The Jackdaw

by Luke Delaney

  ‘Will do,’ Zukov replied and the line went dead, but the phone started chirping and vibrating again before Sean had even put it down.

  ‘Yes,’ he barked.

  ‘Jackson’s on the move,’ Bishop answered. ‘Heading west.’

  Now Sean did feel his stomach tighten with excitement. ‘You with the surveillance team?’

  ‘Yeah. DS Donnelly hooked us up.’

  ‘Stay with them and the target,’ Sean told him. ‘Jackson will be looking for you, so hang back out of sight and use the signal to track him. Understand?’

  ‘No problem,’ Bishop assured him, ‘but what if he’s not going to meet our man? What if he’s up to something else?’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘On the A4, approaching Earls Court.’

  Sean felt his heart rate suddenly accelerate, some primeval alarm telling him something was about to happen.

  ‘No,’ he told Bishop. ‘He’s on his way to meet him. I can feel it. Keep close, but out of sight. I’m coming to meet you.’

  Mark Hudson lay fully clothed on top of his bed in his room in the council flat he shared with his mother. A cigarette burnt in the ashtray next to him while he played the most violent video game he had been able to find in the shop to steal. The room was beginning to smell rancid from the pile of unwashed clothes on the floor, leftover takeaway food and stale smoke. The windows hadn’t been opened since the previous summer, more than six months ago. The stench was even beginning to keep his friends away, that and his increasingly violent and unpredictable mood swings. Not that he cared. He had his games and now he had a role model too.

  His mobile phone vibrated next to the ashtray and played a short burst of an underground rap song exalting the act of rape. He idly checked the message from one of his friends, the contents of which made him jump up, knocking the ashtray and cigarette flying as he scrambled to his desk and computer. His filthy fingers typed quickly and smoothly until he found what the text had told him to check out. He breathed a sigh of relief as he realized he hadn’t missed any of the action – the man on the screen sitting taped to the same chair as before, the hood still over his head as he fidgeted and tried to free himself from his bindings.

  Hudson barely dared breathe as he waited for his idol to appear on screen, but he didn’t have to wait long until the dark figure he’d come to admire so much came into view standing proud and confident. How Hudson would have loved to be alone with the man they called The Jackdaw for a while. He’d already fantasised about what he’d do to his idol, all shown live on Your View – the pupil taking his master’s place as he became the worshipped one – the most feared shark in the ocean. He licked his cold-sore-infected lips and settled down for the show. The dark figure walked to his victim and pulled the hood from his head, making him squint and squirm away from the light of his own future. He grabbed him by his short light brown hair and ripped the tape from his mouth. There was a silence for a few seconds while Barrowgate caught his breath and realized the full extent of his predicament.

  ‘Please,’ Barrowgate managed to beg. ‘Don’t kill me. I can pay you. Just tell me what you want.’

  ‘Justice,’ the dark figure spat the word at Barrowgate before turning to the camera to speak to his audience. ‘I want justice, Mr Barrowgate. But even here, even now you think you can buy whatever you like – think that if you pay me enough I’ll forget about the injustices I and people like me have had to endure at the hands of the greedy few. The greedy few like you, David Barrowgate.’

  ‘I’ve done nothing to you,’ Barrowgate pleaded. ‘I haven’t done anything to anybody.’

  ‘Wrong,’ the dark figure told him. ‘You and your kind have hurt a great many people and now you will be judged and punished for your crimes. But not in a courtroom, where your money would buy you the best barrister to get you off on some technicality. No, Mr Barrowgate. You will be judged in this room and by the people.’

  Hudson’s eyes grew wide with excitement and anticipation. The last two victims had been a bit of a disappointment, but somehow he sensed this was going to be different.

  Sean and Sally finally caught up with the surveillance team not far from Walton-on-Thames, just to the southwest of London. Jackson had come to a stop and therefore so had they, parking up far enough away that they couldn’t possibly be seen by Jackson or the suspect if this was where they were to meet. Sean spotted Bishop sitting in one of the lead cars and headed for him, tapping on the side window before he and Sally climbed into the back seats.

  Bishop turned to the thirty-something woman next to him dressed in smart-casual clothing and spoke. ‘DS Howland, this is DI Corrigan and DS Jones, from the Special Investigations Unit. They’re the ones who arranged this little jaunt in the country.’

