The Watchman (11 page)

Or, God help us, the press. That means days, Captain Temple.

Not weeks. All of this is urgent."

Nodding his assent, Alex looked out across the evening stillness of the garden. Midges whirled in the scented air. Was it his imagination or had she emphasised the word 'captain', as if to suggest that promotion would accompany success. Or that demotion would follow refusal, perhaps .. . Not that he had a hope in hell of getting out of this.

"OK." He nodded.

The deputy director swept her papers together.

"Good," she said briskly.

"I'll see you in my office at 9 p.m.

tomorrow. By then we'll have photographs and the bulk of the forensic information, and I can give you some of the background to all of this. Meanwhile you'll be liaising with Dawn, who'll take you back to London. Anything you need, just ask her." With that she got up, briefly extended her hand to Alex he pressed it, perhaps more gingerly than was strictly polite and swept into the house.

"I'll wrap up here, Dawn," said George Widdowes.

"Why don't you and the captain make a move? Unless of course' he turned to Alex 'there's anything else you need to see?"

"I don't think so," said Alex and turned his attention for the first time to the woman who had been sitting in silence at the far end of the table.

SEVEN.

Alex's first impression was of toughness: tough grey eyes, tough posture and tough attitude. She had nondescript blonde hair, hadn't bothered with make-up and was wearing a black short-sleeved sweater, black trousers and flat-heeled elastic-sided boots.

The impression didn't last. The clothes, if plain, were clearly expensive and accentuated rather than concealed the smooth curves beneath. If she was wearing no make-up it was because she knew she looked fine without it. And she certainly wasn't tough in the way that the 14th Int women he'd known in Belfast had been tough. Women like Carol Denny or Denise Foley who would match the Regiment guys drink for drink after a good terrorist kill and would have been perfectly happy lying up in a freezing hide with a Heckler and Koch snipers' rifle and doing the job themselves. Denise, he remembered, used to bake a cross-shaped cake every time the Det or the Regiment took a player out.

Nor was Dawn Harding much like the Box girls he'd met over the water. For the most part they had been bright, ordinary-looking types, much more deskbound and secretarial than their Det colleagues. Most of them, according to Don Hammond who'd always had a bit of a way with words were 'gagging for a bit of Regimental pipe'.

But not this one. This one was decidedly unimpressed and it wasn't just because he happened to be dressed like a West African pimp. It was because she wanted to impress on him from the start that there was a distinct difference in status between some Johnny-come-lately ex-squaddie and a fast-track MI-5 desk officer to be. When she turned to him it was with the polite but very slightly patronising look that all executive-stream Box personnel seemed to acquire sooner or later.

"So," she said.

"Back to London. Have you got anywhere to stay?"

It was a good question. Since clearing Customs at Heathrow, Alex had not had a moment to himself and he certainly wasn't about to ring Sophie with all these wan ky spooks hanging around. He didn't even want to call her from his mobile until he was well clear of them mobile phones were a pushover in surveillance terms and although it was unlikely that a scanner was being operated from the cars at the front of the house, he didn't want to take the chance.

There was one call he could and would make, though. Tersely excusing himself and deliberately marching a good twenty yards away from Harding, he put a call through to Lieutenant-Colonel Bill Leonard, the CO of 22 SAS. This, Alex knew, was in direct contravention of Widdowes' request, but bollocks to that.

Howard was still at his desk at the Regimental base at Credenhill, near Hereford.

"Well done last night," he said quietly.

"Overall, a bloody good show. You're in Berkshire I gather, with friends."

On insecure lines the Regiment used the minimum of military jargon. There would be no 'sirs' or 'bosses' or departments named.

"That's right. They have some... cleaning they want me to do."

There was a brief silence. Finally Howard spoke.

"I

want you to lend them a hand on this one, Alex.

Accepting an upgrade like you did last year means eating a shit sandwich from time to time and this is one of those times."

"Yeah, but ..

"No buts, Alex. This problem of theirs has got to be dealt with and I can't think of a better man than you to do it. I'm sorry, Alex, but that's a must. What I can promise is choice of posting when you're done.

You've got my word on that."

Alex said nothing. By the time he was done, he reflected if he was ever done things would have changed. The 'choice' would dissolve, as it always did.

"How's Karen?" he asked. Karen was Don Hammond's widow.

"Bearing up, as is Sue. They've both got people round with them. I'll have someone call you about the funerals."

Sue, Alex guessed, must have been the wife of the dead Special Forces pilot.

"Help our friends out, Alex. There's no room for manoeuvre on this one."

The phone went dead.

Dawn Harding drove a two-year-old Honda Accord and drove it with an almost aggressive respect for the speed limit. When she was cut up at traffic lights outside Reading she merely slowed to let the other driver get away, while on the M4, where the prevailing speed was around 80, she seemed happy to roll along in the high 60s.

