Simon Kernick - Severed

I remember the number I wrote down when I was in Lucas's apartment earlier. Dorriel Graham, IT security consultant, the hacker guy Lucas claimed could find anyone. I put it in my wallet, and I'm hoping it's still there now.

It is. The folded slip of paper pokes out from one of the sleeves, and I remove it. I want him to find two people for me, but I'm also wondering if he can do something else as well.

I pick up the desk phone and dial. He answers after three rings, his voice a slow yet breathless drawl, as if the very act of speaking is an effort.

'Yes.'

'I was given your name by Martin Lukersson.'

'I know no-one of that name. I think you've got the wrong number.'

'You're Dorriel Graham?'

'Sorry,' he says, not sounding it at all, 'I don't know a Dorriel Graham either. Goodbye.'

'Please, listen. This is a quick job. It'll take you ten minutes and I'll pay you five hundred pounds.'

There's a pause.

'Lukersson should be more careful who he gives out my number to.'

'I need addresses for two people, and I need them urgently. Like now.'

'I don't like being woken up.'

'No-one does. But this is worth five hundred pounds.'

'Five hundred pounds isn't that much money,' he says, sounding bored.

'It's for ten minutes' work,' I remind him, my voice hardening.

'Do you have a credit card?'

'Visa.'

'Give me the card number, the expiry date, your name as it appears on the card, and the three-digit security code on the reverse. Now.'

It's not a great idea to be doling out my credit card details to a man I don't know, but right now that's the least of my worries. I give him the details, and wait impatiently while he writes them down.

'And what are the names of the people whose addresses you want?'

I tell him, and he writes this information down as well.

'Your card's authorized the payment of five hundred pounds. I'll phone you back when I have the information.'

'Can you also do something else?'

'What?'

'If I give you a landline number, can you get me an itemized list of the calls that have been received on it in the last two days, with the names of the callers and the times they called?'

'That'll take hours and cost you a lot more than five hundred pounds.'

I make a quick calculation. 'How about if you can just get me the numbers for Thursday afternoon? Say, between midday and 5.04 p.m.?'

'I can get you the numbers and the times, not the names. What's the landline number, and who's the account with?'

I give him my office number. I know it's a long shot, but I'm hoping that whoever I met last night left a message on the phone, which they then broke in here to delete.

'It might take a bit more time, and it'll cost another five hundred pounds.'

I tell him that's fine.

He hangs up, and I'm left waiting. In the distance I can hear the sound of a siren, and I tense. I really don't want to hang around here much longer. It's way too dangerous, but without a mobile phone, I can't move. I open up the strongbox, find the keys to an old BMW 5-Series in the car park, and put them in my pocket. Even now I'm loath to take one of the better cars, just in case I crash it.

The siren's getting closer, and it's been joined by another one coming from the south. Waiting here's too much of a risk. I rip the phone out of its socket so that Dorriel Graham doesn't end up talking to the police rather than me, and run out of the office and over to the car, switching off the alarm en route. The sirens are louder out here, both only a matter of seconds away.

I jump in the 5-Series, flick on the lights and fire up the engine. There's not a lot of room to get out, so I back straight into the car behind, which thankfully is an ancient 3-Series that's on the market for less than two grand, then turn the wheel hard right and tear off in a screech of tyres, going straight through the half-open gates with only a couple of inches of room on either side, and out onto the road, turning south and taking the first left. I've left the car lot completely open, but I'm figuring the police'll be there very soon and will be able to secure the place. And if not… Well, frankly, that's the least of my worries.

I drive for about fifteen minutes, heading in a northerly direction, until I pass one of those rare sights these days: a phone box. It's on the fore-court of a twenty-four-hour petrol station, and I use it to call Dorriel Graham.

This time he answers on the first ring.

'It's me. Have you got what I want?'

The moment of truth.

'Yes, I do,' he answers in his bored monotone, and gives me two addresses. One is in Fife, the other in Hertfordshire. He also gives me their home phone numbers.

I write the information down while keeping the receiver propped in the crook of my neck.

'I also have a print-out of the calls received by the landline number you gave me. Where do you want me to send it to?'

'I'm on the move at the moment. Are there many of them?'

'Between midday and 5.04 p.m., there are thirteen.'

There were twelve messages, so that sounds about right. I get him to read them out. They're a mixture of landlines and mobiles, and one of the landlines is from out of town, and immediately familiar.

And that's because I've just written it down. It's the number belonging to the address in Hertfordshire.

I feel a numb sense of shock, even though I shouldn't really. He's certainly intelligent enough to have pulled this off. It's just that I really hadn't wanted it to be him. Not after everything we've been through together. I was hoping it would be Rafo, the Fijian now living in Fife, who'd served six years for his part in the pub attack.

Not my mentor. My commanding officer.

Major Leo Ryan.

It's 2.30 a.m. on Saturday morning. Dark clouds are scudding across the sky, and it's starting to rain – the heavy, soaking drops you get in the tropics. The initial shock I felt has already metamorphosed into different emotions. First, sadness, that someone I respected so much and for so long could hate me enough to have put me through this. And there's an acute sense of anticipation, too. At last, I think I know the identity of the man behind Leah's death, and that of so many others. He will have all the answers I'm looking for.

What happens after I've heard those answers is something I'm still trying not to think about.

Thick walls of pine trees line both sides of the road. I am in the countryside on the Hertfordshire/Essex border, very close, I'm sure, to where I woke up this morning. Beside me on the passenger seat is the road atlas I bought from the petrol station next to the pay-phone. I am only fifteen minutes away from the junction of the M11 I joined when I drove back to London sixteen hours and a lifetime back.

I slow down as a turning appears up ahead. I can see a sign on the grassy bank. It says PRIVATE ROAD – NO ACCESS, and then beneath it there's a second sign of varnished wood saying ORCHARD COTTAGE. As I take the turning, I see that it's little more than a track, leading deeper into the pines. I drive down it about twenty yards before parking the car up on the verge and killing the lights. I get out of the car, noticing that the rain's getting heavier now, and look into the darkness ahead. I can see no sign of human habitation, but I know that Orchard Cottage is down here somewhere.

I start walking down the track, keeping to the edge of the treeline, breathing in the cool, moist air, enjoying the feel of the rain on my head. I feel alive again, out here among the pines. The surroundings remind me of Bosnia and Kosovo, places where, whatever anyone says, I genuinely did experience camaraderie. I love the open air, and I realize how much I miss nature's vast, majestic expanses now that I live in the city. It's why I dread the prospect of incarceration so much. I make a vow as I walk: I am not going down for this. One way or another, this has to end tonight.