  Howland offered her hand to the new passengers. ‘Lara. Good to meet you.’

  Sean shook her hand first. ‘Sean. Likewise.’

  Sally did the same. ‘Sally.’

  ‘Any movement?’ Sean asked.

  ‘Not for a few minutes,’ Howland answered. ‘He drove all the way out here then took a side road and parked up down by the reservoir. I’ve got a couple of foot units out and about hiding in the grass who’ve got an eyeball on your boy, but he seems to be on his own.’

  ‘Then he’s waiting for further instructions or the suspect’s watching him – checking he hasn’t been followed,’ Sean explained.

  ‘Looking for us,’ Sally added, silencing everyone for a few seconds.

  ‘What’s the terrain like where the target’s stopped?’ Sean asked.

  ‘My people tell me it’s open ground – flat with a few ditches and a lot of knee-high grass. But if you’re worried about them showing out, don’t be. It’s getting dark out there and they’re keeping a safe distance, carrying out their obs from a water ditch. No one’s going to spot them,’ Howland assured them.

  ‘That’s not what I’m worried about,’ Sean explained. ‘This one likes the woods and trees. He won’t come here. Not to meet Jackson anyway.’

  Bishop’s laptop suddenly began to emit a shrill, piercing sound. ‘Uh oh,’ was all he said as he moved the tracking equipment from his lap and replaced it with the computer, flipping it open, the Your View broadcast playing on the screen without him having to do anything more.

  ‘Problem?’ Sean asked, leaning forward to look over Bishop’s shoulder.

  ‘See for yourself,’ Bishop answered, passing the computer to Sean.

  ‘Shit,’ Sean swore as he looked at the images of Barrowgate squirming in the same wooden chair, the man in the ski-mask with voice-altering equipment across his mouth preaching into the camera. ‘He’s already taken another one.’

  ‘Then he’s not coming here,’ Sally surmised.

  ‘No,’ Sean agreed, ‘but Jackson could still be going to him.’

  ‘Why?’ Sally asked.

  ‘To witness it for himself. See it up close and personal,’ Sean answered.

  ‘You can’t buy me with your money, Mr Barrowgate,’ the masked figure told him. ‘I am above and beyond your lust for wealth and material goods. I am a soldier – a general leading his army of the people towards a better, fairer system where the wealth is shared and used to benefit all, not just the greedy few.’

  ‘Is it just me,’ Sally asked, ‘or does he sound like he’s beginning to lose it?’

  ‘He’s beginning to believe his own press,’ Sean explained. ‘Jackson’s been pumping him up to be some sort of people’s champion and now he’s beginning to believe it.’ They watched as the man disappeared from view, leaving the terrified Barrowgate to face the camera alone. ‘Now what’s he doing?’

  ‘Hold on a second,’ Howland interrupted, pressing the covert earpiece deeper into her ear. ‘I’m getting an update from one of my units with an eyeball on your target.’ Everyone in the car held their breath. ‘Looks like he’s reading a text.’ Sally and Sean looked at each other. ‘Now he’s back to the vehicle and it’s an off, off,
off.’ Howland pressed the transmit switch on her radio and spoke to her team. ‘Target’s moving off in his vehicle. We’ll close on him when he’s back amongst traffic on the main road and pick up a visual for a follow. Everyone else follow us, but don’t bunch up.’ Howland started the car and headed along the road on course to intercept Jackson as he rejoined the main road.

  ‘D’you really think it could have been the suspect texting Jackson?’ Sally asked, reading Sean’s thoughts.

  ‘You don’t see him on screen, do you?’ Sean replied, but before Sally could answer the dark figure returned and stood next to a pale and sick-looking Barrowgate.

  ‘Please,’ Barrowgate appealed to him. ‘I don’t feel well. My head hurts. I think you might have fractured my skull. You hit me so hard.’

  ‘What I have done to you is nothing compared to what you have done to the people of this country,’ his captor replied. ‘While the banking sector collapsed and we suffered, you were paid a million pounds as a bonus, weren’t you?’ Barrowgate said nothing, his eyes blinking at what he was being told. ‘Weren’t you?’ his tormentor shouted, making him jump.

