Last Light (38 page)

CHAPTER 78

11.59 p.m. GMT
Guildford

His wishful thinking paid off. He heard the tentative shuffling of feet outside in the hallway, and a moment later he heard a key in the door. Ash moved quickly, from the first sound of footsteps outside to the door creaking open had only been a few seconds, but enough time for him to rouse himself and be ready to deal with any travelling companion she might have brought with her.

As it happened, she entered alone, and almost immediately sensed, even though it was pitch-black, that something was not quite right.

Before she could turn and go, he was upon her, an arm around her neck, his blade tickling her left cheek, and his mouth close to her ear.

‘Kate, I’ve been waiting
ages
for you.’

She let out a scream, and his hand quickly stifled it.

‘I thought you were never going to come home, Kate.’

She struggled in his firm grasp.

‘Easy, let’s not wiggle about too much. I might pop your eye out with this thing.’

Kate’s eyes rolled down at the glinting object beside her face, and she stopped struggling.

‘That’s better. Now, I need to have a quick chat, Kate. So let’s both sit down. We’ll get a little candle-light going so I can see what I’m doing, okay?’

Five minutes later he had a scented candle from the kitchen glowing prettily in a saucer. Kate sat on the floor, her hands taped up behind her back and Ash squatted over her, swinging his blade like a pendulum in front of her.

And he realised he could have handled this a little more cleverly.

‘Please! Please,’ she whimpered, her eyes locked on to the blade of his knife, as it moved from side to side in front of her face.

Ash had screwed this up. It just goes to show, he mused; you think you’re at the top of your game, and then you find you can still make mistakes.

His error was in letting Kate realise that he was after the Sutherland girl. He could have . . .
should have
made out he was after Jill - Kate of course didn’t care much about her sister’s friend. She said she’d met her once or twice, had heard Jenny prattle on about Jill from time to time . . . but she clearly wouldn’t lay down her life to protect this woman.

It seemed though, she was prepared to go quite a long way toward protecting her sister’s kids.

‘I . . . I d-don’t know where she lives . . . please . . .’

‘Does she live
close
to them?’

There was a flicker of reaction on her face. One of those involuntary micro-tics difficult to control, and the sort of thing a trained interrogator, a hostage negotiator . . . or even a big business deal-closer looks out for; better, much better, than a blip on a polygraph.

‘Ahh, so she
does
live nearby then?’ he said smiling.

Kate shook her head.

‘Too late, Kate. Your very expressive and very pretty face just told me, you know. Now, I suppose I could go look up all the
J. Harriotts
in the phone book, and pick out any that live nearby your sister’s place. But that sounds to me like a bit of a chore. And you know what? I’m a little pressed for time. Far easier if you just tell me, hmm?’

Kate shook her head.

Ash sighed. ‘Oh dear.’ He gently prodded her left cheek, just below the eye, with the tip of his knife. ‘How shall we do this? Fingers? Or perhaps I could start on your face. What do you think?’

‘P-please . . . please don’t h-hurt me,’ she whispered.

He stroked the bristles on his chin - a normally well-trimmed goatee, that after the last two days of neglect was just beginning to look the slightest bit untidy. ‘You do have a very pretty face, Kate. It would be horrible, wouldn’t it, to no longer have a nose? Or perhaps be missing a bottom lip?’

‘Oh . . . G-god, no!’ she gasped.

He smiled and looked at his knife. ‘This little blade has seen plenty of action, Kate, over the years. I’ve actually popped this little sucker into some quite important people . . . you might even have heard of one or two of them, if you read around the Sunday papers enough. So you’re going to be in good company.’

Kate stifled a whimper.

‘It’s a very sharp blade. I really wouldn’t have to apply too much pressure for it to slide through the skin and gristle of that very nice nose of yours.’

She shuddered, and a tear rolled down her cheek. Ash tenderly brushed it away. ‘I think you’re ready to tell me now, aren’t you?’

She nodded.

‘Okay then, let’s have it.’

‘What w-will you d-do to my niece?’ Kate whispered.

He decided a little white lie would keep things rolling along nicely. ‘We just want to talk to her, Kate. That’s all. It’s something to do with her daddy’s work.’

