Tim Stevens - Jokerman

‘Not much,’ Emma said. ‘He spent time in Iraq, which was a worry, of course. Then, when we discovered I was pregnant with our eldest, he left.’

James would have been in Iraq around the same time Brian was serving there, she knew. Sometimes she’d wondered if the two men had ever met, but she’d avoided asking James. She wanted them to be unconnected in every way.

‘And then he became a sports coach at a boys’ school.’ James watched her carefully.

Emma shrugged. ‘He’s always been a very physical person. After he’d left the Paras he was never going to take a desk job.’

‘Those weekend coaching sessions. Those rugby trips away for a few days. Have you ever wondered about them, Emma?’

‘What?’ The brightness of the room, the faint mustiness suggesting the cellar wasn’t used much, the panic and confusion of the last hour, all began to make Emma feel disorientated. ‘You mean, have I ever suspected Brian was lying about them? That he was having an affair, or something?’

The idea was ludicrous. Gentle family men like Brian didn’t have affairs. Unappreciative, needy, chronically dissatisfied women like Emma, on the other hand, did, she thought with a pang of self-loathing.

James’s gaze was unnerving her. He said: ‘I don’t mean an affair.’

She waited for more. Instead, he glanced away for a moment.

‘Those devices I planted on you,’ he said. ‘The bugs. They weren’t meant for you. They were intended for your husband. To monitor what he was saying.’

Her mouth opened, stayed that way though no words came out.

James went on: ‘It would have been easier to wire up your house. But he’d have found the devices. He’ll be sweeping the home regularly for audio surveillance.’

Despite herself, Emma let out a laugh. ‘Brian? Sweeping for — that’s ridiculous .’

‘Emma, listen to me. Your husband isn’t who you think he is. He’s been deceiving you. And so have I.’ He clenched his teeth for a moment as though trying to bite back his words. ‘Your husband has been under my surveillance for the last six months. He’s — ’

‘Wait a minute.’ Emma realised she’d half-risen from the chair. James made a sitting motion with his hands and unconsciously she obeyed. ‘You’re telling me that you and I — our affair — was just… cover ? That you used me only to get to Brian?’

‘No.’ His voice was emphatic. ‘It was more than that. Much more. I like you, Emma. I’m strongly attracted to you. I’ve enjoyed our time together as much as I’ve always made obvious. None of that was faked.’

‘But that was all just a happy extra,’ she whispered. ‘A perk along the way. The main thing was to get to my husband.’

He watched her silently for a few seconds, then: ‘Yes. Essentially.’

‘You bastard.’

She rose fully from her chair this time. Her palm cracked across his cheek. His head flinched sideways, but he kept his arms down. Slowly he turned his face towards Emma again, a furious red mark growing on his cheek.

She sat down. Somewhere, deep down, there was rage, and humiliation, and a guilt so corrosive it was a wonder it wasn’t eating her inside out. But at the moment all she was aware of was a grey numbness.

‘Why the surveillance?’ she said dully. ‘What’s Brian supposed to have done?’

Again, though James’s face was burning from the slap, Emma saw unfeigned compassion there.

‘Bad things, Emma,’ he murmured. ‘Things which are so terrible, you’ll understand why I did what I did. Even if you never forgive me — and I can understand why you wouldn’t — you’ll at least understand.’

Brian’s face appeared in her mind’s eye. So reassuring. So bland and unthreatening. Cold terror clutched at her gut. Oh God. Not… something to do with the schoolboys he coached? Not that.

James said: ‘Brian Tullivant is a murderer.’

When Tullivant realised what had happened, he cursed himself for an idiot.

Should have seen that one coming.

He was seated outside a café on the South Bank, two hundred yards from the entrance to the pub, the babbling summer-evening crowds providing a perfect screen which would render him all but invisible. His Mazda was parked round the back in a side street. The display on his watch said it was five past nine.

He’d been there twenty minutes. When he’d got home and Emma had given him her usual spiel about how she’d been called out, he’d glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall and estimated she was going to be late for her nine p.m. meeting with James Cromer. And by the looks of it, he was right.

Tullivant had allowed Emma ten minutes, then told Ulyana he was going out with some friends for a drink. She was happy enough, with her chocolate and her television programmes, especially now that the kids were in bed. Tullivant had taken the car and headed north into the city, towards the pub across the river from Thames House.

It had taken some fairly simple work on Tullivant’s part to ensure that both Emma’s phones — her usual one, and the one she used to communicate with Cromer, which she assumed Tullivant didn’t know about — transmitted a copy of all text messages, both received and sent, to Tullivant’s own handset. The dates, times and locations of the lovers’ trysts were all noted.

When, yesterday, Cromer had summoned her to meet him at the Tate Modern, Tullivant had been intrigued. They could hardly engage in a quick bout of passion in such a public place, surely? So he’d accompanied Ulyana and the children part of the way to the park, had told them he’d catch up with them after he’d diverted to one or two shops, and had tracked Emma to the Tate. There, he’d seen her huddled with Cromer, and dropping an object into his hand.

That was when he knew she’d found one or other of the bugs which Cromer had been planting on her. And that was when Tullivant realised events were moving into a new phase.

Tonight, he expected Cromer to come clean to Emma. To tell her that her faithful, doting husband was the target of a surveillance campaign by the Security Service. And that could prove fatal, not just for Tullivant himself but for the entire operation. So he needed to make a move on Cromer tonight, and silence him.

By twenty past nine, Tullivant had seen neither Cromer nor Emma enter the pub. Cromer might have arrived there much earlier; but it was unlike Emma to be as late as this.

Tullivant took out his phone and brought up the screen which showed him a tracking beacon for Emma’s own phone. He didn’t use it much, though he did usually check that she’d arrived at her meetings with Cromer at the appointed locations.

The gently pulsing orange dot of the beacon appeared after a few seconds, just as Tullivant was beginning to assume that it wasn’t going to show up, which would mean Emma was still underground on the train and therefore not giving off a detectable signal. But instead of identifying the location of her phone as a few hundred yards away from Tullivant, the beacon’s signal was coming from somewhere four miles away, in Fulham.

Tullivant rose and began striding in the direction of his car. So Cromer had anticipated that Tullivant might close in tonight, and had taken the precaution of intercepting Emma on the tube and diverting her from her planned destination. It was clever, Tullivant had to admit. Far cleverer than Cromer’s cack-handed attempts at audio surveillance had proven, with his hastily planted bugs.

But Cromer might not know that Tullivant had a GPS lock on his wife’s phone.

As Tullivant walked, he studied the beacon on the screen. It was moving, though it was impossible to tell whether the phone it was coming from, and by extension Emma, was in a vehicle or on foot. Tullivant had to assume it was a car.