  ‘Yes,’ Barrowgate admitted under the pressure, before rallying and trying to explain. ‘But my bank was never in difficulties. We didn’t sell mortgages.’

  ‘I know,’ the warped voice told him. ‘I know, but the crisis caused property prices to collapse and you then encouraged wealthy foreign investors to buy up property at knockdown prices, selling it a few years later for vast profits, taking affordable housing away from those who really needed it. You’re a profiteer and a thief, Mr Barrowgate, and now you must pay for your crimes.’

  Barrowgate looked stunned for a few seconds before he could speak. ‘How did you know?’ he asked. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Good question,’ Sean told Sally. ‘How does he know?’

  ‘Are these things a matter of public record?’ Sally suggested. ‘Could he be hacking banks’ computers – raiding their bins for confidential waste? I don’t know.’

  ‘No,’ Sean agreed. ‘I don’t know either.’

  Mark Hudson watched transfixed by the writhing victim and the words of his idol, although he was slightly disappointed the victim wasn’t a woman. He preferred it when they were women.

  ‘How did I know, Mr Barrowgate?’ his idol repeated Barrowgate’s own question. ‘Because I know everything. I know everything about you people – about your self-serving greed and arrogant, shameless, fraudulent taking of what belongs to us, not you.’

  ‘Yes,’ Hudson encouraged. ‘Dirty, thieving bastard,’ he almost shouted, forgetting about the countless vulnerable victims he robbed and assaulted in the dark streets around the fringes of Birmingham city centre, lying in wait for out-of-towners who took a wrong turn looking for their car park. ‘Now do him,’ he demanded. ‘Make the bastard pay. Fucking do him.’ But instead The Jackdaw walked from the screen, the camera tracking his movements for a few steps before switching back to the victim. Moments later The Jackdaw returned with a sawn-off shotgun that he levelled at Barrowgate’s head, making him flinch and lean away as if that could somehow save him from the gun’s blast. Hudson felt his testicles coil and tighten with excitement. He’d never seen anyone’s head blown off with a sawn-off before. But suddenly the dark figure pulled the gun away from his victim and tucked it up under his own chin, his thumb resting across the triggers.

  ‘No,’ Hudson screamed. ‘No. Don’t do yourself – do the bastard in the chair. I need you,’ he begged. ‘I need you.’

  ‘Oh shit,’ Sally cursed as she watched the dark figure on the screen push the barrels of the sawn-off shotgun under his chin. ‘He’s going to shoot himself.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Sean assured her as he bounced around in the back of the surveillance car. ‘He needs to finish what he’s started.’

  ‘Finish what?’ Sally asked.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Sean answered. ‘Not yet.’ He held up his hand to stop Sally speaking again as the figure lowered the shotgun and let it hang by his side.

  ‘Relax,’ he told his audience. ‘The time for that is not yet here, but it will be soon enough. I know that the police are hunting me down – that they’ve been ordered to find me and silence me – even if they don’t want to. But I have no intention of letting them take me alive so their rich and powerful masters can humiliate and persecute me, building a web of lies to try and belittle me and my work. No. I won’t allow that to happen.’ He hung his head, as if behind the mask he needed time to compose himself.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Sean asked Bishop. ‘Is he still on the move?’ But Bishop didn’t answer. ‘Well?’ Sean pressed impatiently.

  ‘Give me a second,’ Bishop snapped back, deep in concentration, staring at the tracking monitor on his lap. ‘Yeah, he’s definitely stopped. I thought he might be stuck in traffic, but he’s been stationary too long. He’s definitely stopped.’

  ‘Where?’ Sean demanded.

  ‘About half a mile straight ahead,’ Bishop explained. ‘Give me a second to cross-reference the signal position with a map grid.’ Bishop frantically adjusted the device and input the data. After a few seconds he had what he was looking for.

  ‘Up ahead,’ he told them. ‘On the edge of Carpenters’ Wood.’ Sean and Sally looked at each other and both knew they were thinking the same thing: this one likes his woods and trees.

  Hudson was relieved when The Jackdaw finally looked up again, standing straight and filling his chest before speaking.

  ‘This is a war and as I have said before there are always casualties in war, as there are sacrifices to be made. Sometimes the ultimate sacrifice. And it is the ultimate sacrifice I am prepared to make – when the time is right. When that moment comes I shall not hesitate and they will finally realize my strength. My death at my own hands, not the hands of those who would have me publicly humiliated and destroyed, will give rise to a thousand more just like me: soldiers prepared for war – prepared to follow my example and tear down the walls of this unjust and unequal society and build a new and better world.’

