Jokerman (22 page)

Forty-seven

It should have been perfect, an occasion for Emma to savour.

She and James had previously arranged to meet that Monday evening at nine, in a pub across the river from the headquarters at Thames House. As usual, Emma contrived a call-out to attend to Sir Guy – it was becoming increasingly easy; now that he’d apparently had a run of heart problems, she could just say he’d had a relapse and needed her attention – and greeted Brian at the door to say she was going out. Furthermore, Brian tentatively asked if she minded if he went out for a drink himself with some of his sporting friends that evening, and of course she said yes. It meant she could enjoy her time with James without the constant, niggling guilt tugging at her, the knowledge that Brian was alone at home with the children. Ulyana had said she could stay overnight if necessary to be with the kids, so all the arrangements were in place.

Except that Emma set off for central London with dread bearing down on her like a physical presence.

She considered, as she walked to the tube station, putting off confronting James with the second bug she’d found, at least until after they’d made love. But she wouldn’t be able to relax, to let herself go, and he’d know something was wrong. Better to clear the air at the outset, she thought. If clearing the air was what she was going to achieve, and she had her doubts.

The tube train was crowded on a Monday evening, the air stuffy with hot bodies and poor ventilation, and Emma found herself standing, gripping one of the poles for support and sandwiched in between two other commuters.

It was at Fulham Broadway, as the doors were sliding open, that she felt the arm round her waist, the hand on her arm tugging her towards the doors. Before she could gasp, she heard James’s voice in her ear.

‘It’s me. Come on, we’re getting off.’

Too startled to reply, she allowed herself to be steered down onto the platform. She turned to look at James but he nodded towards the exit, his face grim.

‘Let’s go.’

They marched through the press of passengers towards the stairs, then the escalators. Emma felt panic rising in her. 

‘James, what –’

‘Don’t say anything. Keep moving.’

He hustled her through the exit barriers and out onto the street. A few yards down the road, they stopped at a car, a black BMW. James pushed her into the passenger seat, then started the engine.

She stared at him wordlessly.

Once he was out on the road, he glanced across at her.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said.

‘You followed me?’

James ignored that. ‘I need to talk to you,’ he said.

‘I found another bug,’ Emma blurted angrily. ‘One of those things you’ve been hiding in my handbag, in my lipstick. Why, James? Is it just what you do? Spies, spooks, whatever you call yourself? Do you just tag and eavesdrop on people because it’s second nature to you?’

Again he didn’t reply.

‘
James.’
Fury was smothering her fear. ‘I need answers. Now.’

He sighed, his eyes on the road ahead. ‘Yes. I planted those devices.’

Emma felt an immediate, immense rush of feeling, though its exact nature wasn’t clear. It wasn’t relief, that was for sure.

‘Why?’

‘Because I needed to find something out.’

‘
For God’s sake.’
She felt her voice rising, nudging the lower reaches of hysteria. ‘Enough of the cryptic comments. Just –
tell me
.’

He was turning down streets unfamiliar to Emma. Darkened, silent residential streets with rows of terraced houses.

‘James, where are you taking me?’ Her voice was suddenly thinner, less bold.

In his temple, a taut ridge of muscle bulged.

‘James…’

This time it was a whisper.

Forty-eight

Dr Emma Goddard.

Purkiss looked at her picture on his phone. She was registered on the General Medical Council’s website as a family doctor of seven years’ standing. There was no photo, but she’d published a couple of research papers through Imperial College London and her mugshot was on the university webpage.

The picture was that of a pretty, coolly confident blonde woman in her mid-thirties. Below it was a brief blurb: she was married with two children, and worked as a general practitioner in south-west London.

That last part was out of date. But the university website could hardly mention that Dr Goddard was the personal physician to the director of MI5, Sir Guy Strang.

Her home address was, surprisingly, still listed on the GMC site. It was in Wimbledon. Purkiss memorised it, then looked at his watch.

A quarter past twelve.

If Dr Emma Goddard was at home right now, she’d be in bed next to her husband. If she wasn’t home, she’d either be at one of those innumerable conferences Purkiss knew doctors were always attending, somewhere in Britain or abroad; or she’d be at the bedside of her principal patient, Sir Guy Strang.

Wimbledon was his only realistic destination.

Purkiss rang a minicab firm, offering a substantial bonus if they arrived to pick him up within fifteen minutes. Then he rang Vale once more.

Eight minutes later he heard the note of the taxi’s horn outside.

