On the Edge

by Michael Ridpath

  Calder turned back towards his cottage, still half a mile distant and quickened his pace. Odd for someone else to be out at this time, especially heading away from the village. He looked over his shoulder. The man behind was gaining on him and Mrs Mander had disappeared round a bend. Every nerve in Calder’s body screamed danger. He had to move now before the man caught up. Of course, there might be a completely innocent explanation for the presence of the man in the lane, in which case what Calder was about to do would seem very odd. But after Jen and Perumal he wasn’t willing to take any chances.

  Without warning, Calder took off at a sprint up the lane. He heard a crack, and turned to see the man pointing something in his direction. A gun.

  Jesus! He jinked to the right and leapt a gate into a field. He landed on his feet and felt a sharp pain in his ankle. He cursed, and started running into the darkness, trying to take up a zigzag pattern, doing his best to ignore the pain. He remembered from his Initial Officer Training days at Cranwell how difficult it was to hit a running target with a handgun at even thirty metres, although his pursuer was closer than that. He looked back and saw the man vaulting the gate behind him.

  His left ankle was weakened, and he could only move at half speed. The field was a large one, with no cover, just pasture and the occasional streak of groundwater glimmering dimly in the moonlight. There was a copse just beneath the ridge on the other side, but it was a long way, at least two hundred yards. Over to his right stood a group of twenty or so cows. Bullocks, actually; Friesians, if he remembered correctly. He darted towards them and heard another shot. He looked back into the darkness. The man was gaining on him.

  The bullocks looked up as if dazed by the darkness and he plunged into the middle of them. They skittered to either side of him, but they were big beasts, not easily frightened. A couple of them lumbered towards his pursuer.

  Calder realized that with his bad ankle he wasn’t going to make it to the far hedge before the man with the gun caught up with him. And once that happened he was dead. So he spun round, trying to keep one of the bullocks between himself and the gun. The animals were jumping in all directions. He heard another sharp report and a sound more like a roar than a moo. One of the beasts next to Calder bucked and bolted into the darkness. The other animals began to follow at a rumbling canter. In the gap between two of them, Calder saw his pursuer.

  He sprang, hitting the man in the middle and sending them both to the ground in front of the stampeding bullocks. Miraculously, none of the hooves flying over their bodies hit either of them. Calder lunged for the hand holding the gun. The man writhed and bucked. He was strong and quick – they were evenly matched. The two bodies rolled over into one of the broad pools of standing water left by the recent heavy rain. The cattle had thundered off into the distance.

  Calder concentrated on trying to prise the gun from the other man’s grip. A mistake. His adversary twisted round, jerked his arm and let go of the weapon, causing it to fly in an arc through the air. It came down with a splash several yards away. Calder, unbalanced, found himself face down in the water. The man slipped himself on to Calder’s back, grabbed his head and ground his face into the mud.

  With his eyes and mouth shut and cold water about his ears, Calder bucked and kicked, but he couldn’t dislodge his attacker. He tried to twist his head to one side to breathe, but it was impossible. The pressure on the back of his head was firm, ramming him into the mud.

  His lungs felt about to burst. In a few seconds he was going to drown in three inches of water and a couple of inches of mud.

  He went limp, trying to give himself a moment to think, and perhaps confuse his attacker. But the downward pressure on his head didn’t ease off. He only had seconds now before he either opened his mouth to take in a lungful of mud and water, or passed out through lack of oxygen.

  The weight of the man on his back seemed to be growing heavier. Calder couldn’t move.

  He had only the time and the strength for one last attempt. He squeezed his elbows closer in to his body, and then with one heave, pushed upwards and at the same time drew his knees up under his waist. Then he straightened his legs, sending his backside into the air and the man tumbling over his shoulders. He ripped his head out of the water, and took a deep breath.

  The man turned and scrabbled for the gun, which lay somewhere under the water. But he was looking in what Calder was sure was the wrong place. Still gasping for air, Calder threw himself over to a spot five yards from his attacker, where he had seen the gun fall. He plunged his hands into the water and within a couple of seconds felt hard metal. He lifted the revolver out of the water and pointed it at the other man, who was still frantically splashing about.

