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

called a “leaden atmosphere” in his first days at Thames House: no ultimate victory possible, a war without end . . . They were allocated to “a creep”, a guy who was “like a tick from the Remove”, and the pimple on his chin itched.

“Funny way of showing it – we are on countdown.”

She said, “How it was put to me, it’s a good opportunity to be given.”

Izzy’s childhood home had been a council tower block. She was the first member of her family to go to a recognised university, might have been the first from that tower to go to any university, then had become a social worker. Her father was long gone, her mother was trapped on a high floor with agoraphobia, her sister worked in a fast food takeaway and her brother drove a mini-cab. She reckoned herself, going into the Security Service, pretty much a celebrity. But actually the place was quite boring . . . She had arrived, on her first day, making a statement with a purple flash in her hair; had been told by a sour-faced old bitch to get it washed out that lunch-time or expect to work in the canteen. Her social network had not included any boy remotely similar to Tristram and she rather liked him, and sensed some reciprocation . . . and sensed also that both were finding it hard to settle. And they had been given Jonas Merrick as their mentor.

“And sit inside all day – Eternal Flame stuff?”

She said, “Afraid that’s getting repetitive, Tris . . .”

“Sorry.” It was a sincere apology, and a ducked head to go with it. Tristram had no intention of burning boats where Izzy was concerned. Rather fancied her. Different upbringing, different advantages, different ambitions, and a freckle field over her cheeks, short gold hair and a Yorkshire accent, all attracted him. Done anything about it? God forbid. “Up and ready to go.”

The hour was reached. He took a half pace forward, but her hand was on his arm and held him back.

Her voice dropped. “Did you hear about the post lady coming by, a couple of months back?”

“No?”

“Internal mail, something about his pension. It was about the way the envelope was addressed.”

“How?”

“Had the floor, the corridor, the room, his name. And after ‘Jonas Merrick’ were the initials, QGM. Know what that means?”

“Is it a decoration? What, long service?”

“Bit off the mark, Tris. QGM is Queen’s Gallantry Medal. Act of considerable bravery . . . Not Other Bugger’s Efforts nor Many Bugger’s Efforts. It’s for excessive courage. I was having a moan, but had my card marked. No one seems to know what he did, but he did something . . . Doesn’t make him liked, he doesn’t climb the popularity ladder. Hardly fits with Eternal Flame, but it was there on the envelope, the Queen’s Gallantry Medal. Funny old world, Tris . . . Let’s go and see what awaits.”

He knocked. An exaggerated wait, then they were told to come past the partition. Tristram thought him ugly, unimpressive, and without any cheerful or welcoming gaze. There were no chairs, so he and Izzy would stand. He gestured, almost snapped his fingers at Izzy, pointed to a picture on his desk and a roll of Sellotape, then indicated a place on the wall behind him.

“Just up there, please – where the space is.”

Jonas pointed. Where he wanted the picture to go was beside a large image of a caravan, above a portrait of a cat, large and pale coloured and with a serious scowl, and below an Ordnance Survey map that showed a section of the Dorset coast and which had colour-topped pins that indicated favoured camping sites.

A couple of evenings before, Vera had been leafing through a magazine – an old edition of National Geographic picked up from a charity shop – and he’d heard her chuckle and had looked up to see her showing him, whole-page, a photograph of a crocodile. He saw its nostril cavities, its lines of teeth protruding from the upper and lower jaws, uneven in length and looking wickedly sharp, and there was a dark eye that bulged from heavy lids that hid the mood of the creature. He had stared at it and scratched the thin hair at the back of his head and blinked, and a hiss of breath had been sucked between his lips. He had told her what he wanted and she had gone and done it, had reproduced the picture on the printer in the dining-room, and doubled its size. It had gone into his briefcase the next morning. She had not asked him to explain his interest, made a habit of not prying into his mind and his ideas, let him carry the weight of his work without needless interrogation. No one, looking at the picture, could fail to note the creature’s savagery, its ability and intention to kill if irritated or hungry, the danger it posed.

Izzy stretched up, held the picture in place, tore off the necessary pieces of Sellotape, fastened it to the wall.

He said, “A crocodile. Might be African, might be Australian, not important. If you were to see that beast in such a posture, out of the water and exposed, you’d identify its threat. I chose that image because I am aware of the scale of those teeth, successful weaponry, and if let loose among innocents – those we are paid to protect – then the results are catastrophic. It can summon up a killing zone. See the crocodile in that guise and the chances are that you can go and get a man with a rifle: end of problem. Or call up a chap who is adroit at dealing with it and he’ll know how to subdue it by subterfuge and then bind up that lethal jaw and negate the effects of those teeth . . . What does the crocodile do when annoyed?”

Neither of them spoke. Jonas was new to mentoring, did not take kindly to the business of having probationer recruits dumped on his lap, but the upside was his own personal screened space and