He used the time in the back of the cab to flex his wrists and fingers, centre himself on the job at hand. The job was to locate Dr Emma Goddard and remove her for interrogation in regard to her role as Sir Guy Strang’s physician. More specifically, in regard to her relationship with the former parachute battalion captain, Tullivant.

Purkiss was aware the job would likely involve kidnapping.

He stopped the driver well clear of the actual address, paid him, and set off across the common. The night sky was clear, as it had been for the last six or seven weeks. It wasn’t the majestic star-speckled dome Purkiss had glimpsed briefly outside Riyadh, but it was a cosily British version thereof, the galaxies and occasional flaring dominant stars altogether closer and more intimate than their Gulf counterparts.

The house was in darkness.

Purkiss circled it using varying routes and loops. It was a stylish suburban detached property, set on the slope of what was probably Wimbledon’s closest approximation to a hill. There was a copious front lawn, even a swimming pool.

But there were no lights, either downstairs or upstairs.

It wasn’t unusual. Monday, after midnight... most professionals, most working people of any kind, would have turned in for the night.

If Dr Goddard was home, was it likely she’d be alone? Hardly. She was married with a family, and it was a week night.

Purkiss’s phone buzzed.

It was Vale. He recited a cell phone number. Dr Emma Goddard’s personal one.

‘The phone company was
not
happy,’ Vale murmured. ‘Nor were my SIS contacts.’

‘That’s too bad,’ said Purkiss.

‘I only mention it because I may be approaching the limits of my influence for the time being.’

‘Understood,’ Purkiss said. ‘Thanks.’

Watching the silent house from his position in the shadow of a hedge bordering the front lawn, he dialled Dr Goddard’s number.

It rang once. Twice.

A third time.

Purkiss pictured her floundering up from a deep sleep, grabbing at the phone on a bedside table to silence it.

But the voice, when it came, wasn’t befuddled by drowsiness. It was wide awake. And hesitant.

‘Yes?’

‘Dr Emma Goddard?’

‘Yes?’

Keeping his voice low, Purkiss said, ‘Dr Goddard, listen carefully. Don’t ask who I am or react with surprise in any way, if there’s anyone there with you. Just listen. Your life may be in danger. Are you at home at the moment? Answer simply yes or no.’

‘No.’

‘At work?’

‘Yes.’

‘Attending Sir Guy Strang?’

There was a moment’s pause. Purkiss strained his ears. Was there the trace of another voice in the background? A man’s?

Then she said, ‘Yes.’

‘At Thames House?’

Again, the briefest hesitation.

‘Yes.’

Lowering his voice almost to a whisper, Purkiss said rapidly: ‘When I finish speaking, tell me you’ll call me in the morning, that it’s a bit late now. Then, after I’ve rung off, tell whoever’s there with you that I was a lawyer asking if you’d consider being an expert witness in a forthcoming trial. Embellish it as much or as little as you need, but don’t get tripped up in a contradiction. After that, I want you to find a reason to get out of the building. Say you need some air, that you need a smoke, even if you don’t… anything, no matter how suspicious it looks. The important thing is to
get out of that building
. You’ll receive further instructions once you’re outside. Do I need to repeat any of that?’

‘No.’

‘Tell me you’ll call me in the morning.’

She repeated the words he’d given her.

The line went dead.

Purkiss walked out onto the pavement in front of the house, took the SIM card from the phone, dropped it and ground it under his heel. He threw the phone between the bars of a drainage grille a little further along the road. From inside his jacket he took another phone, one of two extra prepaid ones he carried on him which he hadn’t used before, and punched in Vale’s number.

‘New phone,’ said Vale.

‘Yes. I’ve just had a conversation with Dr Goddard. She was speaking under some kind of duress. I suspect she was being coached what to say.’

Purkiss had got rid of the other phone in case whoever it was that was with Goddard ran a trace on the number. He relayed the exchange he’d had with the doctor to Vale.

‘I need another favour, Quentin.’

‘I know what you’re going to ask for,’ said Vale.

‘A GPS fix on Dr Goddard’s phone. She’s not at Thames House.’

‘Quite.’

‘Can you swing it?’

‘I said I was approaching the limit of my influence,’ said Vale. ‘I didn’t say I was there yet.’

Forty-nine

The ability to make split-second decisions, to allow the unconscious judgement to take over and control one’s actions unimpeded by the delaying effects of conscious thought, was something Emma had found difficult to give expression to in the early days of her medical training. But it was an essential attribute for a doctor.

