castle wall and the main building, then keep going that way till he had dropped down to the graveyard and where the church had been. From there he might go right or left, but the coastal path was closed in with rough brambles and gorse, enough for Robbie to get close to him. He had worked it through, always did. He wore overalls, had the balaclava in his left pocket, and was squatted in a gap in the scrub where the people from a house between the lane and the gates dumped their grass cuttings and garden rubbish. It was a useful place, but for all of its good points there was the bad one: he was hanging around, would stand out and… No other way. He stayed stock still when two men came past him on the path. They didn’t see him but one of their dogs yapped at him.
The Baikal pistol was in the right side pocket of the overalls. It was loaded.
Normally he slept well, in the house in Clack Street he shared with Vern and Leanne and in the apartment where he kept Barbie. He had slept all right when he was with his grandparents on the first floor of the block on the Albion Estate, and when he was in Feltham. He didn’t lose sleep on the night before a hit.
He’d tossed all night in the hut. Nothing to do with the floor, or the cushions he’d taken off the bench where Leanne was, and nothing to do with Vern in the easy chair, feet on the table. He hadn’t slept because his foot hurt. The pain was a reminder that he had reacted to a yob-kid, had allowed himself to be riled. He didn’t feel right.
They hadn’t argued with him, never did. They accepted that the man, the target, would come out of the gates and would be walking his dog: they had to accept it because that was what Robbie had said would happen.
He was hot in the overalls and his hands were tacky inside the lightweight rubber gloves.
He couldn’t speak to Vern or Leanne. Their mobiles had been switched off since they’d been on the ring-road motorway south of London before they had headed to the coast. Idiots left their mobiles switched on when they went to work – a phone could be tracked as sure as a bug under the car. His father, Jerry, might have left his mobile switched on: he was in HMP Wandsworth because he was an idiot. Vern would have the car parked up the street from the museum and the pub, and would be sitting somewhere, killing time, waiting. Leanne would be on the bench on the open ground, grassed, on the far side of the street to the museum and the entrance to the lane, and would have the wig on.
Hadn’t seen him, had he? Knew his name and age, had seen his wife and dog. Didn’t know what he looked like. Would shoot, wouldn’t he, a male aged forty-six who came out of the gates and had a dog with him? Understood why Vern and Leanne had queried, then challenged him. Was he rushing it?
He was never wrong, never had been.
The sun came up and clipped the treetops, and he realised there were apples, rotten and thrown out with the grass cuttings. The wasps found him.
As he swatted them away, he heard a telephone ring, far off.
Lunch awaited him at the Special Forces Club, and he had an appointment before that with the man who had overseen his hip’s resurfacing, but Benjie Arbuthnot had taken an early train that had dumped him with the commuter hordes at a London terminus. A taxi had brought him to Vauxhall Bridge Cross on the South Bank.
‘It was something or nothing, really. If it’s something, I’d say that Gillot’s on borrowed time. If it’s nothing, we just picked up the chaff of a few embittered old men who were doing some wishful thinking.’
Benjie and Deirdre had been guests at Alastair Watson’s wedding. When Benjie had run an obscure Middle East desk -mercifully with no links to weapons of mass destruction – his last job before retirement, Watson had been his personal assistant. When they were not in London they were in the Gulf, putting rather brave men on to the dhows that sailed backwards and forwards between Dubai or Oman and Iranian harbours. They had enjoyed, Benjie reckoned, a good relationship.
‘As we understand it, the village had given their lead man everything they had. No item of even trifling value was overlooked. The whole lot went to paying for the MANPADS. It was thought they would ensure the successful defence of the village. Its location was important: it guaranteed that the track through the cornfields remained open – only at night and only at great risk, but the symbol was huge. Gillot, we gather, took delivery of the valuables, then went down to Rijeka, put the whole lot in safety deposit while he made arrangements with a shipping agent for the offloading of the cargo when it was brought ashore.’
