The Crocodile Hunter Gerald Seymour (best ereader for pdf TXT) 📖

direct route into Canterbury. He checked the time, getting close to five o’clock, and they dawdled, allowing vehicles to power past them. He asked for the time of the first fast train to London: a few minutes before 0630. And what time would the sun rise? More clicking on the young man’s phone. Sunrise was scheduled for 0543 that day . . . what he liked most about both of them, and he thought of them now as Dominic and as Babs, not as police officers but as colleagues, was that they no longer badgered him for answers. Truth was that both could have done the work of Tristram and Izzy for all that they probably had no degrees. Also a truth that neither Tristram nor Izzy could have done their work, carried a Heckler & Koch on a strap around the neck, and the Glock, and the grenades and the Tasers. He offered the key on the pink ribbon to Dominic.

“Just something for your safekeeping, young man. Keep it handy and don’t lose it.”

Closing the front door behind her, Sadie Jilkes looked back at her house, checked that only the hall light was on.

She stepped off her path and on to the pavement and turned towards the mouth of the cul-de-sac, and light flooded across her. The Hunters’ door was open, and they came spilling out. The security light under their eaves shone bright. They were already, unusually, dressed for the day.

The whole family came across the road. Strange, she would reflect afterwards, that it was not the parents who spoke but their children. Nice enough kids and polite, but what would they know? What business was it of theirs? They stood in front of her, blocked her.

“Did he come, Mrs Jilkes?” asked Bradley.

“If it’s any of your concern – came and went.”

“And your front light went on and those beggars in our front room went charging out,” said Karen.

“Did they?”

The boy asked, “Was that a signal for them to come running?”

The girl asked, “At school we called that a snitch. Did you snitch on Cameron?”

“I’ve work to go to.” No way past them, her way ahead blocked. The parents stood behind their kids, quiet but showing their emotions.

From the boy, “You did the signal so they could get him?”

From the girl, “Told on your son? They’ll shoot him, won’t they?”

“We wanted to help you. Don’t you understand?” Bradley spat.

“Get him away, not have him shot. He’s Cameron, just a silly kid who took a wrong path. And you are his mother,” Karen hissed.

She pushed past them. Her world and no room for them inside it. Sadie Jilkes had a long walk to the bus-stop, but all downhill.

“I have him, I saw him. Straight ahead . . .”

A fleeting glimpse where the path beside the river ran straight, and across the river was a street of houses and a light pierced the trees, and Tristram had seen the movement in front of him.

“Just up there. Definite. I saw him.”

Behind him he heard a bubbling gulp. He halted and almost fell but kept his balance and saw Izzy a yard clear of the bank, in the stream. He imagined that in a moment, as if a dam broke, she would scream. He took a few paces back, bent and reached down, his arm snaking between stinging nettles and across smooth mud, and his hand took Izzy’s. He dragged her up. Tristram fancied that it would have been Izzy’s dignity that was the casualty. She came up easily enough. Nothing broken except pride and nothing bruised except esteem. He put an arm around her shoulder, and brushed a kiss on her forehead.

“We have to move it. I saw him.”

“It’s in the water, my fucking shoe. One of my shoes is.”

“Just manage, do the best you can.”

The path was narrow and slippery, like they trod on ice, and Tristram called in and said where they were and what he had seen, and said that Izzy had fallen in the stream but was now with him and . . . A curt response, no praise and no sympathy . . . How would it end? This was the first time either of them had been out of Thames House on an operation, come down from the third floor and become part of an arrest mission unit. Had seen it often enough in the shaky, bouncing images that came off the body cameras – some little sod spread-eagled down on the ground and the guns and voices around him. Did not think it would end as the body cameras showed it. If only half of what they had been told of Cameron Jilkes was true, if he had only a small part of the capabilities awarded him, then he would try to break away in the darkness. Not that darkness would be with them much longer. It would be a shooting job, if they were lucky. Would be a manhunt job if it fouled. Would be a shambles. He stumbled along the path and Izzy followed him as best she could: plucky girl and there were little squeals from her, there might be stones on the path or glass or brambles, and he remembered she had pink toenails, shoes off in the house and almost asleep . . . and there was a new factor in the way it would play out.

“We’re following him, Izzy, and what that means is that we are giving the guns a better chance.”

“Something like that.”

“I don’t see myself in that garb.”

“Nor me. Not running after a fugitive in the middle of the night, not going without a shoe and not slopping around in a stream. And not barging into people’s houses, and not lying, and lording it over them, and tricking that kid with a fucking ice-cream. Not right for me.”

“Nor me.”

“But I’m frightened, Tristram, frightened it’ll be down to us, that he gets through.”

“Just keep going.”

Had his hand behind him, and one of hers slotted into his. They did not hear the sounds of flight ahead of them, and did