The Black Art of Killing

by Matthew Hall

  There was a short, terrified scream from Sarah Bellman’s room followed by the sounds of a brief and one-sided struggle. Moments later, the two guards reappeared bringing her with them. She was dressed only in her underwear and was sobbing inconsolably. They manhandled her back along the corridor, her bare feet only grazing the floor. Drecker followed behind barking instructions in French.

  Holst, Sphyris and Kennedy watched, paralysed and helpless to intervene, as the two guards forced the young woman face first against the closed steel gate inside the entrance to the building. They spread her arms and handcuffed her wrists to the bars above her head.

  Drecker drew a pistol from the holster attached to her belt and touched it to Bellman’s left temple.

  ‘A simple choice, Dr Bellman – cooperate or save us the expense of dealing with you. There are others in your field more than capable of replicating your work.’

  Finally, Bellman fell silent.

  ‘She’s more trouble than she’s worth,’ Brennan said casually. ‘Get rid of her.’

  ‘No!’ Bellman’s desperate cry echoed off the bare walls.

  Drecker pressed the barrel of the gun against her skull.

  Holst looked away as she squeezed the trigger.

  There was a harmless click.

  Holst glanced back to see that Bellman had collapsed at the knees and fallen into a dead faint, leaving her body hanging by the wrists. Her legs were fouled and urine had pooled at her feet. The sight turned his stomach. She reminded him of one of his dead experimental animals.

  12

  The Land Rover Defender sounded every one of its twenty-five years as it coughed reluctantly into life, belching a cloud of soot-laden diesel fumes. The grumbling engine, turning over for the first time in a month, continued to complain as Black manoeuvred out of the cramped college car park and headed north through Jericho. The gentrified terraced houses were still and silent early on a Sunday morning. The odd dog walker and a stick-limbed young woman running with the determination of the lonely and obsessed provided the only signs of life in the empty streets. After two miles he reached the edge of the city and headed west on the A40 towards Gloucester.

  Jaded by a second night of fitful sleep, Black wound down the windows and let the cool morning air rush in. Despite his best efforts, during the few hours he had forced himself to lie in bed, he had been haunted by images of Finn and tormented by endless rehearsals of the words he would use to describe what he had seen to Kathleen later that morning. He had visited the newly bereaved widows of men under his command many times, but it had always been in his official capacity and with his emotions, such as they were, locked tightly away. Without the shield of uniform and weighed down with guilt at having neglected his oldest friend, Black was left with what he supposed were the normal human reactions to such an event: unfamiliar feelings of grief and remorse that refused to be reasoned with.

  He rumbled on past Witney to Burford where the patchwork fields of Oxfordshire gave way to the broader expanses of the Cotswolds. The early mist had evaporated and beneath a clear and brilliant sky the drystone walls were the colour of honey and the air sweet with the scent of freshly mown hay. He recalled the many times he had driven this road with Finn en route from RAF Brize Norton to regimental HQ at Credenhill. Returning from a stretch in the Middle East or Africa the British countryside had always been balm to the soul. Its softness and fecundity seemed to nurture human life as keenly as the landscapes of other countries challenged it. Finn had been lyrical on the subject – beneath the bluff exterior, the Celt in him nursed a romantic streak – and they had both agreed that the further west they travelled the more at ease they felt, never feeling quite at peace until they had reached the more sparsely populated county of Herefordshire where the Welsh hills rose up against the horizon. This border country, where lowland woods and pastures merged into untamed upland, was the perfect home for returning soldiers: the junction of civilization and wilderness.

  Shortly after nine, Black descended the long sweep of the Callow, the hillside that led down into the valley in which the small city of Hereford straddled a long straight stretch of the River Wye. He made his way by memory to Finn’s home, a modest semi-detached in an unassuming neighbourhood south of the river. Finn and Kathleen had moved here when they married twelve years before. Their plan had always been to stay until they could afford a place in the country with a few acres of land and a barn for Finn to turn into a carpentry workshop. Black speculated that with Finn having spent a few years working private contracts, they couldn’t have been far from turning the dream to reality. He squeezed the Land Rover into a space behind a builder’s van and made his way up a short path to the Finns’ home.

