Tracers

might have been for shooting vermin or rabbits, the semi-automatic tucked prominently into the side of his belt was anything but.

TWENTY

Harry thought about his next move, waiting for the man to walk away. Treading on a branch now would be a dead giveaway, and a shotgun blast among these trees could still be lethal. Gut instinct told him he should drop this assignment and get out fast. There were departments that dealt with this kind of stuff; he’d worked in one himself and knew the score. A phone call to the right number would initiate a scramble of men and transport, and in no time at all this place would be surrounded and contained.

If he did that, however, he would never know what lay behind the events of the past couple of days. A puzzle like that could gnaw away at you, driving a person mad with speculation.

He could do both, he reasoned. Call it in to Jennings and wait around to see what happened. See what the lawyer had in the way of clout.

He made his way back to the car and dialled the number. If things went disastrously wrong, at least he would have the satisfaction of knowing he had fulfilled his part of the contract. If it all turned out to be a fuss over nothing, well, he’d have to live with it. Former MI5 man cries wolf. He’d had worse things said about him.

A motorbike with a loud exhaust clattered by on the road. It was loud enough to shock a number of birds out of the trees, forcing Harry to abandon the call and redial. He noted with relief that there seemed to be less traffic going by now. If he had to get away from here in a hurry, he didn’t fancy waiting for someone to let him out into a long line of commuter traffic. Not with a man waving a shotgun behind him.

Jennings’ number was engaged. He counted to ten and tried again. It was time for the lawyer to tell him what the hell was going on. If he turned round and said he didn’t know, Harry might as well pack up and go home. First, though, he’d drop a call to the anti-terrorist squad.

At least the boys in black might get a night training exercise out of it.

The motorbike engine was still surprisingly loud, but muffled now by the trees. It took a few seconds for the alarm bell in Harry’s brain to ring. Something about the proximity of the noise wasn’t right. He switched off the phone for a second, listening to the sound of the engine.

Why still so close? It should be a mile away by now.

Another clatter of exhaust, this time from deep in the woods, scared up a handful of birds. They streaked by overhead, wheeling away to the south before peeling off in different directions, pigeons, mostly, identifiable by their heavy wing beats, dragging in their wake a flock of smaller birds swooping and darting haphazardly across the sky.

The engine gave a final cackle, followed by a series of flat pops. The sudden quiet afterwards was almost numbing, with only the beat of wings fading into the distance as a few more birds joined in the exodus.

Then the blast of a shotgun tore through the gloom.

It was followed by a deathly silence. Then two flat pops, this time muffled.

Harry felt his blood go cold. There was no mistaking the sound.

Someone was using a handgun.

Moments later a car engine roared and lights swept through the trees from the direction of the house. The motor revved and whined furiously, the glow flaring through the foliage as the vehicle tore along the track towards the road.

Harry switched off his mobile and grabbed a torch from the boot of the Saab, then took off through the trees, crashing through the brushwood and hanging branches. He reached the fence bordering the track and scrambled over. This time, instead of heading through the trees towards the high wall, he turned and ran along the track and through an open gateway with a security light burning high on a stone pillar to one side.

The light was enough to show a huddled shape on the ground in front of the house. His instincts had been right — he was being followed!

He dodged off the track and crouched behind the pillar, his heart thumping. He peered out but saw no sign of movement. A metronomic ticking was coming from somewhere nearby, and he saw a trial bike lying at the side of the track, the ribbed front wheel turning slowly. Its rear tyre had been ripped away from the wheel rim, no doubt shredded by the shotgun blast.

Harry stepped out and knelt by the body. Flicked his torch on the man’s face.

It was the guard he’d seen earlier. He was dead. The shotgun lay close by, the stock shattered, and the man’s lower face was a mess of blood, the torn flesh sprouting splinters of wood.

Harry moved on, ghostly fingers crawling up his back. He stepped round the side of the house, but there was no sign of the Suzuki. So who had got away — good guys or bad?

The side door of the house was open, the interior thrown into dull relief by a single light. It gave him a narrow view of a large, rustic kitchen with yellowing, bubbled wallpaper and ill-matching chairs set around a heavy table. The floor was bare, laid with heavy flagstones worn to a shine by decades of use.

Harry stepped inside, feet crunching on grit. A smell of stale food and damp hung in the air. A battered cooker and fridge were the only light dash of colour, but like the decor, they were ancient and long past their prime. The kitchen table and worktops were a mess of dirty plates, opened tins and empty food wrappers. A bolt-hole, not a home.

A half-open doorway leading to the front half of the house lay to his right. A doorway to the left showed a narrow flight of stairs disappearing up into darkness.

Neither option looked very welcoming.

Upstairs was the logical place to go; it was where he had seen Silverman. First, though, he had to check that the ground floor was clear. The torchlight pushed back the dark, revealing a narrow view of two large reception rooms and a utility room, and a hallway running across the front of the building. More damp, more musty air and heavy furniture, but no signs of life. He returned to the kitchen and moved across to the stairs.

Holding the torch against the barrel of his semi-automatic, Harry switched it on and poked it round the doorway and up the stairs. There was no sound of movement, no blast of gunfire. He steadied himself, remembering the countless times he’d gone through the training shell they called the Clearing House. Dodging from room to room and hoping for a clean run, all the trainees had to do was face a barrage of deafening flash-bangs, pop-up targets and screaming sound effects operated by the merciless technicians on the other side of the blast- proof walls.

The difference between then and now was this was for real, with real bullets.

He bent and picked up a muddy shoe lying near the door. Stepping forward, he lobbed it underarm into the gloom, where it bounced and rumbled along the floor. No reaction.

There was only one thing for it: he breathed deep and took the stairs in three strides, hurling himself to the floor as he reached the landing and curling round to see past the banister, the gun and torch thrust out before him.

‘Jesus,’ he muttered, and swallowed hard.

A man’s body was lying crumpled at the far end, legs drawn up to his belly. One arm was thrown across his face, and an almost delicate mist of blood had been sprayed across the faded wallpaper in the background. The man had been shot twice in the chest. Harry bent and eased his arm away.

The greeter from the airport.

Recovering quickly, he checked the bedrooms, then came back to the landing and switched on the light. The single bulb revealed a trail of blood on the wooden boards and a scarlet handprint smeared down one wall of the stairwell. It was easy to see the chain of events: the killer had charged up to the house on the motorbike, taking the outside guard by surprise in spite of — or perhaps because of — the noise. What Harry had taken to be the sound of the bike engine popping had been the first shots fired, which must have damaged the shotgun without killing the guard.

The killer had then stormed the house and disposed of the second guard, during which the first man had fired his shotgun into the motorbike wheel to disable it and prevent the attacker’s escape. The gunman had simply