Robert Young - Gatecrasher

Campbell nodded.

‘Well I saw a few things that probably tie in with what you were saying earlier.’

‘Really?’ Campbell felt both relieved and excited at the same time to hear some corroboration of his theory.

Sarah was staring up at the ceiling, her hand over her mouth. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t think of this earlier. What you were saying about things getting shifted around before final delivery in Liberia? Well I saw records relating to goods shipments being delivered to Tunisia. Then right next to it there was some contract note for a different carrier, moving the same stuff from Tunisia on to Guinea. We didn’t actually ship it ourselves but we sub-contracted someone to do it for us. It didn’t seem strange at the time I saw it; that’s not unusual for us. Sometimes it’s easier to use established local firms. We’d done the main job of getting it onto the continent so after that we sometimes use other companies to do the next bit.’

‘Where does Guinea come in?’ asked Campbell eagerly.

She grabbed a map from the papers on the table and showed him. ‘Guinea is right next door to Sierra Leone. It shares a border with Liberia too.’

‘You sure? You saw all this in the records there?’

‘Yep! That’s straight from the bloody horse’s mouth Daniel.’

Campbell nodded but said nothing. If he felt vindicated by what Sarah had said, he certainly didn’t feel all that pleased about it. In fact, Campbell realised, despite all the evidence he had uncovered, he was still wishing that he was wrong.

Another hard gust of wind banged against the walls and rattled the panes. And then there came a distant but unmistakable sound of glass breaking from somewhere outside.

Campbell was upright in an instant, the wine almost spilling from his hand.

‘What the hell?’ Sarah mumbled and the two of them stared in the direction of the door and the yard beyond. ‘Probably a fox in the rubbish bins or something,’ she offered uncertainly.

‘Mmmn. Probably,’ he replied but stood up instead of sitting again. ‘I’ll just check it out. Breaking glass makes me nervous.’

She made to speak but remained silent and he was moving quickly across to the door, stepping into his shoes and shrugging his shoulders into his jacket.

Cold, wet air swept into the room and Sarah padded across to the door as Campbell stepped out into the gloom, her hands drawn up around her against the chill. Pushing the door closed until there was only a crack a few inches wide she peered into the night after him but he was out of sight quickly amid the darkness and the swirling rain. As she strained her eyes there was a sudden bright strobe-flash of lightning almost instantly followed by a sharp, loud crack of thunder. For a moment she thought she caught sight of a leg trailing around the corner of the cottage but the flash was startling and the image was gone as quickly as she had seen it.

Sarah closed the gap in the door a little more as she felt her skin pinch into gooseflesh and she wrapped an arm across her chest to try to block the cold.

Minutes passed. She began to shiver but opened the door a little wider to peer out. The soft light from the windows barely penetrated the darkness though she could make out the shape of her car and the high hedge lining the narrow lane beyond.

Suddenly there was a muffled sound off to her left, the opposite direction in which Campbell had gone. She hesitated and then opened the door wider, moving forward but instinctively moved back again as the wind whipped at her, driving cold rain into her face.

‘Daniel,’ she called out but was drowned out by the hiss and fizz of rain against the ground and the low howl of the wind.

She began to move forward again but before she could the doorway was filled with the drenched shape of a man, rain streaming down his face, his dark hair plastered against his forehead and his hands in front of him were streaked slick with blood and water. Shocked, she stumbled backwards into the room, almost falling.

‘Cut my bloody hand on a broken bottle,’ said Campbell as he stepped inside.

Sarah opened her mouth to speak but said nothing as he slipped off his drenched jacket and backheeled the door closed noisily behind him.

‘W-what?’ she stuttered.

‘Wind blew some empty bottles over by the bins round the back. Cut myself on one,’ he explained and blinked hard at the water running into his eyes.

Both were on edge as she led him to the kitchen sink to rinse the cut but neither betrayed their nerves and Campbell was already eyeing another bottle of wine on the sideboard as Sarah played nurse.

Friday. 1.30 am.

The bottle sat on the hearth was empty and glittered the fire light into the dark room. Campbell lay on his back on the floor in front of the dying flames. Sarah was stretched out similarly on the sofa above him her feet level with his head. They both stared up at the ceiling, both silent, both deep in thought.

Sarah would be, he knew, extremely apprehensive about what he had asked her to do. It meant abusing her position in the worst way and she could, very likely, lose her job. The only thing that seemed to quiet her own fears were the risks that Campbell himself was prepared to take. Sarah could, for the most part remain anonymous and hidden whilst Campbell was already known to at least one group with a vested interest in getting hold of the disk and who would do almost anything to get it.

He knew also, that in order to get himself out of this situation he would first have to stick his head further above the parapet. The only bait he had was himself.

He wondered who else wanted this thing? To whom was the information valuable? If Gresham and his cronies were so keen on getting it then it followed somebody else must want it too otherwise how else would it have any value to them in the first place?

Would Sarah go through with what he had asked of her? She seemed as if she knew what he was going to ask before he had even said the words, knew that by letting herself become as involved as she had that she was all the way in now, all or nothing. In the short time he had known her he thought he saw a strength and determination in her character, a goodness and sense of right and wrong that gave him faith that she would not walk away without helping.

The thought comforted him and for the first time in days he felt the burden he carried lighten a little as he shared it. It was too late now to wonder if he should have involved her — if he even had any right to — but somehow he knew that he’d had to do so. He knew that he really did not have anyone else to turn to. Since Gresham knew everyone that was important to Campbell, the only thing he could really do was to get himself away from them all, to remove them all from the firing line. To put Sarah in it was terrible he knew, but she did, he reassured himself again, have her anonymity. There was no reason for anybody to link him to her, no reason for anyone to ever know who she was or what she knew.

Gradually they drifted into a not-quite-awake, not-quite-dreaming state, on the cusp of sleep and his thoughts drifted and became irrational and surreal as his subconscious began to overlap. He tried to fight it back, feeling somehow protective and duty bound to look after her now that he had put her in harm’s way. But what could happen here in this warm, safe place? And what could he do in this state anyway, utterly exhausted and beaten up?

And then the fire in the grate wasn’t dying down any more, it was growing and licking up around the walls and there was somebody with them in the room but it wasn’t Sarah he saw moving. Did he see her moving? No, that was a man over there, and he had moved back away to the stairs and was climbing them again and was this real? Was this the dream now? Had he begun to dream? Was it really this hot?