Wolfe shrugged. “Okay, from five hundred meters, then.” He glanced down at his victim. “You all right?”
Rommel nodded. “Take more than that to break any of my bones,” he said, glaring at the taller man.
“Good. The Special Air Service is proud of you.” Wolfe slipped his knife back into its sheath. “Well, slightly.”
“Can we get back to the Land Rover now?” Geronimo asked.
Wolfe’s expression grew more serious. “You must be joking. We’re staying on the moor for another night. Don’t worry. It’s only a six-mile hike to the bivouac.”
The other two exchanged glances and then grinned.
“Better get going, then,” Rommel said, picking up his blade.
Wolfe nodded. “Good. I reckon you two are just about ready for our little jaunt to the big city.”
They took a bearing and started walking northeast.
“How did you do it?” Geronimo asked after several minutes of rapid movement over the sparsely covered plateau. “How did you creep up on us?”
There was a long silence as their leader sniffed the wind. “I used all my experience and fieldcraft.” He looked down a long valley, apparently sensing something in the dark. “And I had a purpose. You know that training ops like this are useless without a purpose.”
“And the purpose is to track down the bastard who you reckon did for one of us,” Rommel said.
“Correct. No one, repeat no one, fucks with an SAS sergeant, even if he’s retired like Wellington was. Whoever it was is going to die in agony.” Wolfe cocked an ear and raised his right arm. “They’re down by the stream. Two of them. They must have got separated from their little friends.”
Rommel and Geronimo drew closer.
“Exmoor pony for dinner again?” the latter asked, his voice level.
“Unless you’ve got a better idea,” Wolfe replied.
The three men whose combat names had been chosen from warriors of old moved silently down the track in search of prey, their eyes reflecting the moon’s cold light.
6
I looked at Sara, my lower jaw dropping. The five grand. What the hell was I going to tell her?
“I’m waiting, Matt,” she said, her eyes locked on me. Sara had a disconcerting way of going from very loving to dead serious in a split second.
“Ah, right.” I went over to the bed. “It’s…it’s money.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Very funny. Is it yours?” She glanced down. “There must be thousands here.”
“Um, five,” I said, racking my brains for a credible explanation. “Five thousand.”
“Five thousand pounds in cash?” Sara picked up one of the bundles and sniffed it. “What did you do? Rob a bank?”
“No, of course not. It’s…it’s a down payment.”
“On what?”
I had it. “Actually,” I said, sitting down beside her, “it’s a bit embarrassing.”
“Don’t worry,” she said with a laugh. “I love embarrassment.”
“Bloody journalists,” I said, receiving an elbow in my ribs. “Ow. Bastard journalists.” I gave her a playful push.
“I’m waiting,” she said, her expression serious again.
I looked her in the eye. I’d read how FBI agents were trained to do that, how it put them in a position of strength. “Well, I’ve been asked to ghostwrite the autobiography of a gangland enforcer.” I’d also read somewhere that, if you’re going to lie, you should keep as close to the truth as you can.
Sara seemed to have bought it. “Who?”
“I can’t tell you that. I’ve been sworn to secrecy until the book’s finished.” I clenched my fists and raised them. “And you don’t want to mess with this guy, know ‘wot’ I mean?”
A smile spread across her lips. “I might be prepared to pay for the information,” she said, sliding a hand across my thigh. “Up front, know ‘wot’ I mean?”
“That is an atrocious attempt at Cockney.”
She slapped my leg. “And yours was better?”
I started to collect the bundles.
“He paid you in cash?” she said, looking dubious again. “Did you sign a contract?”
“No. His is a cash business, innit?”
“All right,” she said, after giving it some thought. “I won’t tell the Inland Revenue.” She grabbed my wrist. “But I want first option on any juicy bits, okay? The paper will pay well.”
“I’ll see,” I said noncommittally. “That’ll be up to the man himself.”
Sara watched as I put the money in a holdall. “You’d better bank that tomorrow,” she said, stretching her arms behind her head. “You know how unsafe this place is. You haven’t even got an alarm.”
I nodded. I knew only too well how unsafe my flat was. And how unsafe Lucy and Caroline were in our former family home. But the sight of the woman I loved waiting to be undressed on my bed drove away the fears. I brushed away the realization that my sparring with the lunatic and the disposal of Happy had aroused me, too. I didn’t know what that said about my psychological condition.
Afterward Sara fell asleep quickly-she’d been away on assignments a lot recently. That left me on my own and anxiety gripped me again. What was I going to do about the White Devil? I wrestled with the problem for a long time.
The last time I looked at my watch, it was three-thirty. Sleep wasn’t coming, and neither was anything like a plan of action.
Sara left first thing, after giving me a kiss and ruffling my hair. She was going to her place in Clapham to change for the office. I had a shower and got dressed, then headed off to pick up Lucy. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing how she was taking Happy’s disappearance.
As it turned out, I needn’t have worried. Caroline and Shami had concocted a story that the dog had gone to dog hospital and that the dog doctors were taking care of her. My ex-wife told me that in a whispered conversation before she went to catch her train.
“Daddy?” Lucy said as we walked away from the house.
“Yes, sweetie?”
“Do you think Happy will come back from the dog hospital?”
I looked down at her freckled features and squeezed her hand. “Of course she will.”
“It’s just…” She paused and I heard a tiny sob.
“What is it, darling?” I said, bending down.
“It’s just, Martin Swallow’s dog got ill and he never…he never came home.” Her eyes had filled with tears.
I gave her a hug and tried to comfort her. While I was telling her lies about Happy’s imminent return, anger coursed through me. That bastard. He was already screwing up my daughter’s life. What would happen when Caroline and Shami had to come clean about Happy having gone for good? One way or another, I was going to get back at him.
The rage was still in me when I got back to the flat. I’d only been in for a couple of minutes when the phone rang.
“’Morning, Matt.” The White Devil’s voice was jaunty. “Ready to start writing my life story?”
I swallowed hard and tried not to show any emotion. “I’m ready.” It seemed that his proposition really was that I tell his story for him.
“Good. Turn on your computer. You’ll find plenty of information. Read it and see what you think. Then do what you’re good at. Don’t worry, I don’t want a biography. I want you to turn what I’ve done into the best crime
