“Noticed the flame,
what
?” demanded Greere’s voice from the car’s speakers.
“Shit.”
“WHAT?” Greere screeched in frustration, his voice booming out from the vehicle’s array of speakers and hurting Ellard’s ears.
“The guy with the rucksack!” Ellard shouted back as he scrabbled for the hands-free’s volume control. “Earlier! A guy came down the street and disappeared – I assumed into his house – long before Omid’s little trip out. I think that’s also the man I saw later – leaving the area when I spotted the fire. It might be the same bloke...”
“Fuck!”
“Yeah, that would have been a long and very cold wait. Is there any CCTV round here?” Ellard started the car and pulled out; glancing around at the house fronts, signage and street-lamps.
Greere grunted. “If there was I wouldn’t have needed to send you; for what
that’s
been worth. Anyway, Omid was offered it, but refused.”
“Because of his little excursions?”
“Probably.”
Ellard shook his head.
“I’ll call Sentinel,” said Greere.
In the background, Ellard heard a male voice calling out. “
Crispin?
Where are you?”
Ellard grimaced again. “Sir?” he ventured, deciding it was best to revert to rank.
“Just be ready for my call,” Greere barked gruffly, and hung up.
~~~~~
Sentinel wandered back into his bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Has something happened?” she asked.
He nodded. “Omid’s dead,” he said matter-of-factly. “Tweedledee and Tweedledum didn’t see anything. Looks like whoever did it has escaped.”
Manjeethra sat herself up, shocked at the news, huddling the duvet close around her bare torso.
“Out of interest,” he studied her face carefully. “Describe Nick to me.”
“Huh? You don’t think...?”
“Humour me.”
Manjeethra shrugged and the duvet slipped distractingly off her shoulder. He watched her pull it up again. “Big,” she said. “The steroids and all the exercise, I guess. Got a big scar, here.” She pointed to her neck and lower face. “Where the shrapnel went in.”
“Big?” he asked smiling.
“Massive,” she replied. “Built like a brick shit house.”
Sentinel laughed. “A
big
bloke?” he asked conspiratorially.
She looked at him quizzically then huffed. “Yeah, you could say that,” she said.
“This could be interesting,” Sentinel stood up. “I’ll be back in a minute. I think your friend has been demonstrating some useful skills, but we need to step in quickly. I’ll send my boys.” He headed toward the door, then paused and turned back to her.
Manjeethra collapsed back onto the pillows. “You don’t just
think
it was Nick, do you?” she asked quietly.
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“What are you going to do? Nick is just a civilian.”
He smiled. “Nick has become much more than just a civilian. Murderer might be a better description.” Manjeethra looked horrified at his words. “It’s not so bad,” he continued quickly. “I have something running which might have an opening. But Nick needs to disappear. And quickly. Maybe it’ll turn out that your friend is a natural? From what you’ve told me already, I have an unusually good feeling about it.” He moved into the doorway and turned and looked over his broad shoulder at her. “Let’s see whether we can turn Nick into someone new,” he said cryptically, then stepped out and closed the door quietly behind him.
~~~~~
Constanta
Murat Nagpal stood to the side of one of the apartment’s several rotting window frames and watched as Azat Sikand picked his way, on foot, across the busy road outside. A mixture of rain and snow poured out of steel-grey clouds. Sikand was getting soaked by it. He would, no doubt, be in another foul mood but Murat was pleased to see his comrade safely returned.
A few minutes passed then the apartment door slammed open.
“Murat?” Azat called.
“In here, my friend.”
The inner door opened and Azat stomped through, peeling off his sodden trench-coat and sopping woollen hat. “The rental car has been returned,” he reported gruffly.
“And the message?”
“Done.”
“Did the boy answer?”
“No. It rang out but went to voicemail. I said the codeword and hung up.”
Murat scowled, considering what that might mean. “And the borders?”
“No problem.”
“Excellent,” Murat pronounced. “I have secured replacement papers for you anyway. It will do no harm for you to have two sets. You are a vital asset and great friend.” It was best to make sure Azat felt suitably honoured, given his continued frosty expression. “Look here,” Murat waved his arm across the derelict squat and toward its tatty kitchen area. “I have made you hot tea to welcome you home.”
