Hunted (23 page)

The stranger was shaking Jonathan hard by the shoulders now, trying to wake him, determined to snap him out of his trance. Jonathan’s eyes flashed open. Rolled back. Then flashed open again. He stared unblinkingly ahead. Catatonic. Past the stranger. Past Danny too. Into thin air.

‘Play,’ said the stranger.

Jonathan didn’t respond. He didn’t even blink.

Danny’s fingertips dragged the knife from the edge of the seat towards him, then turned it and began to drag it up his back.

The stranger moved his hands up and down three times. His fist stayed locked. Jonathan still hadn’t moved.

‘Stone,’ said the stranger. ‘You lose.’

He did it as Danny’s sweat-drenched fingers scrabbled to grip the knife blade tight enough to cut, only for it to slip once more and fall. He walked round behind Jonathan and reached over his head, and held the open shears to his throat.

The boy stared then into Danny’s eyes. And that was when Danny betrayed him. He knew what would happen next, and he knew he could not stop it, and he knew he could not watch.

A coward, he looked away. He looked away, and his little boy died alone.

‘Are you OK?’ Alice asked Danny as he walked back into the kitchen.

‘Why?’

‘You look pale.’ She walked to the stove and stirred the pan there. ‘You need to eat,’ she said.

‘I’m not hungry.’

She pushed a bowl and fork across the table towards him, then left him, walking through to the conservatory to be with Lexie, who was already out there, smoking another cigarette.

Danny sat down, feeling the weariness coursing through his legs the moment he took his weight off them. He stared into the bowl: penne, fresh tomatoes, black olives, basil.

He pushed a forkful into his mouth. She was right: he needed food. As he chewed, he stared at the computer on the kitchen work surface. But the news feed’s loop was the same as before.

He stacked his empty bowl on top of the two others already in the kitchen sink. Three glasses and a carton of orange juice stood on the table. Danny finished off what was left of the juice, then reached into his rucksack and took out a heavy black leather belt with a metal buckle.

He’d had it made specially five years ago in Tokyo. He now threaded it through the trousers of one of Francisco’s pale linen suits, which Alice had laid out for him while he’d been in the shower, along with a clean white shirt and a panama.

He picked up his rucksack, walked though to the conservatory and checked his reflection in the mirror hanging there. He adjusted his shades and the hat. He looked like a well-to-do businessman. An architect, perhaps. Or an attorney.

Through the aspidistras and cacti of the conservatory, he saw that Lexie and Alice were now waiting for him at the end of the garden, perched on the wall beneath the weeping willow.

On his way out to join them, he glanced down at that morning’s
Times
newspaper, which lay neatly folded on a rattan chair. It showed a photo of the UK prime minister, but Danny knew that by tomorrow his own photo would have taken its place.

Alice had left her phone on the glass-topped table beside the chair. It was the same make and model as his. He picked it up on his way out into the bright sunshine.

The Kid
… Danny needed to speak to him. To decide on their next move.

Whatever Lexie and Alice had been discussing, they stopped talking as soon as Danny approached. But just seeing them there, already at ease in each other’s company, he couldn’t help wondering what it would have been like if Sally was still alive, and whether she and Lexie, as well as being mother and daughter, would by now have become good friends.

‘Thanks for the lunch,’ he said to Alice. ‘And for the record, it was at least a fifteen.’

An old joke between them. Whenever they’d cooked for one another in the past, they always used to say how much they’d be prepared to pay for the same food in an uptown restaurant.

Alice smiled. ‘Perhaps next time we should try it under less stressful circumstances,’ she said.

Danny held the twin phones up. ‘My battery’s dead,’ he said. ‘Needs charging. Is it OK if I switch it for yours?’

‘Sure.’

He flipped the backs off the phones and swapped their batteries. The second his phone went live again, it began to ring. He checked his call register. It was the Kid. He’d left a whole bunch of messages.

Danny messaged him quickly to say he was OK and would call him in a few minutes’ time. His mind was racing with unanswered questions. Had the Kid retrieved the data stick and the card? What had he found on them?

But first Danny would say his goodbyes.

‘You’re in luck,’ Alice said. ‘The tide’s high, just starting to go out. We’ve already lowered the boat.’

Danny leant across the mossy garden wall and peered down. The two metre hard-hulled rib was tied to a metal ladder that led down from the top of the wall into the dark oily waters. Waves from a passing tourist boat slapped against the crumbling brickwork. The outboard engine had already been fitted on to the boat’s transom. It was ready to go.

‘Thanks, Alice.’ Danny turned back to face her. ‘For everything,’ he said.

When he gave her back her phone, she kept hold of his hand and gently squeezed it. She leant into him and kissed him on the cheek, then went one better and hugged him tight.

