Deception

FIVE

The young doctor who checked out Corporal Pike treated Harry and Sergeant Wallace to the kind of look he probably reserved for axe-murderers and Saturday night deviants. He ran an expert eye over the patient, with pointed attention to where the Taser darts had entered his skin, then nodded. ‘He’s OK. He looks undernourished, but if he’s been hiding from you lot, I’m not surprised. Where are you taking him?’

‘Off your hands,’ said Harry. ‘Can we use a side room for a few minutes?’

The doctor pointed along the corridor. ‘First on the left. Don’t take too long — we might need it for real-life problems.’ He hurried away without a backward glance, white coat-tails flying, while Wallace helped Pike to his feet and walked him along the corridor.

‘Mind telling us where you were going, Corporal?’ Harry asked, emptying out Pike’s bag once they were in the room. Pike sprawled on the examination table, eyes on the opposite wall. As Harry suspected, the bag contained a change of underwear and socks, two T-shirts, a pair of trainers and a slim washbag. Nothing in the side pockets and nothing under the baseboard.

‘You’ve no right going through that,’ Pike muttered without looking at him. ‘It’s private.’

‘You’re right,’ said Harry quietly. ‘And a private is what you’re going to be as soon as they bust you for going AWOL, theft of military equipment and assault with a deadly weapon. Where were you going?’

‘I don’t have to answer that.’

‘No, you don’t. But it’ll help if you do. You have a wallet?’

Pike reached round and took out a thin leather wallet, handed it over. It contained a Visa credit card, driving licence, a family group photo and a mix of sterling and euro banknotes to the tune of?300. On the back of the photo was a telephone number.

‘If I rang this, who would answer?’

‘Nobody. It’s discontinued.’

Harry handed his mobile and the photo to Sergeant Wallace, who dialled the number. After a short wait he looked up and shook his head. ‘Unobtainable.’ He returned the phone and photo.

‘We know you’ve been overseas for a while, Neville. Can I call you Neville?’

Pike shrugged. ‘Break your neck.’

‘You were in Sydney, then Thailand, we know that. Where else?’

‘Helmand. That do you? Now fuck off and leave me in peace.’ He lay back and stared at the ceiling.

Harry drew up a chair and sat alongside him. Wallace stood the other side, tall and imposing. The silence lengthened, broken only by the pink of the heating system and the squeak of shoes on tiles along the corridor outside. Pike ignored both men, but a strong pulse was beating in his throat.

‘Were you approached by anyone while you were away?’

No reaction. Harry wondered about Pike’s background. The slip of paper hadn’t said, but it was obvious the NCO was no idiot. At a guess he’d been to university or technical college, maybe even through industry, before joining the army. His voice and speech were middle class, even if his language wasn’t.

‘How did you support yourself for the last three months? Did you have help?’

Still nothing.

‘Man like you, you’d be a valuable commodity to some people. . all the knowledge you’ve got in your head. We know there’s a market out there, and buyers. If you spoke to anyone, you really don’t want us finding out later on. It would help your case if you said so now. Who approached you?’

‘Nobody approached me, so leave me alone.’ Pike spoke through clenched teeth. He was clearly hiding something. Whatever it was, he wasn’t going to talk about it here.

Harry took out a card and slid it into Pike’s hand. It carried his name and a telephone number. ‘Please yourself. My name’s Harry. If you change your mind and want to talk, get them to give me a call.’

Harry walked outside and took a short cut through the hospital car park towards the road where he’d left his car, his thoughts on what Pike could have been doing in Clapham. The man had been virtually home and dry, if what Ballatyne had said was true. All he had to do was horse-trade some information in return for a new identity and a new life, away from whatever had driven him to go AWOL in the first place. So, with no family ties and no baggage, why had he come back?

Then a thought struck him. Baggage. Pike’s room had been clean. After five days cooped up in a single room, wouldn’t there have been some rubbish?

He stepped back as a grey estate car drifted down the street and swung into the visitors’ car park right in front of him. The two men inside gave him a steady look as they passed. They wore the air of two individuals going about their duty, rather than visiting the sick, and Harry pegged them as police.

He watched them go, then dialled Ballatyne’s number.

‘Are you having me shadowed?’

‘Not me. I don’t have the personnel. Why?’

‘No reason. Must be getting paranoid.’ He rang off feeling mildly embarrassed. This job was already starting to get to him.

The street in Clapham where Pike had been staying was quiet, with only an occasional vehicle and a scattering of pedestrians. Harry found a space and climbed out of the car. As he approached the house, he passed a woman putting out a pile of bound newspapers on the front step. It was the same woman he’d seen looking over the fence at the rear while waiting for Pike to emerge. She looked the confrontational kind, and he wasn’t disappointed.

‘I saw you earlier,’ she said, brushing back a stray lock of hair. ‘You were out back with that chap. You know we’ve got Neighbourhood Watch in the street?’ She blinked furiously and he wondered at the fragile state of mind which allowed her to face a total stranger like this.

‘Glad to hear it,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Do you have a bin collection, too?’

‘Of course, we do,’ she muttered. ‘Cheeky bugger. You think we’re a third world country or something?’

Mad, he thought. Beyond seeing danger. ‘When do they come? The bin men?’

‘Tomorrow.’ She moved back to her front door. ‘It’s papers today. School collection. I should call the police!’

He thanked her and smiled, which finally seemed to unnerve her, and she disappeared inside, slamming the door.

He walked up the steps to Pike’s house and pressed the cleanest button.

‘Yeah?’ A male smoker’s voice, dry as sandpaper.

‘Tenant come to see the empty flat on three. The agent’s parking his car.’

A buzzer sounded and Harry pushed the door, thankful for people who probably didn’t even know there was a Neighbourhood Watch. He climbed the stairs and stopped outside No. 11. It was still open.

He stepped inside and saw that the scavengers had beaten him to it. The coffee table had gone, the magazines and newspapers tossed on the floor, and the blankets had been turned inside out. He opened the overhead cupboard. No bottle of wine.

He checked the window, which overlooked a corner of the rear garden. It explained why Pike had been surprised to see him. What it didn’t explain was why he’d come out armed and ready for a fight.

The place was clean, he already knew that, but he had another look, anyway. Then he closed the door and went back downstairs. Turned right at the bottom and walked down a short passageway to a rear door, and out to the service alley. Two bins were out ready for collection. They contained standard household rubbish: bottles, pre-packed food bags, supermarket packaging and other discards. Nothing indicating a bachelor lifestyle in hiding. Alongside them were two plastic bags, one secured with a wire tie. He opened the first one, which contained vegetable peelings, a hair conditioner bottle, coffee grounds and a craft magazine. Quilting and sewing. Definitely not Pike’s rubbish, then, unless he had a secret hobby. And he was no cook; he’d preferred his food ready made and full of fat.

The second bag held a scrunched kitchen roll, an old T-shirt with a torn sleeve, an empty milk carton and two crushed beer cans. . and three flattened pizza cartons.

And down at the bottom, a torn ticket stub from Eurostar, Brussels to London.

He thought about letting Ballatyne put his people on to it, but that would take too long. He rang Rik Ferris and read out the ticket number. ‘Find out who it was issued to and where from, can you?’

‘Thank God for that,’ breathed Rik. ‘I’m going stir crazy, my shoulder’s itching and my mum’s driving me nuts with all the phone calls. I was just about to go out and stab some car tyres.’