22

Black climbed down from the Land Rover on to the rain-flattened grass at Ty Argel. The earlier storm had passed, the sun had emerged from behind the clouds and the air was filled with the heavy scent of warm, damp vegetation. Now mid-June was approaching the garden was humming with life. A dragonfly hovered in a puddle of light beneath the alder by the stream. Bees flitted between the flowering weeds thriving in what was supposed to be lawn and purple buddleia sprouted from the crevices of the stone walls. This was what he called the golden time. The short span between late June and the penultimate week of August when the evening chill would return and the bracken start to brown at its tips.

Still groggy from the beer he had drunk at the wake, Black made his way up the path, intending to change out of his suit and spend the last hours of daylight peacefully taming his wilderness. Minutes later, dressed in a pair of cut-off jeans and an old T-shirt, he came downstairs to make coffee. He was filling his old stove-top kettle from the tap when he noticed a padded envelope sitting on the small pine dining table beneath the window. Having no recollection of having put it there, his first thought was that Towers must have left it behind the evening he called. He stepped over and saw that beneath it there was a slip of paper headed, With the compliments of Colonel F. Towers. Beneath, Towers had written in longhand: Apologies for the intrusion. Needs must, FT.

Intrusion.

Black ran his eyes around the cottage for signs of break-in but there were none. The windows were shut fast and the back door bolted from inside. Whoever had left the package – and it was unlikely to have been Towers himself – would simply have picked the locks. With the right tools it was as easy as using a key. It was a cheap trick. There was no reason Towers couldn’t have made a delivery to him in Oxford. This was simply a way of letting him know that he couldn’t escape. And in all likelihood if he had used Credenhill boys to run his errand, there would be one of them out in the bracken right now, checking to see that he had collected.

He snatched the package from the table intending to toss it unopened into the stove, but something stopped him – guilt, loyalty, anger – a whole confusion of emotions that made him reach for a kitchen knife and slit it open. He shook the contents on to the worktop: a contactless credit card in the name of ‘David Harris’, a driving licence bearing his photograph in the same name, and a single folded sheet of paper. He opened it to find the names and London addresses of two men and a pin number for the card. At the foot of the page Towers had written, again in longhand: Who are they working for? followed by the initials, CB, which, as ever, stood for carte blanche.

Black stared out of the window across the garden and saw a pair of crows at the far end of the overgrown lawn tearing at the remains of a dead pigeon. They were cunning and resourceful creatures but pitiless hunters. He had seen them peck the eyes out of sick lambs. Black hated cruelty as much as he hated dishonesty. He had hoped never to inflict any again.

It was a fine ideal.

He opened the cupboard beneath the sink and pulled away the loose panel that shrouded the pipes. Behind it was the Glock. His visitor had added three boxes of ammunition, a bone-handled Bowie knife and a double-sided shoulder holster. Black brought the knife out into the light thinking that he recognized it.

He did. Every nick and scratch.

He hadn’t seen it since Helmand. He and Finn had sneaked up on a Taliban sniper in hostile territory and found themselves confronted with six men camped out on a mud roof. Having gunshots ring out wasn’t an option that would have ended with them escaping alive. Other men would have urged a quiet retreat. Not Finn. They had waited silently until all but two of them were asleep before vaulting the parapet and silencing all six within seconds.

Black recalled the sensation of hot blood running over his hand and the animal thrill of the assassin. He had never been more alive and less human than on that night.