‘Be careful, Danny,’ she whispered in his ear. ‘I’ll leave you guys to say goodbye,’ she then said aloud, pulling back. ‘You come find me when you’re done, Lexie. I’ll be inside. I’ll put some coffee on.’

Danny watched Alice walk away and disappear through the conservatory door. When he turned to Lexie, he saw she was staring up at him.

‘You and her …’ she said. ‘Are you …?’

‘No.’

‘But you used to be, right?’

Danny didn’t even know how to start talking about something like this with his daughter. The last time they’d had a heart-
to-heart
, she’d been into Pokémon and he’d been happily married to her mom. He didn’t know the rules anymore. He had no idea how
Lexie might react. He decided to prevaricate instead, to answer her question with one of his own.

‘Why do you ask? Did Alice say something?’

‘No. It’s just obvious, that’s all.’

Female intuition. Her mother had been the same. Danny had never been able to lie to her either.

He stared into Lexie’s intelligent eyes, trying to work out what she was thinking. Whether she’d hate him for having been with someone else after her mother. He thought about Anna-Maria too, and his crazy idea last night about what it might be like one day to have a normal relationship with her. Could that ever include Lexie? The way he’d just seen her getting on with Alice suddenly made it seem possible after all.

He decided to tell Lexie the truth. And not just because he reckoned she’d guess if he was lying, but because he wanted to be honest with her. To talk to her as an adult. He wanted this moment with her now to be one she could always look back on and understand that he’d tried opening up to her. No matter what might happen next.

‘We did see each other for a while,’ he said. ‘But not lately.’ Not since he’d started seeing Anna-Maria whenever he was here in London. Not since Alice had started seeing someone else too.

He didn’t know what he expected Lexie to say next. But certainly not what she did.

‘I’m glad,’ she said. ‘She’s cool. It’s good you got to spend time with someone so nice.’

Danny smiled. Here she was. His little girl. Suddenly all grown up. His heart went out to her then. He remembered watching her back there at the school with her friends. Her kicking off that dry, dusty wall. A part of a whole world that she lived in that he knew nothing about.

‘And what about him?’ Danny said.

‘Who?’

‘The boy – I mean, the
guy
,’ he corrected himself. ‘The guy in the quad at school. The one who would’ve tried to punch my lights out if you hadn’t intervened.’

‘He’s no one.’

A no one who makes you blush
, he thought.

Just the same as she had with him, Danny could tell when Lexie was hiding something. Not because it was something he’d been trained to do. But because she was his daughter. And he could see that she was in love.

‘Well I liked him too,’ he said. ‘And I’m glad you’ve got someone like him around.’ He meant it as well. The curly-haired boy had looked like the kind of kid who’d still be waiting there by that door for Lexie, because that was what he’d promised he’d do.

‘Don’t … don’t let anything happen to you.’ Lexie blurted the words out, her face simultaneously crumpling, as if she wished she could take them right back.

‘I won’t,’ he said. It was a promise. ‘That phone call was from a friend. He’s going to help me. I’m not alone.’

She started trembling then, as if they were back in those icy woods. Danny heard her crying before he saw the tears. A tiny whimper, deep down inside her. A sound she tried to swallow before it came out.

‘Why?’ she said finally.

‘Why what?’

She wiped away her tears and looked up angrily. ‘Why do you have to be so bloody nice?’ She sniffed. She gasped for air. ‘I’ve tried to hate you,’ she said. ‘I’ve tried so hard.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Danny searched for better words. He wished he knew how to express himself, how to make all this right, how to take her sadness away. ‘I’m sorry for what I did. For who I was. For not taking proper care of you.’

He’d written to her about this, years ago now. But who knew if she’d ever even read those letters? They’d probably ended up in a bin.

‘I don’t care about that,’ she said. ‘You were just sad.’ She wasn’t even trying to hide her tears anymore. They were streaming down her face. A flash of confusion – of more anger too – deep inside her eyes. ‘What I mean is, why did you let Grandma take me? Why did you let me go?’

‘But …’ Confusion rippled through him. ‘But I thought you loved her …’

‘I did. But I loved you too. You were my dad. You’ll always be my dad. You should never have sent me away.’

The realization hit him then like a hammer blow. For a second she looked like she wanted to punch him too. But then her shoulders slumped. She stared at the ground.

He wanted to tell her that he’d thought sending her to England had been for the best, but the words seemed too lame to say to her face. And also because they weren’t true. He’d never made that decision. Grandma Jean had. She’d taken Lexie from him and he’d just let her go. Only now did it occur to him that she might have wanted to stay.

‘It’ll never happen again,’ he said. ‘You’ll never lose me again.’

