the warm jet, letting it cascade over him until the water began to cool. He turned off the shower and shook himself free of excess droplets.

Drying himself quickly, he took out his gun and knife. He cleaned the blade with a pad of tissue, paying particular attention to some dried flecks of red around the handle which he’d missed after the job in Harrow. He felt a bristle of annoyance; that one had been a mistake, for which he blamed Jennings. If the lawyer had kept him fully informed, he’d have been ready for Tate and Ferris to alter their plans.

Still, he’d taken care of it and nobody was the wiser. He’d actually taken an unusual pleasure in seeing the man – Param, Jennings had said he was called – staggering back from the door, the life ebbing from his body, an expression of dismay on his dumb face.

He put the knife in his jacket and stripped the gun, laying out the parts on the bed with something close to reverence. It was a routine and one he could have followed in the pitch dark. When they were cleaned and reassembled, he placed the gun on the floor by the bed, within easy reach. He didn’t entirely trust some of the other residents not to come calling if they thought they could snaffle something in the wee small hours.

Next he cleaned his shoes and laid out his clothes, consigning his dirty skivvies to a plastic bag for disposal in the morning. He could easily buy new ones. Then he lay on the bed, relishing the cool air on his naked skin and staring at the ceiling. He started going over what he’d accomplished so far – and what lay ahead.

He was slipping into mission mode, as he had done so often before, checking and rechecking his options, going back over earlier preparations and discounting one by one the various errors that might have been made. For a while, he was back in a meadow outside Armagh or in a hovel of a B&B in the back streets of Belfast, listening to the traffic, wondering if the vehicle slowing nearby had come for him.

It was oddly calming being here in London, listening to the sounds of the street, of late cabs cruising for fares, of night cleaners going about their work. He felt himself beginning to drift and smiled, enjoying the sensation of gradually letting go.

After Rafa’i, Dog knew there was nothing to keep him here. This was the end of the road for him, and probably the end of his work. He’d had a bad feeling about Jennings right from the start, though; he should have listened to his instincts. The man was a cheapskate, interested solely in his own future. After tomorrow morning, though, when he’d complete his final job, he’d be done for good.

The truth was, he was relieved it was over. There was only so long a man could go on doing this kind of work, and he’d been at it longer than most, lasted far longer than his contemporaries. The odds of continuing unscathed were not in his favour. It was time to move on. To disappear. Dog was good at disappearing for long periods.

This time it would have to be for good.

As his eyes began to close under the pull of sleep and his breathing began to settle to a steady rhythm, he wondered vaguely about the absence of the night porter. The man had always been as quick as a rat down a drainpipe before to intercept arrivals. He should have been there, street crime being what it was in the area. You couldn’t trust anyone these days—

He heard a faint rasp of noise close by.

Dog kept his eyes closed and his breathing unchanged. He lowered his hand slowly to the floor, reaching for the gun. Whoever was in here was going to regret it: they had invaded his space. Probably some bloody crack head looking for an easy score. He’d have a sharp word with the night porter in the morning.

He located movement over by the door; recognized the shift of fabric, the brush of a shoe on the scrappy carpet. He smiled. Careless. The intruder had betrayed his location as surely as if he’d struck a match.

Dog swung his feet to the floor and stood up in one fluid motion, bringing the gun to bear on the door. In the glow of a neon display from the hostel sign just outside his window, he saw the room as clearly as day. In the same moment, he saw a patch of darkness – but it wasn’t where he’d expected.

The intruder was standing against the wall by the wardrobe, tucked into the corner.

A truck rattled by outside, its engine roaring. In the same instant, a light flared, the white flash painful to the eyes. Dog heard a sharp crack, almost drowned by the noise of the truck, and something punched him with unbelievable force in the chest. He staggered back, shocked and breathless.

He fought to regain his balance, dragging his weapon round to bear on the other person and trying to pull the trigger.
Why was it so difficult? It was never this hard.
All you had to do was pull—
But his finger wouldn’t work. He tried again, focussing all his strength on that simple task, something he’d done so often it was as natural as breathing.

Then, in the sweeping lights of traffic flushing across the front of the hostel, he saw the face of his opponent. He experienced a bitter sense of fury. And pain.

It started in his chest, blossoming out and invading his whole body. It was like nothing he’d experienced before – and Dog was no stranger to pain. His body told him he needed to lie down, but his mind rebelled, unwilling to let go. Then he could no longer control the physical functions as the motor system governing his body began to shut down. He moved backwards, and the edge of the bed hit the back of his legs and tipped him off-balance.

His gun dropped and bounced away in the gloom, no longer of any use to him.

FIFTY-THREE

R
afa’i was early again. This time he approached the park from the Mall, skittering along the pavement as if his feet were on fire. It was just gone nine thirty. He looked uneasy, huddled in the same long, dark coat Harry and Rik had seen him with on the airport cameras.

After a fitful few hours’ sleep in a backstreet hotel near Marylebone following their discovery of Jennings’ body, they had breakfasted in a coffee shop and discussed tactics. If Rafa’i failed to show, they were back to square one, in which case they might as well contact Ballatyne and wait to see what happened next. On the positive side, if the cleric did show, everything that followed would depend on his reaction to their presence. Without Joanne, they might have a problem talking him round. It would depend on how highly he rated his chances of surviving alone without help.

Before driving here, Harry had gone to the boot of his car and forced open the hot box. He’d taken out two semi-automatics and handed one to Rik.

‘This is strictly last-resort use,’ he said sombrely. ‘If you take this out, it’s because you intend to use it. You intend to kill. Right?’

‘Right.’ Rik had nodded, any argument about the box and its contents forgotten. He’d checked the gun and put it away under his jacket, apparently calm. But Harry could tell he was nervous. Nerves were OK, though; nerves would get him through this and make sure he reacted with caution rather than haste.

Then they had set off for the park.

They were in luck. Joanne was standing by the railings around the lake.

Rik was unimpressed. ‘I don’t get it.’

‘Take it easy,’ said Harry calmly, and walked across to her. He was careful not to spook her, and made a show of being relaxed, unthreatening. She watched them approach, her face tight, but no longer with the haunted look they’d seen before. She had one strap of her rucksack slung over her shoulder, but was clutching the bulk of it to her front. One hand was visible, Harry noted, resting on the railing. The other was tucked inside the rucksack.