Tim Stevens - Jokerman

He thought about Claire, who’d betrayed him, but whom he’d failed nonetheless, because where there was life there was the possibility of redemption, and he’d failed to keep her alive.

Purkiss advanced a step.

The advantage he had — the single advantage — was manoeuvrability. If Tullivant had a rifle, then depending on his position in the ring of trees he might not be able to take satisfactory aim instantly, without a degree of movement. That could make his position detectable in time for Purkiss to take evasive action.

It was a hell of a risk.

He bounced on the balls of his feet a few times. Breathed deeply in through his nose, out through his mouth, centring himself.

He broke out of the circle of trees and into the clearing, feeling more naked than if he’d cast all his clothes off.

His environment was more intensely real to him than he’d ever known it: the springy firmness of the grass beneath his soles, the cool of pre-morning dew on his face, the aromas of nose-prickling late-summer pollen and industrial city grime.

The high-velocity bullet smashing through the base of his skull, shearing through bone and muscle and exploding his head in an obscene dark gout…

The bench was twenty yards away. Ten.

The woman’s head turned a fraction.

Purkiss veered round, describing a loose arc, sure that this was it, that Tullivant’s finger was finally tightening on the trigger, squeezing it back, the game needing to brought to an end now. He sprinted towards a point in the trees some twenty yards to the right of where he’d emerged, thinking that if this was to be his last sight on earth, something as natural and joyously verdant as a row of summer trees wasn’t bad.

Then he crashed among the trees, knocking his shoulder into one of the trunks, not caring about the pain, his heart hammering in relief, his primitive self aware that he was still alive while his rational brain thought: Tullivant didn’t take the bait. And now he knows where I am .

Tullivant watched Purkiss’s shape detach itself from the trees approximately ninety degrees to his left.

He tracked the running figure through the scope.

Purkiss would reach Emma, frantically haul her up, and try to drag her back to the cover of the trees. She wasn’t bound any longer — Tullivant had cut the ties around her wrists and ankles — and she’d rise and go with Purkiss. It would be a clean, two-shot double kill. Tullivant chose to wait.

He was mildly disappointed at how easy it was going to turn out to be.

The disappointment triggered a warning light in his mind.

A man like John Purkiss didn’t disappoint you. If he appeared to do so, to carry out an action that was so stupidly reckless that it was out of character, it meant he was tricking you.

Halfway towards Emma, Purkiss swerved and turned, heading back at an angle.

Tullivant, who was lying prone on the ground between the boles of two oaks, whipped his head round to one side, then the other, sure that he’d see others bearing down on him, or perhaps nothing more than muzzle flashes before eternal darkness.

But there was nobody.

Tullivant turned his attention back to the clearing. Purkiss had disappeared once more among the trees.

So: his foolhardy sprint hadn’t been to draw Tullivant’s attention while Purkiss’s back-up approached Tullivant from behind. Instead, he’d hoped to get Tullivant to reveal his position. Which he hadn’t.

Stalemate.

Tullivant glanced upward. Dawn was still three hours off or more, even though the sky would begin lightening long before that.

He had time. And if Purkiss didn’t show his hand before the darkness receded too far to be of any use any more, then Tullivant would pull the trigger on Emma. Which Purkiss knew.

Tullivant settled down to wait.

A second later he felt the buzz of his phone against his thigh, signalling the arrival of a text message.

Carefully, moving only his arm, he reached down and pulled out the phone. The text was from Emma’s, diverted to his. And yes, on the bench she was groping for her mobile, no doubt assuming he was texting her with instructions.

The message read: Dr Goddard, I’m the man who phoned you earlier. Don’t look round. I’m in the trees behind you. I’m going to start making my way anti-clockwise round the circle. If you know the location of your husband, message me back with his position on the clock in relation to you .

Tullivant thumbed in a message to Emma. Text him back and tell him one o’clock. I receive all texts sent to and from your phone. I’ll know if you tell him anything else.

Tullivant was at the four o’clock position. If Purkiss made his way round in the direction he’d said, he would encounter Tullivant a lot sooner than he’d be expecting. Tullivant would have the jump on him.

On the bench, Emma straightened in bewilderment; but she managed to suppress the reflex to look over in his direction. If she was working on her phone, she was doing it extremely discreetly.

A moment later Tullivant read her reply to Purkiss: One o’clock .

Tullivant kept the Timberwolf propped and aimed at the bench. He drew the Heckler amp; Koch from his jacket and laid it close to his left hand.

He watched the trees arcing away to his left.

Purkiss would be moving infinitesimally slowly so as not to give his position away. Tullivant glanced at his watch, its illuminated display turned toward him to minimise the light it gave off. Ten minutes passed. Then fifteen.

A rustle from the trees somewhere. Tullivant stiffened.

Had it come form his right or his left? He strained his ears.

A further five minutes passed.

The shrill ringing of a phone shattered the quiet. Tullivant registered that it was coming from his left amongst the trees, maybe ten or fifteen yards away, and although it stopped abruptly as if cut off in panic he felt his senses of sight and hearing and even smell homing in on its location and he was up and charging between the trees, the Heckler amp; Koch primed and aimed, until he felt his foot kick against something and he looked down and saw the abandoned phone and before he could turn he felt Purkiss barrel into him and send him crashing against the trunk of a tree.

The woman had answered too readily, texting back her reply, and Purkiss knew it was a further trick.

So, Tullivant wasn’t at the one o’clock position at all. That meant he was probably nearer than that, and intended to surprise Purkiss as Purkiss made his way round the ring of trees.

Purkiss was working with approximations, and also the need to keep himself completely concealed; but he moved swiftly, edging anti-clockwise between the trees until he’d reached the five o’clock position, which was as far as he dared to go, then placing his phone on the ground after flicking off the silent key. He doubled back, resisting the urge to hurry, traversing the ring clockwise this time; and it was when he got to the twelve o’clock position, directly ahead of Goddard on the bench, that he saw Tullivant, or at least the tip of his rifle, round at four o’clock.

He crept round until he must have been within leaping distance, then took out his remaining spare phone and rang his own number.

The jarring shriek of the phone on the other side of Tullivant was like a starting whistle to Purkiss. He wove between the trees, spotting Tullivant rising and leaving behind his rifle and advancing in the direction of the phone’s cry.

With a berserker’s fury, Purkiss launched himself.

The impact drove Tullivant against the solid body of an ancient oak. Purkiss grabbed his hair and rammed his forehead against the tree, getting two blows in before Tullivant regained control and elbowed backwards, connecting with Purkiss’s shoulder but giving Tullivant a degree of momentum so that he half-turned and brought his gun hand across.