~~~~~
The Gower
It is bitterly cold as I hike up the dark lane toward the cottage. Small specks of snow pepper the air like flecks of ash drifting from Omid’s cold and distant funeral pyre. I am surprised that I feel no remorse for what I’ve done, even now, so many hours later.
I have spent the time trudging aimlessly around the outskirts of London, then slowly making my way back to Paddington Station to buy the return ticket I thought I’d never need, and later riding a lethargic train back into Wales. It has provided much time for thinking but yielded few conclusions. At the moment my planning extends only so far as to stay here at the cottage for the few remaining days of the lease, and then to make my way back to Sussex. This had been my backup plan. Ready for if I’d had to abandon or defer my attack on the worm. Or for if I’d lost my bottle.
Trudging through the darkness, I almost walk into the back of a darkened Jaguar parked on the side of the lane. This car wasn’t here when I left, was
it
? Glancing around I can’t see any other houses. Maybe there’s another place nearby? Set back behind the looming hedgerows?
I skirt around the obstructive vehicle and can see that there’s no-one inside it. It’s been here for a while because the light snow is settling, as a thin crust, over all of its dark coloured paintwork.
Turning away from the car, I finally see the cottage in the distance. It sits on the brow of the hill as a squarish patch of darker shadow against the night sky. At the moment I can only see the rooftop over the perpetual hedges. The house appears to be dark, even though I’d fitted timers to a couple of lamps, upstairs and downstairs, and did expect at least one of the lights to be on?
As I move forwards, the ground floor slowly creeps into sight and I can see a glow from downstairs. The feeble standard lamp in the building’s sizeable corner lounge is doing its best to dimly illuminate the various windows.
The bedroom bulb must’ve blown.
Being so close, I feel a burst of renewed energy and press on up the lane, boots crunching into the crisp, icy, sugarcoating and stomp past my own car to the front door. Slinging my pack down I notice that there are other recent bootprints embedded into the damp, gently rotting and ancient, coconut-hair doormat. Postman? Bending over, I fish out an insubstantial and similarly antique Yale key from one of the pack’s pockets, stand up and attempt to press it into the lock.
But the door just pushes open in front of me.
It’s not latched.
For a moment, I freeze solid. Is it the Police? Did they spot me as I left Omid’s street or alleyway? Am I about to be arrested?
Then, as quickly as I feel flustered, I feel an icy calm. Do I care? What difference would it make?
And if it’s not the police?
Again, the conclusions are the same. I don’t care. I should already be dead. I am dead, and the dead have very little left to be afraid of.
I step into the narrow hallway. The lounge door on the left hand side is standing open, its battered panels are plastered with many layers of forever yellowing gloss, which shimmers in bright rivulets as it reflects the pale lamplight from the paintwork’s myriad undulations. Three careful steps lead me to this opening, where I stop and slowly turn to look into the ample sitting room. It’s the biggest single space in this little cottage, taking up the whole end of the ground floor and, when the sun finally rises, it will afford magnificent views, from three sides, all along the nearby rugged shoreline – but, at the moment, I’m not interested in the views.
A man is sitting in one of the armchairs, legs crossed, lounging comfortably. He’s pulled the chair closer to the window, so he could see the lane and my approach more easily. In the meagre glow from the standard lamp he appears to be stocky and slightly overweight. His face is almost circular in shape and blandly unattractive. His dark, strangely bulging, almost frightened-looking, eyes are turned toward me but, despite this strange visage, his disposition stinks of belligerence, authority, dominance or, maybe, just psychosis. I sense his spirit is as cold as the bitter Welsh wind howling on the other side of the walls from him.
“Do come in,” he says plainly, in plush public-school English, and gestures for me to approach.
I say nothing but take a couple of paces into the room and drop my rucksack onto the floor beside me. I don’t want to move too close to him, nor too far away from the door. Here will do.
I gently loosen my arms within the long trench coat.
