Jokerman (19 page)

He slowed but kept driving, eyes locked on the mirror. Behind, the truck too had cleared the junction. On the other side of it the Lexus arced sideways as the driver tried to brake and control it at the same time. The momentum took the car through three hundred and sixty, then five hundred and forty degrees, across the middle of the junction, other vehicles skidding and screeching aside to avoid it. With a punch almost as loud as the earlier gunshots the Lexus smashed side-on into a car parked on the side of the street and rocked to a standstill.

Purkiss sped on, watching the carnage recede in his mirror.

His vision was suddenly blocked by the silhouette of a man’s head, rearing behind him like a final twist in a cheap horror film. Purkiss felt the hand clutch at his shoulder, saw the vague, dazed look in the man’s brutal features.

Holding the wheel with his left hand, Purkiss lashed backwards with his right, his fist connecting with the man’s nose. The head jerked back and the man folded heavily onto the seat once more.

Purkiss cruised, taking turn-offs on instinct, heading to what he sensed was the perimeter of the city, and the desert beyond.

Forty-one

The lizard watched, unblinking, an occasional lightning-fast flick of its tongue the only movement it betrayed. Its skin was the precise colour of the sand, so that it appeared transparent.

Purkiss found the lizard helpful. Its utter refusal to rush about, to do anything except bask in the early morning heat, forced him to try to match it. To slow his thoughts, his movements, even his breathing.

It was the only way to make the waiting bearable.

The man sat on the sand in his boxer shorts. His wrists were secured behind his back with strips torn from his discarded shirt. They weren’t the strongest bonds, and given enough time on his own, he’d manage to work his hands free. But he wasn’t on his own, and if Purkiss thought he was making even a surreptitious effort to free himself, he’d simply pull the strips tighter.

Purkiss sat in the driver’s seat of the Audi, his legs out the open door, his feet on the sand. The dunes, which had changed from orange through yellow to ivory as the sun had crept above the horizon and risen to its current position halfway up the sky, rolled and tumbled in all directions, as far as the eye could make out. The horizon was a shimmering blur.

Apart from Purkiss, the only living creatures visible for miles around were the lizard on the slope of a dune to the left, and the man sitting directly in front of Purkiss several yards away.

Purkiss had found an all-night petrol station soon after fleeing the scene of the Lexus’s crash. If a description of the Audi was going to be circulated by the police, then Purkiss wanted to make the purchases he needed before word got round. At the station he’d filled the tank, then bought two ten-litre cans inside the shop and filled those as well. He’d also bought three five-litre bottles of spring water. All the time, he’d kept an eye on the Audi outside, where the man lay unconscious on the back seat.

Afterwards Purkiss had driven east, leaving the city’s environs and heading out into the desert. He’d kept to the main highway for fifty miles or so, then turned off down a single-lane road in a poor state of repair, following this through small settlements shrouded in darkness. All the while he kept an eye on the Audi’s fuel gauge.

When there was a little over half a tank left, he turned down a still rougher road, barely a strip of gravel through the dunes. This he followed for a further ten miles. He checked the display on the satnav from time to time, to ensure it was still showing a reading. Purkiss didn’t know where he was going, but he wanted to be able to find his way back later.

At last, with no sign of human habitation anywhere in the vicinity, he pulled in at the side of the road and got out, stretching his legs and neck, limbering up. He took a long pull from one of the water bottles, before opening the back door and hauling the man out.

The man struggled vaguely while Purkiss was stripping him, and needed a gentle fist across the head to discourage him. Purkiss trussed his wrists, not bothering with his legs, and propped him in a sitting position on the ground.

Then he sat down to wait.

The sky began to lighten imperceptibly, as though the half-moon’s luminescence was seeping into it. At some point, the man on the sand came round. Purkiss saw the glint of his open eye, even though his head remained bowed.

For ninety minutes, two hours, they sat like that. Purkiss in the open door of the car, taking occasional sips from the water bottle, and the man below him on the sand.

Sunrise came at five thirty-three by Purkiss’s watch, a spectacular burnt-orange glow that spilled and bled over the lip of the horizon. With it came new heat, flooding across the expanse of the dunes.

At six o’clock Purkiss said: ‘Hey.’

It was the first word either man had said since they had arrived, hours earlier.

The man’s head lifted a fraction. His back was to the dawn and his face was still in shadow.

Purkiss reached into the back of the car and lifted out the remaining two water bottles. He held them up.

‘Fifteen litres in total,’ he said.

Purkiss lowered them into the back of the car once more.

‘It’s likely to top forty degrees by early afternoon,’ he said. ‘Any idea how much water a man needs in forty-degree heat?’

The man said nothing.

‘Well,’ Purkiss continued, ‘at rest, and in the shade – as I am – a man needs around ten litres of water per day. Do you understand what I’m getting at?’

Still no reply.

‘I’m saying I’m prepared to wait here all day, if necessary,’ said Purkiss. ‘I’ll be quite comfortable. Plenty to drink.’

Silence.

Purkiss shrugged, took a draught of water, put the cap back on.

The lizard made its appearance. Purkiss studied it for what seemed like an hour, and probably was.

