Hunted Read online

  “I can.”

  “Good. I’ll make contact outside. Oh, Mr. Shelley? I need to know how long you’ll be—as accurately as possible, please.”

  Shelley’s gaze went to where the skeletal structures of market stalls disrupted the dark of Exmouth Market. Practiced eyes sought out hiding places and, sure enough, his Two Dogs trouble lurked in the shadows farther along.

  “Make it an hour,” he said.

  “Very well. I’ll see you then.”

  Shelley ended the call, then strolled in the direction of Yardley Street until the guy from the pub appeared from the doorway of Greggs. Shelley stopped. Hands in his coat pockets, he gripped his phone.

  “I thought we’d reached an understanding,” he called. “You leave me be, I don’t break any of your bones. Seemed fairly straightforward to me.”

  Moonlight skittered along the blade of the knife. “You like talking down to me, don’t you?” said the guy. “You think I’m stupid.”

  “No, mate, I think you’re desperate, and there’s a difference. Look, final offer. Put the knife away and we’ll say no more. I’ll even spot you a drink. Maybe even one for your two friends behind me.”

  The guy’s eyes widened. With the element of surprise lost, he seemed to consider, wondering if a drink wasn’t such a bad return on the encounter. But his friends behind thought differently. They hadn’t met Shelley. Hadn’t experienced firsthand the aura of danger. And they made their move.

  Shelley kept himself in shape, but there were certain habits he’d let slip since leaving the SAS. He no longer performed knuckle push-ups or punched bags of rice to keep his fists hard, so rather than risk his hand, he used the edge of his phone to break the first guy’s nose.

  The effect was instant: overwhelming pain, confusion, and blindness, his attacker neutralized at once. Shelley finished it. He grabbed a fistful of the guy’s hair, drove an elbow into his temple, then dragged the limp body across himself to block the second assailant. This one had a knife, but Shelley jabbed into the guy’s septum with the flat of his right hand. A little harder and he could have killed him. As it was, he simply put him down and then reached to scoop up the knife.

  “Fuck’s sake,” he called after the guy from the pub, who had turned and shown a clean pair of heels, “you lot can’t sharpen knives for shit.”

  Chapter 5

  “Captain Shelley.” The man who stood beside a low wall outside the hospital wore a woolen coat and black jeans similar to Shelley’s, almost as though he were deliberately mirroring him. “My name is Claridge,” he said, and held out his hand to shake.

  Shelley’s eyes ran down the line of his coat, but he guessed if the guy was carrying a weapon, it would be better hidden than that. “You’re MoD, are you?”

  “No, MI5. Now, if you’d like to follow me inside, and follow my line exactly, please.”

  “It’s like that, is it? We want to keep our TV appearances to a minimum.”

  Claridge nodded. He was about the same age as Shelley, both of them knocking on forty, but he was as neat and nondescript as his voice. “I’ve already been inside and paved the way, so to speak. We need to make the best use of our time, so any more talking we’ll do in the mortuary.”

  They stepped inside the hospital, Shelley tracing Claridge’s steps. As they descended to the mortuary he felt the old tickle of anticipation, then remembered why they were here: because Cookie was dead; because I’ve always got your back was suddenly an empty promise.

  The mortuary attendant slept at his desk, and the department was otherwise empty. Claridge tutted as they passed, raising a wry eyebrow. “Fast asleep. And with all that coffee, too.”

  “How long will he be out?”

  “Half an hour. It’s all we’ll need.”

  They passed through more double doors and into a room that was markedly colder. Claridge approached a bank of metal drawers, reaching for the one marked “Cook, P.”

  “The body was discovered behind bins in an alley at the back of Tottenham Court Road. A quantity of cocaine was found in his jacket pocket. The official line of inquiry is that your friend was involved in a drug deal that went wrong.”

  Cookie hated drugs, thought Shelley. As far as he was concerned, they were the devil’s business. But of course a lot could change.

  “Perhaps you’d like to suspend judgment until you see the body.” Claridge hesitated, his hand on the drawer. “I must warn you, it’s not pretty.”