  Kathleen’s anxious face appeared from behind the partially drawn curtains in the sitting room. Seeing Black, she closed her eyes, then vanished again before appearing at the door.

  ‘Leo. Hi.’

  ‘Kathleen.’

  ‘Thank you, I –’ The words stopped in her throat. She swallowed her emotion. ‘Come in.’

  He followed her through the narrow hallway past a row of pegs stuffed with children’s coats and into a kitchen that led on to a conservatory. The three kids were outside bouncing on a large trampoline that took up most of the small square of lawn behind the house. Kathleen went straight to the kettle and filled it from the tap, her hands trembling.

  ‘They’ve grown. How old are they now?’ Black asked, trying his best to make small talk.

  ‘Josh is ten, Meg’s eight and Sarah-Jane’s coming up for six.’ Kathleen set the kettle on its base and turned to face him, tears pooling in her vivid blue eyes. Her slender face was milk-white, her hair jet black. She was still the same beautiful Irish girl Finn had fallen in love with after spending years swearing he wasn’t the marrying sort.

  ‘Six … She was still a toddler last time I was here. How about you? Still nursing?’

  ‘Part-time,’ she answered quietly, wiping her cheek with the heel of her palm. ‘I’ve taken some time off. You?’

  ‘Same college in Oxford – for the moment, at least. I’m hoping they’ll give me a permanent position come September, but I’m not banking on it.’

  ‘I thought you’d settled there.’

  ‘They make you jump through a lot of hoops. Nothing’s guaranteed. Not being twenty-five any more doesn’t help.’ He smiled. ‘Why don’t you sit down? I’ll make the coffee.’ He reached the jar down from the shelf. ‘Go on.’

  Kathleen nodded gratefully and went to sit at the small table. Black took mugs from the cupboard above the sink and fetched milk from the fridge, giving her a moment to gather herself. The kitchen was cluttered, but in an orderly, homely way. A large noticeboard covering much of the upper portion of one wall was smothered in pictures the kids had drawn along with postcards and photographs Finn had sent back from his recent work trips around Europe and the Middle East. Tucked away in a bottom corner, partially obscured by one of Sarah-Jane’s efforts, was a photograph of Black and Finn sitting on the bonnet of a desert patrol vehicle parked high up on a ridge in Helmand. They were both smoking fat Cuban cigars. He remembered the day clearly: six of them had parachuted in at night to take out a Taliban mortar position and had met nearly fifty of them up there. Sometimes HQ back at Bastion had devised missions just to prove they could achieve the impossible. It had been a game: who could be the most audacious, the British SAS or US Delta Force?

  Black brought over the coffee as Kathleen dabbed away the last of her tears with a tissue, turning her face from the windows so as not to let the children see her crying.

  ‘Thank you.’ She glanced at him guiltily. ‘I haven’t told them yet. I couldn’t. Not until –’ Her eyes searched his, as if holding out the faintest possibility of hope. Seeing none, her gaze dipped to the table. Her voice sank to almost a whisper. ‘My sister’s coming later. Flying in from Dublin.’

  ‘It was him, Kathleen,’ Black said. ‘I’m sorry. There’s no doubt. I saw his bo
dy, and the Embassy official had his papers.’

  She nodded, her jaw clenching tightly. She looked up and squared her narrow shoulders. The truth was easier to face than uncertainty. The truth could be confronted head-on. She was a nurse who had married a special serviceman; she had lived with the reality of death and had been braced for a phone call or a knock on the door ever since Finn had put a ring on her finger.

  ‘I tried to get him to stop last year,’ she said. ‘He went out for a six-month contract – security at some mine. He got sick and had to come home after eight weeks. That’s when he promised me it would only be safe jobs from then on. A couple more years, he said, then back here for something sensible and a move out of town. That’s how it was meant to be.’

