Who Dares Wins (11 page)

Movement.

Sam’s trigger finger twitched.

A noise.

It was the sound of the letter box opening. Sam watched as an envelope slowly glided through the hole in his door. Instinctively he threw his back to the wall, not knowing whether that envelope was concealing something else; but it fell harmlessly to the floor. Almost immediately, the silhouette melted away and Sam heard once more the sound of footsteps, getting quieter this time. He ran to the front room window just in time to see the unknown delivery boy disappear round the corner of the street.

Only then did he shake his head. Jesus, he thought to himself. And you thought Dad was paranoid. He felt stupid. He felt angry with himself. But why, then, did he still not want to turn on the lights?

Why did he still not want to illuminate himself ?

Why did he still feel safer with the gun in his hand?

He stepped away from the window and returned to the front door. The envelope was still lying there.

Sam Redman bent down and picked it up.

It was a plain, brown A4 envelope. There was no writing on the front and the seal had been Sellotaped down. It crossed Sam’s mind as he opened it up that the lack of saliva on the seal would make it difficult for anyone to discover who this envelope had come from, if they were of a mind to do so.

Inside there was a thin sheaf of papers stapled together at one corner. In the darkness of the hallway Sam was unable to read what they said; he made his way back to the bathroom, closed the door and switched on the light above the shaving mirror. Only then, as he sat perched on the edge of the bath, did he start to read.

The document consisted of four pages. It was barely legible, however, because large chunks of the text had been blacked out. At the top of the front page was an official stamp.

Sam read those bits of the text that remained:
‘
. .
a car park of a service station on the M4
 . . .
cold day
 . . .
seemed agitated
 . . .
second meeting in a country pub
 . . .
’
It was meaningless to Sam. He held the paper up to the light, hoping to read what was underneath. Nothing doing. Whatever this was, it had been heavily censored. Someone had wanted to make sure that it was incomprehensible. They’d done a good job.

But there was something else.

On the top page, scrawled in blue biro and roughly circled, was a name – Clare Corbett – and next to it a telephone number. A mobile.

Sam looked at the number for a good long while. He even went so far as to punch it into his phone. But something stopped him from dialling. He closed his eyes and tried to clear his head. Everything was so muddled, so confusing. Who was this Clare Corbett? Did the document he held in his hand come from her? What was the point of him seeing it if he couldn’t understand a word that was written?

No. This wasn’t right. He saved the number to his phone, but didn’t dial. He had a another idea.

Sam glanced at his watch. Ten thirty. He couldn’t believe that the day had passed – it seemed like only a few minutes ago that he was in the briefing back at HQ. It was late, but that didn’t matter. He sniffed and then searched for another number on his phone. Nodding with satisfaction when it appeared on his screen, he allowed his thumb to hover over the dial button.

He stopped again, then shook his head. No. He knew that it was too easy for someone to listen in on his phone calls and until he knew what the hell this was all about, that wasn’t a risk he was going to take. He switched off the light, allowed his eyes to get used to the darkness, then moved to his bedroom.

Sam’s leather jacket was slung over the back of his chair. He put it on, secreted the handgun in the inside pocket, then returned to the front door. Moments later he was on the pavement, walking almost at random until he found a public phone box.

Only then did he make his call.

Detective Inspector Nicola Ledbury of the Metropolitan Police had endured, even by her standards, an extremely shitty day. The trial she’d been working on for three months solid had gone tits up on a technicality, prompting a bollocking from the judge and her DCI – no doubt there would be more to come in the morning, if she ever made it in. She dumped her bag in the hallway and went to the kitchen to pour herself a large glass of wine. As she did so, she looked at the clock on the oven. Ten-thirty and she was just getting in. No wonder her personal life was such a disaster.

