Tamar got into the jeep and turned the ignition. She had to put some distance between herself and Fratfield, both for her own sake and that of the village.
The wind was bending the trees towards her as she drove along the dirt road. She kept her speed as high as she dared, the jeep bouncing off the rough ground and lifting her out of her seat as she fought to keep a grip on the steering wheel.
Slowly, the wind began to die down. The buffeting against the jeep lessened as the road dipped before her, revealing a valley of jungle. A decent road was still a good thirty kilometres away but the track widened ahead in a junction with two other trails.
Just as she began to consider turning around to check on Toby, the wind rose again sending her veering towards the trees to her left. Ahead, at the junction, she saw a quad bike burst from one of the other tracks. The driver halted, and she slammed on the brakes, recognising him. Fratfield.
She wrestled the gear stick of the jeep into reverse, fighting her natural urge to close the distance between them. This was the first time since Portugal she had seen the man who had cursed her and nothing would please her more than to drive the few hundred yards between them and slam her jeep into him. She knew she’d never make it that far, though. Already the wind was so strong it was getting hard to move. Unless she retreated, this would be the last time she ever looked her enemy in the eyes.
Fratfield watched her for a moment, wondering, no doubt, whether it was worth pursuing her and seeing an end to this chase. Then he shifted his arm awkwardly, Toby’s bullet having cut through his right shoulder, and decided that self-preservation was best served by getting out of there.
Tamar had the jeep halfway through a three-point turn when the wind began to lift the vehicle from the road. It was just a wobble to begin with, the jeep rocking from side. Then she felt the entire jeep lift. She jumped out. As she rolled on the ground, the wind beating at her with the solidity of booted feet, she saw the jeep rise up, spinning through the air and crash into the trees.
Through squinting eyes, she saw Fratfield continue to retreat as she was lifted up and hurled towards the tree line. She collided with the trunk of a sturdy Piich tree, its rough trunk cutting into her back as the wind forced her against it. She fought to turn, reaching for one of the branches so she could hold on.
She could barely keep her eyes open but she saw a portly figure appear in the middle of the dirt track. Its flesh was as pale as cooked chicken, its belly bloated and distended, hanging below its thick knees. Its mouth was a round ‘o’ as it forced the wind from the void inside itself.
This was it, she thought, the unearthly creature held over her as a suspended death sentence. The rain-soaked bride had been a tragic figure but one that had, at least, appeared completely human. This did not. This was a creature from legend. This was the demon of the storm.
The tree she was holding on to began to bend, its lesser fellows already snapping and twisting around her as they gave in to the pressure of the wind. When would it cease? Surely Fratfield had retreated far enough away by now?
Toby burst from the jungle, a snatching mass of creepers surrounding him as he fell through the air and into the river. He glimpsed Fratfield’s shack for a moment before he sank beneath the surface, fighting against the rushing current. His feet hit the riverbed and he forced himself upwards, his arms reaching out. As his hands hit the air, something whipped around his wrist and he felt himself being yanked back as one of the creepers attempted to fish him back onto dry land. He was stretched between the two opposing forces, the river’s current and the hostile jungle. The river won, the creeper snapping and sending Toby coursing through the water, his lungs aching for air.
He hit a rock, and the last of his breath spat from him as the stone cut into his knees. He twisted with the impact, banging his forehead and sending a sharp burst of pain right through him. With the last of his strength, he grabbed hold of the rock, using the current to help him pull himself above the surface, gasping for air as he climbed out of the grip of the river. His head spun and he touched his wound, feeling blood.
He looked up into the sky and wondered whether his wife had escaped. Then he passed out.
‘That went well.’
Toby opened his eyes and immediately closed them again, the pain in his head worsening with the light.
‘Brilliant,’ he replied. ‘We showed him.’
Tamar took his hand and held it in her own, shuffling to a more comfortable position on the rock beside him. ‘We will find him again,’ she said, ‘and next time he will not run.’
Toby dabbed at the cut on his forehead. ‘Feel like I’ve split my head in half,’ he said.
