After a beat, Kasabian said: ‘Yes. But at least tell me which end of the park. So I can have help on standby.’
‘It looks like the north-west area, just above the Winter Gardens,’ said Purkiss. ‘I mean it, though. Be discreet. Keep everyone well back.’
He rang off.
Once over the railings, Purkiss set off across the grassland. The park was criss-crossed with paths, fewer than in the other Royal Parks, it seemed, which meant that the lamps which lined them were few, casting shadow everywhere. Purkiss skirted the tip of the Boating Pond, water fowl skittering away in a sudden noise that froze him for a moment. The air was cool, giving the merest hint of the autumn which, while not imminent, was on the horizon at least.
Ahead, Purkiss could see the dark outline of a copse of trees. The signal was coming from just beyond it. As he drew nearer, he saw the copse was in fact the nearest edge a rough ring of trees surrounding a central expanse of grass parkland perhaps sixty yards across.
He felt the apprehension rise from his abdomen into his chest, quickening his breathing, and felt the first prick of adrenaline like a surge of speed in his veins.
Through the trees, he could make out something, a silhouette, in the centre of the grass. Light was minimal, a few slanting sheaves managing to get in through the trees from the sparse lamps, but Purkiss believed he could identify a bowed head, narrow shoulders.
He stopped at the edge of the ring of trees, checked the display on his phone. Yes, the signal was coming from the middle of the clearing.
He took a step to the side of one of the trunks and peered through. There was a bench in the middle of the grass, he could see now, the kind that during the daytime people would use for picnicking or simply to rest their feet. Seated on the bench with her back to Purkiss was a woman, who he presumed was Dr Emma Goddard.
He watched her for twenty seconds. There — her head moved a fraction; so she was still alive. He assumed she was bound somehow, or perhaps drugged.
So she was bait, as straightforwardly as an antelope tethered to lure a big cat. Tullivant was somewhere in the ring of trees, with a long gun. If Purkiss approached her, Tullivant would shoot him.
But if Purkiss didn’t arrive, or turned up but then left, Tullivant would shoot the woman.
Purkiss’s gaze roved steadily around the circle of trees. Tullivant knew he was coming, but wouldn’t know which direction he’d approach from. So Tullivant could be anywhere. He might be only a few feet away, even now drawing a bead on Purkiss, prolonging the moment.
Sweat trailed quickly down Purkiss’s back.
If he walked away now, to buy time, he ran the risk that Tullivant might have already detected his presence. Tullivant would shoot the woman.
Purkiss thought of Kendrick, comatose in his hospital bed.
He thought of the terrifying, crippling doubts he’d been forced to entertain about Vale, and about Hannah.
He thought about Claire, who’d betrayed him, but whom he’d failed nonetheless, because where there was life there was the possibility of redemption, and he’d failed to keep her alive.
Purkiss advanced a step.
The advantage he had — the single advantage — was manoeuvrability. If Tullivant had a rifle, then depending on his position in the ring of trees he might not be able to take satisfactory aim instantly, without a degree of movement. That could make his position detectable in time for Purkiss to take evasive action.
It was a hell of a risk.
He bounced on the balls of his feet a few times. Breathed deeply in through his nose, out through his mouth, centring himself.
He broke out of the circle of trees and into the clearing, feeling more naked than if he’d cast all his clothes off.
His environment was more intensely real to him than he’d ever known it: the springy firmness of the grass beneath his soles, the cool of pre-morning dew on his face, the aromas of nose-prickling late-summer pollen and industrial city grime.
The high-velocity bullet smashing through the base of his skull, shearing through bone and muscle and exploding his head in an obscene dark gout…
The bench was twenty yards away. Ten.
The woman’s head turned a fraction.
Purkiss veered round, describing a loose arc, sure that this was it, that Tullivant’s finger was finally tightening on the trigger, squeezing it back, the game needing to brought to an end now. He sprinted towards a point in the trees some twenty yards to the right of where he’d emerged, thinking that if this was to be his last sight on earth, something as natural and joyously verdant as a row of summer trees wasn’t bad.
Then he crashed among the trees, knocking his shoulder into one of the trunks, not caring about the pain, his heart hammering in relief, his primitive self aware that he was still alive while his rational brain thought: Tullivant didn’t take the bait. And now he knows where I am.
Fifty-seven
Tullivant watched Purkiss’s shape detach itself from the trees approximately ninety degrees to his left.
He tracked the running figure through the scope.
Purkiss would reach Emma, frantically haul her up, and try to drag her back to the cover of the trees. She wasn’t bound any longer — Tullivant had cut the ties around her wrists and ankles — and she’d rise and go with Purkiss. It would be a clean, two-shot double kill. Tullivant chose to wait.
He was mildly disappointed at how easy it was going to turn out to be.
The disappointment triggered a warning light in his mind.
A man like John Purkiss didn’t disappoint you. If he appeared to do so, to carry out an action that was so stupidly reckless that it was out of character, it meant he was tricking you.
Halfway towards Emma, Purkiss swerved and turned, heading back at an angle.
Tullivant, who was lying prone on the ground between the boles of two oaks, whipped his head round to one side, then the other, sure that he’d see others bearing down on him, or perhaps nothing more than muzzle flashes before eternal darkness.
But there was nobody.
Tullivant turned his attention back to the clearing. Purkiss had disappeared once more among the trees.
So: his foolhardy sprint hadn’t been to draw Tullivant’s attention while Purkiss’s back-up approached Tullivant from behind. Instead, he’d hoped to get Tullivant to reveal his position. Which he hadn’t.
Stalemate.
Tullivant glanced upward. Dawn was still three hours off or more, even though the sky would begin lightening long before that.
He had time. And if Purkiss didn’t show his hand before the darkness receded too far to be of any use any more, then Tullivant would pull the trigger on Emma. Which Purkiss knew.
Tullivant settled down to wait.
A second later he felt the buzz of his phone against his thigh, signalling the arrival of a text message.
Carefully, moving only his arm, he reached down and pulled out the phone. The text was from Emma’s, diverted to his. And yes, on the bench she was groping for her mobile, no doubt assuming he was texting her with instructions.
The message read: Dr Goddard, I’m the man who phoned you earlier. Don’t look round. I’m in the trees behind you. I’m going to start making my way anti-clockwise round the circle. If you know the location of your husband, message me back with his position on the clock in relation to you.
Tullivant thumbed in a message to Emma. Text him back and tell him one o’clock. I receive all texts sent to and from your phone. I’ll know if you tell him anything else.
Tullivant was at the four o’clock position. If Purkiss made his way round in the direction he’d said, he would encounter Tullivant a lot sooner than he’d be expecting. Tullivant would have the jump on him.
On the bench, Emma straightened in bewilderment; but she managed to suppress the reflex to look over in his direction. If she was working on her phone, she was doing it extremely discreetly.