  She gazed, unfocused, into space.

  ‘Who had he been working for?’

  ‘Several different agencies in London. Bodyguarding mostly. Foreign businessmen coming here or Brits going out to the Middle East. He’d stopped doing Africa and Russia. Said they were too dangerous.’

  ‘And this assignment? Did he talk to you about it before he went?’

  ‘He just said it was four days in Paris. It was through Coulton’s – a government contract, he said.’ She shrugged and gave a slight shake of her head. ‘Some jobs he’d get keyed up for, but this one was just run of the mill. Looking after some woman scientist, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’ Black took a sip of coffee, hoping that if he remained calm it would make things easier for her. She would have questions. His answers would be hard for her to hear. ‘He was guarding a young biologist who seems to have gone missing. I’m afraid it looks as if he was killed by her abductors while going after them.’

  Kathleen’s body was rigid, her eyes unblinking.

  ‘What about the Foreign Office?’ Black asked. ‘Have they given you any details?’

  She shook her head. Her eyes cut towards him. ‘Tell me, Leo. I need to know. It’s not like I haven’t been ready for it all these years.’

  He nodded and gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

  ‘His charge was professionally abducted from a third-floor room at the back of the hotel. It seems she was lowered to the ground by ropes. I don’t know the exact time frame, but it looks as if Ryan forced open the door of the room and abseiled down after them. He was overpowered on the ground. Stabbed. Many times.’

  Kathleen didn’t flinch but absorbed the information without a flicker. She had retreated inside a hard shell. The one that had carried her through years of nursing and being married to a man who had spent half of his adult life in one war zone or another.

  ‘Why kill him? What for? If they’d got the woman, why not drive off?’

  ‘I can’t say. It’s possible there was a reason – some politics or tit for tat I know nothing about – or perhaps he was just unlucky.’

  ‘I have to know, Leo. I’ve got three kids who are going to grow up wanting to know why their dad had to die.’

  ‘There’ll be a coroner’s inquest –’

  She gave a dismissive shake of her head. ‘How many of those ever get to the truth? I know the widows, Leo. This town’s full of women who’ll go to their graves without answers. It’s not fair.’

  Black met her uncompromising gaze and felt himself backed into a corner from which he knew there was no escape. Finn had found a true match for himself in Kathleen. Beneath her disarming exterior she was a force of nature.

  ‘I’ll try speaking to the official from the Foreign Office – see if I can squeeze anything more out of him. I’ve also got the name of the conference’s head of security.’

  Kathleen glanced away. She knew as well as Black did that the chances of anyone who had signed the Official Secrets Act offering anything more than the sketchiest details were close to zero. Her shoulders rose and fell as she took a slow, deep breath. Black had seen enough already to know she wasn’t a woman to break down and wail. She’d stay strong and guard her children like a lioness.

  ‘What about money?’ Black said gently. ‘Was he insured?’

  ‘We’ll be all right,’ she said dismissively, her mind still on the questions that might never be answered.

  Black sat in helpless silence. There was nothing more he could offer, not without making promises he was in no position to make. They both looked out of the window at the children crashing and tumbling on the trampoline with innocent exuberance. The ten-year-old, Josh, was already unnaturally strong with broad shoulders and the makings of a thick, muscular torso like his father’s. He picked up both his younger sisters at once before collapsing into a heap of laughing, intertwined bodies.

  ‘Ryan envied you,’ Kathleen said at last, ‘finding another life to move on to.’

  ‘I should have been in touch.’

  ‘So should he. He kept meaning to phone you, but if he wasn’t working he was busy here. The moment never seemed right.’

  She was trying to make him feel better. Black knew the truth: Finn had thought his friend and former CO had turned his back on him. How else could he have interpreted the years of silence? He had no way of knowing that Black had felt too embarrassed to call until he could tell him that his efforts had actually turned into something from which he could earn a living. That his silence had been down to pride.