He felt his breath tightening. Everything he was saying, it was coming out wrong. It was all too late. But as he gazed down sorrowfully at his daughter, she looked up at him and reached into her pocket.

‘There’s something I need to give back,’ she said. ‘I took it when I got that grey box out of your bag.’

She held out a square of card towards him. It was the old photo, of Danny pushing her high on that playground swing, with her long blonde hair blowing in the breeze.

‘I remember where we were that day,’ she said, staring wistfully down at it, her thumb rubbing at its corner as if she were trying to magic those days back. ‘It was in New York, wasn’t it? In that little park near where I went to grade school …’

She tried handing it back to him. He shook his head.

‘You look after it for me,’ he said. ‘You can give it tome the next time you see me. I promise it won’t be long.’

Another promise. She didn’t question this one either. She just turned with him to face the river, and they watched for a moment in silence as the water flowed slowly by.

‘When this is over,’ she said, ‘when you’ve proved to everyone that you’ve done nothing wrong. When the summer holidays start …’

‘Yes?’

‘Can I come and see you? You know, where you live?’

‘Of course.’ He didn’t tell her how much he’d hoped for this, how he’d already got everything waiting for her there on Saint Croix. How he’d fixed her up her own set of rooms. He still prayed he could make it all come true.

She reached out to him then. She pulled him in tight. And as her chest heaved against his, he knew that everything between them could be good again one day. He’d do everything in his power to make it so.

‘You’d better get going,’ she said, smiling up at him now, wiping the tears from her eyes. ‘You don’t want to miss the tide.’

‘I love you, princess,’ he told her.

‘I know. And Dad … I love you too.’

Danny watched Lexie shrinking into the distance as he motored the boat downstream, riding the outgoing tide towards Battersea on the south side of the Thames.

There were many emotions he knew he should have been feeling. Guilt about having dragged his daughter into all this. Rage at the people who’d given him no choice. Relief over the fact she was now somewhere safe. Fear that he’d never see her again.

But as he raised his hand to wave goodbye, what he actually felt was pride.

He twisted round in his seat and faced front, maintaining a steady pace, not wanting to draw any attention.

Not that anyone seemed to be looking for him here. The only other river vessels in sight consisted of a coxless four rowing boat arrowing hard against the tide, and a line of houseboats with stained hulls moored alongside a trio of riverside pubs.

In the city, though, the hunt still raged. Sirens rose and fell on the breeze. Choppers scoured the skies above Brook Green and Hammersmith. But the most immediate threat to Danny now was Hammersmith Bridge, a hundred metres ahead. Where police lights flashed either end.

Soon Danny could see the police themselves. Their fluorescent
jackets. Up there lined along the riverbank railings. And the roadblocks they were manning. But none of them looked down at the river. And Danny drove thankfully on.

He dropped the throttle almost completely off as the rib slipped through the sanctuary of the dark shadows thrown down by the bridge. He didn’t look up as he emerged into the glittering waters beyond.

Heart beating audibly in his ears, he waited for some cop to shout down for him to come back, knowing that if they did, he’d need to dispose of his rucksack – somehow sink it unseen – and become the visiting Parisian businessman his ID now claimed him to be.

Because there was no way he could outrun anyone from here.

But no one did call out. And gradually he picked up speed again. He steered a course close to the silt-rimed riverbank, and followed its lazy curve round. Another two hundred metres and the bridge had disappeared entirely from sight.

Taking his phone from his suit jacket pocket, he saw that he once again had a range of networks to choose from. Normal service across the capital must have been restored. Suggesting that SO15, the Metropolitan Police counterterrorism command, must have decided that Danny was not part of any larger guerrilla force that was attempting to redeploy itself. Meaning that from now on they’d be focusing all their resources solely on him.

Just like the MI5 guy he’d fought had said.

Danny checked his phone’s call register function. Two more missed calls from the Kid since Danny had checked his phone in Alice’s garden. But nothing from Crane. It was like he’d dropped off the face of the earth.

Danny pictured his other phone. The one he kept for personal calls. He’d left it on the shelf by his cabin porthole on the barge. He wondered who’d have tried calling him on it, now his name had been released. Anna-Maria for certain. Candy Day from Saint Croix.

He couldn’t return to the barge. Not until he’d cleared his name. Even though
Pogonsi
wasn’t registered to him, with that footage and those photos of him now out there, and with more sure to
follow, any one of the other Regent’s Canal residents could have recognized him and tipped off the police.

The same went for Saint Croix, of course. The press would end up descending on his home there too. He thought about Lexie and the old tractor shed he’d fixed up as a studio for her to paint in. He hoped that what was happening now would one day calm down enough for her to be able to visit. He hoped that even after he’d cleared his name, he wouldn’t be forced to sell up and move on.