‘Y-you won’t h-hurt her?’

Ash shook his head. ‘She’s just a child. What sort of person—? ’ he snapped, scowling at her. ‘Look, I have a sister her age, for Chrissakes. No, Kate, I won’t hurt her. But I need to talk to her, quickly.’

Kate glanced again at the knife, still only a few inches away from her face.

‘Who are you?’ she asked.

Ash’s eyes widened with surprise. ‘Oh,
you’re
asking the questions now, are you?’ He laughed. She smiled anxiously, hoping that was helping her somehow.

‘Since you ask, I’m with the secret services, I can’t tell you which branch of course. But I’m on very important government business.’

He knew that sounded hooky, but frightened and wanting to believe it, she might just.

She nodded. ‘I . . . but you don’t s-sound British,’ she whispered sceptically.

Ah well, worth a try.

Ash smiled. ‘You’re right, I’m not. But believe me when I say I will mutilate you badly if you don’t tell me what I need to know, right now.’

‘Jill lives in the same street as them,’ Kate blurted quickly.

Ash grimaced.
I knew it.

‘Where exactly?’

‘A . . . a few doors d-down, on the o-other side.’

You saw her, you fucking idiot. You saw her, didn’t you? Unloading that van . . . and then later on, looking out of the window of that house, looking straight at you.

He cursed under his breath. That could have been her. On both occasions he hadn’t been close enough to get a clear look at her face, but yes, thinking back, it was the girl in the photo - a different hair colour, and maybe a little slimmer than the girl in the picture he had. He even recalled thinking there was a passing resemblance, but for crying out loud, who would be so stupid as to go into hiding a mere fifty yards from home?

Shit.

He could have had her already.

Kate looked intently at him, wary of the flickering signs of distraction and anger on his face. ‘What are you g-going to do with m—?’

‘Oh shut up!’ he snapped irritably, swiping the blade quickly across her throat, and stepping smartly back as blood arced out in front of her and pitter-pattered on to the spotless cream carpet in front of her.

He wiped the blade clean as she recovered from the shock and realised what had just happened. She wriggled around on the floor, trying to work her hands free. Why exactly, Ash didn’t know; holding her hands to her gaping neck wasn’t going help her much now.

He looked down at her and offered her a smile. ‘It’s not personal, Kate. As a rule I prefer to leave bodies behind me, instead of yapping mouths.’

She tried to gurgle something to him and then slumped forward on to her knees, her forehead pressed against the carpet. The blood splattered out as the wound across her neck opened wider.

‘That’s a good girl, that’ll speed things up for you.’ He stepped towards her front door. ‘I’ll let myself out then.’

Saturday

CHAPTER 79

4.21 a.m. GMT
Heathrow, London

They landed at Heathrow Airport at a few minutes after four a.m.

Andy had awoken from a deep sleep twenty minutes before they were due to land. He guessed his body had sensed the change in air pressure, or been awoken by the increase in chatter and excitement around him. Looking out of the window, as the plane made several stepped drops in altitude, he saw the same pitch-black nothing, the same absence of any sign of human activity that they’d seen earlier across Europe.

On the final approach to Heathrow he finally spotted a string of lights marking out the landing strip, and, in the sky, the strobing navigation lights of a dozen other planes that were either coming in to land, or had recently taken off.

There were no announcements from the airliner’s captain. It had been an oddly silent trip. They landed heavily with a bump and a bounce, and taxied swiftly off the main runway, following the tail of a military truck instead of the usual CAA follow-me buggy.

At last, as the plane rolled towards its slot amidst a mixed assortment of military planes, C130 Hercules transports, Tristars and various passenger jets, Andy heard the pilot speak for the first time.

‘Uh . . . this is your pilot speaking. My name’s Captain Andrew Melton. And this is a GoJet plane flying under military jurisdiction right now. So, we’re home again, back in the United Kingdom,’ his tired voice announced over the cabin-speakers. There was a muted cheer from some of the soldiers up and down the cabin.

‘But . . . uh . . . as you may have guessed, things have changed a lot back here in the UK over the last week. I’ve just been told by air traffic control that Heathrow Airport is under military control at the moment, and has been for the last two days.’

