Tim Stevens - Jokerman

The shock of recognition made Tullivant feel disorientated, as if he’d slipped into someone else’s dream.

Reality intruded again. Tullivant had the Timberwolf in the car. If he moved quickly, he could take out Purkiss, and hope that Al-Bayati and his guards took fright and chose to start the car.

A woman was running up the road towards Purkiss, from behind him so that he couldn’t see her. Dark hair, slim build.

She collided with Purkiss and, as if he was the trigger, the car went up.

Tullivant ducked beneath the window, felt the heat sear his head. The roar made his car judder.

He raised his head once more. Dense smoke choked his throat and stung his eyes.

Through the haze he saw the rolling, screaming bodies, the tumbling fireballs of debris.

The frame of the Range Rover loomed into view, haloed in flame.

Satisfied, Tullivant started the engine of his own car and pulled away. Nobody would notice his departure in the chaos.

Negotiating the streets one-handed, he hit the speed-dial key on his phone.

‘Target’s neutralised,’ he said.

‘Good.’

‘One thing,’ said Tullivant. ‘John Purkiss was at the scene.’

He relayed what he’d seen: Purkiss approaching Al-Bayati with some sort of card in his hand, as though posing as a police officer or other figure of authority.

The news was received in silence. Tullivant didn’t ask, do you want me to take Purkiss out ? He’d wait for his instructions, without speculation, without pre-emption.

‘Another target.’

‘Yes,’ said Tullivant.

‘This is a little more complicated.’

Tullivant listened, angling towards Rotherhithe and the tunnel that would take him across the Thames. There was a lot of detail to be absorbed. Tullivant had a visual memory, so that he retained facts by converting them into a flowing series of images. He used the system to memorise the target’s name, address, and the specifics of exactly when he was expected to move in and do the hit.

Yes, this was going to be more complicated than the ones so far. But in many ways more interesting, for that very reason.

Alone in the house for a final precious few minutes, Emma made herself a cup of green tea and sat at the kitchen counter, looking out over the Common.

The kids had stayed over with their friends, the Finches’ twins, and when Emma had rung that morning to ask about picking them up, Melanie Finch had said, ‘God, no, don’t rush. They’re having a great time. A well-behaved pair you’ve got there, Em.’

Melanie said she’d drop Jack and Niamh back at Emma’s around lunchtime. It was now half past twelve. The live-in nanny, Ulyana, would only be back the next morning.

Emma had arrived home the night before at two-thirty, tiptoeing through the silent rooms, carrying her guilt like a burden she might drop at any moment and wake Brian. She’d slipped in beside him, hoping he wouldn’t wake up, but he’d half-rolled sleepily towards her.

‘Busy night, love?’

For an instant she was convinced he’d smell James in the bed with them, even though she’d showered back at the hotel before changing back into her day clothes. But he turned on his back and put out an arm for her to lie across, and she did so, snuggling into the crook the way she’d done for years, in the beginning.

She felt the slow rumble of his breathing in his chest beside her ear. It was at the same time deeply comforting, and almost unendurable in the way it stoked her guilt and shame.

He hadn’t driven her into James’s arms. Hadn’t done anything except bore her. And he didn’t even do that, really. He was witty, clever, interesting, and interested in her. If his job as a Physical Education teacher at the local private boys’ school didn’t present as obvious a topic of conversation at parties as hers as a GP did… well, so what?

No. Emma was honest enough with herself that she could recognise what a walking cliché she was. It was the danger in James she was attracted to. There was something of the bad boy about him. And like a teenage ingénue, she felt herself drawn in.

When she woke, the slanting sun indicated it was after nine o’clock. Emma glanced across but saw Brian’s side of the bed empty, the pillow neatly plumped.

The relief made her slump back on the sheets, the guilt close behind. Of course. He was coaching cricket today. It meant no awkwardness this morning, no struggling to ignore the lingering sensation of being in James’s arms. By the time Brian got home, she’d have got through a normal day, and would be more herself again.

Sitting at the counter, waiting for the children to arrive, Emma had a sudden, insane urge to phone James.

She suspected he used a special, pay-as-you-go phone to communicate with her, rather than his work one or even his main personal one. It was the sort of thing an agent in his position would do, secrecy coming instinctively. But she knew she couldn’t risk calling him.

She was due to see him again on Monday, two days from now. Last night had been an unexpected bonus, and should be enough to tide her over. But like the opiate addicts she’d seen as patients through the years, she craved James’s company only all the more for the increased exposure.

Emma noticed she’d left her handbag on the shelf where they kept the keys, and went to retrieve it. She looked inside, saw the makeup she’d spent a fair amount of money on yesterday before meeting James. Would Brian notice if she wore a different shade of lipstick from usual? Probably not, or even if he did he’d think she was doing it to please him. But she decided to keep it for her encounters with James.

As she replaced the makeup, her fingertips felt a slight irregularity in the seam of the handbag. She peered in, saw a tiny frayed thread.

Great. The bag was a Louis Vuitton, and hadn’t been cheap.

Pushing the lining of the bag so that it protruded out, she examined the seam. Something looked odd about it. She rubbed a fingertip over it.

A definite bump.

With a fingernail, she prised another thread free. Holding the seam inches from her face, she detected a dull glint from within.

Her nailtips plucked a couple more threads loose, and she worked them into the gap and pulled the object free.

It was a perfectly round, slate-coloured bit of metal, no bigger than a pinhead. Emma turned it round. There were no markings.

Had it been there before last night? She supposed she might not have noticed.

She emptied the bag out on the kitchen counter and turned it inside out. With eyes and fingers she examined every millimetre of the lining, but found nothing else.

She watched the tiny ball, as though she thought it might suddenly start rolling across the granite surface of its own accord.

James. He was the one to ask. James would know whether it was something of significance, or whether she was being ridiculous, fretting over a bead which had found itself in the design of the handbag by accident.

James. She thought of him, among the rumpled sheets last night, managing to look lazy and intense at the same time, watching her as she headed for the shower.

And left him alone. With her handbag.

The thread of unease snapped then, as Melanie Finch’s station wagon pulled into the driveway and the carefree yelling of the children dragged her into a different world.

Hannah handed Purkiss the small, hardbacked notebook.

‘You have a look through,’ she said. ‘See if you spot what I did.’

They were on a mezzanine level at Victoria Station, seated at a table which was part of the sprawling fast-food dining area. Hannah had rented one of the station’s lockers to keep the notebook in.