Jokerman (9 page)

Nineteen

Within twenty seconds of the blast, Tullivant was gone, driving at an unhurried pace north towards Greenwich.

He’d been parked for six hours at the end of the street, in the road with which Al-Bayati’s street formed a T, so that he had a clear view of both the Range Rover and of the entrance to the man’s house.

Ten minutes before climbing into his parked car to wait, he’d approached the Range Rover, a leather bag over one shoulder. The street was all but deserted at five thirty in the morning, not even an early jogger or dog walker to be seen. Nonetheless, there were bound to be people up at this hour, some of them even looking out of their windows as they sipped their first mugs of tea, so he had to make everything look as natural as possible.

Tullivant disabled the Range Rover’s alarm and the locking mechanism with a piece of electronic equipment not widely available commercially. He popped the hood, lugged a bottle of windscreen washer fluid round together with a small package which he’d taken from the leather bag concealed against it, and reached under the raised bonnet as though filling up with the fluid. He withdrew the dipstick, muttered as though finding the oil level low, and lowered himself to peer under the chassis, looking for a leak. Quickly, carefully, he fitted the package of C-24 explosive under the chassis.

  Back in the car, he prised away the panel around the ignition and wired up the detonator. It wasn’t his favourite type of car bomb. Motion-sensitive ones, triggered by a human bulk lowering itself onto the seat, were more elegant; but in a busy residential street like this one they were too risky. A child climbing onto the bonnet might set it off. And Tullivant had discounted a remote-controlled device, because the signals jammed too frequently.

At that point, Tullivant could easily have driven away. He could have been on the other side of the country by the time the bomb exploded, reducing considerably his chances of being caught. But he needed to see for himself that the hit was successful. So he waited.

Once, during the six hours, the front door of the house had opened, and Tullivant had stiffened in his car seat. But it had only been one of the bodyguards, going out for the newspaper and a bottle of milk. Tullivant was relieved the man went on foot. It would have been embarrassing if he’d blown up the street in the process of popping out for a few essentials.

Around noon, it had all kicked off, and very nearly unravelled.

Al-Bayati and his entourage emerged in a seeming hurry, heading straight for the Range Rover. As they were climbing in, the tall man whom Tullivant had been aware of on the periphery of his vision suddenly stepped onto the road, his hand extended, holding some sort of identification card.

John Purkiss.

The shock of recognition made Tullivant feel disorientated, as if he’d slipped into someone else’s dream.

Reality intruded again. Tullivant had the Timberwolf in the car. If he moved quickly, he could take out Purkiss, and hope that Al-Bayati and his guards took fright and chose to start the car.

A woman was running up the road towards Purkiss, from behind him so that he couldn’t see her. Dark hair, slim build.

She collided with Purkiss and, as if he was the trigger, the car went up.

Tullivant ducked beneath the window, felt the heat sear his head. The roar made his car judder.

He raised his head once more. Dense smoke choked his throat and stung his eyes.

Through the haze he saw the rolling, screaming bodies, the tumbling fireballs of debris.

The frame of the Range Rover loomed into view, haloed in flame.

Satisfied, Tullivant started the engine of his own car and pulled away. Nobody would notice his departure in the chaos.

Negotiating the streets one-handed, he hit the speed-dial key on his phone.

‘Target’s neutralised,’ he said.

‘Good.’

‘One thing,’ said Tullivant. ‘John Purkiss was at the scene.’

He relayed what he’d seen: Purkiss approaching Al-Bayati with some sort of card in his hand, as though posing as a police officer or other figure of authority.

The news was received in silence. Tullivant didn’t ask,
do you want me to take Purkiss out
? He’d wait for his instructions, without speculation, without pre-emption.

‘Another target.’

‘Yes,’ said Tullivant.

‘This is a little more complicated.’

Tullivant listened, angling towards Rotherhithe and the tunnel that would take him across the Thames. There was a lot of detail to be absorbed. Tullivant had a visual memory, so that he retained facts by converting them into a flowing series of images. He used the system to memorise the target’s name, address, and the specifics of exactly when he was expected to move in and do the hit.