Other locations he frequented and resources he kept – both here in the UK and at home and abroad – would have been
compromised
too. Certain banks. Certain assets. But not all. Keep clear of the police and he would still have the ability to regroup and strike back.

The phone trembled in his hand. Another incoming call. The Kid, he saw. He switched the phone off mute.

‘Kid, I’m sorry …’

‘Jesus, Danny … Are you still all right?’

‘I’m fine. Listen, there was someone—’ Danny caught himself in time. ‘There was
something
I had to do.’

‘Right … kidnap your daughter …’

Danny shook his head.
Idiot
, he thought. Of course the Kid would now know. He imagined the whole news media would now be focusing its attention as much on her and her past as on him.

‘I needed to get her somewhere safe,’ he said.

‘Bloody hell, Danny, you’ve known me nearly six years. And you never thought to mention that you had a
child
…’

‘I’m not turning out to be much of a friend today, am I?’

‘It’s all right,’ said the Kid.

But he didn’t sound all right about it. He sounded hurt.

‘I’ll make it up to you once this is all over,’ Danny said. ‘I promise.’

‘It’s all right, bruv. You don’t need to promise me shit.’

Bruv. There it was again. The Kid’s cast-iron guarantee that as far as work was concerned, they remained rock solid.

‘So this daughter of yours … she with you now?’

‘No.’

‘But she’s OK?’

‘Yeah. And like I said, somewhere safe.’

Just as when Crane had asked Danny the same question about himself in Noirlight, Danny gave no details about Lexie’s whereabouts now, and the Kid didn’t ask.

‘You totally dropped off my sat map back there, Danny. What the hell happened to your phone?

‘Battery died. I got a new one.’

‘OK, so how about you tell me what the hell you’re doing in the middle of the bloody Thames …’

It must have looked weird all right, Danny thought. His GPS signature floating merrily down the river on the Kid’s map.

‘Coming to see you, of course. I thought I’d take the scenic route.’

‘And avoid all those nasty checkpoints. Nice thinking. I like your style. Only problem is, bruv, if you’re heading for Battersea power station, I’ve had to relocate.’

‘Why?’

‘Too many boys in blue hanging round. I decided to get off the street. They’ll have started running the licence plates of all the vehicles caught on film near the hotel at the time of the shootings. Even fake ones like mine. Meaning the van’s now too much of a risk.’

‘Where are you now?’

‘Driving south. But not for much longer. I got keys to a mate’s place. A slice of warehouse. He’s been out of town for a while, if you know what I mean …’

Prison
, Danny guessed. For people like the Kid, who liked snooping round other people’s virtual fortresses, it was one of the traps of the trade.

‘What’s the address?’

‘I want to check it out first,’ said the Kid. ‘I’m not the only one with keys, so I want to make sure there’s no one else around. Aim for Clapham High Street. There’s a small cinema there by Clapham Common tube station. The Clapham Picture House, it’s called. I’ll
phone you and tell you where to meet me once you’re there. Just get there quick, all right? The sooner we’ve brought you in, the safer both of us will be.’

Danny felt a wave of guilt then. It hadn’t even crossed his mind that him getting caught would mean the Kid ending up forever compromised too.

‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘What for?’

‘For sticking with me.’

‘What else are bloody friends for?’ The Kid sniffed the compliment away. ‘Now … do you want to hear about that USB stick and card, or what?’

Danny felt a pulse of adrenalin. ‘You mean you picked them up?’

‘Yep.’

‘And?’

‘And there’s data on them both. And even better for you, mate, the names of the files on that stick … they look like they’re in Russian.’

‘That’s fantastic.’ Danny had to fight the urge to punch his fist in the air.

‘Yeah, but the bad news is they’re encrypted,’ the Kid said.

‘Something you can fix?’

‘Planning on.’

Again Danny canned the urge to celebrate just yet. But even so, he couldn’t fight the waves of optimism rising up inside him. Because if anyone could pull this off, it was the Kid.

‘I’ve got a program stripping both the stick and the card down right now,’ said the Kid. ‘It’s going to take a little time, Danny, but with a bit of luck I should have something to show you by the time we hook up. And if not, this mate of mine’s place … he’s got a hundred times the computing power I’ve got here in the van. So we can always have a crack at it there.’

The click of a lighter. The hiss of cigarette smoke being inhaled.

Shit
, Danny couldn’t help thinking,
with the kind of day I’ve had, I might
just break my promise to Anna-Maria and buy myself a pack if
I make it through to tonight. A smoke and a drink. He’d kill for them both
right now, vows and promises or not.

But then something caught his eye up ahead. A police riverboat. It was heading upstream straight for him.

‘I’ve got to go,’ he told the Kid, as he quickly cut him off.