Tim Stevens - Jokerman

He owed it to her to give her a chance to speak, because he had a momentous decision to make.

After half an hour, Emma seemed to be flagging. It was time.

Tullivant began the systematic interrogation. The questions about the fine points of what she knew, repeated sometimes in reworded form so as to catch her in a lie if possible. He worked methodically, patiently, relentlessly. Mercilessly.

Twice, Emma broke down in tears, and he had to give her time to regain her composure. Only twice; he thought it did her credit.

By the end, it was as though her eyes were desiccated, unable to express any more fluid. There was no gleam to them, just the dull patina of death in a still-living person.

Tullivant had detected three or four contradictions in her answers, all of them minor ones, none of them deliberate. It was par for the course. An experienced interrogator knew that a sustained barrage of questioning which elicited no errors whatsoever had to be regarded as suspicious.

Emma had told him the truth. And it was clear she knew next to nothing, about Tullivant or about his operations.

The tragedy was that what she did know was enough to condemn her.

He watched the side of her face in the silence of the car, considering the ways he might do it. Weighing them up for efficiency.

Her phone rang in his pocket, and although it was set to vibrate the noise was startling, making even Tullivant start.

He looked at the display. It was a number that was unknown to him.

Tullivant held the phone so Emma could see. ‘Who’s this?’

‘I don’t know.’

He believed her.

Tullivant grabbed pen and paper from the glove compartment and handed the phone to Emma. ‘Answer it. Put it on speakerphone. Follow my written instructions.’

She pressed the keys, just before the voicemail function kicked in, Tullivant thought.

‘Yes?’

‘Dr Emma Goddard?’

A man’s voice. Tullivant knew it.

He made a keep rolling gesture to Emma.

‘Yes,’ she said, her voice steady.

‘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.’

Purkiss. It meant he’d discovered Tullivant’s identity.

And suddenly Tullivant saw a solution, one that would solve the problems of Emma and Purkiss in one go.

Purkiss entered Regent’s Park at the western side, just down the road from the Central Mosque. He waited until the cab driver was out of sight, then vaulted over the spiked railing and landed in the shrubbery beyond.

He felt the vastness of the 400-acre park before him, dark and silent. It was closed to the public until five a.m., which was three hours away.

The display on his phone located Dr Emma Goddard, or at least her phone, in the north-west area of the park. Vale had called in what must be the last of his favours while Purkiss had hailed a taxi and made his way into central London, ready to go wherever the signal led him. As the taxi headed down Piccadilly, Purkiss’s phone rang.

‘They’ve got a lock,’ he said.

Purkiss switched to the relevant display. The pulsating dot was moving slowly to the north. Purkiss instructed the driver, his eyes on the display. After a few minutes the dot stopped, and remained stationary as it had done ever since. In Regent’s Park.

Purkiss knew it was a set up. Tullivant had his wife, Emma Goddard, captive, and had been listening in when Purkiss called. Tullivant knew Purkiss was on to him, and would put a trace on Goddard’s phone. And so he was leading him into a trap.

Without knowing exactly what he was heading into, Purkiss understood nevertheless why Tullivant had chosen this particular location. Regent’s Park was large enough that it would be next to impossible to cordon off, should Purkiss call in the police. There would be plenty of escape routes if things went wrong.

En route in the taxi, Purkiss made three calls. The third was to Kasabian.

She answered at once, as if she’d been expecting him. ‘Yes.’

‘It’s Purkiss.’

If she was surprised that he was calling her directly rather than having Vale do so as normal, she didn’t show it. ‘What have you got?’

‘The gunman — Jokerman — is Brian Tullivant, a former captain in the Paras. He’s got his wife hostage in Regent’s Park. I’m heading there now.’

‘What? Start at the — ’

‘I’ll explain later,’ Purkiss cut in. ‘I need you to keep back. Don’t send anyone in, not Special Branch, not an armed response unit. Tullivant wants me. I’ve figured him out, and he knows it. He’s using his wife as bait. He knows I know that he’ll kill her if anyone else but me shows up. Understood?’

After a beat, Kasabian said: ‘Yes. But at least tell me which end of the park. So I can have help on standby.’

‘It looks like the north-west area, just above the Winter Gardens,’ said Purkiss. ‘I mean it, though. Be discreet. Keep everyone well back.’

He rang off.

Once over the railings, Purkiss set off across the grassland. The park was criss-crossed with paths, fewer than in the other Royal Parks, it seemed, which meant that the lamps which lined them were few, casting shadow everywhere. Purkiss skirted the tip of the Boating Pond, water fowl skittering away in a sudden noise that froze him for a moment. The air was cool, giving the merest hint of the autumn which, while not imminent, was on the horizon at least.

Ahead, Purkiss could see the dark outline of a copse of trees. The signal was coming from just beyond it. As he drew nearer, he saw the copse was in fact the nearest edge a rough ring of trees surrounding a central expanse of grass parkland perhaps sixty yards across.

He felt the apprehension rise from his abdomen into his chest, quickening his breathing, and felt the first prick of adrenaline like a surge of speed in his veins.

Through the trees, he could make out something, a silhouette, in the centre of the grass. Light was minimal, a few slanting sheaves managing to get in through the trees from the sparse lamps, but Purkiss believed he could identify a bowed head, narrow shoulders.

He stopped at the edge of the ring of trees, checked the display on his phone. Yes, the signal was coming from the middle of the clearing.

He took a step to the side of one of the trunks and peered through. There was a bench in the middle of the grass, he could see now, the kind that during the daytime people would use for picnicking or simply to rest their feet. Seated on the bench with her back to Purkiss was a woman, who he presumed was Dr Emma Goddard.

He watched her for twenty seconds. There — her head moved a fraction; so she was still alive. He assumed she was bound somehow, or perhaps drugged.

So she was bait, as straightforwardly as an antelope tethered to lure a big cat. Tullivant was somewhere in the ring of trees, with a long gun. If Purkiss approached her, Tullivant would shoot him.

But if Purkiss didn’t arrive, or turned up but then left, Tullivant would shoot the woman.

Purkiss’s gaze roved steadily around the circle of trees. Tullivant knew he was coming, but wouldn’t know which direction he’d approach from. So Tullivant could be anywhere. He might be only a few feet away, even now drawing a bead on Purkiss, prolonging the moment.

Sweat trailed quickly down Purkiss’s back.

If he walked away now, to buy time, he ran the risk that Tullivant might have already detected his presence. Tullivant would shoot the woman.

Purkiss thought of Kendrick, comatose in his hospital bed.

He thought of the terrifying, crippling doubts he’d been forced to entertain about Vale, and about Hannah.