Benjie had a rule and had adhered to it strictly since he’d handed in his swipe card: he never took access for granted. With extreme politeness, he had requested the previous afternoon that he be accorded a short and non- attributable briefing on the matter of a contract for Harvey Gillot. He assumed Watson had been permitted a glimpse of a resume of the Zagreb contact, then sent down to an interview room to humour an old war horse – for whom, perhaps, the past had resurrected.
‘He did well. In a very few days he had located the merchandise, had it brought out of Poland, Gdansk, where there was Customs chaos. It was en route to Rijeka… where you showed up, Mr Arbuthnot. Well, no shipment was landed and nobody managed to get word to those expecting delivery. They stood in a cornfield, waiting, and were zapped. It appears that the bodies were treated badly – that is, badly by Balkan standards – and then the area was mined. Last week the mines were cleared, and a plough turned up a corpse who had the name of Harvey Gillot in his pocket. You’d know better than me, Mr Arbuthnot, that memories in that corner of Europe are long and hatreds don’t diminish. Our feeling – yes, he’ll be hit.’
The coffee had come from a machine, was almost undrinkable, but Benjie had emptied two sachets of sugar into it and swirled the dregs with a wooden spatula.
‘Does that help?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ He stood. He was about to ask after Watson’s parents and ‘Why, Mr Arbuthnot, did you block the shipment?’
He drew breath and considered. He liked the young man, trusted him, and thought him owed some honesty. ‘Sanctions busting, wasn’t it? UN Security Council resolution and all that. Criminal stuff. I simply advised Gillot – a useful asset of the Service at that time – of the risks he was running and rather quietly nudged him towards the docks at Aqaba, a Jordanian arsenal… They might have gone to Israel, might have gone to Syria, might have gone to an outfit in Azerbaijan. You see, that place on the Danube was doomed. Only obstinacy and bloody-minded blindness prevented those people bugging out down that track and accepting the inevitable. They didn’t do the sensible thing, and there are graves to show for it. Well, thank you.’
‘But he reneged on the deal he’d done because of your intervention.’
‘A little black and white, Alastair, in a grey and murky situation.’
‘Nobody will put their hand up and admit to guilt, obviously… Is it because of us – sorry, you – that he’s in deep trouble?’
‘Difficult times… but I expect Gillot will come through. The blame game seldom helps towards a satisfactory conclusion, in my limited experience.’ He stood, and his bloody hip hurt.
‘My regards to Mrs Arbuthnot.’
‘She’ll appreciate that. I’m grateful for your time.’
‘Need to know and all that.’
‘Of course.’
‘I haven’t asked how you were alerted to this matter, nor shall I. But you ought to know we’re told that the recommendations of a Gold Group have been chucked back in their collective faces. It was suggested to Gillot that he should move out and do a runner. He refused.’
‘Surely he’ll get a policeman on the door?’
‘Will not. I absolutely don’t mean to patronise but there’s health and safety to be considered. I mean, what we did in the Gulf or up on the border from the Basra station – well, I don’t remember you filing a risk assessment, Mr Arbuthnot. Who guards the policeman on the door? Who watches the posteriors of the back-up squad? And they’re twenty-four-seven, so cash registers ring. Anyway, that’s where he is, Gold Group have a headache and Gillot’s planning a George Custer moment. May I ask, were you fond of Gillot?’
He said stiffly, ‘I did not like or dislike him. He was an agent – damn you, dear boy, for asking. He was a useful asset. Do we in the Service now sign up to duty of care?’
‘A bit… Good to have seen you again, Mr Arbuthnot. We acknowledge duty of care today, but they were difficult times, and pretty bloody, I believe. I would have thought your man made staunch enemies.’
‘Quote me and I’ll deny it… Once he was almost a son. But we wanted that gear in Jordan. Do I care about some remote, murderous corner of outer Europe? Not a jot. Do I care about Harvey Gillot? Well, I’m here, aren’t I? Thank you for your time.’
He looked hard into her eyes… The first time they had touched was when the boy, Simun, turned sharply to
