Tim Stevens - Jokerman

He reached his Mazda and started the engine, propping the phone in a holder on the dashboard so that he could watch the progress of the beacon on the screen. It was going to be tricky, negotiating inner London’s notoriously convoluted streets in pursuit of a moving target.

As he drove, Tullivant centred himself, controlling his breathing, focusing on the remaining goals. They presented themselves in his mind with sharp, brittle clarity.

The first was to dispose of Cromer. That would be relatively easy.

The second was to neutralise Emma. This one would be harder to achieve, for all sorts of reasons.

The third of his goals was to terminate John Purkiss.

Tullivant had been told yesterday: Purkiss is no longer part of the game. You don’t have to concern yourself with him now. But they had seriously underestimated Purkiss. All of them had, Tullivant included. The fools out there in the desert at Scipio Rand had failed to deal with him; and now he was back, and a significant threat as long as he remained alive, even if he appeared to be pursuing the wrong lead.

Yes; terminating Purkiss was going to be the most difficult task of all.

The floor of the cellar tilted, the walls looming in, curving.

James was simultaneously nearby and distant, his voice seeming to echo thinly in another room. Emma didn’t look at him, couldn’t, as if to do so would be to bring into final, unbearable focus the reality she was trying to comprehend only indirectly.

‘The car bomb on Saturday, in Lewisham,’ James said softly. ‘That was Brian.’

The words punched her one after the other, the absurdity of them not softening the blows.

Emma felt a tiny flicker of hope within her. She raised her head, still not looking into James’s face, and said: ‘He couldn’t have done that. He was coaching sport that morning. He left home early.’

Into the silence that followed, a terrible understanding dropped and spread like ink in a pool of water.

Brian had said he was coaching sport. But how did she know?

One by one, the realisations came crowding in, too many for her to deal with. The weekend trips on rugby or cricket tours. The late evenings at away matches. The staff meetings, at what now seemed excessively early hours in the morning.

Could they all have been lies? All of them? Was it possible?

Emma knew Brian’s teaching job was genuine; she’d met colleagues of his, had accompanied him to the occasional work do. But she’d never questioned his out-of-hour and weekend commitments, because she’d been too absorbed in her own life, in her work and her affair with James, to take any interest.

My children’s father is a murderer.

The though convulsed her stomach. She turned her head to one side as James rose from his chair opposite in alarm. Emma hadn’t eaten since lunch, ten hours earlier, but what came up was enough to spatter her hand and the rough stone floor.

James was at her side, his hands on her shoulders. She closed her eyes, cringing from his touch, the sour sting of the bile in her nose and mouth humiliating her.

‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured close to her ear. ‘I’ll get some water.’

Before Emma could protest, could insist that she be allowed to find a bathroom in the house and clean herself up, James had disappeared up the cellar stairs. She heard the door at the top clothes, and the unmistakable metal sound of a bolt being slid home.

Through her shock and despair, Emma was aware of the anger returning.

So, he was keeping her a prisoner here.

There wasn’t much Emma could do except wait, so she turned the chair with her back to the evidence of her retching and hunched over.

It occurred to her that she had her phone on her. James hadn’t confiscated that. But whom could she call? Brian? Hardly. The police? James probably had influence over them.

Emma realised she’d never been so alone in her life.

A thought struck her. The children. Jack and Niamh. She had to get them to safety.

The glass of her watch had been cracked when James had tackled her in the street, but the mechanism seemed to be working fine. It was a quarter past ten. Ulyana would be home with the kids. Brian would still be out in the pub with his friends.

Except he probably wasn’t out socialising, of course. He was somewhere secret, doing God knew what.

Emma had her fingertips on the phone in her pocket when James came down the steps, carrying a steaming bucket by the handle in on hand, a mop and cloths in the other, together with a half-litre bottle of mineral water.

When he saw her, he dumped the bucket on the floor and hurried across. He snatched the phone from her.

‘Who have you called?’ he demanded.

Emma stepped back in terror, the backs of her legs nudging the chair. ‘No-one — ’

‘Who have you called?’

‘No-one, I said.’ Her voice had risen with his. ‘I was going to tell the nanny to take the children and get out.’

‘No.’ James shoved her phone into his own pocket and tossed the water bottle to her. He seized the mop and began swabbing the stained floor. ‘It would just tip him off.’

‘Damn it, James. They’re my children — ’

‘They’re in no danger.’ He scrubbed angrily at the stone, as though peeling vegetables. ‘Tullivant — Brian — isn’t an indiscriminate killer. He’s go no reason to harm them. If you talk to the nanny, she might tell him, and the game will be up.’

Emma had been taking a long draught of water. She lowered the bottle and stared at him. ‘The game ?’

James pushed the bucket aside, propping the mop in it. ‘I’m close, Emma. Close to trapping Tullivant. Given all that’s happened in the last few days, he’s bound to slip up. Bound to make a mistake somewhere. Say something he didn’t mean to. Then I’ve got him. Then I can bring him down. Put a stop to all the killing.’ He faced her squarely. ‘But I need your help. You’ve got to go back. Pretend nothing’s happened. Get him to incriminate himself somehow.’

She continued to gaze at him, barely able to breathe. ‘Go back.’

‘You have to.’

‘And carry on as before.’

‘It’s the only way.’ He gave a half-shrug.

‘You must be out of your bloody mind.’

‘Emma — ’

‘You kidnap me. Imprison me in a cellar. Tell me my marriage is a lie, my husband is a multiple killer. And now you want me to return to him, and share a house with him, all so that you can use me to ensnare him for your own ends.’

‘Not my ends, Emma. Those of all of us.’

‘The answer’s no, James. I’m not going to play any part in this. Not for you, not for anyone.’

He sighed. Yet again, the concern on his face looked real.

‘Emma, how else are you going to be able to get your children away?’

Terror for Jack and Niamh blazed within her. Her legs faltered and she sat down on the chair, almost overturning it.

‘You have to,’ she whispered. ‘You, the police… whoever. You have to go in there and get them out. Now.’

‘I’m sorry, Emma.’ Now his gentle tone had an undercurrent of hardness. ‘That’s not going to happen.’

‘Then I’m going,’ she said, rising once more.

‘Emma.’ He stepped between her and the stairs.

‘Get out of my way, James,’ she said. ‘Or I’ll scream. And you said you didn’t want to hurt me. You’ll have to hurt me, badly, to make me stop.’

She made to push past him but he blocked her easily, catching her wrist. Emma opened her mouth to yell.

And heard the noise, faint and distant, yet sharp enough to penetrate the closed door at the top of the cellar stairs.