“This here is my friend.” He gestures back toward the lounge door.
I glance to my right and am surprised to see a second man, standing concealed from view behind the gloss-burdened panelling of the lounge door. This second man casually shoves the sturdy wood away from him and it swings shut with an ominous thud.
“Hello,” he says with the hint of an East-end London accent. He is taller than Bug-eyes and a bit of a scrawny geezer. More athletic looking, but still not what I’d describe as honed. He has longish, spectacularly white-grey hair which looks like it could be a patch of snow draped over his head. It stands out as a bright patch of light in the otherwise shadowy corner and, as I watch, he slowly raises his arm and the gun he is holding levels itself directly toward my face.
‘How quickly things can change,’ I think to myself as a sudden rush of panic flows through every vein. Then my fears collapse into unexpected excitement. These guys might be with the Travellers? Come for payback? Perhaps I can complete my journey after all? Perhaps these men will bring me the release I crave? I stare into the round black maw of the weapon and imagine the shiny metal nugget nestling at its core.
Willing the projectile forward.
“Do you know how to use that?” I ask hopefully, my deep voice sounding satisfyingly calm and unemotional.
Better a clean kill.
A momentary frown of surprise ghosts across White-hair’s age-crinkled forehead. “I’ll show you if you like,” he replies coldly.
“Now, now...,” interjects the insect sitting on my chair. “We’re not here for trouble.”
“Good,” I say in response to White-hair, but I suspect that they didn’t understand me.
Bug-eyes rouses himself slightly, pulling himself more upright. “Very impressive,” he observes, though whether he’s talking about me or something else I can’t be sure. “Messy and high risk but impressive all the same.” Is he talking about the Travellers? “The problem is: you haven’t covered your tracks very well, Nick.”
There is the merest hint of a lisp lurking behind his flaccid yet well spoken enunciations but, despite this, he uses my name like a solid brick wall at the end of his sentence and lounges back into the chair with the air of someone who thinks they’ve made themselves clear.
He hasn’t.
I stand there silently, watching him and gently shake my right arm as if flicking a few drops of molten snow from the long sleeve of my coat. Amongst the pallid skin and perpetual sneer, his pug nose wrinkles with annoyance and, for some reason, I wonder whether the burden of being born with a face like that has defined the man he has obviously become. It will certainly have been an uphill struggle for him. The thought makes the corners of my mouth twitch upward slightly and, in response to this, his frown deepens.
“I wouldn’t be so smug if I was you!” he barks suddenly, and I sense White-hair shifting slightly behind me. “Javed Omid was executed in cold blood.” The mention of the worm’s name vaporises my half-smile. “His murder will attract a lot of public interest. The police will hunt remorselessly for his killer and, given how easily we’ve found you, it won’t take them long to track you down. You took the law into your own hands,
Nick
, and the British Judicial System has a particular dislike for being undermined. You are about to find yourself at the epicentre of one fucking nightmare of a public circus: a hunted man, on the run but with nowhere to hide and then, when they catch and prosecute you, which they most certainly will, you’re going to end up rotting out the rest of your miserable existence in jail. A place, where I strongly suspect, you’ll find that your cellmates will have a particularly virulent dislike for someone with a history which includes the murdering of fellow criminals.”
They’re not with the Travellers then.
“Who are you?” I grunt.
Bug-eyes smiles. “We’re here to offer you a chance,” he says more carefully. “A chance to avoid that unpleasantness. You are rumoured to have some basic skills that we feel we can use and, I understand, you have some, albeit unexplained, motivation for taking violent action related to what happened at Victoria?”
I nod, once. It’s starting to become clear that they don’t know all that much about me.
“We have the means to put you somewhere where you might be able to satisfy that desire, but you will need to follow our instructions to the letter. Any deviations and we will simply vanish, in much the same way as we’ve appeared, and you will fall swiftly back into the ruthless and dispassionate arms of the law. There will be no history of this conversation, no records to trace any connection to us, no lifelines, no parole, no good behaviour and no second chances. You will simply be incarcerated, until you die.”