  ‘If there’s anything I can do? If you need help with the arrangements?’

  ‘I’ll cope.’

  Black felt an urge to reach out and squeeze her hand, to offer some small physical gesture of sympathy, but even as he had the thought Kathleen seemed to flinch away and retreat further into herself. It wasn’t comfort she wanted. It was answers he couldn’t give.

  ‘You know where I am, Kathleen. You can call any time.’

  ‘Thank you. And for going to Paris. I appreciate it.’

  They exchanged glances, and after a further awkward silence both stood up from the table at once, tacitly agreeing that their meeting was at an end.

  ‘He was a good man,’ Black said, the words coming out woodenly. ‘The best soldier I ever knew.’

  There was a loud wail from the garden. The kids had clashed heads and Sarah-Jane was scrambling, sobbing from the trampoline.

  ‘You see to her. I can let myself out,’ Black said, and left Kathleen to comfort a crying child who was still expecting her father to come home.

  Stepping around the collection of children’s shoes inside the front door, Black felt Finn’s looming presence in the hallway behind him. He imagined him giving that look he would throw him when they found themselves in a tight spot. The one that said, ‘Is that all you’ve got, you soft bastard?’

  13

  The visit to Finn’s home left Black with an overpowering urge to escape to the hills. Ditching his plans to head straight back to Oxford, he headed west. After a brief stop for groceries and whisky, he continued along twisting back roads and lanes through villages whose names had long ago become signposts to his sanctuary: Clehonger, Kingstone, Vowchurch, Michaelchurch, and finally up the hill to Craswall – more a hamlet than a village – where the air became cooler and keener and the tended fields gave way to windswept hills.

  The lane narrowed and dog-legged up a steepening gradient. Thick grass grew in the middle of the crumbling tarmac, which became steadily looser and more potholed before merging into a rough dirt track that crossed over a cattle grid before splitting in two. The left fork led up to an old stone byre used by the local farmer for lambing and shearing. Black turned right. The track wound through a copse of hawthorn and emerged on the far side as no more than a pair of wheel ruts that took him over a short, steep rise and down into a sheltered dell. There the 500-year-old stone cottage named Ty Argel, Welsh for ‘Secret House’, stood on a small area of flat pasture next to a stream. To the side of the building were two ancient apple trees and a stone shed. Behind it, the bracken-covered hillside rose steeply towards the upper slopes of the Black Mountains.

  Black drew up in the long grass that had overwhelmed his parkin
g spot, jumped down from the cab and breathed in deeply. He grabbed his bags of provisions and lugged them up the sloping dirt path to the front door.

  Ty Argel was less a house than a glorified cabin built from flat slabs of stone dug from the hillside by sixteenth-century shepherds. When he had bought it, there had been two small dark rooms downstairs and two above, a wooden outhouse and a pump at the back door fed by the stream. Over the course of three summers and with occasional help from Finn, Black had spent his leave gutting it back to four bare walls, one of which then collapsed, requiring him to rebuild it from the ground up. The heavy oak front door opened into a single stone-flagged room with a small rustic kitchen at one end and a sitting area arranged around a wood stove at the other. An open staircase led up to a mezzanine big enough to accommodate his bed and a small bathroom. The power line stopped at the farm half a mile away, so the lights were powered by an array of solar panels on the roof and water heated by the stove.

  No TV. No internet. An occasional phone signal but only when the sky was clear, which wasn’t often. If Black was in need of entertainment he had his history books and vinyl record collection and there was always the endless distraction of an old cottage to keep weathertight. A small puddle of water inside the front door confirmed that the patch-up job he had done on the roof two years before needed redoing – properly this time. He’d get to it when his paper was written. Slipping unconsciously into the routine he repeated each time he returned, he checked the power levels on the solar battery pack, opened the stopcocks, switched on the pump that filled the water tank from the borehole, then fetched wood from the log store. Twenty minutes later he was trimming a red-hot stove that was warming the lime-washed walls and bringing his coffee to the boil.