He shifted his gaze to the man. The sweat stood out in stark beads on his denuded scalp. His eyes were lowered, fixed on the sand in front of him.

Purkiss thought he’d chosen the man well. He was holding out. If he’d been a minion, mere hired muscle, he’d have said something by now.

It suggested he had information of value.

The sun soared, losing its orange and red hues and taking on the brilliant white of burning phosphorus.

Purkiss was no torturer. He’d used the threat of physical harm, even death, to loosen his enemies’ tongues on more than one occasion. He’d administered sharp physical shocks as incentives. But he’d never employed the sustained infliction of physical pain. He was averse to it, and he didn’t think he’d be particularly effective at it.

He’d never before had occasion to use the elements – the sun’s heat – or physiological processes such as thirst, to gather intelligence.

At eight o’clock he began the questions. Since he had a lot of time available, he started with the basics.

‘Who do you work for?’

The man said nothing.

‘Who sent you to follow me?’

Still nothing.

‘How did you know I was coming?’

Nothing.

The man’s scalp, his bare torso, his limbs, were slowly, steadily turning the colour of ochre. The sweat was stinging his eyes now, matting his chest hair.

Purkiss was beginning to feel mildly uncomfortable himself, his left arm aching where it had been bitten, and he stood up to pace about, swinging his arms to create a faint breeze. He was reluctant to turn on the car engine to run the air conditioning because he didn’t want to waste fuel. Besides, there would be little point, given the broken rear window where the bullet had struck it.

‘I’m going to rest my voice for a while,’ he told the man. ‘Thirsty work, this.’ He took a long, gulping swig, using his palm to splash some water onto his face and the back of his neck.

On the ground, the man swallowed, the dryness of his throat turning it into a prolonged, sticky action.

Progress
, thought Purkiss.

After a few minutes he began the cycle of questions again. Still, the man remained silent; but this time, during one of the pauses, he snapped his head to one side and back, perhaps to shake sweat from his eyes, perhaps in irritation.

Purkiss took note of the man’s breathing. It was becoming shallower, the body trying to conserve moisture in the form of water vapour.

The sun peaked, an incandescent overlord gazing down on the world. The heat shivered across the sand mercilessly, the hazy waves like vibrating strings.

On the ground, the man was making faint snuffling noises.

‘What was that?’ asked Purkiss, stooping, his ear turned. The man gave a half-snarl, half-hiss.

‘Oh,’ said Purkiss, straightening. ‘I thought you were going to tell me something.’

He stood looking down at the man, as if debating with himself.

‘Look,’ he said at last, ‘I suppose I’d better give you a drink so that you don’t expire on me.’

He crouched, tilting the five-litre bottle so that its open neck approached the man’s lips.

‘Just a sip, mind.’

The man lunged, his mouth groping like a fish’s. He toppled forward onto his knees, righted himself awkwardly, ducked his head towards the bottle again.

‘On second thoughts,’ said Purkiss, lifting the bottle away, ‘I reckon you can probably hold out a bit longer.’

The man gnashed his teeth, white flecks crusting the corners of his mouth, in stark contrast to the deep red of his face. His eyes rolled yellowly.

Purkiss checked the temperature reading on his phone.

‘Forty-two degrees,’ he said. ‘Not a record temperature for August. But it’s only eleven thirty. Early yet. Wait till three o’clock. Then we’ll be talking hot.’

He gave it half an hour, then repeated the cycle of questions. This time the man groaned loudly.

Purkiss studied him for a long moment. Then he stood, sighed.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I was wrong. I thought you’d crack, but you didn’t. Congratulations.’

He shook his head, went round to the front of the car, raised the bonnet and filled the radiator with water. Then he hefted the water bottle back into the car, climbed into the driver’s seat and pulled the door shut.

Purkiss didn’t glance in the mirror until he’d driven a hundred yards down the track.

The man had staggered to his feet and was weaving after the Audi, his hands still tied behind him, his bare feet stepping gingerly on the scorching sand. His head was thrown back as if in supplication to the sun.

Purkiss waited till he was almost at the car, then pulled away again, edging forward almost at the man’s pace.

The man was in a bad way, his lips cracked and blistering, his eyes swollen. But he’d had the presence of mind to come after the car, his only link to another human being in this bleak, angry landscape.

Purkiss crawled forwards, occasionally speeding up and putting distance between the man and the Audi, always dropping back eventually to allow him to catch up.

The jerky, dance-like routine continued for forty-five minutes, during which time Purkiss estimated they’d covered less than two miles. Without warning, the man stopped.

Purkiss watched him in the mirror. He dabbed the brake and kept the Audi idling.

The man dropped to his knees, his head bowed once more. As Purkiss watched, he toppled forwards, face down in the sand.

Purkiss reversed until he reached the prone figure. He climbed out and squatted down beside the man, took his shoulder and turned him on his back.

The bloodshot eyes stared past him between blistered lids. The man’s lips were ragged, bleeding flaps, the tongue a desiccated insect flopping behind them.

The man’s lower jaw moved.

Purkiss bent and put his ear to the man’s lips.

‘Water.’ 
It was no louder than a rustling of leaves.

‘You’ll talk?’ said Purkiss.

‘Yes.’