Ian Rankin - Westwind

‘It might not have been if you hadn’t shown up.’ He noticed that his hands were stinging, and examined them. White blisters were appearing where the water had scalded him. Jilly grimaced.

‘Those look sore.’

‘They’re nothing,’ said Hepton, meaning it. He hoped Harry was in agony.

‘So where to now?’ asked Jilly.

‘A hotel, I suppose.’ He was still checking for a tail. ‘I can’t believe there isn’t someone on to us. Drive into town, Jilly. That way maybe we can throw them off.’ Looking out of the side window, he saw a red Vauxhall Cavalier driving very fast in the direction from which they were coming. Detectives, he guessed. On their way to a fire that never was. With any luck, they’d pick up Harry. But he doubted it.

‘Well I must say, Martin,’ said Jilly, attempting levity, ‘this isn’t the way I usually end my working day. Normally it’s a gin and tonic at the wine bar.’

Hepton turned to her again. His look was contrite. ‘I’m sorry you had to get mixed up in this, Jilly.’

‘I’m not.’ She was smiling. ‘Besides, I haven’t told you yet what I found out about your civil servant.’

‘You mean Villiers?’

‘Who else? Martin, you’re not going to believe it.’

‘Try me.’

‘Well, your description of him was spot on. You know you said you thought he had some kind of military background? He was in the Royal Marines until not too long ago. A major, to boot. Pretty high up. There was a fight on Brown Mountain — at least I think that’s what it was called. Anyway, somewhere on South Georgia. Villiers led his men into what turned out to be a trap. A lot of them were killed. It was hushed up here, of course. Bad for morale.’ Jilly was warming to her story, and as she continued, she pushed a little harder on the accelerator. ‘Villiers seems to have snapped. He’d seen plenty of action. Oman in the fifties, Belfast in the sixties and seventies. But something happened to him in the Falklands. After he saw his men die, he just couldn’t stop killing the enemy, and when the enemy were dead, he turned on his own men. Kill crazy, they call it. Apparently it happens sometimes.’

‘Christ,’ said Hepton quietly.

‘He was a good soldier, too.’ Jilly slammed her foot on the brake as a red light loomed. She idled the car and turned towards Hepton. ‘They had psychiatrists on him from the minute he landed back home. He seemed normal enough by then, but nobody was taking any chances. Bad for public relations, having a killer in your midst.’

‘So they pensioned him off?’

‘One of the disabled. They even gave him a medal, I forget which. It’s in my notes.’

The car started off again, turning left at the lights.

‘And the government hired him?’

‘Well, yes, in a way. The Foreign Office gave him a job. His actual title is pretty vague, but he knows his stuff: countries, political climate, that sort of thing. God only knows why it had to be him you saw when you visited the FO.’

‘Because,’ said Hepton, ‘he’d been expecting me.’ His voice was level. ‘He’d figured out, you see, that I was curious and that my curiosity would probably lead to Mike Dreyfuss.’

‘But how could he know?’

‘He’s a cunning little bastard. Cunning enough to string us along, because he doesn’t know we know about him. That’s our big card. Meantime, he’ll probably want to know just how much I know.’

‘What about this Harry, though? She just wants you dead, period. Isn’t she working for Villiers then?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Hepton thought it over. ‘No, I’m sure she is working for him. Or, at least, they are both working for the same ultimate employer.’ Harry’s words were coming back to him: my employers, who are, ultimately, your employers . But what did it mean? ‘In any case,’ he said, ‘I think Harry’s become... what was that phrase you used? Kill crazy? Yes, that’s what she is. Kill crazy.’ He examined the cars moving past them. Then he turned to Jilly again. ‘How did you find all this out anyway?’ He was both impressed and curious to know.

‘A guy I met at a party,’ Jilly explained. ‘One of the old guard of Fleet Street hacks. He’s been around a bit, reported from Afghanistan, Belfast, Beirut, that sort of thing. It’s a passion with him, the military. He’s written a couple of books. He was able to tell me some of it off the top of his head. The rest he got by making a few phone calls. That’s what you call a network. Every good journalist needs one.’

Hepton’s mind was still trained on Villiers. ‘Yes,’ he said vacantly. A network... ‘Anything else?’

‘Isn’t it enough?’ Jilly sounded slighted. She was checking in her rear-view mirror.

‘Yes, yes, I suppose so. Thanks for...’ She was still staring in the mirror. ‘What is it?’ He turned and caught a glance, three cars back, of a dark-coloured Sierra. ‘Shit,’ he hissed, gripping the seat with his hands.

‘Is that her car?’ Jilly asked, her voice level.

‘I think so.’ Hepton looked back again. The dark car was in the process of overtaking one of the vehicles between them. He let out a sigh of relief. ‘No, it’s okay. It’s not a Sierra. It’s a bloody Cavalier.’

Jilly’s shoulders relaxed too. She was nearing another set of lights. ‘I think there’s a shortcut here, unless they’ve blocked it off.’ She signalled left and squeezed the MG into an alleyway. The high buildings either side seemed purpose-built to hem them in. There was a screech of tyres behind them. The Cavalier was following, speeding up. Hepton remembered the night Harry had tried to run him down in an alley almost as narrow as this, and every bit as deserted. Then he recalled that he had seen the red Cavalier before: hurrying towards Jilly’s flat as they were making their getaway.

‘They’re chasing us!’ he called.

Jilly responded to the Cavalier, pushing the MG down a gear and hitting the accelerator. They were running now, careering past parked cars, braking hard to take an almost impossibly tight turning into a two-way street. Hepton held on, teeth clamped together. Jilly was a good driver, but not good enough. They weren’t going to shake the Cavalier. It was mere yards behind them now, and he peered through its black-tinted windscreen. Two men. Definitely men, though he couldn’t have said more than that. Not Harry, then.

The extended blaring of a car horn brought his head round to the view to the front of the MG. It took him a moment to realise that the horn was their own, and that the heel of Jilly’s left hand was hard against it. She had turned the headlights on full-beam, too. The traffic was becoming clogged. She scraped past a bus, paintwork peeling like confetti, but ahead the lights were at red, and the traffic was at a standstill in both directions.

‘Hang on!’ Jilly yelled, throwing the MG to the right, braking hard as she did so and spinning a full one hundred and eighty degrees. On the other side of the road now, the Cavalier roared past them, braking hard itself. There was a squeal as the driver threw his wheel round, bumping onto some central bollards. These stopped him, and he reversed, the traffic cursing angrily all around him. Jilly glanced back to see that the Cavalier had lost a lot of ground, and let out a whoop.

‘Where did you learn a stunt like that?’ Hepton gasped. His heart felt like a bird in a cage too small for it, fluttering against the bars. The breath came from him in short bursts.

‘I didn’t,’ Jilly answered, clearly enjoying every moment of this. ‘Put it down to instinct.’

‘Fine. But every traffic cop in the area’s going to have our description and registration in about five seconds flat.’