  ‘Yes. Yes,’ Hudson agreed, barely able to control his enthusiasm and excitement. ‘That’s what I am. A soldier. A general. Wait until the world hears about me.’

  ‘But now it is time to judge. To judge this man who arrogantly sits here,’ he pointed to Barrowgate who winced as The Jackdaw spoke, ‘and tells us he is innocent of any crimes. Well, we shall see. Time for the jury to vote.’

  Before the figure had even finished talking Hudson was eagerly clicking on the like icon, casting his vote of guilty.

  ‘The woods are just up ahead,’ DS Howland told them. ‘What’s the signal doing now?’

  ‘On the move again,’ Bishop answered, ‘but slowly. I think he’s out on foot and moving deeper into the wood.’

  ‘Close on where you think his vehicle came to a stop,’ Sean instructed. ‘Slow and steady,’ he added, ‘lights off once we’re off the main road.’

  ‘Understood,’ Howland replied and soon pulled off onto a dirt road, slowing down and killing the lights. The car was silent as they bounced along the increasingly rough-surfaced road.

  ‘The target’s still on the move,’ Bishop almost whispered, ‘but if I’m not very much mistaken his car should be just a little further along.’

  ‘Slow down,’ Sean told Howland, but she already was, rolling along in neutral, keeping the engine noise to a minimum, the road becoming more and more difficult to see as the faint light from the main road behind them faded into blackness.

  ‘I can’t see a damn thing,’ Howland complained, keeping her voice as low as the engine noise.

  ‘There,’ Sean suddenly called out as loudly as he dared, leaning forward and pointing ahead towards a clearing in the trees at the edge of the woodland, what light there was reflecting off something metallic. ‘Is that Jackson’s car?’

  Bishop strained to see in the darkness. ‘Yeah. That’s it,’ he finally confirmed.’ Howland l
et their car roll to a silent stop next to Jackson’s.

  ‘What do you want to do?’ Howland asked Sean.

  ‘Is he still moving?’ Sean whispered to Bishop.

  ‘Yeah. Slowly. Definitely on foot.’

  ‘Then we follow him,’ Sean told them. ‘We keep our distance and use the signal to track him.’ What are you up to, Jackson? he asked himself. Where you taking us?

  ‘Maybe we should wait for the rest of my team to catch up?’ Howland suggested. ‘Just in case.’

  ‘We’ll be fine,’ Sean assured her, sounding more confident than he felt.

  ‘He does this a lot.’ Sally tried to ease the tension.

  ‘OK,’ Howland agreed and all four detectives silently climbed from the car into the cold night air, the sound of the trees swaying in the light breeze suddenly amplified and intimidating. Sally pulled her thin raincoat tight against the chill, but Sean didn’t even notice it as his surroundings enveloped him – the sounds, the scent of the trees, the feeling of the breeze against his skin. For a second he allowed himself to close his eyes and flare his nostrils. Do you hear the same leaves I hear? Do you smell the same trees I do? Do you feel the same breeze against your skin? Am I close now? Am I finally close to meeting you?

  ‘Sean,’ Sally hissed a whisper to bring him back to them. ‘Sean,’ she repeated when he didn’t respond.

  ‘What?’ he replied, trying to sound as if he’d never been away.

  ‘You need to see this,’ she whispered, holding up her phone and drawing Sean towards her. ‘I ran Carpenters’ Wood through the Internet.’

  ‘And?’ Sean hurried her, looking at the screen on her phone.

  ‘The Forestry Commission used to use it as a training site. It’s abandoned now,’ she explained, ‘but the building they used to use is still there.’

  ‘A derelict building in woodland,’ Sean spoke their thoughts, his heart rate beginning to build as the chances of coming face to face with The Jackdaw seemed to increase.

  ‘Where’s the laptop?’ Sally asked.

  ‘I left it in the car,’ Sean answered, pulling his own mobile from his pocket and searching for Your View. ‘It’s too big to carry. We’ll monitor it on my phone.’ He turned to Bishop who was still holding the tracking device. ‘Which way?’