  “He was never what you’d call an oil painting.”

  “I’m afraid he looks a lot worse now.” Out came the drawer and right away Shelley noticed the unusual contours of the sheet covering the head. He nodded to Claridge, who drew the sheet down to the neck.

  Shelley clenched his jaw. It was Cookie, but only just. Cookie, missing most of his skull, the brainpan like a jagged rocky outcrop, the cavity empty where what was left of the brain had been removed.

  “The autopsy’s been carried out?” he asked.

  “I have a copy for you here.” From his coat, Claridge produced a brown manila folder that he passed to Shelley.

  Shelley leafed through, moving around the drawer to inspect the head wound. A thought made him catch himself. It’s not just another body on the battlefield—this one is Cookie. Then he forced himself to return dispassionately to the matter at hand.

  “No rim burn, it says here. No scorching or stippling on the wound. Means the shooter stood at a distance.” He looked at Claridge. “What does that tell you?”

  “I’m your standard-issue pencil-pusher. I want your opinion.”

  “It means your drug-deal-gone-wrong theory is most likely cobblers.”

  “It’s not my theory.”

  “Any casings at the scene?”

  “No.”

  “Any physical evidence of shots fired at the scene?”

  “Not even any reports of shots fired.”

  Shelley examined the wound some more, glad that the body’s eyes were closed. He referred back to the autopsy notes, talking to himself as much as Claridge. “No slug recovered, obviously.”

  Claridge shook his head. “What do you think we would have learned from it?”

  “The slug? Well, it would depend if the weapon’s riflings were on record. Otherwise, not a lot we can’t work out from the wound. Damage like this, the slug had to come from a high-powered shoulder weapon and, with that kind of rifle, it doesn’t matter if you hit anything major, because the shock or blood loss does the rest.” He stopped. Thinking. “But this was a head-shot. This wasn’t snatched in haste. The shooter took his time, fired from a distance. What kind of weapon do you choose for its stopping power and for long-distance capability?”

  “It depends what you plan to shoot with it.”

  “A bloody elephant, by the looks of things.” He shot a look at Claridge, only to see the MI5 man staring impassively back at him. Shelley drew back the remainder of the sheet, revealing the Y-shaped autopsy incision sutured to the groin. On Cookie’s side was a bullet graze. Shelley consulted the notes. “A smaller caliber. Evidently fired in haste. This one left stippling, but no soot, which means it was fired from closer range, probably a few feet away. So this came first, the kill-shot second. Either the assailant winged him and then changed guns to finish the job, or there was more than one assailant.

  “What clothes was he wearing when he was found?”

  “It’s in the notes. An anorak, jeans, sweater—none of it too fragrant. As you know, Major Cook was of no fixed abode. It appears he had been sleeping on the streets.”

  Shelley winced with a twinge of guilt. It had been over a year since he last spoke to Cookie. He’d tried Cookie’s old phone and what turned out to be a mothballed email account, and he’d sent a card at Christmas. But scraping a living, setting up in business, life with Lucy—all that had got in the way of being there for his old CO, making sure his friend was okay, watching his back. Until one day Shelley woke up and it hit him how long it was since they’d l
ast spoken, and the alarm bells had started ringing.

  “Homeless then,” he said. “And Scotland Yard gets a lot of homeless men killed in drug shoot-outs, does it?”

  “Remember: not my theory.”

  “Stomach contents…he’d eaten well. Steak, potato. He always did love his steak and chips. No presence of alcohol or drugs. It’s a strange kind of rough he was living.”

  Again he glanced at Claridge, who remained deadpan.

  “Look at this,” said Shelley, waving the report at Claridge. “There was no blood on his clothes. No damage consistent with his wounds. What does that tell us?”

  “That he wasn’t wearing those clothes when he died.”

  There was something about Claridge’s voice that made Shelley glance over sharply. “That means something to you, does it?”

  “It might. Maybe. I don’t know. Continue,” said Claridge.

