Relentless (2 page)

is
man at my wedding just phoned me for the first time in years;
then, as we were speaking, he got murdered, and now his killer's
after me. It sounded so outlandish that even I would have
questioned my own sanity, if I hadn't been so damn sure of its
authenticity. And Irene had never liked me much either. Had
always thought her daughter, with her strong academic background
and her Cambridge degree, was too damn good for a
glorified computer salesman.
3.08. Seven minutes since I'd picked up the phone.
I was going to have to tell Irene that something had come up
at work. That maybe it was best if the kids spent the night with
her. And then what? What happened tomorrow?
I told myself to stop trying to analyse everything and to just
get moving.
'Stay in the car, OK? I'm just going to get some overnight
stuff.'
They both started to protest, but I shut the door and ran
inside and up to each of their bedrooms, hastily chucking
together pyjamas, toys, toothbrushes, everything else they were
going to need, and shoving them in a holdall, knowing with
every step that I was racing against time.
3.11. As I came running out of the house, I recalled the
gurgling, coughing noise Jack had made as he was being attacked.
The sound of death - it had to be. But who wanted to kill a
middle-of-the-road solicitor like Jack Calley, a man who was
doing well but hardly setting the world on fire? And, more
importantly - far more importantly - who wanted to find out from
him where I, lowly salesman Tom Meron, and my family lived?
As I reached the car, I cursed. Both kids had undipped their
seatbelts and were fooling around. Chloe had clambered
through the gap in the front seats and was now playing with the

steering wheel, while all I could see of Max were his legs sticking
up in the air as he hunted for something in the back. They were
both laughing, as if there was nothing whatsoever wrong with their world - which there wasn't. It was just mine that was going
mad.
I opened the door and flung the overnight bag past Chloe
onto the passenger seat. 'Come on, kids, we've got to go,' I said,
picking her up and pushing her back through the gap in the
seats. 'It's very important.'
'Ow! That hurt.'
'Get back in your seat, Chloe. Now.'
I was sweating as I ran round to the back passenger door,
pulled it open, yanked Max up and shoved him bodily into his
seat. With shaking hands, I strapped him back in, then reached
over and did the same to his sister.
'What's happening, Daddy?' asked Chloe. She looked frightened,
not used to seeing her father acting so strangely.
I'm not a panicker by nature. There's not much in my life that
would instigate panic, if I'm honest, which was why I was now
finding it hard to stay calm. This all felt like a bad dream,
something that should have been happening to someone else.
; An elaborate hoax that would end in laughter all round.
But it wasn't. I knew it wasn't.
I scrabbled around in my jeans pocket for the car keys, found
Hem and started the ignition. The dashboard clock read 3.16,
It I remembered that it was four minutes fast. Eleven minutes
the call. Christ, was it that long? I reversed the car out of
drive and drove up to the junction, indicating left in the
tion of the main road. The relief I experienced as I pulled
ray and accelerated was tangible. I felt like I'd escaped from
sthing terrible.

I was being stupid. There had to be some sort of rational
explanation for what I'd just heard. There just had to be. 'Calm
down,' I muttered to myself. 'Calm down.'
I took a deep breath, feeling better already. I'd take the kids
to Irene's, drop them off, phone Kathy, then just drive back
home. And there'd be no-one there. I'd look up Jack Calley's
number, call and see if everything was all right. From the safe
cocoon of my moving car, I began to convince myself that Jack
hadn't actually been hurt. That the ghastly choking hadn't been
him dying a lonely death. That everything was fine.
A one-hundred-yard-long, relatively straight stretch of road
led from the entrance of our cul-de-sac to the T-junction that
met up with the main road into London. As we reached it, I
slowed up and indicated right. A black Toyota Land Cruiser
built like a tank was moving towards us down the main road at
some speed. I could see two figures in caps and sunglasses
in the front seats. When it was ten yards away, the driver
slowed dramatically and swung the car into the estate, without
indicating. I was about to curse him for his lack of courtesy, when
I noticed that the side windows of the vehicle were tinted, and I
felt a sense of dread. An unfamiliar car driving onto the estate
only eleven minutes after Jack had called me. At a push, Jack
lived eleven minutes away. The timing was too coincidental. I watched its progress in the rearview mirror, a dry, sour taste
in my mouth, fear causing my heart to rise in my chest. Our
cul-de-sac was the third one down on the right, just before the
road bent round sharply. The Land Cruiser passed the first
cul-de-sac, then the second.
Fifteen yards short of ours, the brake lights came on.
Oh no, no. Please, no.
'Daddy, why aren't we moving?'