‘It is a small cut,’ she told him, as if ashamed he should even feel the need to mention it. ‘While you were having a swim I was thrown at a tree.’
‘A swim? He set the whole jungle on me!’
‘A jungle is not a thing.’
‘This one was.’ Toby pulled himself slowly into a sitting position, groaning as the movement made the pain in his head pulse even harder.
He sighed and for a few moments they just sat there, side by side, holding hands, watching the river.
‘You’ll have to drive back to the town,’ Toby said after a while, ‘I don’t think I should be allowed behind the wheel of a car until my head clears.’
‘That will not be a problem.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You misunderstand. It will not be a problem you being behind the wheel of a car. The jeep blew away. I think maybe it is in Guatemala now.’
‘Oh.’
‘We will have a nice romantic walk,’ she told him, ‘because when you marry a woman you treat her like a princess.’
‘Sorry.’
Tamar smiled. ‘I’m not. Yet. But by the time we have swum to the side of the river I will be calling you bad names, so enjoy my love while it is still there.’
The Assassin walks steadily through the crowds of disembarking passengers. Groups of tourists, jaded and miserable in the hangover stage of their holiday, return to the cold of their real lives to fold up the brightly coloured shirts and thin dresses of another climate for one more year. Foreign students hoist backpacks and gaze out of the panoramic windows onto a grey landscape of Gatwick concrete. Refuelling trucks and people in high-visibility waistcoats busy themselves around the aeroplanes, long since numb to the sense of magic this place holds for the holidaymaker.
The Assassin strolls through them, balancing his natural impatience with a professional awareness that a good killer never runs. He should never need to.
At passport control, he leaves the crowds behind and heads towards the e-passport machines. A slightly impatient customs official moves between the barriers, repeatedly explaining the process to people still confused by this old technology. The Assassin needs no assistance. He slides his passport onto the reader where its electronic chip – provided, at considerable cost, by a Lithuanian contact who worked miracles with illicit tech – is scanned. The Assassin looks straight ahead into the small camera, letting its software analyse his face, compare it to the stored imagery and make its decision. A soft hiss and the door opens.
He moves quickly through the shopping concourse, buying himself a takeaway coffee, a newspaper and a new sim card for his phone. He dislikes giving clients contact information and makes a point of using a different card for each contract, sometimes even changing it mid-job. Information is his enemy, the modern-day lichen of existence, accreting with every phone call, email or card purchase. Whenever he feels that build-up begin he sheds it like dead skin.
He catches the Brighton train heading into London, reads his newspaper and drinks his coffee, just like a normal human being. Which, of course, he is not. Normal human beings don’t kill each other for money.
Arriving at St Pancras, he folds up the paper and dabs the cappuccino froth from his upper lip. It leaves a brown, chocolate kiss on the complimentary napkin, like a lover’s goodbye. He stares at it for a moment, feeling paranoid, then pockets both the cup and napkin. He’ll dispose of them later.
Leaving the station, he finally feels he has stepped out of the hinterland of travel, that false world of airports and train stations, and been delivered into the real world. This had been his city once, a home when he had enjoyed the luxury of a real life, removed from the constant travel from one country to another, swapping names and languages, invisible, transient, unreal. Here he had had friends – well, as close as he had ever got to such a thing – lovers, hobbies, a job. Here he had been real. It feels disconcerting to be back.
He sends a text message to the client, breaking the phone’s pure, new state. Now it exists, and him with it, the clock is ticking.
The reply is less than a couple of minutes coming. A location. Not a meet, thankfully. The Assassin doesn’t approve of face-to-face encounters. He prefers to handle all contracts remotely. Anonymity and murder should always go hand in hand. The location is for a locker linked to an online store. Alongside the address is the pin code he’ll need to access the locker.
