Tim Stevens - Jokerman

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.

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That last part was out of date.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.’

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.