  ‘Stop,’ he called, fighting for breath.

  The man looked at him, rose to his feet, turned and ran.

  ‘Stop!’ Calder shouted again aiming the gun with two hands at the retreating figure. But the man wasn’t going to stop.

  Above the gun sight at the end of the barrel Calder could see the man’s back, presenting a steady target as he ran at a constant speed and direction away from him. All Calder had to do was press the trigger. But he hesitated. Calder had never killed anyone before and he didn’t want to start now, even if seconds before his target had shown no similar qualms.

  He lowered the revolver to point it at the rapidly moving legs, now twenty yards away. There was still a risk he might miss the limbs and cause a fatal injury higher up.

  He pressed the trigger.

  Nothing. Water or mud had jammed up the firing mechanism.

  Calder let the gun fall to his side as he watched the man sprint back to the gate and the lane. Then he limped home across the field, wet, cold, covered in mud and cow dung, out of breath, his heart racing. But still alive.

  26

  The rain was falling hard on the Isle of Dogs, the stretch of godforsaken land surrounded on three sides by the River Thames that now acted as a platform for the giant office buildings containing the densest gathering of financiers in Europe.

  Calder stood in the partial shelter of a young leafless tree, the Canary Wharf Tower behind him, in front of him another building, almost as big, into which he had seen Justin Carr-Jones hurry an hour and a half earlier, accompanied by Derek Grayling and a man he vaguely recognized from Capital Markets. Somewhere in there lurked a rating agency, which was the likely venue for Carr-Jones’s meeting.

  After he had been attacked and nearly killed on the way back from the pub Calder had abandoned his reticence about confronting Carr-Jones. He was angry, and he was impatient, and he was sick to death of being pushed around by that scumbag.

  He had waited outside the entrance to Bloomfield Weiss’s building, with the idea of following Carr-Jones and bundling him into a suitably isolated corner. His plans had been partially foiled when he had seen him leave the building with the two others. Calder had followed their taxi from the City to Canary Wharf. He knew that he should really wait until Carr-Jones was alone, but he couldn’t face the idea of tamely following the three of them back to Broadgate and watching Carr-Jones go back to work.

  So, when he saw the group of three men dressed in raincoats step out of the building and look for a cab, he moved forward.

  ‘Justin, how are you?’

  Carr-Jones turned to face Calder. The first thing that Calder noticed was a black eye and a grazed cheek. The second thing was the expression of fear on his face. Real fear.

  ‘Do you have a moment?’ Calder’s words were polite, but there was menace in his voice. Menace that the other two men picked up on.

  Derek Grayling instinctively moved nearer his boss.

  ‘Alone,’ Calder said.

  Carr-Jones looked panicked. Calder himself must have appeared desperate from the expression on Derek Grayling’s face. ‘Shall I call the police, Justin?’ he asked, pulling out his phone.

  ‘Should he?’ Calder asked Carr-Jones.

  Carr-Jones swallowed and shook his head.
/>   ‘You two take a taxi back to the office,’ Calder commanded. ‘Justin will be with you shortly.’

  Carr-Jones nodded. ‘I’ll catch you up,’ he said.

  Glancing doubtfully at his boss, Grayling hailed a cab. Once he and the other investment banker were safely inside, Calder grabbed Carr-Jones’s arm. ‘Let’s go somewhere a bit more private, shall we?’

  ‘I can’t talk to you,’ Carr-Jones said, but he allowed himself to be dragged down some steps and on to a lower pathway along the old dockside. Above them the Canary Wharf Tower stretched eight hundred feet up into the air, but they were invisible from ground level, and in this rain there was no one to watch.

  Calder propelled Carr-Jones into a secluded passageway leading underneath a building and backed him up against a wall. By this time they were both soaking wet, Carr-Jones’s glasses were covered in water, with drips running off the frames. Their faces were inches apart.

  ‘Nasty bruise,’ said Calder, touching Carr-Jones’s cheek. The other man flinched as he did so. ‘How did that happen?’

