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

reply, then snapped off the connection . . . He had a postcode now and a time to be there. He did not know where she had spoken from, in what city or what country. By the roadside he found an overflowing rubbish bin, rummaged a hand inside it and buried the phone near the bottom. In the distance ahead of him was a convenience store. He went to buy milk and bread and cheese for his group. The good times were behind him and only the hunger of his hatred and the thirst of his anger sustained him, gave him purpose.

Victoria’s 24th birthday was in a fortnight. Materially, she had little to concern her as her husband, Gavin, worked most of the hours that God gave at a car showroom on the north side of the city. Her home was a three-bedroom semi-detached in a quiet close in a decent part of Canterbury. As a peace gesture and so that acrimony did not fester at home, she would collect their child from the nursery and then walk to her mother-in-law’s, take a sandwich there and a cup of tea, and then go to their own home. It was a concession she had made, a compromise.

Much of life was a compromise for Vicky.

She wore boutique clothes. Sensible shoes for that time of year and weather, a decent skirt, a warm pullover and an anorak, from a quality brand, that was proof against rain and cold. She had signed up to the conventions of being married to a car showroom salesman, was not with the boy who had no fixed job, no marketable assets that anyone had recognised, no place to live other than a room at his mother’s house up on the hill above the village of Sturry. He had said to her once that they should go together, get the hell out. Where to? Should get the hell out and go and it did not matter where they ended up. Do what? It wouldn’t matter if they did “something” or did “nothing”; they would take on the world, make it work for them – like, together, they could ride a rainbow. Her husband’s aim was to “better himself and make a good home for her”.

He had gone a few years before.

She reached the nursery. Other mothers were gathering and the crèche was about to empty. She wondered how many of the women around her – some already bulging with another on the way – were happy with their lot: how many of them had a memory of a boy from the past who had excited and entranced. How many, like her, had not quite had the courage to take what was on offer, had compromised instead and turned their back on an opportunity.

He had shrugged, had said that he’d see her sometime, like they’d cross paths again.

The wedding had been on the bounce. Gavin was a nice enough man. Came to collect her from her part-time lifeguard shift on his way home from work or on his way there, and always wore a suit, tie, and polished lace-up shoes, and often had a rose in his buttonhole. Her own family were indifferent to him other than to express relief that he wasn’t that boy from up the hill who was trouble and who she was well clear of. Her husband’s mother had made it plain that Victoria was not good enough for her son. She had married. She had a child and a pleasant enough house, and she yearned each day to hold again the laughter and the excitement of the boy who had challenged her.

She had her little one, strapped him carefully into the buggy. Did not stop for chat and gossip. Headed for her mother-in-law’s home and would hear a bucket of praise for Gavin, and keep her eyes on the china ducks on the wall so that she betrayed nothing.

It had been two weeks before the wedding that the Counter Terrorism police had come to see her. Had he ever talked about where he was going? No. Had he ever expressed interest in the Islamic faith? No. Had he ever spoken in admiration of a terrorist army in the Middle East? No. Had Cameron Jilkes been in contact with her in the last three years? No. She went to her mother-in-law’s home, would have a sandwich and a cup of tea, would make polite small talk, would bite her lip to stifle the screams . . . Loved him and yearned for him more each day.

Tristram, staring at Jonas Merrick’s cubicle, said, “I’m not intending to be early, and get that sour response – how long?”

Izzy said, “It’s three minutes to the hour, and was four minutes last time you asked.”

“Is this drawing the short straw big time?”

The team had gone and Tristram and Izzy were alone in the 3/S/12 work area. They were newcomers, just assigned, on probation. What had attracted them to the A Branch of the Service was the variety of the work, and the front line experience they would be totting up. He was three years younger than her, fresh from graduating; her route in had been through a social services care centre. He had looked as miserable as a kennelled dog when the rest of the unit had charged off into the corridor, the vests heavy on their shoulders and the comms draped on lanyards, and the hiss of nervous excitement. Action beckoned. Not for Tristram and Izzy who waited for a clock’s hands to straighten up and the hour to be reached.

“They say he’s the sharpest mind on the corridor.” She pulled a face.

Tristram was independent school educated, had an Upper Second in Economics, reckoned he had been head-hunted by a tutor. He’d done a charity stint in Africa and Meals on Wheels in a deprived borough, Tipton in the West Midlands, which ticked good CV boxes. He had seen himself as a certain candidate for fast tracking, but had whacked into what he