Jokerman (17 page)

Thirty-six

In the
Poetry and Dream
room, its walls weaving and shimmering with Surrealism, Emma opened her hand. Nestled in her palm was the tiny bead she’d found in the lining of her handbag.

James, close by her side, glanced down at it.

She looked at his profile but it revealed nothing.

James picked the bead out of her hand and peered at it, rolling it between thumb and forefinger.

‘What is it?’ Emma whispered, both out of reverence for the gallery’s atmosphere and because she was reluctant for anyone else to hear.

‘Difficult to say,’ murmured James. ‘Probably nothing. A flaw in the bag.’

‘But it wasn’t there before,’ she said.
Before I came home from being with you
, she managed to stop herself from saying.

He made a wry mouth. ‘Can you be sure?’

‘It’s part of my training as a doctor to spot things out of the ordinary,’ Emma said. ‘This is definitely something new.’

‘Okay.’

‘Might it be a bug? Some sort of transmitter?’

He sighed. ‘It’s possible. I’ll take it back to the office and have it examined. But more likely you’re reading too much into this.’

Emma gazed at the picture on the wall before her, a nightmarish vision of distorted screaming faces on blurred bodies. She should feel reassured, she knew. But instead she felt uneasy.

‘James.’ She turned to look up at him.

His brow furrowed. ‘Yes.’

‘Did you plant this in my bag? Are you… monitoring me?
Spying
on me?’

Something changed in his eyes.

He placed a hand on each of her shoulders, drew her nearer. His face grave, his eyes warm again, he said: ‘No. I promise you.’

After a few seconds she said: ‘Okay. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be.’

They walked hand in hand for fifteen minutes, pretending to look at the exhibits. Emma registered none of them.

There’d been something in his eyes. Something dark, just for an instant.

James’s hand tightened on hers and he stopped.

‘I have to get back now,’ he said.

‘Of course. Sorry to have called you away.’

He kissed her forehead. ‘No problem.’ Pulling away, he raised an eyebrow. ‘Still on for tomorrow?’

‘Wouldn’t miss it.’

He left first, disappearing into the milling visitors at the entrance. Emma watched him go.

She gave it five minutes.

Then she set off, walking rapidly back along the south bank. The afternoon heat cloyed at her, trying to plug her mouth and nose. The crowds felt similarly oppressive.

At Victoria she unlocked her car. Driven by something she couldn’t identify, she began searching. She rummaged in the glove compartment and side pockets, ran her fingers under the seat and dashboard, lifted up the carpets to look underneath.

Nothing. Emma straightened beside the car, wondering at herself.

She got in and drove home. Hurrying inside, she went through to the bedroom and began ransacking her clothes, groping in the pockets, feeling the hems.

She moved on to the bathroom next. Pill bottles, overnight toiletry bags, towels. None of them yielded anything.

It was by chance that she found it. Emma was about to replace the cap of a lipstick tube when she twisted the end the wrong way in her haste.

The end came off. There, affixed to the disc of metal, was another tiny bead, identical to the one from her handbag.

  The lipstick was from her overnight bag, a spare. She hadn’t taken it two nights ago, but she had when she’d spent the night with James before. The last time had been about a month ago.

Emma sat heavily on the toilet seat, staring at the floor. She felt lost, and cold.

And afraid.

Thirty-seven

Tullivant walked at a fast clip across the Millennium Bridge towards the north bank, thumbing the speed-dial key.

‘It’s confirmed,’ he said tersely. ‘They’re on to me.’

He explained. There was a silence at the other end.

Then: ‘Not good.’

‘I know.’ A tourist jostled him, wheeling angrily, but Tullivant kept moving. ‘I need to take him down.’

‘No. Not at this point. It’ll just get in the way.’ Another pause. ‘Take precautions. But stay focused on the main game.’

‘So what’s the next move?’ he asked. A busker stepped into his path playing a ukelele and Tullivant veered away.

‘I’m waiting for Purkiss’s next step. That’ll determine ours. But be prepared to move in at short notice. Cancel whatever plans you’ve got for tomorrow.’

‘That’s going to be tricky.’

‘Cancel them. This should soon be over.’

‘Understood.’

Tullivant put his phone away. He cut north-west towards the Strand, burning off adrenaline with each stride. It had been a tough forty-eight hours, all told. First the bungling at Purkiss’s house, then the mess up in Cambridgeshire, and now...
this
.

At least the targets had been neutralised. At least Arkwright was dead. And by the way things were playing out, Tullivant had got him at just about the right time. But his failure in his battle with Purkiss bothered him. The man had been blinded by teargas, and already weakened by earlier brawling. For Tullivant barely to get away unscathed was shameful. Perhaps he was getting too old; or perhaps Purkiss was simply more than a match for him.

Shame was good, he reflected. Used correctly, and not wallowed in, it stiffened the resolve. He’d learned that during his Army days. If you survived your blunders, you learned from them, did better next time. His next encounter with Purkiss would
not
result in failure on his part.