He buys himself a day’s travel card for the Underground and heads to Waterloo. Exiting the station past the seemingly endless row of taxicabs he descends into Lower Marsh street. Finally, he is out of the heaving crowds and walking along streets sparsely populated with real, normal people. These are people who have never choked someone to death or slit a throat. The dislocation he felt earlier is multiplied a hundredfold. He is an impostor. A man at odds with his surroundings. He looks at the office creatures, the market shoppers, the simple, definable human beings with their basic needs, their simple narratives and he feels utterly alone. Here, in the city he once called home, there seems to be nothing left of the man he had been, the fiction he had carried to keep himself safe, the fiction that had acted as if the world was a simple place to be. That fiction, fragile as it was, has rotted away. He is a shell. He is a hollow man.
Walking into the grocery store listed in the text message, he stares at shiny packaging and advertising faces, perfect and happy, and begins to wonder if perhaps it is the world that is false and him that is real.
The locker is set up against the back wall. A small control panel invites him to enter his passcode. He does so, copying it from the text message, and there is a click as the door of a locker opens. Inside there is a large manila envelope. He takes it out but doesn’t open it. This is neither the time nor the place.
‘Got something nice?’ asks the shop assistant as the Assassin makes to leave.
The Assassin stops. He glances up at the security camera on the wall above the door, turns and sees a second above the counter. Is the footage they record stored locally or held on a server by the security company? Paranoia. That old friend. He feels exposed. He keeps his face low, unseen.
‘I don’t know what it is yet,’ he says.
‘Surprise, huh?’ the assistant smiles. ‘Nice.’
The Assassin takes another quick glance at the camera. It’s cheap. The store is independent, not blessed with the financial support of a multinational company. The camera footage will be stored locally. Hell, it might even be on tape. He’s willing to bet one of the cameras might even be a dummy.
Easy. It will be easy. Then the paranoia will go away. He can kill this man. Choke the life out of him. Beat out his skull on the hard wood of the shop counter.
There is no need, the calm, professional part of him insists. Do that and you only add to the information. You make people look. And what of the footage from the cameras in the street? London is lousy with cameras. If this man dies, people will look at the information on those cameras. He will exist as a person of interest.
‘Get you anything else?’ asks the assistant, and the Assassin realises he’s been stood, staring at the man. Drawing attention.
‘No,’ he says, ‘I was just wondering if I had enough phone credit but I’m fine. Thanks.’
He walks out of the shop.
‘No worries,’ says the assistant, completely unaware how close he came to dying during his low-paid shift.
The Assassin returns to Waterloo, the envelope zipped up inside his jacket. He catches a train to Bank and then walks the short distance to the hotel he has picked for his stay. He always stays at chain hotels. They are nondescript, cheap and the constant flood of guests means the staff have grown blind to faces.
The receptionist barely looks at him as he books his room using one of several disposable credit cards he keeps for just such occasions. It will pass a cursory check through the machine but can’t be used to trace him. These places insist on a card imprint for security but when he comes to leave, he’ll pay cash and the card won’t be charged. No trail.
His room is identical to so many others he has stayed in during his life. Deep red carpet and white sheets. The companies keep the permanent fixtures dark to hide the grime, distracting you with the lightness of the removable sheets and towels. The furniture comes in flat packs. The desk, one of hundreds of thousands scattered through this chain, is littered with glossy literature inviting him to part with his money. He dumps it all in a drawer, sits down and sends a text message to his client confirming that he is in receipt of the envelope.
The reply is, once again, quick. ‘Handle naturally. Your friend should be surprised and completely unaware of your efforts. Timing and location for the meet will follow. Precision is vital.’
This means that he is to use traditional means to eliminate the target. This is not his speciality; people usually hire him to create a piece of theatre, a shocking and well-publicised death. It doesn’t concern him – he’s happy just to pull a trigger if that’s what the client wants. The talk of surprise is common enough and usually suggests a twinge of guilt on the part of the client. They want him to kill quickly and suddenly. The target should be dead before they even know what’s happening. No threats, no fear just a flipped switch. Easy enough. The Assassin is a renowned marksmen and a high-velocity round through the forehead will do the job adequately.