'Come on, Daddy. Come on, Daddy.'
The Land Cruiser turned into our cul-de-sac, then disappeared
from view. I knew then as much as I knew anything that
its occupants were coming for me.
I pulled onto the main road and accelerated away, the voices
of my two children and Jack Calley - desperate, dying Jack
Calley - reverberating around my head like distant, blurred
echoes.

'You know, I'd prefer it if you called in advance, Tom,'
admonished Irene Tyler, my formidable mother-in-law.
.; It was 3.35 p.m. and I was seven miles away from home and
flie occupants of the black Land Cruiser, and hopefully safe. At
least for now.
'I'm sorry, Irene. Something's come up. An emergency.'
I led the kids into the hallway of her grand Victorian semi
I detached home that sat on a quiet, free-lined street of equally
id homes, all of which boasted intricately painted, Swiss-style
ades. It was the house where'Kathy had grown up, and the
of place to which she'd always aspired to return. I'm What kind of emergency?' she demanded, raising a sceptical
sbrow.
Irene Tyler was an unnerving woman. A former secondary
taol headmistress, she had a dominating presence that was

assisted by her powerful build and broad shoulders. I always felt
that she would have made an excellent prison warder, or a
trainer of gladiators had she been around in Ancient Rome. She
wasn't unattractive to look at for a woman of seventy, but you
get the picture. She wasn't someone you'd last long against toe
to toe.
But the kids liked her, and they ran up and hugged her
now, chuckling delightedly as they clutched her ample form
while I tried to think of a suitable excuse for being there. As a
salesman of some twelve years' standing, I was quite a proficient
bullshitter, but a combination of my mother-in-law's brooding
presence and the fear that was coursing through me in waves
made thinking up a plausible story next to impossible.
'It's just something with work,' I said. 'I've got to go in. One
of our major clients is playing up. You know how it goes.'
Although, of course, she didn't, being a retired civil servant.
However, this wasn't an entirely unusual scenario for me. In
the past few months Wesley O'Shea had experienced several
entirely imagined client emergencies which had resulted in him
calling his team leaders into work on a Saturday to help 'brainstorm'
the problem. I was sure he only did it to make himself
feel important.
Irene didn't look convinced. But then she'd never really
trusted me. Like a lot of people, she thought there was something
a bit dodgy about anyone who sold things for a living. Plus,
the concept of people outside the retail trade and the emergency
services working on a Saturday didn't sit too easily with her.
This time, however, she let it go, and asked where her daughter
was.
'She's at work as well,' I explained, putting down the overnight
bag next to the ornate grandfather clock that dominated

the entrance to the Tyler household. 'Down at the university.
She's researching for a paper she's writing.'
I had to phone Kathy. Make sure she didn't go home. I
couldn't remember what time she said she'd be finished, but
thought it probably wouldn't be yet.
'So, when are you going to pick the children up?'
'Can we stay for tea, Grandma?' asked Chloe, pulling at her
grandmother's dress.
'Course you can, darling,' she said, smiling at last as she
stroked Chloe's long hair.
'I don't know what time either of us is going to get back. I've
packed some things for them.'
'So, you want them to stay the night?'
'Yes. Please. I'll pick them up first thing tomorrow.'
'Why are you going to work on a Saturday afternoon, Daddy?'
asked Max.
'I think you ought to tell your boss that you have commitments
outside work too,' said Irene in a tone that brooked no
dissent.
'It's a one-off,' I answered quickly, experiencing a sudden, Unstoppable urge to get away from this interrogation and find
out what the hell was going on with my life. I made a play of iooking at my watch. 'Listen, Irene, I've really got to make a
ilinove.' There's a Land Cruiser with blacked-out windows at my
»use. It contains men who want something from me, something
ey're prepared to kill for, even though I have no idea what it
'I've got a long night ahead, and I don't want to be late.'
She nodded, the glint of suspicion flickering in her dark eyes,
sn leaned down so she was level with Chloe and Max. 'So,
it shall we do, children? Do you want to go down to the river
id»feed the ducks before tea?'

