‘Nothing.’
‘You’re saying that driving is a male ego thing, is that it?’
Marie held up her hands. ‘Hey, if the cap fits. .’ She laughed and squeezed his neck harder. ‘Don’t be so sensitive. Besides, you’re a very good driver.’
Lynch grinned, then just as quickly, frowned. ‘You wouldn’t be trying to massage my ego, Marie, love, would you?’
Marie laughed. ‘Just your neck, Dermott. Just your neck. We take the B4271 after Upper Killay. The A road goes to the airport and then to the south. We keep heading west.’
‘How far?’
‘To Llanrhidian? About eight miles. What’s the plan?’
The question set Lynch thinking. He’d been so busy getting out of London and worrying about the mess he’d left behind that he’d scarcely thought about what he would do when he got to the point on the map where Cramer’s helicopter had landed. For all he knew, Cramer could have been whisked into a car and driven anywhere in Wales or beyond. ‘We’ll take a look around, see if we can work out where he went,’ he said.
‘That’s the plan?’ she said.
‘It’s not really a plan,’ said Lynch.
‘I’ll say.’
Lynch cleared his throat. ‘Do you have any suggestions?’
‘No suggestions. I just want to get him. We’ll find out where he is and we’ll get him.’
Lynch shook his head. ‘No, Marie, love. I’ll do it.’
Marie nodded slowly. ‘Whatever you say.’
‘I mean it. I don’t want you anywhere near him. He’s a trained killer. He’s one of the most dangerous men you’ll ever meet.’
Marie raised an eyebrow innocently. ‘What, more dangerous than you, Dermott?’
Lynch grinned despite himself. The road to Llanrhidian was narrow and winding and he drove carefully, aware of how easily he could lose control of the spirited Golf GTI.
The village was tiny and looked down upon a long stretch of salt marsh which ran into the Loughor estuary to the north. To the west were the gaunt ruins of a castle. ‘What’s that?’ Lynch asked, nodding at the ruins.
‘Weobley Castle,’ Marie answered, looking at the map. ‘The place we’re looking for is to the east, just the other side of the B4295.’
They drove by the village pub. Lynch resisted the urge to stop. While he would have enjoyed a pint and a rest from driving, the pub was in such an isolated spot that the arrival of two strangers would be bound to attract attention. Marie stared at the map, rechecking the coordinates that Lynch had given her. They followed the B4295 past a sprawling caravan park, then Marie pointed to the right. ‘There,’ she said.
Lynch peered through the windscreen at what appeared to be nothing but farmland, most of it freshly ploughed. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked. Marie nodded. Lynch braked. The road curved around to the right, and as he guided the Golf into the curve, a high stone wall came into view. ‘Could this be it?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘According to the map, the coordinates are about half a mile inside the wall.’ Lynch slowed the car to little more than a walking pace. Marie twisted around in her seat and tried to look past Lynch. ‘What is this place?’ she asked.
‘I can’t see.’
‘There’s a gate up ahead.’
Lynch accelerated smoothly. They passed a faded wooden sign affixed to the wall. ‘Did you see that?’ Lynch asked, looking over his shoulder.
‘Sorry. I missed it.’
Lynch stopped and reversed the Golf down the road. The lettering on the board had once been dark brown but it was now streaked with greenish mould. LLANRHIDIAN GIRLS’ PREPARATORY SCHOOL, the sign said, but a white strip with red lettering had been plastered across the board announcing that the building had been sold, along with the name and telephone number of a local estate agent. Marie took a pen from her handbag and copied the name and telephone number into the back of her diary. Lynch put the car into first gear and drove down the road towards the entrance to the school. They were about twenty yards away when he saw the two men standing just inside the wrought-iron gates. They were both in their late twenties and wearing leather jackets and jeans, not standing to attention but not lounging aimlessly, either. They were both looking at the Golf.
‘Kiss me,’ said Lynch.
Marie moved quickly. She leaned over and planted a kiss on his cheek and hugged her arms around his neck. Lynch accelerated and they passed the gate. He checked his rear-view mirror but the men didn’t look through the gate after the Golf.
‘What was that about?’ Marie asked, releasing her grip on his neck.
‘Didn’t you see them?’ Lynch asked. ‘Two men, Sass by the look of them.’
‘Are you sure?’
Lynch gave her a withering look and she slid down into her seat. ‘Now what do we do?’ she asked.
‘We wait until it gets dark,’ he said. ‘If they’re guarding the place, he’s probably still there.’ Lynch felt a growing excitement as he drove alongside the stone wall and he fought to control it. ‘Find us somewhere where we can look down on the school so that we can get an overview, okay?’
‘Sure. There’s a hill to the north. We should be able to see it from there.’
Lynch turned to look at her and he saw that she was smiling. ‘What?’ he said.
‘What do you mean, what?’
‘I mean what are you so happy about?’
Marie ran a finger along his leg, scratching the material of his jeans. ‘You said “we” for the first time.’
Lynch snorted softly and looked back at the road. She was right, he realised. He’d started thinking of her as part of the team. Whether or not that was a good thing remained to be seen.
Bernard Jackman looked up at the blonde stewardess and took the small glass of orange juice that she was offering. He gave her a broad smile but she was already moving on to the next passenger. Even in first class the service was perfunctory and the smiles plastic, but Jackman didn’t care. He flew more than fifty thousand miles a year on scheduled airlines and regarded travelling as nothing more than a means to an end. All he cared about was that the plane arrived on time and that it didn’t crash into the sea along the way.
He watched the stewardess walk down the aisle, dispensing drinks and more artificial smiles. Jackman was used to false smiles. During his time as an FBI profiler he’d interviewed hundreds of murderers, and rarely did they seem out of the ordinary. There was little to separate the serial killer from the man in the street, on the surface at least. Jackman had met serial killers who looked like kindly grandfathers, others who were as charming, handsome and charismatic as chat show hosts, and even one who was every bit as voluptuous as the stewardess. Jackman knew that it was only when you began to delve inside their heads that you discovered what separated the killers from their prey, the sheep from the wolves. He’d spent thousands of hours interviewing convicted killers, winning their confidence, peering into their minds, becoming their friend, so that he could discover what made them different. One of his bosses had said that a good profiler was like a chameleon, that when a profiler and a killer were together in a cell it should be impossible to tell them apart. Their mannerisms, their body language, the way they talked, should be virtually identical. The same man had also warned of the dangers of spending too much time in the company of serial killers. They had the same fascination as a flame to a moth: the profilers had to be careful how close they got, lest they got burned.
Jackman opened the file on Mike Cramer. Most of it consisted of reports from Cramer’s time in the army and later in the Special Air Service, the British Special Forces regiment which was revered throughout the world. There was nothing to explain where the man had been over the previous three years. A colour photograph was clipped to the inside of the file cover: three pictures in a strip, left and right profiles and one full on. There was an intensity in Cramer’s eyes that burned out of the photograph. The effect was almost hypnotic and Jackman spent several minutes staring at the picture. He was disturbed by the stewardess asking if she could take his empty glass. He handed it to her, still looking at the photograph.
Cramer’s eyes were deep-set and his nose was slightly hooked, giving him a predatory appearance. According to the file, Cramer was thirty-seven years old but the eyes wouldn’t have been out of place in an octogenarian.
