What he could not know was that his future was about to follow a course that neither he nor Tait could have foreseen. Nor could he have known that a strange meeting later that day between two men near a small town in the north of England would be instrumental in setting his life on that new course.
II
Kale watched the locomotive through the rain-spattered glass and thought, this time will be the last. But even as the thought formed in his mind it clotted and he knew he would kill again.
He twirled his cigarette nervously between nicotine-stained fingers and sipped the sour dregs of his coffee. The coffee machine on the counter hissed and issued steam, and with the rain beginning to fall outside the window was misting over. The first drops of condensation formed and ran clear lines through it.
An old man sat in the corner making his coffee last so he could remain in the warmth, and a hard-faced woman behind the counter sat smoking a cigarette and watching Kale. She had seen the likes of him before. A place like this was an endless stream of men and women who had seen better days. There was the familiar suit, perhaps expensive once, but now fraying at the cuffs, crumpled, baggy, shiny at the elbows and the seat of the pants. The old blue overcoat, rubbed and coffee-stained down the front, dandruff on the collar. The clothes hung loosely on his lean frame. She had seen worse, but maybe this one was just starting out.
He would be around thirty-nine or forty, hair thinning, greased back. A hollow face with high cheekbones; clear, pale, slightly yellow skin, remarkably unlined. It was his eyes that interested her, if it was possible to say that she was interested in anything. They were dark, deep-sunk eyes, set too close, and they burned with a strange intensity that she had not seen before. There was something sullen in his face, but it was not the face of defeat as was the face of the old man in the corner — as were most of the faces that came in here to stare morosely into endless cups of coffee.
Kale caught her watching him and she looked quickly away, becoming aware for the first time that she was actually afraid of the eyes... almost intimidated by them. You’re letting your imagination run away with itself, Nance, she told herself without conviction.
‘Oi, you!’ she shouted with a voice as hard as her face at the old man in the corner. A Cockney voice, a long way from home. ‘You’ve ’ad yer coffee. Now clear aht!’
The old man looked up with resignation. He had learned to accept these things. You grew used to them, as you grew used to the constant gnawing pain of an ulcer. He pushed back his chair, rising slowly with what might have been an attempt at dignity, and shuffled past the counter and out into the wet. Nance had only done it to take her mind off Kale, but now she realised her folly. She had left herself alone with him. She stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette and lit another between thin, painted lips, crossed to the juke box and punched two plays. The noise would make her feel more secure, and still she wished she could have called the old man back.
But she need not have worried, for Kale had barely noticed the old man going and was only mildly irritated when the juke box began belting out a scratchy hit record. And Nance was of no interest to him. He was thinking about his meeting with Swinton in a dingy London tearoom three days before.
Swinton was a small, fat, busy man who had sat in his cheap blue-checked suit across a wooden table from Kale. He was one of those men who perspire constantly and he would dab at his forehead from time to time with a grubby handkerchief.
‘It’s a big one, Kale,’ he had said with an air of confidentiality, leaning across the table and breathing garlic at the other man. ‘Big money this time. You could retire. Where you been anyway? The boys was thinkin’ you was maybe dead or something. The word’s been out for over a week.’
Kale had felt uncomfortable there, surrounded by old ladies drinking tea from china cups. But Swinton had insisted they should not meet in the usual pub. ‘How much and who’s paying?’
Swinton’s smile widened. ‘Oh, come on, Willy boy. You know me. Even if I knew I wouldn’t tell you who. But, truth is, this time I don’t even know myself.’ He paused and sat back as a waitress scurried by with a pile of empty cups and saucers clinking on a tray, and then leaned forward again. ‘It’s not the usual form. You’ll deal direct. I’ll get my commission for finding you, but honest to God I don’t know who’s paying.’
‘How much?’
‘It’s ten thousand smackers, Kale. Ten thousand! Jesus, I’d do it myself for a quarter of that, but I’m not in your class. No-one’s in your class, Kale.’
Kale toyed with his cup, the undrunk tea cold now, milk solids forming a scum on the surface. He was not happy. If he had not needed the money... ‘What’s the deal?’
Swinton grinned again. ‘I knew you’d bite. All you got to do is present yourself at the appointed place and time. You’ll be met, and they’ll take you blind somewheres for your instructions. North of England someplace. Here, I’ve written it down.’ He pushed a soiled slip of paper across the table. Kale did not look at it. He picked it up and stuffed it in his jacket pocket, momentarily distracted by the clatter of crockery and the chatter of voices.
‘And?’ he asked.
‘And nought. Honest, Kale, I don’t know nothing more than that. And for that kind of money who’s asking? Whoever it is, they don’t want anyone to know who they are. And no-one does. It’s just sort of filtered through the grapevine without no-one knowing the source.’
Kale didn’t believe him for a moment, but then that was why he trusted him.
‘Hey, you haven’t drunk your tea,’ Swinton had said.
Kale stood up and dropped a pound note on the table. ‘Keep the change.’
Nance was relieved when Kale pulled up his collar and pushed back his chair. She watched him out the door then crossed to his table to collect the empty cup, and found ten-pence under the saucer. Funny, she thought, how some of them never lose the habit. Maybe he wasn’t so bad as he seemed.
Kale crossed the railway yard, asphalt crunching under his feet, the cold January rain stinging his face. The locomotive had shunted three coal trucks into a siding and was chugging back towards the depot. Ahead of him this small industrial township rose up the hillside, a jumble of blackened brick terraces. The tall chimneys of the mills belched smoke into a heavily laden sky away to his right and he could hear children playing somewhere behind a wall that ran alongside the road down to the station. The cobbled street shone in the wet, reflecting the grim poverty of the place. On the station wall a fly-blown poster urged a vote for Labour, its red vivid against the grey, a smile on the candidate’s face above the slogan — FOR A BETTER BRITAIN.
He crossed Church Street to the newsagent’s on the corner and stood looking out across the town square with its black memorial statue, hands sunk deep in the pockets of his coat. For three days he had come to this spot, every morning and every afternoon, checking all the routes away from the square. He knew this town now as well as anyone could who had walked every street. Each road leading from the town was marked in red on the map in his pocket, each identifiable by some feature that could not be seen, but felt or heard. He had been relentlessly thorough, and yet he was still far from satisfied. He shuffled uneasily and watched the traffic carefully. Three days, he told himself, was not enough. The clock on the church tower showed three but did not chime. The minutes ticked past slowly and the rain stopped, leaving only the chill wind to sweep across the square.
He saw the van come in from the north side and watched it as it drove past him, along the top end and back round again. This time it stopped, a small grey 7cwt. van. Kale saw the fresh mud splashed along the side from the front wheels, and took a mental note of the registration, though he doubted if that would prove useful. Still, every scrap of information might help if ever it was necessary. A slight bitter smile curled his lip. Others would not have gone to such lengths.