never gave it a thought.’
‘At least somewhere close enough to leave his stuff.’ Harry gestured back towards the park. ‘Come on. Let’s see if he’s still around. In the meantime, you can help us understand why somebody’s so intent on killing him.’
‘What about the man with the knife? He might be hanging around as well.’ Joanne looked unsure, but they knew it was not about her own safety. She didn’t want to expose Rafa’i to another attack.
‘This time we stick together,’ Rik murmured. ‘If he tries again, he’ll come unstuck. Pity we didn’t get a good look at him, though. I was too busy running to focus clearly. All I saw was a blur.’
Joanne held up the camera. ‘No problem. I took a shot of him as he ran towards us. It should be clear enough to give us a face to watch out for.’
FORTY-ONE
‘Why does this face look familiar?’ Rik was studying the six-by-four print that Joanne had produced from her digital card at a nearby camera shop. The photo was slightly out of focus, but showed the man in the anorak striding along the path, leaning forward as he broke into his attack run. His face was thin and edged with concentration, and he appeared to be staring right into the camera lens. Frozen in time around him was a scattering of people and birds, a vivid framework of motion that served, if anything, to emphasize his total focus on where he was going. The overriding impression was of a jungle cat stalking its prey, ignoring every other distraction around him as he concentrated on his target.
‘You know him?’ Joanne looked surprised.
‘I’m not sure. Maybe the type, not the bloke.’ They knew what he meant. He had the chilling aura of a hunter — purposeful and resolute, and not the kind to be put off easily. The fact that he had backed away when faced by Harry and Rik meant nothing. He had clearly judged the odds and found them unfavourable. He would simply try again when circumstances were better. The danger was, next time they might not see him coming.
Harry leaned forward. Rik was right: there was something familiar about the man, but he couldn’t place him, either.
‘Was he the man in the car?’ he asked Joanne. He hadn’t been close enough to see the man she’d shot at, merely the bulk of his outline.
‘I don’t know.’ She fingered the photo. ‘I only caught a glimpse. It was all so quick.’ She looked past Harry and scanned the area behind him, sifting groups and watching for anyone who didn’t fit. The two men were doing the same.
They were sitting facing inwards on the edge of the grass, not far from where Joanne had met Rafa’i. There were already far more pedestrians about than there had been an hour ago, which was making their task that much more difficult. But without knowing Rafa’i’s whereabouts, or even whether he would come back to find Joanne or not, they could do nothing else but sit and wait. And hope.
‘He’ll come,’ said Harry. ‘If not now, then another time.’ He was counting on the former cleric’s desperate need for help in a foreign land to bring him back to the one person he knew he could trust. That would be Joanne. Placed in the same predicament, Harry would have done the same.
‘It’s crazy,’ said Joanne thoughtfully, ‘but I’ve seen him somewhere, too.’ She prodded the photo lying on the grass between them. ‘But not here — I’d remember it.’
‘In Battersea?’ Harry probed her gently. ‘He might have been hanging around outside.’
She shook her head without looking at him. She still hadn’t forgiven him his treatment down by the Embankment. ‘No. Not there.’
Rik said, ‘Have you still got the photo you took in Baghdad?’
‘A copy, yes.’ Joanne dug in her rucksack. They had left the other one with Sheila Humphries. It would have been almost callous to take it from her; the most recent picture she had of her brother. She handed it over.
‘I knew it!’ Rik muttered with a grim smile. He held up the photo so that they could both see it, and pointed to the two security men in the background. One of them was lean, the face distinct and familiar. It was the man from the park.
‘He’s official,’ said Harry. ‘That makes things worse.’ A freelance they could have coped with; someone who was merely working for the money might give up if the opposition got too tough. But a man on the payroll of a government department would have no such freedom. . and would have the resources and backup to follow the job through. He’d therefore be all but impossible to dissuade.
‘Unless he jumped ship afterwards,’ said Rik. ‘Or he’s a subbie.’
‘What?’ Joanne was still staring at the photo.
‘A sub-contractor,’ Harry explained. ‘Most of the security staff out there are working for PSCs. A few are ex- Special Forces on short-term contracts to the MOD. They’ll have already been through all the security training, and if any of them go down, it doesn’t impact the official payroll.’ He shrugged. ‘The government being creative with public money.’
‘So he’s a merc?’
‘Yes. But they’re sensitive souls — they don’t like that word very much.’ He studied the photo and the faces, and wondered how close the man with the thin face was to Major Andrew Marshall, the one sitting opposite Gordon Humphries.
They sat and waited, concentrating on watching the park. If Rafa’i was coming back, he was taking his time.
‘Would he go to the nearest Iraqi community?’ Harry asked. He knew that London hosted a mixed Sunni, Kurdish and Shi’a population, and Rafa’i might look for an area where he could blend in. Safety in numbers.
‘No.’ Joanne shook her head emphatically. ‘There’s a risk he’d be recognized. There are people here from the same area, although not necessarily from the same tribal group. But he’s too well known; if anyone saw him, word would spread fast.’ She gestured to the open park around them. ‘Out here is different. People don’t look too closely at other faces, especially if they’re in western clothes. To them he’s just another man.’
‘Bummer,’ said Rik, and went back to people watching.
Eventually Joanne stirred and checked her watch. ‘He won’t be back today,’ she announced. ‘It’s gone noon.’
‘Time for prayers?’ Rik asked.
‘He has a strict prayer regime, but it’s nothing to do with that. One of the things I was told to impress on him was that if something went wrong and we got split up, we had to have an arrangement for meeting up again. They said to try again one hour after the agreed time, then at twenty-four-hour repeats.’
They checked their watches. It was well past the first hour already.
‘And always the same place?’ Harry asked.
‘Yes. That way, we wouldn’t have to rely on finding somewhere new to either of us, and twenty-four hours would allow any dust to settle. I never thought we’d have to use it, though.’
It made sense. This wasn’t Rafa’i’s home turf, so he wouldn’t be familiar with the terrain. After what had happened earlier, he’d be doubly cautious, yet desperate enough to rely on using the same place again. As long as he could conquer his fear of being spotted again. ‘So he’ll be here again at ten tomorrow.’
‘I hope so.’
‘Good enough for me,’ Rik murmured. ‘Sitting round here is giving me the jitters.’ He glanced at Harry. ‘Let’s hope matey with the knife doesn’t come to the same conclusion. It could get crowded.’
‘There’s no reason why he should. He’ll probably carry on looking. We’ll have to watch our backs, though, maybe stay away from home for a while.’
He glanced at Joanne, aware that he’d spoiled the trust that had been growing between them. It had been heavy-handed, but a necessity. He hoped it wasn’t going to get in the way of what they had to talk about next.
‘I don’t know enough about the situation over there,’ he said, referring to Iraq. ‘So what I can’t figure out is why someone wants Rafa’i dead. It can’t just be sectarian; that wouldn’t involve westerners, and the locals have got enough of their own trigger-men to kill him a hundred times over. Knocking off one former cleric doesn’t change anything.’
Joanne said nothing, returning his look with a blank face.