Yes, this was going to be more complicated than the ones so far. But in many ways more interesting, for that very reason.

Twenty

Alone in the house for a final precious few minutes, Emma made herself a cup of green tea and sat at the kitchen counter, looking out over the Common.

The kids had stayed over with their friends, the Finches’ twins, and when Emma had rung that morning to ask about picking them up, Melanie Finch had said, ‘God, no, don’t rush. They’re having a great time. A well-behaved pair you’ve got there, Em.’

Melanie said she’d drop Jack and Niamh back at Emma’s around lunchtime. It was now half past twelve. The live-in nanny, Ulyana, would only be back the next morning.

Emma had arrived home the night before at two-thirty, tiptoeing through the silent rooms, carrying her guilt like a burden she might drop at any moment and wake Brian. She’d slipped in beside him, hoping he wouldn’t wake up, but he’d half-rolled sleepily towards her.

‘Busy night, love?’

For an instant she was convinced he’d smell James in the bed with them, even though she’d showered back at the hotel before changing back into her day clothes. But he turned on his back and put out an arm for her to lie across, and she did so, snuggling into the crook the way she’d done for years, in the beginning.

She felt the slow rumble of his breathing in his chest beside her ear. It was at the same time deeply comforting, and almost unendurable in the way it stoked her guilt and shame.

He hadn’t driven her into James’s arms. Hadn’t done anything except bore her. And he didn’t even do that, really. He was witty, clever, interesting, and interested in her. If his job as a Physical Education teacher at the local private boys’ school didn’t present as obvious a topic of conversation at parties as hers as a GP did… well, so what?

No. Emma was honest enough with herself that she could recognise what a walking cliché she was. It was the danger in James she was attracted to. There was something of the bad boy about him. And like a teenage ingénue, she felt herself drawn in.

When she woke, the slanting sun indicated it was after nine o’clock. Emma glanced across but saw Brian’s side of the bed empty, the pillow neatly plumped.

The relief made her slump back on the sheets, the guilt close behind. Of course. He was coaching cricket today. It meant no awkwardness this morning, no struggling to ignore the lingering sensation of being in James’s arms. By the time Brian got home, she’d have got through a normal day, and would be more herself again.

Sitting at the counter, waiting for the children to arrive, Emma had a sudden, insane urge to phone James.

She suspected he used a special, pay-as-you-go phone to communicate with her, rather than his work one or even his main personal one. It was the sort of thing an agent in his position would do, secrecy coming instinctively. But she knew she couldn’t risk calling him.

She was due to see him again on Monday, two days from now. Last night had been an unexpected bonus, and should be enough to tide her over. But like the opiate addicts she’d seen as patients through the years, she craved James’s company only all the more for the increased exposure.

Emma noticed she’d left her handbag on the shelf where they kept the keys, and went to retrieve it. She looked inside, saw the makeup she’d spent a fair amount of money on yesterday before meeting James. Would Brian notice if she wore a different shade of lipstick from usual? Probably not, or even if he did he’d think she was doing it to please him. But she decided to keep it for her encounters with James.

As she replaced the makeup, her fingertips felt a slight irregularity in the seam of the handbag. She peered in, saw a tiny frayed thread.

Great.
The bag was a Louis Vuitton, and hadn’t been cheap.

Pushing the lining of the bag so that it protruded out, she examined the seam. Something looked odd about it. She rubbed a fingertip over it.

A definite bump.

With a fingernail, she prised another thread free. Holding the seam inches from her face, she detected a dull glint from within.

Her nailtips plucked a couple more threads loose, and she worked them into the gap and pulled the object free.

It was a perfectly round, slate-coloured bit of metal, no bigger than a pinhead. Emma turned it round. There were no markings.

Had it been there before last night? She supposed she might not have noticed.

