by Oliver Tidy
The soldier stared out across the open farmland that was materialising with the onset of the day and the early morning chill settled on him. He thought back to the time when he was an ordinary nobody, just a squaddie in the services doing his job. Somewhere deep in the darkest recesses of his memory a news story of that time was dusted off. A man had shot dead two unarmed police officers during a bungled Post Office robbery. He’d gone to ground, but there had ultimately been nowhere for him to hide. The media, the law, the ordinary man in the street, like beaters at a shoot, united by a common purpose, had hunted, harried and hounded until he was flushed out. He made someone a hero. The citizen’s arrest had left the killer needing extensive hospital treatment. His arrester might even have received a medal.
With his emotional guard down, he allowed the complete loneliness and hopelessness of his situation to press in on him. He reflected on the plan that he had devised and cursed himself for an idealistic idiot. A fucking dumb grunt idiot. It wouldn’t work. Why hadn’t he listened to Eda and stayed dead? Why had he allowed Tallis to talk him into this? He was going to die here. He was going to die a premature, lonely, pointless and shameful death. He would be recollected as one of recent British history’s most callous and cowardly murderers. A despicable scumbag. And no one would ever be able to understand why. They’d write him off as a nutcase, a sick sociopath. Complete and utter ignominy was all that awaited him. The most he would be able to hope for, for posterity, would be a mention in some macabre true-crime book that would excite, titillate and fascinate the morbid and sick. Perhaps the name Acer Sansom would end up consigned to history as an answer to a pub quiz question that made people wish out loud that he were burning in hell.
And then he remembered something Tallis had told him. It had been with some wry amusement that Tallis had mentioned that Bishop was the Member of Parliament for the constituency that Tallis’s village was part of. If Tallis was to be buried with full honours the media would be there in force, especially given the circumstances of his death. And who would that have to bring to the party? Tallis’s MP. Bishop couldn’t possibly not attend.
In a fresh wave of hatred, the idea occurred to him that he should attend too. Bide his time, ease his way through the mourners and shoot Bishop dead. But he quickly abandoned the fantasy. He’d never get close enough and it wouldn’t prove anything. And what he wanted more than anything, more than Bishop’s and Smith’s lives, was their guilt, their hypocrisy and their heinous crimes exposed. In a lucid moment, he realised that he couldn’t even attend his friend’s funeral. It would be a sentimental act not worth the risk of taking even as a distant bystander. It was something they might be prepared for. Those who knew the truth would know how Sansom would be hurting at Tallis’s death. They might be pinning their hopes on him turning up to say goodbye. Well they’d be disappointed. He wouldn’t be making it that easy for them. But with an epiphany born out of extreme desperation something else occurred to him – the funeral might offer an alternative way to find out where Tallis lived.
He walked back to the car and forced himself to eat something. Then he tried to rest for an hour or two. He’d had no sleep for twenty-four hours and he had a few more to go – hours in which he would need to be awake and alert.
*
The children were sleeping late and Mrs Botha had instructed that they be left to do so. They had stayed up well beyond their bedtimes the previous night as a special treat. It had been their grandmother’s birthday celebration. The Bodrum farmhouse had been filled with the noise and activity of many family visitors. And the children had needed some happiness and diversion after the misery and sadness at the loss of their doting father.
As the kitchen staff prepared for a late breakfast on the terrace overlooking the pool, Mrs Botha helped herself to a mug of the strong black coffee that was brewed especially for her each morning. As she poured, she absently listened to the television station that provided the background noise for the industry around her. The news went from national to international. In England police were seeking a dangerous gunman wanted for questioning in connection with the deaths of three unarmed police officers. She looked up at the screen and into the face of a man she believed dead and the coffee mug fell from her hand to smash at her feet on the tiled floor.
***
11
After some fitful dozing he awoke and gave it up. The news on the TV and its implications crowded his mind, making sleep, or what was passing for it, impossible. He relieved himself up against the side of the car, consumed an energy drink and some chocolate and then headed back towards the motorway. The sky matched his mood and his outlook – overcast, depressing and dark.
As a precaution, he left the motorway at Winchester, threading his way on the last part of the journey through the quiet Hampshire countryside on A-roads, first to Petersfield and then along the A3 to Waterlooville. By the time he arrived it was a little after eight o’clock.
The settlement was much like any other of its size that characterised the region. It was focussed around the old but now superseded main highway – the inevitably-if-unimaginatively-named London Road. Like any other town, the residential suburbs built up in density the closer one got to its middle. Similar sized plots that held one big house with a large garden on the outskirts boasted two and then three or four houses the further he progressed to the heart of it. With the odd historical exception, the houses looked the same as everywhere else he had driven through. He passed standard school buildings, the usual pubs, and arrived at a commonplace promenade of shops where he found what he was looking for. And it was already open. It wasn’t surprising. It would probably be one of their busiest days.