His more immediate problem was Emma. She was a loose cannon now, he could tell. Unpredictable, in a different way from Purkiss. And he couldn’t address anything with her directly. Couldn’t confront her.

The charade – yes, that was what it was, even if the word and the concept were distasteful – had to be maintained. The final outcome, however, was going to be most traumatic for all concerned. For Tullivant himself, too; he couldn’t pretend otherwise.

He’d done the odds and ends he needed to do, and was on his way to his destination, when his phone rang.

‘An update.’ Tullivant detected a note of tension that fell just short of urgency. ‘Purkiss is no longer part of the game. You don’t need to concern yourself with him any more.’

Tullivant was intrigued. ‘He’s been taken out?’

‘As good as.’

Thirty-eight

One of the things that impressed, and sometimes astounded, Purkiss about Vale was the speed at which he worked.

On the way out to the car, Vale had rung Kasabian, then handed the phone to Purkiss. Purkiss gave a brief summary of what Rossiter had told him.

‘Riyadh,’ Kasabian said.

‘Yes.’

‘Hell of a long shot.’

‘Better than no shot.’

In the car, while Purkiss used his phone to locate the address of Scipio Rand Security, Vale spoke on his own phone via its hands-free function, cutting from one connection to another, issuing instructions, considering and rejecting suggestions. He fell silent eventually, waiting for a call back.

Purkiss found a stark website for Scipio Rand Security, minimalist in its design yet expertly done. They called themselves one of the leading providers of personal and corporate security in the Middle East, and a link provided examples of their clients: mostly British and American businesses, but there were a few Saudi-sounding names there as well. There were none of the gushing testimonials normally to be found. It made the firm sound somehow more professional.

A telephone number and fax and email addresses were listed. Purkiss memorised them, but didn’t think they’d be of use. Contacting the firm beforehand would be like the police telephoning a suspect in advance to notify him of an impending arrest.

The problem was, despite pictures of a grand-looking complex of office buildings on the website’s home page, which suggested the firm had an actual physical existence, there was no address for the headquarters.

Vale’s phone rang. He hit
Receive
and a voice filled the car, speaking so rapidly Purkiss couldn’t understand what it was saying.

When it had finished, Vale said: ‘We’re in luck.’ He looked at his watch. ‘There’s a chartered flight to Riyadh leaving from Heathrow at three fifteen. That’s fifty minutes from now. You’ve a seat booked on it.’

‘Good,’ said Purkiss.

Heathrow was this side of London, on the route back. And he had his passport with him.

Vale reached into the pocket in his door, brought something crackling out. It was a pack of cigarettes. He pulled one out with his lips, dropped the pack back into the door pocket, and pressed in the car’s cigarette lighter.

‘I thought you’d quit,’ said Purkiss.

‘I did. Angina, as I told you.’

‘Quentin, it’s not for me to lecture, but…ah.’ Purkiss shrugged.

‘It helps me think better.’

Purkiss thought he detected the tiniest of tremors in the hand that pressed the lighter cylinder to the end of the cigarette.

Vale lowered the window on his side as the acrid fumes began to fill the car. Purkiss gazed through the windscreen.

A tremor?

He’d never seen Vale overtly crave a smoke, not even in these last few days when he’d been off them. So why the jitteriness now?

Purkiss glanced at Vale’s profile. It was gloomily impassive, his default expression.

They drove in silence, something tense and undefinable in the air between them.

At the drop-off area outside Heathrow’s Terminal Five, Vale scribbled down the flight details and handed the slip of paper to Purkiss.

‘Good luck,’ he said.

Purkiss held his gaze for a fraction of a second. There was nothing to read there.

He walked into the cool of the terminal building.

Finding a relatively private spot in a corner, he dialled Hannah’s number. There was a lightness in her tone when she answered, a change since the events of the night before.

Purkiss told her about the conversation with Rossiter. ‘I’m about to board to Riyadh.’

‘I want to be there too.’

He’d already considered it. ‘Okay. You’ll have to catch a separate flight, which would be advisable anyway. Let me know, and I’ll meet you at the airport.’

‘Got it.’

‘One thing. I don’t actually have a physical address for the place, and I won’t be able to hunt for it online while I’m in the air. Could you perhaps see what you can find, while you’re waiting to get a flight?’

‘No problem.’

Purkiss headed for the check-in desk, passport at the ready.

He could have asked Vale to look for the address, but something had stopped him.

Vale’s tension, his sudden resumption of smoking.

Like a child, held helpless before an advancing ogre and trying desperately to twist away from it, Purkiss recoiled from the suspicion that was crawling over him, and from the realisations that were lining up one after the other.

The security leak, which had resulted in the sniper’s attacking Purkiss in his home even before he’d taken on the
Jokerman
operation.

The apparent coincidence of the gunman having been poised outside Arkwright’s house at the very same time Purkiss and Hannah had been questioning him.

Vale?

The horror grew within Purkiss as the rumbling of the plane’s engines rose to a roar, then a shriek as it launched into the vast and unknown sky.