Tim Stevens - Jokerman

‘But you’ve been after Strang’s job for a long time, haven’t you, Kasabian? Isn’t that why you contrived to get the job for Emma Goddard as Strang’s personal physician? So that her husband, your lackey, Tullivant, would have a way in, if need be? What was it going to be, Kasabian? Poison hidden in one of the drugs she gave him? Details of the exact state of his health, leaked to Tullivant during Dr Goddard’s pillow talk, which he’d pass on to you?’

Definite movement, now, stealthy and approaching the line of trees.

‘All those Paras, who were innocent in all this, mere escorts. Mohammed Al-Bayati. Arkwright and his sons. Charles Morrow. Murder after murder after murder. Was there no length you wouldn’t go to? And just for a job, Kasabian. Just for a job.’

‘It’s not just a job,’ she murmured, her eyes hard now over the gun.

‘Oh, spare me. Don’t try to make out that you’re some kind of Shakespearean figure, brought down by your vaulting ambition. You’re a common, grubby murderer, Kasabian.’

He glanced away, a natural enough move in context, and gave a nod, just as Kasabian’s finger tightened on the trigger.

Purkiss leaped sideways, the crack of the gun followed by the scream of the bullet as it ploughed past and into the trees on the far side. He rolled, came up, saw Hannah beside Kasabian, the muzzle of her own Glock pressed against the side of the older woman’s head.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ Hannah said.

Kasabian closed her eyes. Then she opened them, staring straight at Purkiss.

He yelled a warning as she jammed the barrel of her gun underneath her chin.

‘Uh uh ,’ snarled Hannah, and chopped Kasabian’s wrist away with the Glock. Kasabian’s gun was sent spinning.

Purkiss nodded at Hannah. He turned, began to walk heavily to the bench where Emma Goddard sat, hunched, staring at nothing.

The ventilator mechanism moved asymmetrically, rising, catching jerkily, and falling rapidly but smoothly.

Purkiss watched it, and thought about hubris.

There was the hubris of Kasabian’s, manifest in the extreme, even insane lengths she had gone to in order to achieve a position which would probably one day have been hers for the taking anyway, and in order to erase a past which might possibly have been quietly forgotten.

There was that of Tullivant, who’d thought even at the bitter end that there might be a way out, a solution, who hadn’t realised that the killing had to stop at some point and that terminating the life of his children’s mother would somehow enable him to escape justice.

And there was Purkiss’s own hubris. The arrogance which had led him to fail to see simple innocence and indeed compassion where it should have been blindingly obvious, to doubt those who were looking out for him: Vale, whose uneasiness and nerves before the trip to Riyadh had been no more than signs that he was worried Purkiss was walking into a death trap, and Hannah, whose failure to arrive at the airport in Saudi had been due to nothing more sinister than a genuine missed flight.

Kendrick’s profile, corpse-still, looked bonier than at Purkiss’s last visit.

Kirsty, the mother of Kendrick’s son, had left three hours earlier, anger holding her face rigid to stop it from crumpling. Hannah had been the next to arrive. She’d sat beside Purkiss, gazing at the man on the ventilator, a man she’d never met and now most likely never would.

At some point, Purkiss realised she’d taken his hand. He squeezed hers back.

‘Get any sleep?’ he asked.

‘An hour.’ It was seven in the evening, some sixteen hours after the police had arrived en masse in Regent’s Park and taken charge. Purkiss had handed Emma Goddard over to a pair of WPCs, who’d wrapped her in a blanket despite the mildness of the night. Kasabian had been led away in handcuffs by a phalanx of uniformed and plainclothes officers.

Vale emerged sepulchrally from the shadows after a few minutes and led Purkiss and Hannah to a waiting chauffeured car. In the rear, a fleshy man moved over to give them room.

‘Guy Strang,’ he rumbled.

Purkiss felt waves of fatigue wash over him as the man’s phrases did the same: words cannot express the debt, true patriots, served your country with great honour . He heard something about a commendation, knew it applied to Hannah.

She’d gone back to Thames House, and Purkiss had gone with Vale for a drive. He’d filled in the gaps, those he was able to, anyway. But there was little more to tell. Purkiss had outlined his theories to Vale when he’d phoned him from Riyadh after the interrogation in the desert, and Vale had concurred. It was then that they had agreed to maintain the fiction to Kasabian that Hannah Holley was the one they were after, in order to make Kasabian think they were heading down the wrong path. Purkiss had rung Hannah, told her of the plan, asked her to lie low until he contacted her again. Which he had, on his way to Regent’s Park that night. He asked her to get there and keep back, but to be on the lookout in case Kasabian showed up.

And now it was over.

Hannah stayed a finely judged hour, neither too long nor too perfunctorily short, gave Purkiss a peck on the cheek, and took her leave.

As if on cue, Vale walked in.

The two men sat in silence, lulled by the two-note hiss of the ventilator.

At last, Purkiss said: ‘It feels like we’ve been here before, after Tallinn, but… what’s going to happen to her?’

‘Kasabian?’ Vale gave a mirthless half laugh. ‘Remember we were talking about Rossiter, and Kasabian mentioned he very nearly got tried for high treason, the first person in nearly seventy years to do so? Well, that’s what Sir Guy wants to do to Kasabian.’

Purkiss thought about it. ‘The grounds don’t exist,’ he said. ‘She’s a murderer, a psychopath in many ways. But technically not a traitor.’

‘Precisely.’ Vale coughed. He smelled of cigarette smoke once more. ‘She’ll get life, probably in solitary. Every charge they can throw at her. And this one they won’t be able to keep out of the public eye. Rossiter was an unknown. Kasabian’s a prominent public figure, rather a romantic one in some quarters, with her no-nonsense feminism, her so-called ideals. The scandal’s going to be enormous.’

‘Just keep my name out of it, will you, Quentin.’

‘Always.’ Vale fell silent for a moment. Then: ‘Tullivant’s wife was having an affair with Strang’s head of security, it turns out. Who was using her in turn to put feelers out on Tullivant, whom he was suspicious about. One James Cromer. Tullivant killed him last night.’

Purkiss thought: God. More killing. No end.

Vale rose. ‘You look dog-tired. Rest.’

There was just Purkiss, then, and the hissing rise and fall, and the semi-person that was Kendrick.

After half an hour a male nurse came in and murmured that Purkiss should be going, that he could come back in the morning.

Purkiss stood. He had no idea what state his Hampstead house was in, and was disinclined to find out just then. It would have to be a hotel for the night.

On the bed, Kendrick’s hand clawed upward, first batting at the apparatus protruding from his mouth, then finding purchase and hauling so that elastic stretched and plastic creaked. A harsh, drain-like gurgling issued from his throat.

Purkiss grabbed at the cotside of the bed, pulled it up to provide a barrier, as Kendrick began to thrash about, the tube gone from his throat, the air sucking in and out of his swollen throat. His eyelids fluttered, opened gummily.

He stared at Purkiss, one eye almost hidden beneath the swathes of bandages around his head.

His lips were bone dry, and moving.