The grey eyes hardened a fraction.
'Don't you think we will?'
'If he doesn't want you to find him, he'll go to ground somewhere.'
She raised an ironic eyebrow.
'Somewhere that only you Special Forces boys can follow, right?'
Alex shrugged.
'I might be able to help you with the way that he thinks. Give you an idea of the sort of place he'd look for.'
She sighed.
'Look, we have the Service's best psych team dealing with the way that this man thinks and our best investigators looking for him. Any suggestions would, I'm sure, be very helpful, but we do, in fact, have the matter well in hand. What we'd really like you to do is wait and, when the moment comes, move in and eliminate him.'
'Is that really all you think we're good for?'
'On this occasion, I'm afraid that it's all we need you to do.'
They sat in uncomfortable silence. Outside on the river, a succession of interlinked barges moved upstream against the current. She had no real idea, thought Alex, what she was asking him to do. What it was like to look another human being in the eye and then kill him. How, in those moments, a few seconds could stretch into infinity.
It's all we need you to do.
A belated flicker of concern crossed her face. She frowned. She seemed to be aware of the direction his thoughts were taking.
'It's not up to me,' she said.
'I'm just here as a go-between.'
He nodded. It was as close to an apology as he was ever likely to get.
'So when did you join the Service?'
he asked.
'Six years ago.' She forced a smile.
'I answered the same advert as David Shayler, as it happens.'
'What did it say?
'Spies wanted'?'
'It said: 'Godot Isn't Coming'.'
'Who the hell's Godot?'
'A character in a Samuel Beckett play called Waiting for Godot. The other characters wait for him.'
'And he doesn't come?'
'No.'
'Sounds unmissable. So you knew this was an MI-5 advert?'
'No. But I knew it had been placed by an organisation with a bit of.. . sophistication to it.'
'Right,' said Alex.
'Because of this Godot stuff' 'Exactly.'
'We watch a fair amount of Samuel Beckett's stuff up in Hereford. Are you glad you answered that advert?'
'Yes.'
'And are you free this afternoon?'
She looked at him suspiciously.
'No. Why?'
'When I've looked through the photographs and the pathology reports, I'd like to go back to Gidley's place. There are a couple of things I need to check.'
'I thought we'd established that you were leaving that side of things to us.'
'Dawn, I need to see what Meehan's exact movements were the night before last. If I'm going up against him, I have to know how he operates.'
'I very much doubt there'll be anything to see.
'That depends on what you're looking for. Trust me, I'm not going to be wasting your time.'
She regarded him expressionlessly for a moment and nodded.
'OK, then, but like I said, I'm tied up this afternoon. It'll have to be tomorrow morning.'
'I guess that'll have to do. Tell me something off the top of your head.'
'What?'
'Why is Joseph Meehan murdering the MI-5 officers who ran him?'
'I heard you ask Angela Fenwick the same question.
She said she didn't know.'
'I heard her say it. But what do you think?'
'I think he went native, like George said.' She shrugged.
'Why do any terrorists do what they do? It's an armed struggle. We're the enemy.
'But why choose such an extreme method of killing people? And why take out Fenn and Gidley who, let's face it, were pretty much at the fag-end of their careers?'
'He killed the people he knew. To Meehan, Fenn and Gidley represented the heart of the British Establishment. As do George Widdowes and Angela Fenwick, presumably.'
Alex shook his head.
'I don't think he killed them for symbolic reasons. As Brit oppressors or whatever. I think he killed them for a specific reason.'
She narrowed her eyes.
'What makes you think that you can see inside this man's head?'
Alex shrugged.
'We're both soldiers. Soldiers are methodical. They believe in cause and effect. What's the point of carrying out an elaborate, ritualistic murder that no one will ever know about? That you know will be immediately covered up?'
'Perhaps he's mad.'
'Do you know something?' said Alex.
'For a moment there we were almost having a conversation.'
Dawn held his gaze for a moment, then reached to the floor for her briefcase. When she straightened she was her usual brisk, businesslike self.
'As well as the photographs and reports on Fenn and Gidley I've got some keys for you. They're for a top-floor flat in St. George's Square in Pimlico. You can stay there if you need to or' she hesitated for a fraction of a second 'you can make your own arrangements.'
'Thank you,' said Alex neutrally.
Barry Fenn, he saw, had been a weaselly, narrow shouldered man. From the photographs, in which he was wearing bloodstained pyjamas and was sprawled half in and half out of bed, it was clear that he had been woken from sleep. According to the pathologist's report he had struggled briefly and ineffectually before being struck on the back of the head with some sort of cosh. The six-inch nail had been hammered into his temple while he was semiconscious and his tongue, it appeared, had been hacked out as some sort of afterthought. Livid and hideous, it had been placed in the unused glass ashtray beside the bed alongside a book of matches. There was less blood than there might have been.
Looking at the photographs, Alex realised that his earlier identification with Meehan had been dangerous and stupid. Beyond their training and a similarity in age, he had nothing whatever in common with this maniac. Dawn was right: the man was a psychopathic murderer and had to be stopped.
The pathologist's report on Craig Gidley indicated that, like Barry Fenn's tongue, the victim's eyes had been cut out after the fatal hammer blow had driven the nail through his temple. To Alex this confirmed that the mutilations were there for a purpose other than to cause suffering. As a message, perhaps?
But a message for whom? For MI-5 as a whole? For George Widdowes or Angela Fenwick in particular?