She took two deep gulps of wine before going into her small bathroom. As she always did, she glanced in the mirror. Nicola knew she was quite pretty on a good day, but today wasn’t one of them. Her blonde hair was a disaster and she had bags under her eyes. The kind of clothes that she had to wear on the job flattened out her slim, curvy figure and she couldn’t wait to get out of them. So, running the bath, she started to strip. Her clothes stank of London fumes – it was disgusting and all she wanted to do was wash away the grime of the city. Her blouse dropped to the floor, then her bra. As she was undoing her trousers, however, she felt her mobile phone buzz against her skin. Nicola’s heart sank. Who the hell was calling her at this hour? She pulled out the phone and looked at it. Number withheld.

The DI sighed. It was probably the office. Wearily she switched off the bath taps and took the call.

‘Yeah?’ she intoned, making no attempt to hide the reluctance in her voice.

‘Nicola?’ A man’s voice. Quite deep. She recognised it, but couldn’t place it.

‘Who’s this?’

‘Sam,’ came the reply. ‘Sam Redman.’

A pause as a little smile played across her lips.

‘Hello, Sam,’ she replied, her voice all of a sudden kittenish and full of intonation. She quickly stepped half-dressed out of the echoing bathroom, touching her hand to her hair even though there was nobody to see. ‘Long time no speak.’

‘I’ve been away,’ came the reply.

‘Anywhere fun?’

‘Not really.’

Sam’s voice was curt, almost businesslike – a far cry from his boyish fair hair and mischievous eyes – but that didn’t bother her. It was just the way he was. In the couple of weeks they’d worked together while he and his SAS mates were body-guarding a witness, she’d grown used to it. Fond of it, even – fond enough, at least, for them to indulge in a bit of extra-curricular activity. Nicola blushed slightly to think about it.

‘So,’ she said lightly, ‘you thought you’d phone me to arrange a . . .’

‘Listen, Nicola,’ he interrupted. ‘I need a favour.’

She hesitated. There was something in his voice. He sounded tense.

‘What’s the matter, Sam? Everything all right?’

‘Fine.’ He sounded like he was simply brushing away the question. ‘Listen, I’ve got a mobile number. I need a billing address. Can you get it for me?’

As he spoke, Nicola felt deflated and she couldn’t prevent it from sounding in her voice. ‘I suppose so,’ she replied. ‘What’s it for?’

‘Mate of mine,’ Sam replied blandly. ‘Getting funny phone calls. Wants to put a stop to them.’

He was lying. Nicola could tell that easily enough, but she couldn’t be bothered to make a thing of it.

‘All right, Sam,’ she sighed. ‘It’ll take me twenty-four hours. Give me the number and call me tom . . .’

‘I haven’t got twenty-four hours,’ Sam said. ‘I need it now.’

A pause. ‘Sounds like your friend really wants to put a stop to these calls,’ Nicola remarked lightly.

‘Can you do it?’ Brusque, businesslike.

‘It’s half-past ten at night, Sam.’

‘Can you do it?’

Nicola sighed again, heavily this time. ‘All right, Sam. I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Good.’ He gave her the number, then said, ‘I’ll call you in half an hour.’

Without another word, the phone clicked off.

Nicola looked at the silent handset, then longingly back at the half-run bath. Then, muttering under her breath, she went to find herself a dressing gown.

Sometimes, she thought to herself, she was just too obliging for her own good.

*

Sam replaced the phone on its cradle, then immediately walked away from the booth.

He was just outside a parade of shops, most of them shut apart from a kebab shop half full of pissed-up kids. Sam was hungry, but something stopped him from wanting contact with anyone else, so he walked purposefully away. The half-hour passed slowly. He found a second pay phone in about ten minutes, then spent the rest of the time hanging around waiting to call his contact again. He didn’t really know what he was going to do if he found out an address for this woman – it rather depended on where she lived – but at the moment he didn’t know what else to do. It was just gone eleven when he made the call.

‘It’s me.’

‘Somehow I thought it would be.’ Nicola sounded annoyed.

‘Did you get the address?’

‘Yeah, I got it. You didn’t tell me it was a woman.’

‘I didn’t know,’ he lied.

A disbelieving silence. ‘Look, Sam,’ Nicola said finally, ‘I don’t know what this is all about, but I’ve got enough trouble at work as it is. This isn’t going to put me any deeper in the shit, is it?’