'Yes, yes, yes!' they both cried.
I could feel sweat running down my brow and I knew
that Irene would have spotted it and drawn her own conclusions
as to why it was there. I kissed the kids goodbye but they
were already thinking about going to the river to feed the
ducks and their reciprocation was perfunctory. I nodded to
Irene and thanked her, conscious that I was avoiding her eye.
Then I was out of her front door and down the pathway to the
car.
I jumped inside, drove to the end of Irene's road so that I was
out of sight, and speed-dialled Kathy's number. The phone rang
five times before going to message. I wasn't entirely surprised
she wasn't answering. If she was working in the library she'd
have the phone off, and I knew she didn't like to be disturbed
unless it was urgent. I didn't leave a message but instead tried
her office extension. I listened as it rang and rang before finally
the voicemail came on.
For a few seconds I wasn't sure what to do. Then I put the car
into gear and drove back in the direction of my house. I was sure
now I wasn't being paranoid, but I still wanted to check which
house the Land Cruiser was parked outside, and whether it was,
as I expected, my own.
As I drove, I thought of Jack Calley. We'd known each other
since almost the very beginning. He'd moved into our road in
the late seventies when we were both eight years old, and had
made his presence felt immediately. He was big for his age with
a thick, ridiculously long mop of naturally blond curly hair that
made him look a bit like Robert Plant in his Led Zeppelin days.
His dad had died a few months earlier and they were moving
down from East Anglia so that his mum could be nearer her own
parents. My mum and dad took an instant dislike to him - I

think it was probably the hair. And because they didn't want me
spending time with him, I inevitably did.
We hit it off immediately. For a kid who'd just lost his father,
he was remarkably full of life, maybe because he felt he always
had something to prove. Jack was an adventurer, the kind who
always wants to climb the highest tree, to perform the greatest
dare. He was the first boy in the school to ride his bike down
Sketty's Gorge, a near vertical slope in our local woods at the
bottom of which was a thick wall of stinging nettles. I only tried
it once and got stung to pieces, but it remained Jack's party
piece; he was always doing it. It demonstrated his devil-may-care
attitude. It made him exciting company. And never once did he
fell off.
We spent our whole childhood as friends and, although we
drifted apart when he went off to university to study law and I
got my first full-time job as a photocopier salesman, we renewed
the friendship in our twenties, which was a good time to be
hanging round with a man like Jack. He'd turned into a tall, handsome guy with plenty of charm, and a fair bit of money
.t&o. He tended to draw women to him, and because we were
jjrfiut together so much in the bars and clubs of central London
the City, they got drawn in my direction too. Sometimes,
sasionally, I felt I was getting his cast-offs, but, like most men,
inever let my dignity get in the way of sex. In those days I was
awe of Jack Calley a little, and appreciated the fact that I
? his friend.
sMarriage, specifically mine to Kathy, had been the catalyst for
friendship to become more distant. Gradually, we saw less
less of each other. Jack found himself in a relationship with
ugh-flying female lawyer, and Kathy fell pregnant with Chloe. was a time of upheaval, and our meetings were reduced to

once or twice a year, until eventually they fizzled out altogether.
I always felt that this was more Jack's doing than mine. I'd left a
couple of phone messages for him that hadn't been returned,
and emails I'd sent, although answered enthusiastically with talk
of getting together some time soon, never seemed to come to
anything. As far as I could recall, we hadn't even sent each other
Christmas cards for the last couple of years.
Half a mile short of home, I decided to break the law by calling
Kathy's mobile while driving. Again, there was no answer, something
that was now beginning to worry me. I wanted desperately
to talk to someone about what was going on, and she was the
one person I could rely on to come up with either a rational
explanation or at least a viable plan as to what to do next.
Because if someone was after me, they were still going to be
after me tomorrow, and the next day. And the day after that.
Which meant I had to find out what the hell it was they wanted.
It was just short of five to four when I turned into the estate.
Usually when I make this turning it fills me with a deep sense of
satisfaction because it means I'm almost home, at the end of a
hard working day. The pleasant, well-kept 1960s houses with
their neatly trimmed front lawns always seem so welcoming, an
oasis of quiet amid the noise and traffic of suburban London.
Today, though, I felt nothing but deep trepidation over what I
might find here.
But when I drove past my cul-de-sac without slowing and
glanced across at it, I saw that the Land Cruiser with the
blacked-out windows was no longer there. I continued round
the bend at the bottom of the hill and went another couple of
hundred yards before turning round. As I came back the other
way, I looked over again. The Land Cruiser was definitely
nowhere to be seen. Perhaps they'd found out I wasn't there and