  ‘Slipped on the steps outside my apartment on the way to work,’ he said. ‘In the rain.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Did you know someone tried to kill me? In Norfolk? Someone you paid, no doubt. Perhaps the same man you paid to kill Jen and Perumal.’

  ‘No,’ Carr-Jones said, shaking his head vigorously. ‘I didn’t pay anyone.’

  ‘You see, I know you killed those two,’ Calder said. ‘Or arranged for them to die.’

  ‘I didn’t.’ Carr-Jones’s voice was hoarse.

  ‘Of course you did. You and Perumal covered up the revaluation losses on the IGLOO notes last year. Jen found out from Perumal what you’d done. She threatened to expose you. Didn’t she?’ Calder gripped Carr-Jones’s lapel and pushed him up against the wall. ‘Didn’t she?’

  ‘I’m not telling you anything,’ he said. But he was breathing hard.

  ‘So then you had her killed.’

  ‘I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.’

  ‘Why should I listen to you?’ Calder slammed Carr-Jones into the wall. ‘Why shouldn’t I just beat the shit out of you and toss you into that dock there? Seems like it’s either you or me.’

  ‘You wouldn’t dare hit me,’ Carr-Jones said, trying to regain his old bravado. ‘I’d bring charges of assault.’

  Calder hit Carr-Jones once in the stomach. Carr-Jones doubled up and groaned. ‘I don’t think you’re going to the police, Justin.’ As Carr-Jones straightened up, Calder hit him again.

  Carr-Jones closed his eyes. ‘All right, all right. Let me go. Let me go, and we’ll talk.’

  ‘You’ll tell me what you did?’

  ‘I can’t.’

  Calder shoved Carr-Jones towards the dockside.

  ‘Listen to me!’ Carr-Jones pleaded. ‘Listen to me. I’ll explain.’

  Calder stopped just short of the edge, with the black rain-spattered water of the Thames lapping ten feet below. He hesitated, and then shoved Carr-Jones towards a solitary wooden bench. Carr-Jones slumped on to it.

  Calder leaned over him. ‘Talk to me.’

  Carr-Jones hunched in the rain, his tan raincoat now sodden dark brown. He bent down, breathing deeply. For a moment Calder thought he was hyperventilating. Carr-Jones might be cool under the fiercest fire in the political jungle, but it was becoming clear that he was a physical coward. ‘You need to back off,’ he said.

  ‘Hey, now’s not the time to threaten me,’ Calder said.

  ‘It’s not me. See these marks?’ Carr-Jones pointed to his face.

  ‘You didn’t get them slipping down some steps?’

  ‘I was attacked. This morning, outside my flat. It was still dark and this guy pushed me into a mews and pulled a gun. American guy. He said he’d blow my head off unless I kept quiet and stopped you asking questions. Then he hit me a couple of times. The thing is, I believe him. I’m sure he will kill me.’ He glanced at Calder.

  ‘I’m sure he will too,’ said Calder.

  ‘You’ve figured out a lot,’ Carr-Jones said. ‘I won’t tell you how much of it is accurate. But I will tell you that I didn’t kill Jen and I didn’t kill Perumal.’

  ‘If you’re so innocent, how come you threatened to buy the airfield?’

  ‘I wanted you to stop digging. Needed you to stop digging. Because if you stumbled across what had really happened and went to the police with it, we’d both be dead. Simple as that. That’s why you have to back off.’

  ‘Tell me about the IGLOO reval last year. Did you know Perumal was faking it?’

  Carr-Jones shook his head. He was beginning to regain his composure. ‘I’m not telling you anything. You said you’ll kill me now, but I know you. You won’t. If I talk to you, then I’m dead. Just like Jen and Perumal.’

  For a moment Calder considered beating the shit out of him anyway, and even tossing him into the dock. But looking at the small, bruised, rain-sodden man next to him, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

  He joined Carr-Jones on the bench, watching the rain pummel the water in the disused dock in thousands of tiny eruptions. The thing was, he believed him. Carr-Jones would happily destroy someone’s self-esteem, or their career, but he wouldn’t murder them. A smart political operator like him didn’t have to. Death and physical danger were anathema to him.

