He hadn’t woken her. He had written the note, had done the smile – the rueful one – then gone out of the door and closed it with care.
He murmured, ‘Well, Mr Lieberman, they say that if you’re stuck in a pit it’s best to stop digging, so I’ve dumped the shovel. I’m walking because your good chum, Mr Arbuthnot, offered that piece of advice. Would be grateful, Mr Lieberman, if you’d watch my back…’ Could have done with his dark glasses. It looked a long walk and he thought it would take him near to the red-tiled roofs, the jutting chimneys and maybe skirt a tree-line, but everything was indistinct: the light reflected up from the path and seemed to gouge at his eyes. He hadn’t gone far yet, and the path stretched ahead, the corn grew high, and a car door slammed, behind him, faint.
It would have slammed on the road near to the flag, the pillbox and the shrine.
The sound of the slam carried well and there was no noise on the path, other than that of leaves moving and songbirds. Up higher a buzzard soared – should have had his dog with him. If it had been a choice between the dark glasses to protect his eyes or the dog, head beside his knee, he would have chosen the dog. Had the dog noticed he’d gone? Always made a fuss when he came back, but he wouldn’t have bet good money on the dog’s loyalty if it were just a walk that was on offer. The dog would follow the food. She gave it food and it might turn down the chance of a walk in a cornfield that led to a village, a grave and… He heard the stamp of feet, running behind him. He quickened his step, thought of the gun, the balaclava. He didn’t know whether he should walk faster, trot, jog or sprint. The tread closed on him. Gillot didn’t want to turn. He could picture the slight, spare-shouldered shape of the man and thought, with that build, the man would be close enough to him to have the right range for a handgun. Twenty feet, a difficult shot; ten feet, a reasonable shot; five feet, certainty. Couldn’t stop or turn, and the sweat ran on his back. The wind eddied in the bullet holes of his shirt and cooled the wet on his skin.
‘For God’s sake, Mr Gillot, can you just slow down?’
19
Gillot shouted at the corn on either side of the path: ‘Go away.’
‘Can’t.’ The man heaved, panted, and the footfall thudded closer.
Gillot stopped, turned. He stood his full height and tried to claw together authority. He and spoke with a harsh growl: ‘Words of one syllable… Get lost.’
The sergeant was in front of him, dressed in a suit, collar buttoned, tie knotted. The polished shoes were now dust-coated, his hair was wrecked and the sweat ran in rivulets off his forehead. A gasp. ‘Can’t.’
‘I don’t want you.’
‘Put frankly, Mr Gillot, there’s a thousand places I’d rather be.’
‘Be there then, any of them.’ Harvey Gillot turned. No smile and no shrug. He did it like a dismissal – told the lamb to stop trailing and get back to its own field and flock. He walked, stretched his stride.
‘Can’t.’ He was followed.
‘Repetitive, boring. Get a handle on it. I have to do this on my own.’ He thought that reasonable. Only an idiot wouldn’t understand that the business of the day was personal to him. They were in, now, an avenue of corn that was densely sown and made a wall to either side of them. A man – a devil, a killer, a bastard – could be two yards into the corn and there would be no warning of his presence. He would only have to extend an arm and aim and…
The voice bored back at him, lapped at his shoulder. ‘Sorry. Whatever your personal preferences, Mr Gillot, I’m not able to turn away from you. It’s the job.’
‘Get behind me. Don’t crowd me,’ Gillot said quietly. He wanted this argument dead – wanted to know what was ahead of him and round the twist in the path, wanted to know what was beside him and two paces into the close corn.
‘Behind you, yes, but with you.’
He thought they played with words. To Gillot, ‘behind’ was fifty paces back and detached, merely there to observe, far enough away not to distract him from his own survival chances. To Gillot, ‘with you’ was a couple of steps off his shoulder and alongside him, too near to give him a cat in hell’s chance. He’d reckoned he’d solved a problem and had had it thrown straight and hard into his face. The sun beat into his eyes and the sweat stung there. Temper broke.
‘Are you looking for a fucking medal?’
‘That’s insulting.’
‘Get off your high horse, Sergeant, and stop moralising.’
‘It’s called duty of bloody care.’
He let his shoulders heave with derision, but the man hung in there. At school there had been kids who fancied cross-country running was a joy – panting and heaving and throwing up – and the teacher said that the lead kid had to drop the chasers or he’d not bloody win. He hadn’t dropped Roscoe.
‘Never heard of it. Doesn’t play big in any street I’ve lived in.’
‘And it hangs like a bloody millstone around my neck, but it’s there and I can’t lose it. That’s duty of care.’ What was new – anger. As if Roscoe had forgotten he was the policeman, the public servant. As if it was true: he’d rather be anywhere else and weighed down with the duty. He remembered the man in his living room, punctilious in his politeness, demonstrating neither sympathy nor personal involvement. He couldn’t offload the care.
‘I walk on my own.’
‘Correction. You walk with me behind you.’
‘You armed?’
‘No.’
‘You have a stick? Pepper spray? Mace? Do you have anything?’
‘No.’
A stork flew over, slow and ponderous, and Gillot told him what he thought. ‘Then you’re goddamn useless – useless. Leave me alone. I go about my business and you’re an obstruction to it. Lose yourself.’
‘You won’t be alone, no chance. They’ll be there. Got me? It’s like they’ve bought tickets for a Tyburn job, seats in the stands. Penny Laing of Revenue and Customs, she’s there – she tried to nail you with a prosecution but gave up on it. Megs Behan, the woman who blasted you out of your home with a bullhorn, is there. A local doctor, he’ll be there, but don’t regard him as useful because he didn’t bring the box of tricks him. I’m carrying it. The forensic scientist who exhumed the bodies – the deaths that put you in this shit – and found a phone number scribbled on paper in a pocket and shopped you, he’s down the track… with an old spook who acts the fool and isn’t. He’s there and has taken on the transport. He calls us all vultures, circling, watching and waiting for a corpse. You won’t be alone. Sorry about that.’
‘Back off.’
‘And the village’ll be there. They put up twenty thousand sterling. It’s a humble place and it lives off war pensions, with disability allowances well-milked, but that was a pile of money to them and they took it in bank loans. It was sliced off down the line as the contract was passed on, and the guy on the trigger gets ten out of the twenty.’
‘I don’t need to know – I’m not running. I have nowhere to run to.’
‘His name is Robbie Cairns. He’s from Rotherhithe, southeast London. Slotting is his work. He kills to make a living.’
‘I’ve seen him, faced him, smelt him.’
‘He’s waiting for you at the end of the path.’
‘Get back from me. I’ll look after myself.’
‘Stuck with you, and not from choice.’
It would not have been true to say that Harvey Gillot snapped. Truer to say that he had exhausted every other tactic for shedding himself of Roscoe’s shadow. He hit him. Surprised Roscoe and himself. A clenched fist, not the one that held the plastic bag, but a left-arm jab. He had never, in his entire life, hit anyone before – not at primary school or at the Royal Grammar School. He hadn’t thrown punches in the office-equipment trade or when he was trying to sell weapons. He had never hit Josie. The blow caused Roscoe to reel, but not to go down. Gillot watched, almost fascinated, as blood came from Roscoe’s nose and was wiped with a sleeve, and then more from a
