Robert Young - Gatecrasher

Campbell would sleep here it was decided, in Gresham’s spare room and Slater would be on the floor next to him, just to discourage any further thoughts of escape, which was far from his mind as it was.

Given the conversations they'd had, the things that Campbell had told them and the danger they all faced, Campbell felt almost safer here with these men, hard and cruel though they were, than had he headed off alone into the night once again. He was asleep as soon as he had phoned Sarah to check that she was OK; Warren had taken her to her sister’s place where she was safe and happy. The moment that he lay on the bed he was sleeping and Slater followed him into tired oblivion soon after.

The morning came sooner than anybody wanted but Gresham finally heard the news that they all wanted. Not from Walker though, whose phone still went unanswered, nor from Drennan, whose phone was evidently now switched off.

Warren it was who called them. He had gone home himself to get sleep after dropping Sarah off and on awaking the next morning it was one of the first things that he heard. Everyone was talking about it on the street, what had happened last night. A bust by the police gone wrong, or a turf hit by one of his gangland rivals. One idea even had it that an Eastern European group, who were expanding from people trafficking and prostitution into drugs and racketeering was responsible. Whatever the speculation was, they all agreed on one thing. Frankie Walker was dead.

With that phone call Campbell had his freedom but accepted it almost reluctantly. Here, beneath the umbrella of protection provided by Gresham and his men, Campbell had felt momentarily secure. This most unlikely of alliances gave him a group of ruthless and hardened bodyguards with a vested interest in his safety.

Even so, if they were to put Campbell’s plan into effect, he and Sarah needed to return to their homes and their lives and the fear and uncertainty that was part of the deal.

Gresham instructed Warren to watch them. He would take Campbell home and remain contactable at all times, on protection and surveillance detail. In this way Campbell and Sarah felt a little safer and more confident and Gresham got to make sure that they did what they said they would. On past experience he had little reason to trust Campbell but the things he said about his accidental involvement and his wish to be free of the danger and threat that dogged him Gresham knew to be true. The deal that he had proposed was good enough to take a chance. Warren was insurance and that kept everyone happy.

By midday, Campbell was heading across London again, to his home in the west of the city. Slater, Gresham and Keane sat down and began to make plans. They would have to move, quickly and carefully. It would have to be tonight and this time, there could be no mistakes.

Tuesday. 5pm.

Once or twice at University and occasionally at work Campbell had found himself giving presentations. He didn’t enjoy it. He didn’t like to be the centre of attention too much and his nerves and obvious discomfort had often let him down when faced with a crowd of expectant people.

He wouldn’t have to do that tomorrow he knew, but the preparation was the same, the reading and re-reading, the notes he kept scribbling as he tried to absorb the information so he could reel it off without reading it. He needed facts and figures in his head, he needed to know what it was he would be talking about. It was this parallel that made him uneasy because it invoked memories of what normally followed; standing up to speak, all eyes on him, the dry mouth, the quick pulse, the pressure. Tomorrow, he knew at least that his would be an audience of one. But what an audience.

He was beginning to feel that he was soon to hit the wall; that what he was reading now was not going in anymore. His brain had reached its capacity and he couldn’t force himself to absorb anymore. He probably knew enough now and he wondered as he sat there, surrounded by paperwork and the humming PC in his flat, how much he would need to say and how much was already known.

Campbell was nervous. He would have to make an instant impression. There would not be any long introductions where he could build a damning and convincing picture or put forth his claim, no visual aids or overhead projections, no PowerPoint. He would live or die in those opening seconds and he would need to have the other man listening from the off, to get him into the position that Campbell needed him. Campbell knew that the other man wielded immense power and influence and if he got it wrong the implications were grave and unthinkable.

But as much as he tried to formulate that clear, decisive argument, other details clouded in on his thinking, and one more than most. A name, Ben Wishart. One he knew that he knew but when or how he’d heard it, he couldn’t pin down. Wishart’s name popped up here and there in the research he’d been so submerged in as did others. Though it were no surprise that other people might have become involved, inadvertently or otherwise, along the way, this name wormed its way into his thoughts the more he tried to dismiss it.

Sarah walked into the room and he looked up. She wore jeans and a fitted t-shirt with a Superman S emblazoned across the front. Her hair was pulled up into a ponytail and she wore no make-up. Having come over to see him immediately on his return, she had retired exhausted and had been sleeping for the last hour leaving Campbell to his reading and his peaking sense of isolation and impending confrontation. She rubbed at her eyes and Campbell wondered that she might not be better going back to sleep.

‘How you doing?’ she asked.

‘Headache. Losing the plot,’ he replied. ‘You?’

‘Better for the sleep.’

She stood there in the door for a long moment. Campbell had hardly spoken to her since he had negotiated her safety the night before.

On arriving that afternoon she had looked tired, fraught and had told him that she had slept badly at her sister’s flat. Yes, she had been safe there and out of the way, where no-one might think to look, but she knew nothing of what was happening all the same and she had worried. She knew nothing of how he might be faring.

As she stood in the doorway running her hands over her tired face he felt as if he should be apologising for everything, that he should be begging for her not to hate him for what he had involved her in. He remembered that desperate sprint through the cold wet night, leaving her hiding frightened in the trees. He saw Walker touching her, leering at her. He remembered the look in her eye as he was led from the dark squalid room, leaving her behind in a cold and threatening place that she had not seen before and with people she did not know.

‘Danny,’ Sarah said looking at him. He realised he had been staring at her as his thoughts wandered.

‘Yes?’

‘Thank you. Thank you for coming back for me.’

‘What? Don’t be silly.’ It was the last thing he had been expecting.

‘Really. I know you think you’re responsible but I do make my own decisions, for better or worse. You didn’t have to do what you did.’

Campbell remembered his clumsy flight down that dingy corridor, racing back toward her and Angie. He had been trying to escape from the gunman as much as anything. Had he any clear plan to rescue them? Any idea where he would go had Walker or Drennan followed him? All he could really remember was a fierce and driven determination to get to her.

‘I really didn’t do much you know.’

Sarah smiled at him and then walked across the room. Campbell felt something in his throat tighten and he swallowed as she drew near.

Without a word Sarah’s arms reached around his neck where he sat and she pulled him toward her, squeezing him to her chest and bending down to kiss the top of his head.