She emptied the bag out on the kitchen counter and turned it inside out. With eyes and fingers she examined every millimetre of the lining, but found nothing else.

She watched the tiny ball, as though she thought it might suddenly start rolling across the granite surface of its own accord.

James. He was the one to ask. James would know whether it was something of significance, or whether she was being ridiculous, fretting over a bead which had found itself in the design of the handbag by accident.

James.
She thought of him, among the rumpled sheets last night, managing to look lazy and intense at the same time, watching her as she headed for the shower.

And left him alone. With her handbag.

The thread of unease snapped then, as Melanie Finch’s station wagon pulled into the driveway and the carefree yelling of the children dragged her into a different world.

Twenty-one

Hannah handed Purkiss the small, hardbacked notebook.

‘You have a look through,’ she said. ‘See if you spot what I did.’

They were on a mezzanine level at Victoria Station, seated at a table which was part of the sprawling fast-food dining area. Hannah had rented one of the station’s lockers to keep the notebook in.

‘I didn’t feel safe leaving it at home,’ she said. ‘Nor carrying it around with me.’

They’d left the café and headed for the nearest A&E department, where Hannah had been seen promptly and had her leg wound dressed. She’d slipped and fallen at a dump, she said, and cut herself on corrugated iron. None of the staff appeared inclined to disbelieve her, or particularly interested one way or the other. The hum of conversation in the department was about the car bomb and how many likely casualties there were going to be.

While Hannah was being seen to, Purkiss watched a television set on the wall in the triage area. The reporting was all very preliminary, with little to be seen on camera beyond the bustling of the police, ambulance and fire services, but the excited reporter revealed that there appeared to be at least ten people killed or injured.

Hannah emerged, having changed into a pair of jeans she’d bought along the way. She’d washed the dirt off her face and arms, and looked pale underneath.

‘Did they look at your back?’ Purkiss asked.

‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘Sunburn.’

At Victoria Station now, Purkiss perused the notebook. Almost every page was crammed with crabby lettering and symbols. Most of it, as Hannah had said, was unintelligible, a highly personal form of shorthand. But he saw the names leap out at times: Al-Bayati,
Iraqi Thunder Fist
.

And another: 
Arkwright
, preceded once by the first name
Dennis
.

‘Heard of him?’ asked Purkiss.

‘No.’

The name hadn’t come up in the Morrow files Kasabian had given him.

‘Why would Charlie leave these names unencoded like this?’

Purkiss shrugged. ‘Insurance, I suppose. In case anybody else ever needed to use the information in the notebook. Like us, now.’

She swept a hand across her forehead. ‘If I could only access the Service database… But if this Arkwright is important in some way, his name will be flagged. Any search will not just set off alarms, but will probably lock his data and prevent anyone reading it.’

‘There’s another possibility,’ said Purkiss.

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s a long shot.’ He took out his phone and dialled Vale’s number.

‘John. You’ve heard about the car bomb?’

‘I was there,’ said Purkiss.

‘Are you hurt?’

‘No.’

‘What happened?’

‘The target of the bomb was Mohammed Al-Bayati, the London head of
Iraqi Thunder Fist
, a dissident group possibly involved in insurgent activity in Iraq. Morrow’s notes suggest Al-Bayati was a Service agent, or at least informant. He had a phalanx of bodyguards with him. I wanted to interview him but he was killed first.’

‘How did the killer know you intended to approach Al-Bayati?’

‘They may not have known. He might have been earmarked for assassination and I just happened to take an interest in him beforehand.’

Vale was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘Difficult to tie all this together. Morrow’s killing, the attempt on your life, and now this.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘Is there anything I can do?’

‘Yes,’ said Purkiss. ‘Could you run a name through the SIS database? Dennis Arkwright.’

‘I’ll be in touch,’ said Vale. He didn’t ask any more, and rang off.

It was, as Purkiss had said, a long shot. But it was worth checking. If the coded material in Morrow’s notebook related to Iraq, then it was possible this Arkwright existed in the database of the foreign intelligence service, SIS, as well as the domestic Security Service.