  He hadn’t killed Jen. He hadn’t killed Perumal.

  ‘OK. So if you didn’t kill them, who did?’ Calder asked.

  ‘I don’t know for sure, and I’m not about to speculate.’

  ‘Jean-Luc Martel?’

  Carr-Jones didn’t reply.

  ‘All right. But I want you to assure me that Brynteg Global Investments are going to withdraw their offer for the airfield tomorrow.’

  ‘Will you stop asking questions?’

  Calder turned and grabbed the other man. ‘I’ll do what I damn well like. But if you go through with that offer, I will come and find you and I will destroy you. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Carr-Jones. ‘I’ll see the offer is withdrawn.’

  Calder let him go.

  Carr-Jones slumped back on to the bench, relieved to be released. ‘What are you going to do now?’

  Calder stood up. ‘You’re convinced that if I ask more questions you’re going to die?’

  Carr-Jones nodded.

  ‘In that case I’m going to fly to Wyoming and ask Jean-Luc Martel some more questions. See you.’

  Calder smiled at the expression of dismay on Carr-Jones’s face, and walked away.

  Calder’s next move was obvious. The key to Jen and Perumal’s deaths lay in Jackson Hole. He had felt contempt for Carr-Jones’s fear, but the man wasn’t a fool. Until Calder managed to bring the people responsible to justice, he was in danger. So the sooner he acted, the better.

  He drove back up to Norfolk to pack for a week or more in the Rocky Mountains in winter. And to tell Jerry that the threat to the airfield was lifted, even if the threat to one of its owners was still very much present. Jerry promised to mind the shop while Calder was away. Jerry was clearly relieved about the airfield, but Calder found his partner’s concern for his well-being touching. Once again he felt he had picked the right man to go into business with.

  Calder intended to spend the night before his departure at his sister’s house, but when he called her, she said their father would be staying for a couple of days. He tried to back out, but his sister wouldn’t have it, and he supposed she had a point. He just didn’t have the strength for a fight with the old curmudgeon. He decided he would ignore any criticism and try to be polite. The same intentions he held every time he met his father.

  He was making his way southwards through the fens, the Maserati loitering behind a lorry laden with sugar beet, when his mobile rang. He didn’t recognize the number. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Alex Calder?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘It’s Sandy. Sandy Waterhouse. Jen’s friend.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ C
alder recognized the soft American accent.

  ‘Look. If you’re in London I wonder if we could meet up. I’d kind of like to talk to you.’

  ‘Oh, OK,’ said Calder, surprised. Tm on my way down there now, actually. I’m flying to America tomorrow morning, but I might be able to meet you for a quick drink this evening.’

  ‘Can you do later? Say nine o’clock in that wine bar we went to before? And this time I won’t keep you hanging around, I promise.’

  ‘When did you say your flight was?’ Anne asked. The children were upstairs being read to by their grandfather, William was still at work, and Calder and his sister were cracking through a bottle of New Zealand sauvignon in her kitchen.

  ‘Nine-oh-five from Heathrow. Change planes in Denver and wait for several hours.’

  ‘Are you sure you have to go?’

  ‘You said yourself it would be good for me to do something about Jen’s death. And I feel the same way about Perumal. These people should still be alive, Anne.’

  ‘And so should you,’ said his sister. What about that man in Norfolk? He’ll be back, you know. It sounds like he’s already scared the hell out of that Carr-Jones chap.’

  ‘I know. But there’s not much I can do about that. If someone’s after me, they’re after me. If I just potter about my normal business I’ll be a sitting duck. I’ve got to get them before they get me. That means I have to go to Jackson Hole.’

  ‘What about the police? Someone tried to kill you, for God’s sake! It’s their job to catch whoever it was, not yours.’

  ‘I thought about that, but who would I go to? The nearest police station to Hanham Staithe is ten miles away. By the time they got to my house, the guy would be long gone. I’d answer lots of questions and stir things up a bit, but without Tessa or Carr-Jones being willing to talk to the police, I have no evidence linking Jen to Perumal and the Teton Fund. No, I’ve got to go straight to the enemy.’