Deception

SIX

‘You want a tab?’ Sergeant Wallace held out a cigarette packet to Corporal Pike, who was huddled in the rear seat of their unmarked Vauxhall Vectra, staring out of the window. They were on the A12 heading north-east and had just got police clearance to filter through a two-lane accident. The delay meant other traffic was getting through in bursts, and they were surrounded by open road.

‘I don’t smoke.’ It was the first thing Pike had said since leaving the hospital, in spite of Wallace and his colleague’s attempts to start up a conversation. Neither of them enjoyed taking in men who’d gone AWOL; their stories were usually far from straightforward, and certainly too complex for snap judgements, even by hardened military policemen. But they tried to keep things civil.

‘You saw the Green Slime off,’ said Collins, using the derogatory term for members of the Intelligence Corps. ‘Tate, I mean. Put a right dent in his day.’ He grinned in the rear-view mirror, received a look of contempt in return. He shrugged. ‘Please yourself.’

‘What makes you think he’s Intelligence?’ said Wallace, snapping his lighter and drawing in a lungful of smoke.

Collins looked surprised. ‘What makes you think he’s not?’

‘You didn’t see him use the Taser.’ Wallace spoke quietly, although there was little chance their prisoner couldn’t hear what he was saying. ‘Faced with a bayonet sharp enough to cut my old lady’s rock cake, he left it to the last second, then bam. If he was really I–Corps he would’ve got sliced and diced. Or panicked and shot the poor bastard.’ He shook his head. ‘Don’t know what he is, but it’s not army intelligence.’

Collins sniffed and checked his rear-view mirror as they passed a junction. Pike was lolling against the side window, eyes closed. The road behind was clear. Then a silver-grey Mercedes estate joined the carriageway and slid up fast on the outside lane. Two up, he noted automatically. Business types, probably, lucky gits. Nice car with lots of muscle. Better than this heap of overdriven crap they were forced to use.

The Mercedes drew level with them and slowed.

Collins glanced across, expecting to see the car cruise by, but the bonnet was now close alongside, keeping pace. He felt a jolt of alarm when the rear nearside passenger window slid down and he saw a face appear. ‘Hey, what the fuck’s this idiot playing at?’

‘Who?’ Wallace was fiddling with the radio. He looked round, squinting through the smoke from his cigarette.

The first bang was shocking in its intensity, and Collins felt the back of his head showered with glass fragments. He ducked instinctively and felt the car wobble as his grip faltered. Wallace shouted something, but the words were lost in the sudden roar of road noise coming through the shattered rear door window and the increase in engine noise as Collins automatically hit the accelerator.

Then Collins saw the blood. It was sprayed across the mirror, on the roof and even across the side of Wallace’s face. And something warm was trickling down the back of his neck. We’ve been hit! He whipped his head round to check the back.

‘Pike! You OK?’

But Pike was slumped back, the side of his face gone and his one good eye staring up at the roof.

Another two bangs very close. A car horn blared loudly and Collins realized it was him; he’d hit the button with a reflex action. Then the Mercedes surged away, leaving them behind, and Collins was fighting to hold on to the steering wheel as the shredded offside tyres began a terrifying whump-whump-whump, bits of rubber flew past the side windows and the air was filled with the screech of tortured wheel rims on tarmac.

Seconds later, before Collins could slow down, the steering wheel was ripped from his grasp and the car began a lazy, unstoppable spin and roll, and everything blurred into in a sickening whirlwind of broken glass, gravel, ripped metal and the sickly smell of blood and spilled diesel.

‘Felicity calls you my International Man of Mystery.’ Jean Fleming helped Harry take off his jacket and hung it up. A tall and willowy redhead who ran an upmarket flower business just down the road from her Fulham flat, she accepted Harry’s unexplained absences with equanimity and never asked about where he had been. As the widow of an army officer killed in Iraq, she knew that questions rarely brought a true answer and never true peace of mind. She possessed an irreverent sense of humour and a throaty laugh which made Harry’s toes curl. Felicity was her business partner, a committed Sloane Ranger who knew everybody who was anybody and was vital to the business.

‘Well, I am,’ Harry agreed, ‘and Felicity’s a romantic.’ He accepted the large glass of red wine Jean handed him, and the kiss that followed. Since his divorce, Jean was the nearest he’d come to a long-term relationship, although neither of them had made any moves towards taking it to another level. Jean teasingly introduced him as her occasional date or OD, which suited them both.

She sat on a leather-covered footstool in front of him and chinked glasses. Her eyes were light brown, the gaze disconcertingly direct. ‘You look tired. What’ve you been up to, Charlie Brown?’

He knew she didn’t want the fine print; she knew better than that. But she’d heard about the shooting in St James’s Park and Rik’s wounding, and had put two and two together. ‘Rik and I had to take someone overseas. It was a long flight and I’m glad to be back.’

‘Long? Iraq long or Afghanistan long?’ She knew Harry’s previous area of operations, if not the precise details, and she knew he was still connected with the intelligence community, albeit by a long cord. She was also perceptive, armed with a former military wife’s expertise at telling the difference between job tiredness and the slow wind-down from operational stress.

‘Iraq. Baghdad.’ Ballatyne would have had kittens hearing him admitting this to anyone, but he didn’t care. He smiled and took a sip of his wine, feeling himself relax. ‘Is this a Merlot? It’s very smooth and. . let me see — fruity with a touch of blackberries.’

‘You are so full of bullshit, Harry Tate,’ Jean said with a laugh, and leaned forward for another kiss, bringing a faint smell of lemons. ‘It’s a Shiraz and you know as much about wine as you do about flower arranging, so don’t change the subject. I just like to know you’re OK, that’s all. How’s Rik?’

‘Trying to avoid his mother’s phone calls and getting stroppy, which is a good sign.’ He sniffed the air. ‘Is that something cooking?’ It reminded him that he hadn’t sat down to eat properly for a couple of days. The ration pack he’d been handed on the flight back from Baghdad had been uninspiring, and had found a good home in the stomach of the private contractor in the next seat.

Jean lifted an eyebrow. ‘You mean you want to eat?’

Harry gave an elaborate shrug and fought hard to keep a straight face, burying his nose in his glass. ‘Well. . eventually. Why, what are you suggesting?’

She stood up and took his glass off him. ‘Follow me, International Man of Mystery, and if you’re a very good boy, I’ll show you.’