The man laughed at his own joke as Eva quietly put the helmet on the counter.
‘Do you sell body armour?’ she asked.
The shop assistant raised an eyebrow, then emerged from behind the counter and led her to an adjoining room, its walls lined with boots and berets. ‘Not much call for it,’ he said as he showed her a rail from which three chunky blue vests were hanging. ‘Just the occasional war reporter, you know, but it’s not the sort of thing you end up buying more than once. Anyway, that’s why they’re all blue. Identifies you as a journalist in a war zone. All good quality, though… Osprey Protective…’ As he spoke, Eva saw his eyes wandering towards the small carrier bag she was carrying, from the top of which an Ordnance Survey map was peeking, the word ‘Pembrokeshire’ just visible. ‘Course,’ said the man, ‘not much call for them in Welsh Wales, eh? Not unless your bloke’s thinking of SAS selection.’ He laughed again and, oblivious to Eva’s discomfort, rapped his knuckles against one of the vests. ‘Good thick ceramic plates… the dog’s bollocks really, ’scuse my French. Got the elbow and shoulder pads to go with it too…’
Eva selected the largest of the three vests. She was surprised how heavy it was, but then she was only used to wearing a stab vest. ‘Do you have side plates?’ she asked, just as Joe had told her.
The young man looked surprised at the question. He shook his head. ‘Like I say, not a lot of call…’
‘Binoculars?’
‘Sure.’
Eva paid with cash, withdrawn, at Joe’s instruction, from a hole in the wall while she was still in Dagenham. If things went to shit, it wouldn’t do her any good at all if her credit card records had shown her buying these items. But then things going to shit was something Eva didn’t really want to contemplate. Had DCI Jacobson reported her little deception of that morning? Her absence from work must have been noted. Were people out looking for her? She was acting as if in a dream, against her better judgement, half of her wanting to run and hide, the other half knowing that she was too far gone for that. She just had to trust that Joe knew what he was doing.
‘Hope it’s what he wanted,’ said the assistant as he handed over the goods.
‘Yeah,’ Eva murmured as she headed towards the exit. ‘Me too.’
The boot of the Range Rover was up. Joe was checking the gear Eva had acquired as he stashed it away carefully.
‘Joe,’ Eva said. He continued working and didn’t even look at her. ‘
‘Trust me,’ Joe said. ‘Nobody’s going to report it missing. Did you get the optics?’
‘The what?’
‘Night-vision goggles.’
Eva shook her head. ‘I drained my account, Joe. That was all I could—’
‘Forget it. You got the important stuff.’ He straightened up and looked round.
It was 6 p.m. The light was failing. Joe and Eva had parked at the crossroads of two residential roads in Wandsworth. A man wearing a suit and a woollen overcoat walked past, clearly intent on getting home. Two schoolkids walking their dog went by in the other direction. Joe slammed the rear door of the Range Rover shut and looked towards the crossroads. ‘He lives alone? No girlfriend?’
‘As far as I know.’
‘Have you ever been in the flat?’
‘Once,’ Eva replied. Her skin flushed a little. ‘We didn’t…’
‘There was no way of getting in through the back?’
Eva gave a helpless little shrug. ‘It was dark, Joe. But no, I don’t think so.’
‘And he’s definitely gone away?’
Eva nodded. ‘He told me this morning. Spain, I think. Flew at midday. But I don’t understand—’
‘You’re sure he has a bike?’
‘Positive, but—’
‘Wait here.’
Eva nodded, but as Joe stepped away from the car, she called after him. ‘Frank’s a nice guy. A friend of mine. Go easy on his place, OK?’
Joe found the motorcycle he was looking for easily enough, parked in the paved front area of number 63 and covered with a grey tarpaulin. Next to it, upturned on its side, was a bike trailer. Other than that, the front yard was empty, save for an old Pot Noodle carton that had blown in. A set of raised steps to his left led up to the ground- and first-floor flats, but the basement flat had a separate iron staircase. Once Joe had descended this, he was out of sight of the road in a gloomy, poky little entrance area. There was no light from the front window of the basement, and the curtains were shut. He knocked on the front door. It rattled slightly in its frame. Ill-fitting, Joe noted. Easier to barge down. After looking up to check he wasn’t being overlooked, he took a step back, then rammed his shoulder against the door. He felt a little give. Ramming it for a second time, he heard the crack of a mortise lock splintering out of its cavity. A third barge and he was in.
He didn’t enter straight away, but walked casually up the stairs to check nobody had been alerted by the noise. A woman walked past, white earphones plugged in, and didn’t even seem to notice him.
The flat was tiny. There was a small kitchenette in one corner and crockery was upturned on the draining board. Clothes littered the floor. Eva’s colleague Frank – was that what she’d said he was called? – was a messy bloke. At first Joe thought that might make it more difficult to locate his bike keys, but then he saw a leather jacket slung over the side of an armchair. He rummaged in the pockets and found a Yamaha key ring with two keys attached.
He stepped into the bedroom. It was even untidier. Eva had said that this bloke was about the same size as him, so Joe quickly scouted through clothes strewn over the floor and double bed. He selected a hooded top and, after poking around in a half-open drawer, a navy-blue snood. He hadn’t been in the flat for more than ninety seconds before he was hurrying back up the steps, clutching the keys and the clothes.
Eva was sitting in the passenger seat of the Range Rover, chewing anxiously on her fingernails. ‘Was he there?’ she asked as Joe climbed in behind the wheel and started the engine.
He shook his head. ‘I broke in. What is he, a boyfriend?’
‘I told you, he’s just a friend.’ Eva said quickly.
They were pulling up outside the flat where the bike was parked when she spoke again. ‘I still don’t understand why we need Frank’s bike. Can’t we just use this thing?’ She hit the dashboard of the Range Rover, frustration suddenly bursting out of her. She bit her lip and looked out of the passenger window. ‘Can’t you just let me call my colleagues? If they think Conor’s been abducted, they’ll be all over the place like a rash.’
‘No!’ Joe snapped, and instantly regretted it. Eva didn’t have to be here, he reminded himself. She was risking as much as he was. Maybe more. But time was running out. He could explain once they were on the road. He jumped out of the Range Rover, ran up to the front of the house, pulled the bike trailer to the back of the stolen vehicle and attached it to the rear. After pulling off the grey tarp, he wheeled the bike onto the trailer. Once he had secured it, he got back in the Range Rover and eased out into the road, aware of the troubled stare Eva was giving him.
‘Listen,’ he said as he glanced in the rear-view mirror. ‘I don’t know who this Ashe guy is working for. Maybe it’s Al-Qaeda, maybe the Americans. But we do know this: he doesn’t care who he kills to get at me.’ He paused. ‘You didn’t see Caitlin’s body, Eva. You didn’t see the look in her eyes…’ He couldn’t bring himself to say it, and he found himself breathing deeply just to calm his nerves. ‘He
‘You don’t
‘I won’t risk it.’ He breathed deeply to calm down. ‘We have to think like him,’ he said. ‘Why has he chosen that precise location for the RV? I checked the satellite imagery when we were online. It’s a remote beach with a high cliff behind it.
