'Not as thoroughly as I'd have liked,' said Alex.
'I'm sure there are a few more surprises in store.'
'More than you'll ever know,' said Dawn.
FOURTEEN.
That afternoon Alex took a train to Hereford, picked up his car from the garage where it had been repaired, collected some clothes from his flat and drove out to the SAS base at Credenhill. There he went straight to see Lieutenant-Colonel Bill Leonard, the CO. Howard was expecting him, and the Adjutant showed Alex straight through to the spare, utilitarian office with the steel furniture and the black-and-white photos on the wall.
'So how's it going with the Box investigation?' asked Howard, pushing away the laptop computer at which he had been tentatively poking. The CO was a short, broad-shouldered Yorkshireman with untidy brown hair, an enquiring blue gaze and fists the size of frozen chickens. A few years back he had played rugby for the army and many of his former opponents still bore the scars to remember him by.
Bill Leonard was a far cry, Alex had always considered, from the public-schooled Ruperts who had preceded him. This was one of the reasons why Alex had decided to approach him and to disregard the order from Angela Fenwick not to discuss the Watchman case with hisS AS colleagues.
'They're not letting me anywhere near it,' said Alex.
'My job is basically to wait on the sidelines until they find the guy, and then go in and waste him.'
'Are they going to find him?'
'Doubt it. He may be nuts but he's still a lot faster on his feet than they are.
They've set up some lookalike in the home of the guy they suspect is next in line, but he'll suss it a mile off.'
Howard nodded.
'I've seen his file. He looks pretty switched on. Or he certainly was then. You think he'll whack this next bloke?'
'I reckon I can probably cut down the odds of that happening if they'll let me.
But you know what they're like.'
'I know exactly what they're like. What are you doing?'
'Well, I'm doing what I'm told, which basically means fuck all. The trouble is, I suspect this guy's expecting someone like me to come after him.'
'He'd be a fool if he didn't expect that,' said Howard, studying his massive fingers.
'You think he'll have a go at you?'
'If I get in his way, yes.'
'You want to draw a Sig or something from the armoury?'
'It might be sensible. What I'd really like to do is speak to anyone who trained him. Are any of those blokes still contact able
Howard frowned.
'It was a fair old time ago, but you could give Frank Wisbeach a ring. His name's in the file as one of the Watchman instructors.'
'Do you know where I could find him?'
'He was driving a minicab in town the last I heard of him, poor old sod. Clarion cabs, I think they're called.'
'It might help to have a word,' said Alex.
'Anything that gives me an angle on Meehan and on the way his mind might be working.'
'If you do get an inside track, there could be a lot we can learn. About agent stress, breaking points and so on. We need a lot more information on that sort of thing.'
'Well, if I find myself face to face to him, I'll ask him what exactly turned him into a serial killer,' said Alex.
'How many people do you have to take out before they classify you as a serial killer?' Howard wondered aloud.
Alex shrugged.
'Four, I read. Up to that point you're just a killer. After four you're serial.'
Howard smiled wolfishly.
'Like us, you mean?'
It was an hour before Frank Wisbeach returned Alex's call and when he did he was apologetic, explaining that he had been on an airport job. He was free that evening after 7.30, he told Alex, and they arranged to meet for a drink at a small pub on the outskirts of the city.
Driving back into town, Alex wondered what he should do about Sophie. For starters give her a call, he thought, and dialled her home number on his mobile. It rang unchecked; she hadn't put the answering machine on. He tried her mobile number but got the message service.
He didn't want to leave a message, he wanted to speak to her directly.
Something about the morning's encounter with Dawn Harding had made him want very much to sort things out with her.
Later, he told himself Later.
The Black Dog was not a pub that many Regiment members went to and this was why Alex had chosen it. It was a dim, dingy sort of place with an over-loud jukebox and the sour smell of spilt lager and cheese-and-onion crisps. Frank Wisbeach arrived shortly before eight and Alex was a little shocked by the sight of the gaunt figure in the cheap windcheater who had been his first Close Quarter Battle instructor.
'How are you, son?' asked Wisbeach, transferring a crumpled inch of roll-up to his left hand for the duration of their handshake.
'I heard they made you an officer.'
'They did,' said Alex.
'I'll be shuffling paper for the next few years.
'Don't knock it, son think of the pension. You're knackered before your time in this game. If it's not your knees it's your back. All those bloody Bergan runs.
Wisbeach certainly looked knackered, Alex reflected as he bought the first round. It was the old story that of the regimental hard-man who couldn't quite hack it without the army's visible and invisible support systems. Frank Wisbeach had left the SAS at the end of the 1980s after a distinguished career as an NCO which had taken in Oman, the Falklands War and several tours of Northern Ireland, and signed up with a private security company with training contracts in the Middle East. Alex was uncertain of the details, but the word was that a big client had then defaulted on months of back pay and expenses, bankrupting the company and several of its employees.
A series of body guarding jobs followed, but by then Wisbeach had been too old a dog to learn the ways of spoilt pop stars and bored Arab wives. A short fuse, an unwillingness to suffer fools gladly and a taste for the drink had ensured a swift professional decline, and by the mid-1990s he was living in a caravan and manning the doors in a provincial nightclub.
'So what brought you back to Hereford?' Alex asked, placing the other man's pint of bitter in front of him.
'I heard you were down in Luton.'
'Marriage, mate. Marriage brought me back. I came up for a reunion with a few of the lads from the Regimental Association and somewhere along the line I can't quite remember the details but a pub lock-in was certainly involved I found myself proposing to Della. Arse on her like a four-tonner but a nice smile and a half-share in a hairdressing business on Fortescue Road. Frank, my lad, I thought, it's time you settled down. Ever drink so much you pissed yourself?'
'No, I don't think so.
'I was doing that most nights. And shitting myself too at weekends. There comes a point you review your options.'
Alex nodded sympathetically.
'So I married Della fuck knows what she sees in me, but there you go and picked up a bit of cab bing to help with the bills. Best thing I ever did. You ever been married?'
Alex shook his head.
