Sabbathman (55 page)

Whether he’d need the gun or not, he didn’t know. He’d never enjoyed using a weapon, and preferred not to carry one, but just now he had little choice. He’d liked Andy Gifford, no question about it. Unlike his father, he had a patience and a gentle good humour that sat oddly with the lurid psychological profiles that had appeared in
The Citizen
. So how come this man could kill without compunction? What had driven him to stalk his victims with such singlemindedness and dispatch them with such brisk efficiency? How many other Andy Giffords lurked inside the man he thought he’d got to know the previous day?

Kingdom toiled up the path, away from
An Carraig
, easing the stiffness from his limbs, trying to ignore the pain from his blistered heels. For October it was warm and he was wet with sweat by the time he crossed the tiny stream and began the steepest part of the climb, zig-zagging up the mountainside towards the sheltered little
pocket where Andy Gifford had made his home. The path here was narrow, steps crudely cut into the peaty earth, and every few yards Kingdom would pause, catching his breath before clambering over yet another outcrop of rock. Coming down, in near darkness, had been a nightmare. Going back up seemed just as hard.

Kingdom had nearly reached the top when it happened. He’d stopped again, half-turning to adjust his day-sack and look at the view.
An Carraig
had disappeared behind the shoulder of the mountain but a haze had settled in the valley and sunlight on the burn glittered through it, a gauzy, almost magical effect. Kingdom gazed at it, tasting the air, savouring the wet, heavy smells of the heather, storing the moment away.

He turned back to resume his push up the hill, bending forwards, all his weight on his back foot. His boot slipped on the wet earth. Instinctively, he leant sideways into the hill, losing his balance, then his other foot gave way and he yelped with pain as the ankle turned. He fell heavily, the injured ankle wedged between a rock and the side of the hill. He distinctly heard something rip, a tearing noise, and the pain shot up his leg, and then he was sitting in a heap, his back to the mountain, his left leg still bent beneath him.

He knew at once that it was serious. When he tried to move, he cried out in pain. For a minute or two he did nothing. Then, very carefully, he began to straighten himself out, first one leg, then – with infinite care – the other. He reached down, unlacing his boot, pulling off the sock. At first sight, it was difficult to judge but when he looked hard he could see the faintest purpling of the flesh beneath the skin. He looked upwards, trying to gauge the distance to the hut. It was in sight now, no more than a stone’s throw away. Two zigs and a zag, he thought grimly. Nothing he couldn’t handle.

He put the sock back on and tightened the laces on the boot. Soon, he knew, it would start to swell. By that time, with luck, he’d have made it to the hut. Behind the hut, according to Andy, there was a spring. Cold water would be good for it. Cold water would bring out the swelling. Cold water would help.

He began to limp up the track, an awkward hopping movement, his left leg bent at the knee, the toe pointing downwards,
giving him enough balance to shuffle slowly upwards. Every step was agony, hot, sharp, scalding pains, and they got worse and worse until he had to stop and rest for a while, fighting the urge to vomit. He was oblivious now to the views. All that mattered was the hut. Getting there, finding the spring, sorting himself out.

It took him the best part of an hour to reach the top of the path. On his hands and knees, he crawled across the grassy plateau towards the hut. He reached up and tried the door. It was unlocked. He pushed it open. Inside, he could smell something sweet and oriental, a joss-like scent. He took off his day-sack and threw it towards the bed. Then he crawled back into the sunshine, skirting the hut. The hut was protected on three sides by the mountain. In the shadow of the rock overhang, Kingdom could hear the bubbling of the spring. It was tiny, the diameter of a bucket, trickling away down a rock gulley behind the hut. The water was clear and clean and icy-cold to the touch. Kingdom took the boot off again, and then the sock, gasping as the pain hit him anew. He lowered his foot ankle-deep in the spring and sat back against the damp moss, waiting for the numbness to take away the pain. After a while, the throbbing began to slow and then stopped altogether and after a while he could feel nothing.

Back in the hut, he made himself comfortable behind the table. The typeface on the small, portable Olympia he’d already recognised. He’d had the calligraphic report on
The Citizen
’s communiqués for weeks now and he was letter-perfect on the fingerprints that Sabbathman’s machine had left behind. The tiny pitted indenture on the left-hand rise of the ‘o’. The lack of pressure on the capital ‘K’. The way the serif on the upper-case ‘T’ didn’t quite stretch the distance. He listed the tell-tales in his head, looking for matching characters in the manuscript on the table. Five minutes’ work, and the evidence was overwhelming: the Sabbathman communiqués had been typed on Andy Gifford’s machine.

