Tom Cain - Assassin

And then there was a third possibility. One man knew every detail of Carver’s activities, because he knew virtually every detail of Grantham’s own working life: Bill Selsey. Grantham hoped, very much, that this had nothing to do with Selsey. They may have had their differences of late, and his deputy’s sudden interest in playing office politics had come as an unpleasant surprise, but there was a big difference between professional rivalry and active involvement in cold-blooded murder. Surely Selsey would never have crossed that line?

Still, someone had crossed the line, and Grantham wanted to know who it was. He was flying to Oslo in the guise of a Foreign Office official, concerned about the involvement of Her Majesty’s subjects in this unpleasant event. At the airport, a first secretary from the British embassy, who just happened to be the Secret Service’s representative there, led him to a waiting Jaguar.

‘Are we all set up?’ Grantham asked as the car purred away from the terminal.

‘Oh yes,’ said his officer, who was showing a distracting amount of bare thigh beneath the hem of her skirt. ‘Everything’s arranged. The detective in charge is called Ravnsborg. He’s quite an interesting man, actually, quite subtle – you know, for a policeman. Anyway, he seems very happy to help. In fact, I get the impression he’s really keen to meet you.’

‘Oh great,’ said Grantham, ‘an enthusiastic copper. Can’t wait.’

Carver came to with his brain as numb as a novocained tooth, his mouth as dry and malodorous as a chicken-house floor and his bladder as uncomfortably swollen as a porn star’s boob-job. He’d been seated on a plain wooden kitchen chair. There were no restraints on his hands or feet. Tyzack was standing no more than ten feet away, bending over a small metal-framed table, arranging something on it. Carver couldn’t believe his luck. He leaped from the chair, took two quick strides towards Tyzack…

… and was jerked back by a sudden, choking tug at his throat so violent that at first he lost his footing and thrashed around like a condemned man on the end of a noose before he could get to his feet and retreat, coughing and gagging, back to the chair.

Tyzack was convulsed with laughter as he turned to face Carver. ‘I’m sorry, but that was priceless!’ he gasped, trying to catch his breath. ‘Excellent kit! It’s bungee-jumping cord, in case you were wondering, and much too strong for you to have any hope of breaking it. The item round your neck is what’s known among the sado-masochist fraternity as a slave collar. They tell me it’s very comfy, nicely padded. I dare say that’s why you didn’t notice it straight away. It’s padlocked at the back, incidentally, and I filled the lock with superglue, so you won’t be picking it. Oh, and the shackle at the end of the cord, where it joins the collar, has been welded shut, so that won’t come undone either.’

Carver looked around. He was sitting in the middle of a small wooden barn, maybe twenty feet by forty, illuminated by sunlight streaming through an open window high up on one wall.

The table at which Tyzack had been standing was directly opposite Carver. It was flanked by two large plasma-screen TV sets, angled towards him. More sets were arranged in a circle, surrounding him.

On the table stood a fifteen-litre bottle of mineral water, the kind that sits upturned in an office water-cooler. Next to it Tyzack had placed a single plastic cup and beside that a small cardboard box on which the word ‘Japp’ was printed in red and gold script. The final item, to the right of the table, was made of white plastic and stood about a foot tall.

‘It’s your bog,’ Tyzack said, spotting where Carver’s eyes were directed. ‘Do you fancy a slash? I bet you do. You were out the best part of twelve hours. Must be bursting. Go ahead, don’t mind me.’

Carver remained exactly where he was. Tyzack wasn’t the only man with an agenda in the room. Carver was determined to get him to name Lincoln Roberts as his target. That meant messing with Tyzack’s head, keeping him talking, getting under his skin, no matter what it cost him, or what pain he had to endure. Carver was used to pain. It didn’t hurt half as much as the knowledge that he’d screwed up.

Tyzack shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. Only here’s the thing. You’re going to be here quite a while, and very soon you’ll be totally alone. I won’t even be in this boring little country and there are no other houses for miles around. When I leave here I will activate a booby-trap system. A friend of yours installed it, top-quality work. Once I flick the switch, anyone who tries to get in or out is going to meet a very sticky end. So if you want to live, you’ve got to be able to get to that water and pray that I decide to come back.’

Tyzack gestured towards the cardboard box. ‘I’m a generous man, so I’ve also left you some nice choccy bars, just in case you get peckish. They’re called Japp, but they’re really just Mars bars for Norwegians and I never met a soldier who didn’t like a nice Mars. Helps him work, rest and play. But now I come to look at it, I have a feeling I made a mistake. I put this table too far away from you. Well, I must have done, otherwise you’d have got to me by now. Now, I’m prepared to move it all a bit closer, so you can eat and drink. But how much closer, that’s the question. One has to be precise about these things and I’m going to need your help. What you’re going to do is get up and see how far you can go before you get pulled back by the bungee cord, or strangled by the collar. Come on, up you get!’

Carver stayed exactly where he was. Tyzack glared at him. Then he walked round behind Carver, took three quick steps towards him and kicked the wooden chair out from under him. Carver fell to the floor, felt the cord yanking at his neck and was forced to scramble to his feet. There wasn’t enough slack to let him sit on the ground, still less lie down.

‘You don’t get it, do you?’ Tyzack shouted, returning to a point beyond Carver’s reach. His mask of sophisticated, gentlemanly civility had slipped and all the years of suppressed rage and resentment were seeping out like the pus from a septic wound. ‘I’m in charge now. Not you. Me. So you do what I say, right now…

or I leave you here for the duration, without anything, until you’re too thirsty, too hungry, too bloody knackered to stand it any more and you’d rather be dead. Now do you get it?’

‘Kill me,’ said Carver, matter-of-factly. ‘Kill me now.’

Tyzack smiled. ‘Giving up so soon? Really? What is it, want the easy way out?’

‘No. I’m just thinking of your welfare. You’d better kill me now, because if you don’t, I’m going to hunt you down and tear you limb from limb… you worthless, gutless, psychopathic piece of shit.’

Tyzack let the words sink in, and then he laughed again. ‘Well done, defiant to the end! But how are you going to hunt me down if you’re dead on the end of a rubber rope? How does that work? Do yourself a favour…’ Tyzack had walked round behind the metal table while he was talking and shifted it fractionally towards Carver. ‘… See if you can reach it now.’

Carver had no choice. His only hope of staying alive long enough to find a way to beat Tyzack was to do as he said. So he got up and stepped gingerly towards the table until he felt the pulling on his neck. Then he stood with one foot in front of the other, the front leg slightly bent at the knee to brace him, took a deep breath, and leaned forward, hands outstretched.

He pushed his head and shoulders forward till the pressure on his throat was so strong he felt as though his windpipe and larynx would be crushed. He stretched his arms till they were almost pulled from their sockets. He held his breath until his chest felt close to bursting and sparks danced before his eyes. But still his fingertips were nowhere near the top of the water bottle.