He parked in an empty bay outside the shop, adjusted his cap, glasses and expression, and went to tell some lies. The scent of freshly-cut flowers burst through the open door of the florist’s to engulf him. He breathed it deeply and it helped – some free aromatherapy. Two women and a young girl were busy at their labours: arranging, wrapping, tying ribbons. They all looked tired, under pressure and up at him when he spoke.
‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘Would I be right in guessing that you’re supplying the policeman’s funeral today?’
A tall attractive woman said, ‘We are, but I’m sorry, we can’t take any more orders for it. We’re out of everything, including time.’
He smiled at her. ‘I can see you’re busy. Actually, I just want an address, some directions if you could, please. I’ve got something that’s got to be delivered to the house, but I can’t find my piece of paper and my phone’s battery is dead.’
The woman nodded, understanding. ‘Claire, write down the address for the gentleman, would you?’ The schoolgirl, probably drafted in to help her mum for the day, moved to do that. ‘See the road going off the A3 over there?’ said the woman who had spoken to him. Sansom followed where she was gesturing with a large pair of scissors. ‘Go straight down there for about half-a-mile, Idsworth Road. It’ll be on your left.’
‘Thank you very much. Sorry to have bothered you.’
The girl gave him the shop’s card with the address scrawled on it. He smiled his thanks. By the time he had his hand on the door handle they were all back to their business and he was forgotten.
He turned over in his mind whether it would be best to get in and out quickly. But that would depend, of course, on whether anyone was using Tallis’s home as a stopover or already something more permanent.
He knew from conversations with Tallis that he had lived alone, but he knew nothing of the rest of his family. With his death being recent, he hoped that the vultures hadn’t been in to cherry-pick the policeman’s belongings – as they had at Gerald’s – or worse: begun clearing out the stuff they thought was worthless. Even if they hadn’t got round to it yet, it was quite possible that relatives who might have had to travel from far-afield to attend the funeral – and people being people, Sansom would count on anyone who was anyone in Tallis’s life, no matter how tenuo
us the link, would want to attend the high-profile, newsworthy funeral – would stay over in his house, especially if it was something they would stand to inherit.
He also knew from conversations with Tallis that the material he now sought to help him preserve his own existence had been kept by the policeman at his home. It was why the soldier had risked the cross-country journey and why he would now risk advertising his position and presence. For the first time he began to wonder whether his enemies would also have paid the dead detective’s home a visit for the same reason and the notion pulled him further down into his uncertainty.
The road was easily found, narrow and quiet. The property sat in a treeless plot. It was a plain bungalow with dormer windows. Tallis had told him it was mortgage-free. The soldier couldn’t see much else good about it. There was one car parked on the driveway. The curtains were drawn. He went past slowly. Then, having failed to notice that it was a cul-de-sac when he drove in, came to an unexpected dead end. A stout iron fence blocked the way. Through trees beyond that, he glimpsed a golf course and a large modern building that he guessed was the clubhouse. He eased the car through a hundred and eighty degrees and headed back past the house, noting the make and registration number of the vehicle occupying the driveway, and out to the main road. The idea of a street with one way in and one way out bothered him.
On his journey down from London he’d imagined that the best time for breaking and entering would be during the service. If the place was going to be deserted at any time, it would be then. He cursed himself for not asking what time the big media event was scheduled for while he was at the florist’s. But then he thought of two ways he could easily find out that information at short notice.
On the main road, once again, he steered away from the direction he had come in by, just heading for some space and country, away from people. Within a mile, he came across a small supermarket and stopped for a local paper. A picture of Tallis took up much of the front page. Pushing aside the feelings of regret and sadness at his passing, he scanned the accompanying article and found when his friend’s life and violent death were due to be publicly remembered. He took it to the checkout for something to read during his waiting and was relieved to find a woman on the till who had obviously missed the in-service-training-course on engaging the customer in puerile small talk, making eye-contact and trying to commit faces to memory for next time and a cheery hello and a catch-up.
She took the change he offered and, glancing down at Tallis’s photograph, said, ‘Rotten business. I don’t know what this country’s coming to. They should bring back the death penalty for scum like the bloke what killed him.’ And then she contradicted herself by adding, ‘Hanging’s too good for them.’
‘I agree,’ said Sansom, meaning it, and left.
Stepping back out on to the pavement, he noticed a small stack of empty cardboard boxes beside a commercial bin. He picked out a clean, plain one that would suit his purpose.
Common sense and good reason had filtered through his thinking and now Sansom had no intention of going anywhere near Portsmouth. He spent the next hour prowling the area around Tallis’s home looking for somewhere to park and wait out the hours without doing an impression of a sore thumb; somewhere he would be able to see the car that was parked on Tallis’s drive when it went by.
He was learning. His reconnoitre showed that there were several equally appealing ways for a vehicle to leave Waterlooville and head for the city. His search for the perfect surveillance spot brought him closer and closer, in ever decreasing circles, back to Tallis’s road where, in the end, to be absolutely certain, he had to park within sight of the road’s single exit. He came to a halt in the shade of a mature tree. Perhaps the cul-de-sac, with one road in and out, would prove a blessing rather than a problem after all.
