Richard Wiseman - To Kill Or Be Killed

It was a fresh morning and seagulls hung like mobiles on the buffets of close to shore breezes. The harbour was calm in its own way, the water frothed only at the edges by the shore line, but David could see heavy swells and rabid frothing out by the Dover Harbour wall. The sky was a mix of speeding white clouds and grim heavy grey ones, the sun flashing through when space allowed. David drank in his son’s fresh face, chewing on hash brown potatoes and scrambled eggs.

“Look a big white boat!”

“That’s a liner.” David said looking at the big ship docked to their right.

“Liner, yeah, it’s hooj Dada.”

“That it is. Would you like to go on one day?”

“Yeah, I’d be a pirate and capture it and steal all their treasure.”

“That’d be bad. I’m a police man now. I’d have to stop you.”

“You wouldn’t though, you’d be my helper and I’d make you rich, then mummy wouldn’t be so sad.”

“Has mummy been sad?” David was suddenly focussed on his son’s face.

“Yes.” His son’s face was earnest and concentrated. “She said she wanted you home. I’m glad you’re home. I asked God to get you home.”

“That’s good. Thank you.”

They finished their breakfast. David threw away the left over wrapping and put Conor back in the buggy. He walked to the right as they always did, along the front, along Waterloo Crescent, past the Marina, over the bridge on Union Street, up Snargate Street and left at the roundabout onto York Street. The traffic was heavy even at that time in the morning and David had his eye on the lorries and trucks as he made the crossing.

David was so busy watching the traffic that he didn’t see Trevor Stanton, who had just been to the Somerfield on Castle Street and coming back was entering York Street from Old Mill Lane.

Stanton did see McKie though. He made a casual glance to his right before he turned left towards the seafront and was stunned to see McKie, the man from Perth Station, the man he had seen on Parneuk Street in Motherwell, pushing a buggy across the pedestrian crossing.

Stanton had got into Dover marina with ease, earlier in the morning. Moored up he’d checked the boat’s cupboards and unhappy with the choices, decided to go shopping.

Standing there in a large hooded Berghaus coat he’d taken from the boat, his brown boots, still damp, new thick socks, dark blue trousers, a new black T shirt, that he’d bought in town he looked carefully at the figure across the road, now heading away at a fast walking pace. There was no doubt in his mind. Stanton had fixed the man’s size, shape and face in his memory and there he was large as life pushing a buggy.

Stanton knew at once that McKie lived in Dover. He knew the man must be DIC and if that was the case McKie would have DIC equipment at his house. Access to that network would be really useful to Stanton. Stanton didn’t have a weapon on him, his was back on the boat, but he decided to follow McKie at a distance. He pulled his woollen hat down close to his eyes, dumped his shopping and the plastic bag with the yellow waterproof clothing over a wall on the trail up the Folkestone Road; McKie’s figure was easy to follow, though his walking pace kept him well ahead. McKie was absorbed listening to Conor’s inane chattering and wouldn’t have looked for danger. He felt safe.

When Stanton got to the junction of Elm’s Vale Road and Church Road McKie had disappeared. Stanton knew he’d gone that way though and had a quarter of an hour walk around the streets before he saw a house with a big white satellite dish on Markland Road, just up past a primary school. Stanton did some reconnaissance around the area and after making his way up to Eaves Road saw through gaps in garden gates the school field and the backs of the Markland Road houses.

David had got in from the walk breathless and giddy. He’d unwrapped Conor, given him a biscuit and was sat having a big mug of tea chatting in the dining room with Mary. It was a quarter to ten in the morning.

“Did you have a good time?”

“Yeah we saw boats and Dada promised to be a pirate with me.”

“Change of career then Davy?”

“Maybe.”

Mary was sat facing the garden picture window. The long garden backed onto the primary school field, across which there was a steep bank, leading up to the back gardens of the houses on the Eaves Road. She proffered David a plate of biscuits and he took a custard cream and bit it.

The door bell rang and Mary, expecting her friend, got up and missed the view of a dark figure sliding down the bank from an overlooking garden.

There was the bustle of Mina and her son Hadleigh in the house. Mina made small talk with David and then within ten minutes Mary and Conor had left in Mina’s car. David was going to go to the loft to do some work, but he quite suddenly felt comfortable and happy. The urge to put the television on and vegetate for a while overwhelmed him. He wasn’t normally lazy, but he felt that after what he had been through switching off for an hour or so would make him feel a lot stronger. He took his tea into the lounge and switched the set on.

At the top of the garden a figure crawled under the link fencing and emerged behind a small shed at the top of McKie’s garden. Stanton began looking at the house for weaknesses from his hidden vantage point. His eye lit on an open Velux window on the roof.

London Vauxhall

9 a.m.

April 19th

The DIC checks revealed a fair few ‘hits’ for the name ‘Priory’ in London. There were pubs at all points of the compass, not to mention religious buildings and of course the ‘Priory Grange’ Roehampton, the rehabilitation clinic. Jack Fulton, in the building spot on nine in the morning, thought the intended victim might be there and sent a team to check the list of possible high profile patients. In spite of the high number of possible locations Jack despatched DIC watchers from London locations and took staff off CCTV watch and other duties to visit the pubs, restaurants and religious buildings with ‘Priory’ in the title.

Mason had been awake for an hour and had sat up in the car early in the morning. He was parked in a large car park in the fore court of a building on Benson Court. After waking he put the radio on and heard, amongst other items, news about Cobb. It hadn’t surprised him that Cob had been killed, but the fact that he’d had a suite at Claridge’s, a fact mentioned in the news, was out of place. It crossed his mind, given the speed of security’s arrival and the high profile nature of the hotel that Cobb had been set up. Cobb couldn’t have afforded the suite, Mason reasoned, so it meant that the people hiring them had put him there and if that was the case Cobb had got to the contact point first. So why not put him in a nice quiet place, out of the way, especially given his high media profile after Gatwick. Mason was nervous. He’d had his reservations about the people hiring them and the whole trip south to London.

He got out of the Beetle, walked around the corner to the Priory Arms on Lansdowne Road. The bright blue pub and its little outside ‘beer garden’ frontage was a closed face. He stood outside wondering whether to make a break for it out of the country and forget the whole thing, when someone called his name.

Paul Bentall had been with MI6 for five years. He’d spent the night in the black Honda watching for Mason or Stanton. He had the night shift. Peter on the day shift had it easy sitting in the pub and Bentall looked back on his five years and thought about how he always got the crappy part of any job. He checked the time and seeing it was close to shift change he got ready to report to Pete, when he arrived. They would swap cars and he, Bentall could go get some breakfast and go home to sleep.