Ivory Nation Andy Maslen (best short novels of all time TXT) 📖

time as a police officer.’ She shot Stella a searching glance. ‘And, believe me, this is right up there with the best of them. It has the virtue of consistency. Just not evidence.’

Gabriel got up from his chair at the table and went outside. Eli arrived a few minutes later. She put her arm round his waist and looked up into his eyes.

‘What is it?’

‘This is so much bullshit, El,’ he said. ‘I’m tired of all this “where’s the evidence” crap. It’s obvious who’s behind it.’

His heart was thumping and he pulled away from Eli as she tried to turn him to face her. On the other side of the car park the sea was roaring in over the stony beach, the sound a harsh ‘shush’ as if even the sea wanted him to pipe down.

‘There’s nothing you can do, Gabe,’ she said. ‘Callie’s right.’

He placed his hands gently on her shoulders and looked into those amazing grey-green eyes.

‘You’re wrong. There’s always something I can do.’

He pulled his car keys from his jeans pocket and dangled them in the foot or so of air between them.

‘I’m going for a drive.’

‘Want some company?’

He shook his head. Smiled at her.

‘No thanks. I need to clear my head. Tell them, would you?’

He kissed her softly on the lips, then climbed into the Camaro and started the big V8 with an unnecessary but satisfying jab downwards on the throttle. He backed out of his drive, across the road and then, slewing round in a tight circle that inscribed black circles on the tarmac, headed back into Aldeburgh. And onwards.

57

CHILTERN HILLS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

Gabriel cruised along the Missenden Road, heading for the little village of Ellesborough, deep in the Buckinghamshire countryside. This landscape couldn’t have been more different from those he’d seen in Africa. Thick green vegetation, tall hedges, round-shouldered oak trees, blush-red roses clambering over ancient brick walls.

The entrance to the lane was so discreet he almost missed it. But the change in light where the lane interrupted the tall hedge caught his eye and he slowed to a crawl.

Two small steel signs, navy-blue with the legend PRIVATE NO ADMITTANCE in white paint were set into the neatly clipped sides of the hedge. Beyond the gap, a brick wall in an intricate pattern like fretwork, stretched away towards a brick-built lodge house.

He checked the map on his phone. Yes. This was it. Half a mile to the west lay the imposing country house he’d come to visit.

A mile further on he found a lay-by, and pulled in, the Camaro’s fat tyres scrunching over the gravelly mud. He popped the boot lid and changed his boat shoes for the hiking boots he always kept there. He grabbed a go-bag containing a pair of compact Zeiss binoculars and a Böker combat knife and shrugged it on.

He checked his phone battery: 89%. Good. He’d checked and double-checked the voice-recorder app and it worked just fine.

Like all the best plans, his was simple. And flexible. No specific tactics, just get inside, find Tammerlane, isolate him, force him to confess, take the recording to Callie and Stella. Job done.

Gabriel climbed over a stile and into a field. The big house was visible on the horizon. Over terrain this friendly, he reckoned on fifteen minutes maximum to reach the target.

A herd of inquisitive bullocks wandered towards him. He kept on in a straight line towards Chequers, clapping his hands and shooing the docile beasts as he came within shouting distance. They scattered before him, bumping into one another and lowing in panic as they collided with each other.

In spite of himself, he saw the humour in their attempts to first befriend and then escape from this marauding human, and laughed. The sound only served to scatter them again and he ended up running through the centre of the animals along a wide processional path they had inadvertently created for him.

Ahead, a small copse of birch and hazel trees offered a convenient observation point. In the cover they provided, he fetched out his binos and surveyed the front of the house and then the sides.

Initially he saw nothing beyond the stately home’s imposing architecture of the red-brick Tudor house. Then, from the left-hand corner, he saw what he had been expecting, if not hoping, to see. One of Tammerlane’s new internal security goons wandered round to the front door, checked it, then continued on a circuit around the outer wing of the house.

A second man appeared as his partner disappeared, like the the old couple in a weather house. He repeated the sequence of moves in the opposite direction.

Twenty seconds from side to side. Then a gap of four minutes fifteen seconds, then the first guy turned up. Both men were no doubt armed with pistols, but their gait suggested they were less than fully alert. Out here, in the depths of the countryside, maybe they felt safe. There’d be more men inside, Gabriel assumed.

With the second man gone, Gabriel sprinted across the open ground towards the front of the house. He arrived at the front door twenty seconds later. Three minutes fifty-five seconds left.

He raised the heavy iron ring and slapped it against the raised iron boss bolted to the door. Three sharp knocks. Nothing obviously coded, but confident nonetheless.

His heart was pounding and he felt the familiar kick from the adrenaline surging through his bloodstream. He checked his watch.

Three minutes, twenty.

Come on, come on!

Three minutes, five.

He heard footsteps on the far side of the iron-banded oak.

Two minutes fifty-eight.

The door swung inwards at speed.

Gabriel sprang through the gap, arm coming up, fist clenched. The man on the other side didn’t stand a chance. His mouth was open to ask a question, but he never got as far as the first letter of the first syllable. Gabriel’s closed fist hammered into the soft tissue of his throat, smashing into his larynx.

The man staggered backwards, dropping his pistol as he clutched both hands around his throat. Eyes popping, he could only look