Through the window Andy watched passengers emerge from a neighbouring plane, an EasyJet A320. They looked to be mostly military personnel, but he thought he spotted amongst them some civilians, a few women and one or two children.

Very, very lucky holidaymakers.

The order of priority for getting British nationals home had been military first. That’s what this huge effort had been all about, not for civilians stranded abroad whilst on holiday, but to get troops back home. Given the state of things right now, Andy could see that made perfect sense.

‘I’ve been told that all military passengers aboard are going to be processed off this plane first. Then the civilian passengers will be processed,’ said the captain. ‘I’m not really sure what they mean by “processed” folks, but that’s the word they’re asking me to use.’

Westley gave Andy a nod. ‘Looks like this is where we part company, like.’

‘Yeah.’

They both stared out of the window at the floodlit scene. They could see lines of people from recently arrived planes, snaking across the tarmac towards the terminal ahead. Watching over them, directing the disembarked passengers, were armed soldiers looking to all intents and purposes like prison guards overseeing a shuffling chain-gang.

The pilot came on again. ‘I’m not sure how much you people are aware of. Since this crisis started on Monday an emergency authority has taken over control and we are effectively under some sort of martial law. I’m not sure what that means in terms of what we can and can’t do, but obviously things are different . . . uh . . . one second.’

The cabin-speakers clicked as the pilot switched channels and now all they could hear was a hiss.

‘Right,’ the pilot’s voice returned over the speakers. ‘There’s a stairway locking on now. When the doors open, can we have military personnel disembarking first please?’

Andy could hear the mobile stairs as they gently nudged the plane. A moment later the plane’s hatches opened with a clunk. Immediately the noise from outside roared in; the whine of jet engines from the planes parked either side, the distant roar of a jet getting ready to take off, and the rumble of another touching down.

Westley unbuckled his belt and stood up in the central aisle between the rows of seats, stretching tiredly and looking down at the few remaining members of his platoon.

‘Shake a leg lads,’ he said. ‘Hey, Derry, wake up you soft lad.’

The aisle filled with soldiers, most of them stripped down to their olive T-shirts, their desert camouflage shirts tied around their waists or slung over one arm. Andy looked around, there were about twenty people still seated - civilians, contractors like himself, mostly.

At the front of the plane an officer appeared in the aisle. ‘All right lads, let’s go. Down the stairs, there’s a truck waiting for you,’ he called out loudly.

Westley turned to Andy and held out a hand. ‘This is it then,’ he said.

Andy grabbed his hand. ‘Yup. You look after yourself, okay? We’ve been through way too much shit for you to get knocked over by a baggage trolley now.’

Westley laughed. ‘Right-o, sir.’

‘You know what? I might even let you call me Andy instead of “Sir”.’

The lance corporal smiled. ‘Sorry, force of habit.’

‘Take care of yourself Westley.’

He shrugged. ‘Ahh, we’ve been through the worst of it, eh? Can’t be any bloody worse here.’

Andy nodded. ‘Yeah, you’re right.’

‘When things get better, we’ll meet up, yeah?’

‘Beers are on me; you and the platoon,’ said Andy.

Westley laughed. ‘You’ll probably regret that.’ He let go of his hand. ‘Take care Sutherland.’

‘You too.’

Westley nodded and smiled and then shuffled awkwardly. They’d said all that needed to be said. He then turned to face his men. ‘Come on lads, let’s do as the officer says, and get a move on!’ he barked. The lads of the platoon shuffled past Westley, each nodding a goodbye towards Andy as they went.

‘Good luck lads,’ said Andy, watching them make their way down towards the front of the plane.

Westley was about to follow on after them but he stopped and turned round, and leant forward over the seat in front of Andy. ‘Oh, by the way, I left you a pressie,’ he whispered, ‘you might need it.’ He winked at Andy and then turned to join his men. Andy watched him go before looking down at the seat to his right; there was nothing he could see there. He then looked at the pouch on the back of the seat in front and saw that the sick-bag bulged with something.

Andy could guess what it was. He let the last of the soldiers squeeze past in the narrow aisle before pulling the paper bag out of the pouch and looking inside it.

Yup.

He took the service pistol and the two spare clips out and tucked them into the thigh pocket of his shorts.