By mid-morning the heavy cloud had rolled back and a late summer’s sun had emerged to raise the temperature in the car to a degree where Sansom, despite his intentions and his inability to get comfortable physically or mentally, succumbed sporadically to its soporific influence. He tried some radio but the news tore him up and he’d lost his appreciation for the noise of instruments.
Eventually, the clock dragged itself around to a time when he felt he should start to become more vigilant. He figured that any time in the two hours preceding the start of the service he might see the car from Tallis’s driveway go by. To be certain he made that two and a half. The journey to Portsmouth would not be long in time or distance, but the occasion might warrant an early showing for the vain or genuinely grieving. Parking could be a problem too.
With the start of the service ninety minutes distant, he saw a familiar vehicle poke its nose out of the opening a little along from him. He sank down in his seat but was still able to see a middle-aged couple formally dressed, looking serious and straight ahead as they cruised by in the car he had been waiting for.
He gave it another thirty minutes. If they’d forgotten something they might turn back within fifteen, believing they could still have made the service. After that and he’d gamble that they would have to resign themselves to attending without whatever it might be.
He locked up his car, adjusted the pistol in his waistband, cradled the empty cardboard box with both arms and crossed the road.
An old soldier at Sansom’s first barracks had passed on the priceless gem of simple subterfuge. He’d even proved it by example. A raw squaddie crossing a parade ground with no obvious purpose was far more likely to be stopped and accosted by some bullying NCO with a bee up his arse than he would be if he was carrying something – a clipboard, for example, or an empty cardboard box made to look heavy and important. It also gave the deceiver something to do with his hands and arms, which could become noticeably awkward, uncoordinated and unnatural-looking when left to their own unoccupied devices.
He walked the short distance along the main highway and turned into Idsworth Road. It was very quiet. Peaceful even. Perhaps it did have something going for it. As he covered the hundred yards to his destination, his eyes flitted from car to shadow, taking in any movement, any potential threat. He felt the palms of his hands begin to dampen against the cardboard and his heart-rate quicken. Conscious that anyone could be absently staring out of their front window, he concentrated on trying to strike a balance of nonchalance and purpose in his walk. The aimless, the lost, the nervous and anxious attracted attention. He felt an overwhelming urge to look behind him, to make sure ‘they’ hadn’t come out of their hiding places to surround him.
And then he was at the front door. On an impulse, he felt it best to knock loudly and give it a minute. There was always the one-in-ten-thousand chance that someone was home. It would also look the normal thing to do before any deliverer of a parcel might then reasonably venture around the back to leave it with a note, or in his case, force an entry.
Despite his unease at his exposed situation, he felt a small sense of satisfaction at standing on Tallis’s front step. He had to take whatever little comforts he could from his successes, no matter how trivial they might be. He was coming to realise that there was another growing battlefront that he must confront just as seriously. This was not a physical threat, like his enemies and bullets; not a propaganda threat like the media; this was psychological – all in his head. It was just as dangerous to him as any other – and mostly any issues would be self-generated.
He’d got to thirty when the door opened. A short, rotund, elderly woman dressed formally all in black stared up at him with a hard mouth and intelligent clear eyes. Sansom stared dumbly back at her. When time began again, he said the first thing he could think of, even though he knew the answer would be negative.
‘Mrs Tallis?’
‘Yes.’
As Sansom’s understanding, reason and sense of role-play scurried to darkened corners of his brain, she again waited before saying, ‘Is that for me?’
Eventually, he realised she was referring to the empty box he was carrying and also that
this provided another problem for him. He could hardly give her an empty box, wish her good afternoon and walk away. He also realised that he was not equipped with the necessary skills of the dramatic arts for impromptu cameo roles that he often envied in others. Gift of the gab was not on his CV.
He settled for some honesty. ‘But Stan told me he was divorced.’
To Sansom’s puzzlement, she smiled thinly. ‘He was. I’m his mother.’
‘Oh shit,’ said Sansom, all enthusiasm for his stupid idea finally gone.
‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ she said, although her expression betrayed nothing of the feeling that could generally be expected to go with her remark.
‘No, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for your loss, for his death.’
‘You obviously knew him?’
‘Yes. He was a friend.’
‘So why aren’t you at the service?’
‘Why aren’t you?’
She looked at him then as though he imagined she might look at an impudent child who had spoken out of turn. ‘That’s my business. Who are you? And why are you calling here when you obviously expect the house to be empty?’
They had both been thrown into the awkward situation with no time for preparation or consideration of how to deal with it, yet she was handling it so much better than him. She seemed more composed, more confident. She thought quicker. She was smarter.
‘Mrs Tallis. How close were you with Stan, please?’
She narrowed her eyes at him then. He wondered where her sharp thinking had taken her. ‘I think you should tell me who you are and what you are doing here, or I’m going to close the door.’