  “And look at these marks on his wrists and hands. Report says unidentified marks on the wrists, but that looks like handcuffs to me.”

  “You could have got out of those,” said Claridge.

  Shelley threw him a puzzled look. “What makes you say that?”

  “You’re double-jointed. It says so in your record.”

  Shelley frowned, then returned his attention to Cookie’s hands, noticing patches of damaged skin. “Both of them have this…it’s a burn of some kind.”

  He reached and placed Cookie’s hands together, just as they would have been while handcuffed, and inspected the burns.

  “It’s as though he were holding something. Some kind of small explosion in his hands.” He replaced Cookie’s hands by his side. “It says there was a splinter, too.”

  “Yes, it was sent to the lab for testing,” said Claridge. “It’s since disappeared.”

  Shelley raised an eyebrow. “You don’t seem surprised by that.”

  “I’m not.”

  Chapter 6

  Shelley followed Claridge to an old BMW parked on a side street away from prying electronic eyes. Taking seats inside, they sat in silence for a moment or so.

  “How did he get there?” asked Shelley, crippled with guilt that he didn’t know the answer himself. “How did he end up on the streets?”

  “He had a relationship breakup.”

  Susan, thought Shelley. He had never liked Cookie’s girlfriend. Loud and coarse, and the kind of drug addict they called a garbage-head, who’d take anything as long as it got her high.

  “He went traveling for six months,” continued Claridge. “As far as we know, when he returned home he had been evicted from his flat in Hammersmith. Most homeless people assume theirs is a temporary situation, just until they get themselves sorted. You remember summer last year? Not a bad time to be sleeping out-of-doors. But the drink takes hold. One night under Waterloo Bridge becomes two weeks, then two months…”

  “Then a year.”

  “Ten percent of all people living rough on the streets are ex–armed forces.”

  Shelley wondered where the MI5 guy was going with this, as Claridge picked up and handed him a newspaper folded to the headline Lord Killed in Freak Hunting Accident.

  “This is two weeks old,” said Shelley.

  “The very same day Major Cook was killed, in fact.”

  “Just call him Cookie. He hated his rank. Couldn’t stand being called Captain Cook. Didn’t like Major Cook much better. Major Cook, major stare.” Shelley gave a short laugh as he remembered, picturing his friend’s grinning face and using it to replace the dead one he’d just seen. “This Lord Oakleigh who died, what’s he got to do with it?”

  “Officially, Oakleigh accidentally shot himself while out hunting, but I’ve had sight of a suppressed autopsy report concluding that he was stabbed to death by an assailant, using a weapon improvised from a tree branch. I believe that assailant was Cookie.”

  “Right.” Shelley took a deep breath. Instinct honed by years of service told him what was coming. “Okay. So there’s an official version and there’s an unofficial version. Why are you telling me the unofficial version?”

  “I’m telling you because you were looking for Cookie and because I’ve seen your record. You’re a company man, but a company man of integrity, and the two so rarely come as a package. On top of all that, you have tremendous field skills. You are, in short, exactly the operative I’m looking for.”

  Shelley’s voice was hard. “Right, first, I’m not your operative. Nor am I a ‘company man,’ and I never was. I was a soldier, fighting for Queen, country, and the man at my side. And that’s ‘was,’ in the past tense. Do you understand? I’m no longer a plaything for the likes of you to send somewhere unpleasant. I’m a guy who lives in Stepney Green with a wife and a dog, and a security consultancy business that won’t quite get off the ground. A regular Joe, as the Yanks say. And the more I hear from you, the more I’m getting the nasty feeling that even sitting here is putting all that at risk.”

  The internal light flicked on as Shelley opened the door to go.

  “You can avenge him,” Claridge said quickly. “You can do this last thing for your friend.”

  Shelley closed his eyes. He felt as though his guilt were on show for Claridge to see.

