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

that puzzled him. He pointed and there was a place on the far bank of the stream where a garden went down to the bank, where already some of the blossom from a tree had been stripped by the night’s rain and the wind.

“You’ll have better eyes than me, young fellow. What is it?”

Would have seemed so banal, so ordinary. He thought he’d done it well. Had indeed done it well. Cameron Jilkes had the line of Jonas’s arm to guide him and he had turned his head away – might have reckoned to humour an old fool – and looked, and would not have seen.

Jonas removed his hand from his pocket, a fast crabbing movement and dropped the dog’s lead at his feet and the dog looked up, confused.

His right hand came from his pocket and there would have been a flash of light as the sunlight caught the chrome. His left hand snaked across his body and took the open side of the handcuffs. Jonas glanced down, located the wrist, and Cameron’s head was still turned away, wondering what the hell it was that the old fool had noticed, what needed identifying.

Done rather expertly.

If anyone had seen the procedure they might have wondered if it were something that Jonas practised. Might have spent hours making sure that it worked as intended, might have . . . He closed the two bars over the wrist and squeezed.

There was a look, first of astonishment, then confusion. Confusion changing to clarity. Jonas saw that Cameron Jilkes understood that he had a closed manacle on his wrist but did not appreciate that he was now fastened to the elderly man who seemed concerned only about the weather that day and the welfare of a small dog. His head had turned, twisted, and his eyes had come alive and blazed anger at Jonas.

Jonas was heaved off his feet. Cameron’s arm swung away as if the speed of its movement would break the irritation of the hold, and Jonas’s arm went with it. Jonas lost balance. He toppled and fell across the bench. He heard the first bellow of fury. No question now that Cameron Jilkes, front line fighter, survivor in a hostile world, had started to appreciate that he had been – stick with the vernacular, Jonas – conned rotten, been taken for a ride and a half by a man he had assumed was no more than a lonely pensioner. He was across the bench then was dragged further forward and his face went down and hit grass and his legs came loosely after him. Had the feeling that if subjected to another such lurch, full force used, his arm would pop from the shoulder joint . . . Not possible that Cameron Jilkes would break free of him. He was dead weight and the lad could not run. A savage kick was aimed at his head and caught Jonas a glancing blow and he felt blood welling in his nostrils. The dog jumped up and down and barked hysterically. More blood seeped in his mouth from a split lip.

Jonas tried to shout, “Thought better of you, Cameron. You disappoint me.”

Thought that Cameron Jilkes was a man held with a ball and chain, dragging it, scraping it along. Still he was pulled, and again he twisted his head too late and only minimised the kick, and Cameron was still moving, but slower.

Jonas called out, “What do you think you’ll do, Cameron? You going to drag me into Canterbury, up the High Street, wait outside a butcher shop . . .”

Felt old and weak.

“. . . hang on there until the big man comes and raises the grille, and you pull me inside and demand he lend you a cleaver . . .”

Jonas had never been more determined, and his voice lost its quaver and he shouted as he was bumped over the grass.

“. . . Then off to the station, with a handcuff on your wrist and my arm hanging down from it. Make you popular on a crowded train . . . It’s all over, Cameron, accept it. All over.”

The guns were approaching. Jonas Merrick saw them and so did Cameron Jilkes.

Chapter 17

Jonas was tugged, shaken, punched.

Not a youngster and probably carrying a few pounds too many, and not particularly fit. Had he merely held onto a rope fastened to Cameron Jilkes, he would have let it go. A sense of survival would have kicked in. He could not, and the handcuff fastened to his wrist had seared the skin and blood ran down the sides of his hand. No possibility of freeing himself – had given away the only key.

He was soaking punishment and Cameron was dishing it, and the level of engagement was such that neither now had the breath or the energy to speak. It could not last much longer. The guns were closing on them. They did not come with a sprint but with what seemed to Jonas to be a lethargic jog; would have said in a manual that it was best to stay back, conserve breath and concentration, be able to think clearly. It would not last much longer because he could sense that Cameron’s attack was becoming frantic. His free hand had already gone deep into Jonas’s pockets, trousers and jacket, and his handkerchief was on the grass and the few coins that he carried and his wallet with the ID behind the plastic cover, and his phone, and no key had been found. Poor old Cameron, learning the hard way, that Christmas only came but once a year and this was not the day that he would find a shiny little key fastened to a length of pink ribbon knotted to a ring. He took a beating and did not know how much of it he could endure but the guns were still not near and their control was not yet exercised . . .

They had come to the last moment of the last effort and the anger still ran riot in Cameron, and Jonas was hurt in too many places to feel pain, then . . . hands on