Tim Stevens - Jokerman

The teargas had largely dissipated, but a lightly stinging haze remained, like a lingering, spiteful spirit. Purkiss picked his way across the yard between the bodies. He identified the three sons, all unstirring in death.

Near the door of the cottage, Dennis Arkwright lay on his back, Hannah crouched beside him, something in her hand. Arkwright’s chest was black with gore, and cavernous. His face was still, not twisted in agony.

Hannah glanced up, surveyed Purkiss, studying his head. Her eyes remained inflamed. ‘What happened?’

Purkiss touched the side of his head and face, felt stickiness. ‘He got away. I’m okay.’ He tipped his head at Arkwright. Hannah shook hers.

‘Died a few minutes ago.’

Purkiss squeezed his eyes shut in frustration.

‘There might be something, though.’ Hannah held up the object in her hand. It was her mobile phone. ‘Listen.’

She touched a key and a rough, ragged recording began to play. At first Purkiss thought it was obscured by static, until he realised he was listening to a dying man’s laboured breathing.

‘Shot… me…’

Hannah’s voice, low and urgent. ‘Tell me again. What you said in there. Who did you see when you were interrogating — torturing — those prisoners? Who was there?’

More rasping, then an explosion of a cough that seemed to go on for an entire minute.

‘Ah, God, that hurts.’

‘Talk to me, Arkwright.’ Hannah. ‘That name.’

‘Something…’

‘Yes?’

‘Tell you… something else.’

A wheeze, then his voice came back, a whisper now: ‘Hospital.’

‘ I’ll get you to hospital. Just — ’

‘Hospital.’

A melange of scratchy, unidentifiable noises took over then. Hannah put the phone away.

‘That was all.’

‘Okay. Good thinking.’ Purkiss took out his own phone. He couldn’t hear sirens. ‘A place like this won’t have its own police station, but someone’s bound to have heard the shooting and phoned it in. They’ll be coming from Cambridge or somewhere.’

Vale answered. Purkiss said: ‘I’m at Arkwright’s address. He’s dead, and so are his three sons. I need you, Kasabian or whoever, to pull strings immediately and lock this place down. Keep the local police out, and send in only people Kasabian knows well and can trust.’

‘Understood.’

‘Also, I need a face to face debrief with you and Kasabian at the earliest opportunity.’

‘Done,’ said Vale. ‘Are you intact, John?’

‘Bit jittery, but otherwise fine,’ said Purkiss. ‘One gunman. He killed Arkwright and his sons, and got away. He was the one who attacked me at my house. Who shot Kendrick.’

‘Interesting,’ said Vale.

‘Get a move on, if you could,’ said Purkiss. ‘I can hear sirens.’

He rang off. Hannah, who had risen from Arkwright’s side, said, ‘How do you know it was the same man as the one at your house? You said he was wearing a balaclava.’

‘And this one had a gas mask on,’ Purkiss said. ‘But it was his build, and the way he moved. The same man. I’m almost certain of it.’

Hannah looked around, blinking, rubbing at her eyes. ‘Water helps,’ she said.

They found a tap near the barn and used it to sluice their eyes. As the irritation eased, Purkiss became more aware of his other discomforts: the bite in his upper arm, the head wounds.

He said, ‘The man will have dropped whatever he used to fire the teargas grenades somewhere nearby. Plus, there’s his handgun, which he also dropped.’

There wouldn’t be any prints — the attacker was a professional, and had been using gloves — but the weapons might produce other important information. Purkiss and Hannah were heading round the side of the cottage when his phone rang.

It was Vale: ‘The local police and other emergency services have been ordered to hang back. Special Branch are coming in. You’re to get out of there immediately and not let them see you. Any information they need, Kasabian will relay to them after we’ve met and debriefed.’

‘Thanks, Quentin.’ He put the phone away, said to Hannah, ‘You okay to drive?’

They left the property over a side wall, assuming there’d be a throng of onlookers at the end of the driveway, which turned out to be the case as they crept past. Wherever possible they avoided passing another human being until they made it to the green and Hannah’s Peugeot.

On the journey back to London, Hannah squinting against the setting sun, Purkiss replayed the sequence of what had happened over and over in his mind. He knew false notes, misremembered details, would creep in, as they inevitably did; but he’d found such rehearsal useful for giving a more-or-less accurate account later.

‘It won’t be enough,’ Hannah said.

Purkiss looked at her.

‘What Arkwright said about Sir Guy Strang,’ she said. ‘It isn’t enough for Kasabian to do anything with.’

‘But it’s a start,’ said Purkiss. ‘It’s a pointer in a definite direction.’

He asked for Hannah’s phone, and began to play the recording of Arkwright’s dying words in a loop, holding the device close to his ear so he could pick up any nuances, any background details. He heard, distantly, the boom of the shotgun several times as he fired it at his assailant.

Purkiss focused on the later part of the recording.

‘Something…’

‘Yes?’

‘Tell you… something else.’

Wheeze. ‘Hospital.’

‘ I’ll get you to hospital. Just — ’

‘Hospital.’

He played it again.

And again.

‘Hospital.’

It was like three words, the syllables broken up as Arkwright struggled to get them out.

Hos…pi…tal.

Except it wasn’t at all clear that the plosive p was there. It might have been a click or a pop caused by Arkwright’s jagged breathing, or by external interference.

Nor was the final l distinct.

Purkiss rewound to the first time Arkwright used the word, after the long wheeze.

This time there was no mistaking it.

Arkwright hadn’t been saying hospital at all.

Purkiss stared through the windscreen at the lengthening shadows on the motorway, the firefly lights of the cars ahead.

He picked up his own phone. Dialled.

Vale sounded surprised. ‘I haven’t confirmed the rendezvous time with Kasabian yet,’ he said. ‘I told you I’d call — ’

‘You’re not going to believe this,’ Purkiss said.

‘It could be coincidence,’ said Vale.

‘It’s him,’ Purkiss said.

‘It certainly sounds like his name, but — ’

‘It’s him.’

‘There must be hundreds, thousands of people with the same — ’

‘Oh, give me a break, Quentin.’ Purkiss paced about the living room of the Covent Garden flat. He’d arrived there half an hour earlier to find Vale already ensconced. Hannah had dropped Purkiss nearby and gone off on her own, to await his call. They’d agreed he wouldn’t say anything about her yet, to either Vale or Kasabian.

Hannah had insisted on the way down that Purkiss have his wounds attended to, and had pressed him, ignoring his protestations until he’d rung Vale once more and asked for a doctor to attend at the flat. The doctor had arrived five minutes after Purkiss and before Purkiss could reveal his discovery to Vale. A middle-aged, taciturn man, the doctor had probed Purkiss’s wounds, asking a few questions about the circumstances in which they’d been sustained but passing no comment. He’d cleaned and dressed them, given Purkiss a tetanus shot even though he was up to date, offered painkillers which Purkiss declined, and handed him two bottles of pills.