Hannah was watching him. ‘You need to fill me in on a few details,’ she said.

So Purkiss did. He told her about the attack at his home, about Kendrick in hospital, and about the access he’d obtained to Morrow’s files. But he avoided mentioning Kasabian altogether, saying only that he’d obtained the files via a “high-placed source”.

She put her hands together, touched her lips against her fingertips. Shook her head.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘You’re going to have to tell me everything sooner or later. Who you’re working for. Because if this gunman attacked you in your home knowing you were involved in the case, then there’s a leak somewhere. Whoever’s employing you has allowed the opposition to get wind of the fact.’

‘True,’ noted Purkiss, who’d said as much to Kasabian. ‘But I can’t tell you who’s hired me. Not yet. Not until I know I can trust you.’

He expected her to react with anger, but she just nodded.

Vale telephoned back after twenty minutes. Although he was no longer an official SIS employee, he’d retained high-level connections within the service, as well as privileges to access the databases.

‘We have a match,’ he said. ‘But not much detail. Dennis Kincaid Arkwright, born twentieth February 1964. Did some freelance work for the Service – that’s
our
Service, SIS – in Turkey in the middle years of the last decade. The nature of that work is not recorded. He’s a former Royal Marine, Three Commando Brigade. Dishonourably discharged in 2002 for brawling and insubordination, narrowly avoiding a court martial.’

‘That’s it?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t suppose you have an address for him?’ asked Purkiss.

‘I do, as a matter of fact.’ It wasn’t Vale’s style to sound smug or triumphant, and he didn’t do so now. ‘He draws disability benefit, luckily enough. The Department of Work and Pensions have him living in a village called Dry Perry, in Cambridgeshire.’

He gave Purkiss the exact address. ‘There’s a photo, too. Not a very good one, and a few years old. I’m sending it across.’

Purkiss said, ‘Thanks, Quentin. That’s a great help.’

‘Nine people so far confirmed dead in the car bomb explosion. Seven in the vehicle – I assume that’s Al-Bayati and his bodyguards – and two civilians. Do you think anyone will remember that you were nearby when it happened, John?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Purkiss. ‘In any case, it wouldn’t have looked as though I was involved, if that’s what you’re worried about. I was
approaching
the Range Rover at the time. Hardly the behaviour of someone who’s wired the vehicle to blow up.’ He paused. ‘There is something, though.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Shortly before the blast, I’d been making enquiries at the
Iraqi Thunder Party
office, posing as a policeman. I persuaded them to give up Al-Bayati’s home address. That might be why he went to the car when he did – he’d been tipped off, and didn’t want to hang around to be questioned me.’

‘I see,’ said Vale.

‘But it means the
ITF
staff will suspect me of doing this. One minute they’re giving me their boss’s home address. The next, he’s murdered. I’m just letting you know that there could be fallout from this.’

‘Understood. Thank you.’

Purkiss rang off. A moment later a text message arrived, with an attached photo. It was a blurred three-quarter view of a man’s face. His age was indeterminate, and he had close-cropped soldier’s hair, a truculent jaw, dark eyes. Arkwright, evidently.

Across the table from him, Hannah said, ‘This man you were talking to. Quentin.’

‘Yes.’

‘He seems like a man you can trust.’

‘He’s proved himself trustworthy more times than I can remember,’ said Purkiss.

‘And yet,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘You agreed there’s a leak somewhere. Somehow, the opposition were tipped off about your involvement in this case. It could have come from him. This… Quentin.’

Purkiss shook his head. ‘No, it couldn’t.’

She raised her eyebrows.

Purkiss: ‘It wouldn’t make any sense.’

And as he said it, he saw how it could, indeed, make sense. Vale wanted him to take on the case. Vale could have set him up, just as Purkiss had accused Kasabian of doing.

But he
knew
Vale, and knew he wouldn’t do such a thing.

Purkiss stood, abruptly. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’re going to talk to this Arkwright.’