You had to weigh up consequences, of course, and apply a weight of knowledge in clinical settings which could only be gained through dogged study over many years. But sometimes you had to trust your instinct, trust the idea that all of that knowledge had seeped down into the deeper layers of your psyche and had been assimilated there into plans of action.

Emma knew the hazards of leaping out of a moving vehicle, even in relatively light traffic. She’d seen enough road traffic accidents that she’d ceased to be surprised at the variety of ways in which the human body could be damaged by colliding at speed with tarmac or concrete.

She also knew that she’d be dead if she didn’t take the risk.

James had turned on to a straight street lined by terraces and was picking up speed. If she jumped out now, she’d be more likely to hurt herself. On the other hand, if she waited till the car slowed down again, James would more easily come after her.

Emma drew a deep breath.

She dropped her hand to the clasp of the seatbelt, popped the button, and grabbed at the door handle, ramming her shoulder against the door at the same time.

It didn’t budge.

Emma pounded her shoulder against the door, desperately aware of how futile it was. Of course he’d locked the doors.

James looked across at her.

‘For God’s sake, calm down,’ he muttered.

She stared back at him. Suddenly she hated him: for his deceitfulness, for the way he’d violated her privacy with his listening devices. For the way he was keeping her prisoner.

For talking to her as though she was a hysterical woman, out of control.

Vaguely aware of the stupidity of what she was doing, Emma grabbed the handbrake and yanked it up.

The BMW rocked, its rear slewing round in a peal of rubber against tarmac. James’s yell was lost in the howl of a horn as a car veered past, its lights flashing across Emma’s vision. Emma was flung against the door, and she felt a jarring impact as the wheel on one side struck the edge of the kerb.

The car had stalled. Emma scrabbled at the door release, felt a surge of hope as the door yielded, the locking mechanism having been disabled. She tumbled out onto hard pavement, her arm barely breaking her fall.

She felt James’s hand close around her ankle.

Emma lashed and twisted her leg at the same time, felt his grip falter, kicked backwards. Her foot connected with some part of him, perhaps his chest, and she was able to wrench her leg free; but her shoe came off.

Emma crawled a few yards, rising to her knees and then stumbling down the pavement, aware how hobbled she was by the missing shoe. Awkwardly she bent and pulled the other one off, before breaking into a run.

A man walking his dog turned in surprise as she passed.

Please
, Emma thought,
let this look like what it is – a man chasing a woman with the intent to harm her – and let someone intervene
.

Two teenage boys in hoodies were loping towards her. She considered appealing to them, asking for their protection, but their glinting eyes beneath their hoods and the peaks of their caps made her decide against it. Their laughter trailed after her.

Behind her, Emma could hear footsteps approaching rapidly.

Should she bang on one of the doors of the houses? It was nine o’clock, early still, and most of the windows had lights on. But what if nobody answered? She’d be trapped.

‘Emma,’
came James’s voice, urgent, shockingly close behind her.

It drove her on, even though she knew she couldn’t outrun him. She was in her bare feet, and while she was in reasonable, gym-honed shape, James was an athlete, a soldier, a man of action. He’d catch her, overpower her… then what?

Unknown horrors made the adrenaline flare, and Emma felt her legs respond, her bare feet not feeling the cracked and stubbled pavement beneath them. She sprinted towards an intersection ahead. If she could make it between the cars and across the road at the right time, the traffic might slow James a little, and give her an advantage, however slight.

He seemed to have sensed her intention because she heard his footsteps quicken behind her. As the junction approached, the cross-traffic cruising past in either direction at a steady speed, Emma spotted a long-necked beer bottle propped on a gatepost to her right. She lunged for it, felt its heft – it was still half-full, left there by some addled passerby – and, barely breaking her stride, whirled round, swinging the bottle in a backhand movement.

Whether because of instinct or luck, James was exactly where she’d sensed him to be. The bottle connected with the side of his head, not hard enough to shatter the glass but sufficiently solidly that Emma felt the blow shiver down her arm. The warm, rancid beer spilled over her hand and sleeve. James rocked sideways, stumbling.

Emma turned and put all her effort into her legs, hurtling towards the road. Already she could see cars braking in anticipation. Her eyes automatically mapped out a trajectory that would –
might
– take her safely between the vehicles to the other side.

The tackle caught the backs of her legs, James’s full weight barrelling into her and sending her sprawling, her hands not quick enough fully to cushion the impact so that her chin snapped against the pavement and flashes erupted before her eyes.

Copper blood bloomed in Emma’s mouth as she felt James grab her under her arms and haul her up and lead her away.