But that, Kingdom knew, was only part of the treasure he’d come to find. Behind the throwaway lines about ‘disconnecting’ the Chairman of the water company, and ‘sticking the knife’ in Marcus Wolfe, lay a good deal of thought. Chances were that Andy Gifford might have made a draft or two, trying out ideas, polishing phrases, looking for that exact balance between overt threat and
cheerful derision he’d made his trademark. Kingdom went through everything on the table without success. Then he tried the drawers. One was empty. The other was full of photos, each set carefully filed in separate envelopes. Kingdom shook them out, one after the other, recognising the faces and the locations from the files he’d lived with for the past six weeks.

Sir Peter Blanche, snapped at Jersey airport, caught full-face as he sank into the back of his chauffeured Mercedes. The patio of his house on the clifftops at Les Perques, a telephoto shot, 130mm at least, the table in the sunshine set for a continental breakfast, the plump pink folds of
The Financial Times
lying beside the jug of fresh orange juice. Then Bairstow, the civil servant up in Newcastle, a shot through the window of his office, the man bending over a telephone, deep in conversation. Another shot, the turnstile entrance he used at St James’ Park, the foreground a mass of black and white scarves. In the third envelope were studies of Clare Baxter’s house, shots taken at the height of the summer, the trees in full leaf, flowers everywhere.

Kingdom paused, studying another photo from the same envelope, oblivious now to the pain beginning to seep back into his ankle. Sinah Lane again, but a different house, the one across the road, the one that had been for sale, the one Ethne Feasey had graced with a visit. Kingdom beamed, holding the shot at arm’s length, knowing at last that he’d been right. Andy Gifford had holed up in the empty house. A photo taken through the upstairs bedroom window proved it. Line of sight. A perfect view of the shrubs under which Clare Baxter always buried her spare key.

Kingdom leaned back at the desk, pleased with himself. The other two envelopes he barely touched. One was full of shots of Lister. What he looked like. Where he kept his boat. The other contained no photos but a sheaf of press cuttings on the Marcus Wolfe trial. Lister still bothered him: what had victim number four done to earn Andy Gifford’s wrath? But the real clincher was the lack of a sixth envelope. Or a seventh. Or an eighth. The attack in Ford Prison had evidently been the last of the Sabbathman killings. With Wolfe dead, the cull was over. Willoughby Grant had indeed fallen to another hand.

Kingdom reached for his day-sack, pulling out the mobile
telephone. He dialled Allder’s New Scotland Yard number. His secretary announced that the Commander was in conference but when Kingdom gave his name she apologised at once and went to fetch him. Allder was on the phone in seconds. He sounded out of breath, excitement rather than exertion.

‘Listen,’ he said, ‘you ready for this?’ Kingdom had settled full-length on the bed now. His left ankle was twice its normal size. ‘That cassette,’ Allder was saying. ‘The one you gave your lawyer friend.’

‘Sir?’

‘I did what you said. I gave it to Wren.’

‘And?’

‘I got the stuff back in four hours. Instant turnround. Gold star service.’ He paused, gulping, and Kingdom suddenly had a vision of what he must have been like as a kid, small, pudgy, excitable, bursting with enthusiasm. He was talking about the transcripts now, how far back they went, how they mapped out the entire campaign, a blueprint for the Sabbathman killings.

‘Spelling it out?’ Kingdom was astonished. ‘Names? Dates? Locations?’

‘Not quite, no, but near enough.’ Allder began to explain. Dave Gifford had evidently dressed it up a little, the names thinly camouflaged, the locations crudely disguised, but the subterfuge was infantile, a code that even Gower Street could break.

‘The master plan,’ Allder repeated, ‘the whole fucking works.’

‘But why Ethne Feasey? Why tell her?’

‘God knows. He was flexing his muscles, poor man. Trying to impress her.’

‘And did he?’

‘No. If anything, she was embarrassed.’

‘Embarrassed enough to come to us?’

‘Obviously not.’

Kingdom nodded, knowing that it must be true. Dave Gifford had fallen in love with Ethne Feasey. She was what he needed, the new woman in his life, someone who knew the meaning of loss. He was nuts about her. Literally. And he’d prove it any way he could. That, though, wasn’t the issue. Not as far as the transcripts were concerned.

