24

Freddy Towers’ briefing notes described Elliot Clayton as thirty-five years old, six feet two inches tall and of muscular build. His English father and American mother were both retired college professors. He had studied history and politics at Cambridge and completed a PhD on the evolution of modern terrorism at Princeton where he had continued his passions for rugby and boxing. His tap on the shoulder had come from the British consul in New York during a summer internship. Genuine Anglo-Americans able to pass themselves off as a native on both sides of the Atlantic were a surprisingly rare breed, it seemed. Rarer still were those of high intelligence who weren’t intent on a strictly mercenary career. Clayton had been sufficiently flattered by the approach to lend his intellectual gifts to the British Security Services. This alone had been enough to raise Towers’ suspicions. What sort of man gives up the chance of riches to work for HM Government? he had added in longhand. Must have a kink. ‘Kink’, in Towers’ parlance, could mean anything from a preference for suede shoes to an extreme sexual fetish.

Black kept an open mind. A career in MI5 presented an intellectual challenge and for a man living in the shadow of successful if not wealthy parents, it had the advantage of placing him beyond the inevitable comparisons: a spy’s life was secret, even from his loved ones. Of the two suspects he suspected Clayton the least. But all this remained speculation. Before he could begin to form a judgement, there was the small matter of apprehending him.

Black turned left off the Uxbridge Road on the border between Acton and Ealing, drove a short distance along Hillcrest Road and turned right into Whitehall Gardens. A little over 100 yards long, it was lined on both sides by well-kept Edwardian terraced houses. The German estate cars and SUVs parked outside them were those of well-heeled professional families. He passed a middle-aged woman clipping the hedge in her front garden and a window cleaner at work on the opposite side of the road. As he had anticipated, anonymity was not an option. Further along, two labourers were loading furniture into a small removal van which filled the width of the carriageway. When making his getaway, he would have to reverse out.

Sited almost directly halfway along the road, Clayton’s house had no distinguishing features aside from a bunch of pink helium balloons emblazoned with Happy Birthday tied to the cast-iron gate. A woman in her thirties emerged from the front door carrying a baby in a sling. She walked along the pavement in his direction, smiling and stroking the baby’s cheek. Black stared at the balloons and thought of the innocent children inside. For a moment he was tempted to back up and drive away. Then he reminded himself that unlike Finn, Elliot Clayton would be returned to his family. It was not a question of morality. There was a job to be done.

He had given himself two options and decided on the second. Clayton’s car, a black Toyota Prius, was parked three spaces along from the house. Black slowed as he came alongside it and steered in tight. The front nearside corner of the van connected with the Toyota’s mirror and tore it from its moorings. He came to a stop, turned the wheel a little further to the left and nosed the van’s front corner gently into the Toyota’s off-side wheel arch, denting it. He checked his mirror. The gardener was still clipping her hedge and the window cleaner scrubbing an upstairs window with a telescopic pole. Black reversed a touch, then pulled forward so that the side door of his van was positioned alongside the small gap between the Toyota and the Audi parked in front of it. He reached into the glovebox and brought out a preloaded syringe, ran through his mental calculation once more and decided to lose five mils. It was a fine line between knocking a man out and killing him. Better to err on the side of caution.

The front door was opened by an attractive but unhealthily thin woman wearing a red bandana to cover what Black assumed would be a hairless skull. According to Towers’ briefing notes, Helen Clayton was a clinical psychologist who for three years had been suffering with leukaemia. Shortly before her diagnosis, she had left her hospital job to set up in private practice. It had proved a costly move. Due to her ill health she was able to work only part-time and without her regular salary the family had fallen into debt. The unexplained recent deposits in Clayton’s personal account were, it seemed, all that stood between them and losing their heavily mortgaged home.

Black greeted her with a smile. ‘Sorry to trouble you, ma’am. A neighbour said that black Toyota is yours. I’m afraid I’ve given it a bit of a scrape with my van. A kid ran out into the road.’

The squeals of excited six-year-old girls travelled along the hall from the kitchen at the back of the house.

‘Oh –’ Helen Clayton brought a slender hand to the stark line of her jaw. Wide brown eyes glanced anxiously towards her car.

‘It’s not too bad. I’m sure my insurance will cover it. We ought to exchange details. I do apologize – I’m spoiling your party.’