  “Listen, you’re right,” pressed Claridge. “This knowledge alone would be enough to get you killed. But I guarantee you this: when you hear the rest of what I have to say, if you’re even half the soldier I think you are, you will want to take action; you won’t be able to stop yourself from taking this job. What’s more, I can see to it that you’re amply rewarded. This security company you’re trying to get off the ground, for example. I’m a section head at MI5, Shelley, I can see to it that a lot of business comes your way.”

  Shelley closed the door. He waited until the internal light dimmed and shut off before he next spoke.

  “Tell me what you have to say.”

  Chapter 7

  “I’m off the books here, Shelley. There is no official capacity to this. I’m investigating an organization that…well, I don’t even know if it is ‘an organization,’ as such, but I believe I know what it does. I have material suggesting that Lord Oakleigh and other players were fully aware they were taking part in a hunt using real guns and firing real bullets, with a human as prey.”

  “Players?”

  “That’s what they call themselves.”

  Shelley gave a short, disbelieving laugh. “This material—what is it?”

  “It’s a story that begins with one of the wives, and her husband taking an abnormal interest in his phone and computer. She overheard something about a meeting. At first she assumed he was having an affair. We were at Cambridge together, we were…close back then, so she came to me with her concerns, not as an MI5 operative, but as a friend. As a favor, I mounted a little surveillance work. What I saw was hubby meeting two smartly dressed men and discussing something over a laptop. I didn’t recognize either of the men, but reported back about the meeting and thought little of it, relieved on her behalf that he was probably making some financial arrangements rather than cheating on her.

  “But then she made contact again. There had been more calls, more secrecy; he was arranging to spend a weekend away, apparently on a golfing holiday, but the excuse he gave proved false when she checked it. With my friend’s permission I hacked his phone, and it’s lucky I did, because what I heard was that players were being swept for bugs. I got perhaps two minutes of rather vague conversation before all personal electronic devices had to be given up, and it didn’t make for an edifying broadcast. They were discussing a hunt, with an SAS man as the quarry. I might have assumed it was some kind of paintball game, had I not heard the word ‘kill-shot.’”

  Shelley shrugged. “It could have been a euphemism.”

  “Of course. And that’s what I hoped. But perhaps I heard something in their voices. Maybe it was just a whim. Either way, I decided to monitor recently deceased ex-SAS men. Two days after this phone call, Cookie’s name came up.
Having seen the body, you can understand why I reached the conclusion I did.”

  “Oh, come on. It’s…insane.”

  “It is, yes. But tell me this. In your heart of hearts, does it surprise you? Does it really seem so far beyond the pale?”

  Shelley’s mind was on the weaponry and Cookie’s wounds, thinking of Oakleigh and making connections. “Hunting,” he said thoughtfully. “It was a hunting rifle that killed him…” He pieced together what he knew. “Oakleigh fired the smaller-caliber rifle. He was close to Cookie, must have thought he had the drop on him. He pulled the trigger, grazed Cookie. Cookie finished it. But then…then somebody else killed Cookie?”

  “It would seem that way.”

  “Killed him with a hunting rifle. Sniper-shot.”

  Jesus, he was thinking, of course. They hunted him down and picked him off.

  “They were definitely talking about a hunt?”

  “They were. According to my friend, her husband has rekindled an interest in hunting, too.”

  “God! And that’s it? That’s where your investigation drew to a halt? What about the two guys you saw your friend’s husband meet? I assume you’ve got some visual.”

  Claridge produced a picture on his phone. A grainy shot taken through the window of a lawyer’s office. All three men were indistinct.

  “This all?”

  “At the time it was all I needed, to put Sarah’s mind at rest.”

  “What about CCTV?”

  “Either by accident or design, they stuck to dead spots.”

  “Design, no doubt. They knew what they were doing. How about checking with appointments at the lawyer’s office?”

  “I hacked the computer. The identities of the two men signing in at that time turned out to be false. The trail is cold there, Shelley. I did everything I could do. In the meantime, I did some more checking. Cookie wasn’t the first homeless ex-serviceman to die in similar circumstances. There were two incidents last year, also brushed conveniently under the carpet. It was around about then that it struck me just how far-reaching this thing could be.”