Sam sniffed. ‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ he lied. ‘I promise. It’s just personal.’

He breathed steadily as he waited for Nicola to reply.

‘All right,’ she said, her voice heavy with resignation. ‘You got a pen?’

‘I can remember it.’

‘Fine. Ground Floor Flat, 31 Addington Gardens, W3. Hope your
friend
likes Acton, Sam. Personally, I think it’s a dump.’

Acton, London. At this time of night he could make it in a couple of hours.

‘Thank you, Nicola. I owe you one.’

‘As far as I can remember,’ she replied, a hint of archness returning to her voice, ‘you already did.’

For the first time that day, Sam smiled. ‘Don’t let the bed bugs bite,’ he told her quietly, but there was no reply. Nicola had already hung up.

Fifteen minutes later, Sam was in the car, one finger on the steering wheel as he hurtled out of Hereford down the A road that would lead him to London. The screen of his SatNav illuminated the route, but he barely glanced at it. He knew the way well enough. The lights of the cars ahead of him were nothing but a blur – not only because the speedo was constantly tipping a hundred, but also because his mind wasn’t really on the road. The events of the day churned over in his head, a series of disjointed visions; but the more he thought about them, the more confused he became. Sam didn’t even know who he was going to find at Addington Gardens. Clare Corbett, whoever the hell she was? Or someone else? He glanced down at the passenger seat. The handle of his handgun was peeping out from under the document in its envelope. There were enough rounds in there for him to keep himself safe; he couldn’t shake the feeling that he would be discharging some of them before the sun was up.

It was gone one in the morning by the time Sam approached London. The roads were practically empty and he burned up the tarmac, slowing down only when the time came to pull off the motorway. The female voice on the SatNav was irritatingly calm as it guided the speeding Audi through the West London suburbs and by a quarter past one he was nearing Addington Gardens. It was an ordinary residential road with a long line of terraced houses on either side. Sam didn’t turn into it, deciding instead to park several streets along. Once he’d come to a standstill, he took his jacket from the back seat, secreted the handgun and the document inside then climbed out of the car. The locking lights illuminated the dark street as he walked towards his destination.

There was nobody about – just an urban fox further down the pavement who stared at him with glinting eyes for a few seconds before turning tail and disappearing. In the background Sam could hear the vague hum of traffic on the main road, but here all was still. At the end of Addington Street he loitered, his narrowed eyes surveying the scene. He didn’t really know what he was looking for, but he’d recognise it if he saw it. There was no sign of anybody at this time, and none of the vehicles looked suspicious.

Except one.

It was a white van, old, well used. Counting down the house numbers from the end of the street, Sam calculated that it was parked outside number 75. Too close to the address he was visiting for his liking. He decided to investigate further.

Sam walked casually along the pavement. As he passed the white van he saw there was nobody in the front seats. But there was a panel blocking off the rear of the vehicle, so he couldn’t see inside. On the back doors there were blacked-out windows and a little sticker:
NO TOOLS ARE KEPT IN THIS VEHICLE OVERNIGHT
.

With his right hand, he gripped the gun inside his jacket. He approached the back of the vehicle along the pavement side and then, with a sudden sharp jerk of the elbow on his left arm, he shattered the window, then immediately pulled out his gun and aimed it into the body of the van.

Nothing. Empty. Sam drew a deep breath and withdrew his gun from inside the window. Somebody would be cursing the vandals first thing in the morning, but he wouldn’t be losing too much sleep over that. He turned his attention to the house numbers. Number 31 was only a few paces away.

There was nothing to distinguish it from the other terraced houses along this street. It had a small front garden that had been concreted over and was now home to only a couple of wheelie bins and a few old crisp packets that had been blown in. The ground-floor flat had a large bay window at the front, blocked with wooden slatted blinds. On the wall just above the window the cover of a security alarm blinked in the night. As Sam opened the metal gate it creaked quietly, so he didn’t close it before walking up to the bright blue front door.