Kingdom still had the phone to his ear. Allder was talking to someone in the background. He heard a door shut. Then he was back on the line. Now for the big one, Kingdom thought. The million dollar question.

‘So who was the customer?’ he said carefully. ‘Where were these transcripts going? Did Wren tell you?’

‘Of course he did.’

‘And?’

He heard Allder starting to chuckle. Revenge is a dish best served cold, Kingdom thought. And Allder was clearly enjoying every mouthful.

‘Cousins,’ he said, ‘Mr Hugh fucking Cousins.’

‘He had the transcripts all along?’

‘From the start.’

‘So he knew everything? The whole deal?’

‘Before it even started. The tap was part of the “T” Branch surveillance operation on Twyford Down. They were trawling for names. Dave Gifford just turned up in the net. Pure chance. Gave them the whole thing on a plate.’

‘Shit.’ Kingdom whistled softly. ‘And Cousins let it run? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘God knows. We’re still working on that.’ He paused, the old briskness creeping back. ‘Thanks for the address, by the way. Queen’s Gate Gardens. Shame you didn’t tell us who lived there.’

‘Why?’

‘They destroyed the place. Took it apart.’

‘Yeah?’ Kingdom grinned, trying to imagine the artists from the A-T Squad with their sledge-hammers and their hydraulic jacks getting to work on the cool grey spaces of Cousins’ flat. ‘So what did they find? Any maps?’

‘No.’

‘Petrol receipts?’

‘One. From a BP place. Near Leeming.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘On the A1.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yes,’ Allder was chuckling again, ‘a Lee Enfield Enforcer. SAS-issue. One shot expended from the magazine. He’d parked it in his airing cupboard. If that’s not arrogance, I’d like to know what fucking is.’

Kingdom nodded, grunting in agreement. The day-sack was on the bed beside him and he could see the dull metal butt of his own weapon, still wrapped in yesterday’s T-shirt.

‘So where is he?’ Kingdom inquired, ‘our Mr Cousins?’

‘No one knows.’

‘Have you tried Gower Street?’

‘Of course. They’re saying he’s away. Operationally involved is the phrase they’re using.’ He paused. ‘How’s it going, by the way? You OK up there?’

Ten minutes later, in agony again, Kingdom was crawling back to the spring behind the hut. Another immersion returned the numbness to his ankle and when he looked at it closely he began to wonder exactly how serious the damage was. Already, it was mid-afternoon. Getting back down the path to the valley floor was out of the question. In a couple of hours, it would be dark.

He returned to the hut on all fours, hauling himself into the chair at the table. From here he had a perfect view of
An Carraig
, although it was several minutes before he realised that the minibus was back on the hardstanding beside the huts. He reached for the binoculars, sweeping the area, coming to rest on the tiny whitewashed house. The front door was open, one of the dogs backing out into the sunshine. Its tail was wagging and the loudest of the barks drifted up through the still air. Kingdom adjusted the focus a little. Seconds later, Dave Gifford emerged. He was wearing trousers and a blazer. He’d even run a comb through his hair. He turned, making a gesture with his left hand, and another figure stepped out of the house. He was taller, younger, blonder. He was wearing jeans and a suede jacket. He was laughing at some joke or other, looking round, enjoying himself.

Kingdom froze at the table, recognising the smile, the easy manner, the attentive nod. The pub, he thought. The pub round the corner from the Home Office. The pub where he’d spent half
the evening watching Annie in conversation with a total stranger. This same man below him now. The way he’d played her. The way he’d let her blather on. The angler with the fish. The musician with the prize instrument. What he’d done to her. Where it had all ended. Allder had been right. His phrase. His description. Mr Hugh fucking Cousins.

Kingdom watched for a second or two longer, making quite sure, then he put the binoculars down and reached for the day-sack, pulling out the Browning, checking the magazine, working the slider backwards and forwards, knowing at last what he had to do.

It was dark by the time Andy Gifford returned to the hut. Kingdom heard his footsteps outside and then a pause as he caught his breath after the long climb. Kingdom was still on the bed, lying full length, his left leg propped up on the day-sack. The only time he’d moved in the last two hours was to call Dave Gifford at the house below. He’d told him he’d walked as far as a village called Elgol. He’d got the name from a map on Andy’s table. He said he’d be staying until next day. Then he’d be back.