His contrite tone disarmed her. She gave a sigh and shrugged. ‘These things happen. Hold on, I’ll get my husband.’

She pushed the door almost closed and disappeared along the tiled hallway.

Black returned to the van, slid the side door open a little and reached a pocket-sized notebook and pen from the holdall. He glanced right to check on Quinn, who was lying on his back near the rear doors. All was well: he could hear him breathing. He pulled the door back across and tore a sheet from the notebook on which late the previous evening he had written details of a fictitious insurance policy.

He turned to see Elliot Clayton approaching. A tall, square-shouldered figure with receding temples and the hint of a paunch beneath a New York Jets T-shirt. A once fit young man turning the corner into middle-age. He gave Black a reproachful look, playful but semi-serious as he surveyed the damage.

‘So sorry about this,’ Black said. ‘A lad ran straight out in front of me. Lucky I was going slowly. Your name and address is all they’ll need. I’ll get on to it straight away.’ He handed Clayton the piece of paper and the notebook and pen.

Clayton gave a philosophical shrug, evidently in no mood for recriminations. ‘It’s my wife’s car, actually.’ He pocketed Black’s details and wrote down his own on a blank page.

‘Daddy, hurry up! We’re waiting for you.’

Black glanced over his shoulder to see a young girl standing by the gate, her face painted to resemble a panda’s.

‘Won’t be a moment, sweetie. Go on inside.’

‘Now, Daddy! We need you for our game.’

The girl stamped her foot, refusing to move. Clayton dashed off the last line of his address. Black looked from one to the other. Time slowed as he weighed his options. But there was only one. Clayton handed back the notebook and at the same moment Black reached into his waistcoat pocket with his right hand.

‘Sorry, again. Enjoy the party.’

Clayton turned. Black brought out the syringe and thrust the three-inch needle through the fabric of Clayton’s jeans into the top of his buttock, forcing the plunger down hard with his thumb. Sodium thiopental would take seconds to work. Seconds in which Clayton could have put a lot of distance between himself and the van. Black was ready. As the big man wheeled round, eyes wide in alarm, Black slammed his right elbow into his solar plexus and snapped the back of his fist into Clayton’s jaw, at the same time driving his knee upwards between his legs.

Clayton gasped and doubled over, blood spilling from a split lip.

Black glanced over and saw the girl’s frightened, bewildered expression. She turned and ran back into the house, calling for her mother. Clayton’s knees collapsed beneath him. Black threw open the van door, hooked his hands under his shoulders and hauled him inside. He was a dead, unwieldy weight. It took all of Black’s strength to drag him over the sill and roll him on to the floor. There was no time to tie him up. Black turned him over, laying him face down and jumped out on to the tarmac as Helen Clayton emerged from her front door.

‘What’s going on?’

Black ran around the front of the vehicle to the driver’s door.

‘Where is he?’ Her voice rose to a pitch of hysteria. ‘What have you done with my husband?’

Black jumped behind the wheel, hit the locks, fired the ignition and jammed the stick into reverse. Helen Clayton’s tormented face appeared at the passenger window. She pounded the glass with her fist.

‘What have you done with him?’

Black stamped on the throttle, using his mirrors to reverse. Helen Clayton clung on to the outside handle of the door, yelling at him to stop.

Stupid woman. Let go.

She held on as if her life depended on it. He sped up, jerking the wheel sharply left and right. There was a thud and a scream as the sudden movement threw her clear and hurled her emaciated body across the bonnet of a parked car. He continued on to the junction at the end of the street, braked hard and eased backwards around the corner. As he stopped and shifted into first, he looked left to see the woman who had been trimming her hedge running towards the crumpled figure lying at the edge of the road.

More collateral damage.

He hoped that was the end of it.

Black drove for half a mile at a steady pace, then pulled over and fetched a pair of number plates from the passenger footwell. With steady fingers he peeled the protective film from the adhesive pads he had earlier attached to each corner. Less than thirty seconds later they were fixed in place and he was on his way. He headed west towards the junction with the North Circular Road. Shortly before the turn, a police car with lights flashing and siren blaring careered towards him between the opposing lanes of traffic. Black tightened his grip on the wheel, expecting trouble. It whipped past and continued on. He watched it disappear from view in his side mirror and tried to wipe the image of Helen Clayton’s terrified face from his mind. But it remained stubbornly imprinted. Like a reflection on glass.