"Saving the engine?" Alex ventured at one point.

"No. Hanging on to a clean licence," answered Dawn. She gestured towards the traffic pouring past them.

"And I've nothing to prove to a bunch of stressed-out commuters. Where is it you want to go exactly?"

Alex had tried Sophie earlier but got her voice-mail.

He got it again now. For a reason that he couldn't quite put his finger on something to do with wanting to hear her reaction to the news of his return he didn't want to leave a message.

"Sloane Square," he answered.

"Anywhere around there."

"Late-night shopping in the King's Road?" Dawn archly flicked a glance at his shirt.

"No, I've got some friends at the barracks," said Alex. And sod you too, he thought.

"OK. Sloane Square it is. And I'd be grateful if you didn't go chatting to all your Territorial Army mates about this afternoon's events, if that's all right with you."

He stared at her.

"It's not my habit to "go chatting", as you put it, to my mates or to anyone else. I was a badged SAS soldier before you .. ." He faltered to silence. How old was she?

Twenty-five? Twenty-six?"... Before you sat your GCSEs," he finished weakly.

She smiled.

"So, have you ever killed anyone, Captain?"

"I've hurt a few people's feelings!"

Dawn nodded sagely.

"And are you very conscious of your age? Is that a problem for you? After all, most captains must be ten years younger than you. My sort of age, in fact."

"Listen," said Alex, 'if you think your superiors' he stressed the word 'have got the wrong man for the job, I'd be very happy to step down. Just stop the car and I'll fuck off."

"You'll... fuck off?"

Alex reached over to the back seat for his bag.

"Yes," he said.

"I'll fuck off." He looked at her meaningfully.

"There is no aspect of this project that I'm looking forward to, none whatsoever. I've had dealings with Thames House before and regretted it every time. For my money you jokers can dig yourselves out of your own shit."

"I see. Well, that's certainly telling it like it is. Did it ever occur to you, Captain Temple, that we might all actually be on the same side? Pursuing the same objectives?"

Alex said nothing. At that moment he was at least as angry with himself as he was with her. She'd wound him up and he'd gone off like a fucking clockwork mouse. You're a dickhead, Temple, he told himself.

Get a gr~p.

She slowed to negotiate the lights at Barons Court.

As she pulled on the hand brake Alex watched the muscles in her forearm tauten. She had long fingers and short, square-cut nails.

"You're saying," she went on, 'that it's really of no concern to you that some .. . some maniac is torturing and murdering our people?"

"I was only wondering why you couldn't deal with the whole thing in-house."

"The decision has been made to do otherwise," said Dawn curtly.

Which pretty much brought the argument to a close.

She gave him her mobile and office numbers, and asked him to ring her as soon as he knew where he was staying.

Mentally Alex determined not to do this.

"Do you know your way to Thames House?" she asked.

"Millbank, last time I visited."

"Tomorrow at 9 a.m." then. I'll meet you at the front desk."

"It's a date."

Unsurprisingly, she didn't smile. A few minutes later, as she brought the Honda to a halt outside the Duke of York's Headquarters in the King's Road, he nodded his thanks and grabbed his bag.

"Tomorrow," she repeated, flipping a long brown envelope on to the passenger seat.

Alex hesitated before reaching for it.

"Expenses," she said.

"According to our records, you don't have a London address. And unless you've left some clothes at Miss Wells's and my guess is that you're not really the type for that cosy domestic scene - I'd say that you're going to need to add to your wardrobe some time between now and tomorrow.

Keep it simple, would be my advice, and dress your age. Harrods is still open for a couple of hours. See you." She didn't even leave at speed, just drew gently away from the kerb.

He watched after her for a moment, shaking his head with intense dislike. The reference to Sophie had had its intended effect: to let him know that Dawn Harding and her organisation could jerk his chain any bloody time they felt like it.

"Not if I see you first," he murmured, but knew that his words had no meaning.

He and Dawn Harding were locked together for the duration, like it or loathe it. He punched the recall button on his Nokia.

Five minutes later a silver Audi TT convertible pulled to a swerving halt at the kerb.

"Hey, sexy!

Looking for business?"

For the first time that day Alex smiled. Sophie was wearing a screamingly loud Italian print shirt and, despite the lateness of the day, sunglasses. The sight of her made his heart dance.

"Jump in," she ordered.

From that moment, things picked up. Alex explained his clothing predicament, Sophie made a rapid series of phone calls and five minutes later a willowy young man in leather trousers was unlocking a warehouse in Chelsea Harbour. Lights flickered on to reveal at least a dozen rails of men's clothes and several shoulder high pyramids of shoeboxes.