Revenger

83

Carver went to a diving store, where he bought a lightweight triathlon wetsuit, a wetsuit balaclava to cover his head, a pair of short ‘zip-fins’ designed for building up fitness over long swims, a face mask and a snorkel.

He removed the nail gun and its accessories from the box, disposed of all the packaging, loaded the gun and placed it inside the Tesco bag. The axe, firework, rope, scissors, matches and water went into the rucksack, along with the wetsuit balaclava, the fins, the mask and the snorkel.

Having given the matter considerable thought, he concluded that he had no option but to wear the wetsuit under his clothing. Even though he had specifically chosen the lightest, most flexible possible suit, it would still get as hot and sweaty as hell over the next few hours, but he couldn’t see a practical alternative.

‘It’s a personal thing,’ he said to the male shop assistant who’d taken his order.

‘What a perv,’ the man had muttered, under his breath, but loud enough that Carver could hear.

It was just as well that the assistant hadn’t known what his customer actually had in mind for the rest of the day. The harmless predilections of a rubber fetishist would seem charmingly innocent in comparison.

At Kennington police station, the resident computer wizard had been set to work to compile two new photofit images of the Second Man: one with a floppy bush-hat over his face, the other with much shorter, lighter hair. Neither looked exactly like the newly disguised Sam Carver. They did not, for example, show him wearing glasses. But they were closer to the present truth than the original portrait had been. And once Inspector Keane had passed them on to the press office for immediate distribution, it was only a matter of time before somebody out there made the connection.

She knew it would not happen at once; that would be too much to ask for. But if Sam, or whoever the Second Man really was, did something either bold or public enough to attract anyone’s attention, then spottings of him would soon be reported to the police. Keane was absolutely confident of that.