Enver’s lightweight, polyester tie flapped in the wind that blew his hair over his face as he stood looking at Hanlon. She was wearing a dark blue tracksuit and dark training shoes. She had a small, expensive-looking rucksack with her. She looked ready for anything, thought Enver. Not like me.
They closed the car doors behind them and she locked the vehicle and gave Enver the key. She took a similar one with the Volvo logo on it, put it in a small plastic bag, and hid it under a stone in the grass by the lay-by.
‘That’s the spare,’ she said. ‘Just in case. Remember where I put it.’
That little gesture brought home to Enver, as nothing else had, the danger they were in. Nobody knew where they were. Come to think of it, he only had a vague idea himself. Conquest had killed or had ordered the killings of at least several people that he knew of; the man wouldn’t care if he added to it. He certainly had very little to lose. Once again, Enver questioned his sanity in following Hanlon. Yet he could appreciate her worry that the mole might tip Conquest off, giving him time to dispose of the evidence by killing the boy. Enver thought, if we die, he dies anyway.
He looked around at the unfamiliar countryside, the flat, featureless fields, the enormous expanse of sea, and suddenly craved the certainty of buildings and the proximity of people. He wanted the safety blanket of London. If anything happens out here, Enver thought, no one would ever know. In London you can always shout for help. Not out here. Only the gulls would hear.
‘Have you had enough of the view, Sergeant?’ said Hanlon acidly. ‘Come on.’
A stream in a culvert disappeared under the road where the lay-by was, and flowed down across the fields towards the sea. From the road you could see its route, lined with bushes and scrubby trees stunted by the cold, salty winds that blew in off the sea. Hanlon intended to follow it downstream. Walking across the fields would make them visible from the lodge; the undergrowth flanking the stream would screen them from sight. She climbed gracefully and lightly over the waist-high barbed-wire fence that ran next to the lay-by, putting her feet on the wire close to where it was attached to one of the upright posts, so it didn’t sag under her weight. She jumped over and Enver tried. The wire bent alarmingly as he trod on it and his foot slipped.
‘Be careful, Demirel, you cretin,’ hissed Hanlon angrily. ‘If you cut yourself open on that wire you’ll be no good to man or beast. I’m not driving you to fucking Colchester A amp;E! Put your jacket over it!’
It was the first time he had ever heard her swear and it gave him some idea of the stress she must be under. He had almost forgotten that Hanlon was human and might well have feelings. He was coming to think of her as robotic, devoid of emotion. Enver did as he was told, now straddling the wire, his suit jacket protecting his groin from the barbs. He got over and the fabric caught on the wire and ripped as he removed it. He sighed to himself as he put it back on. There was a big tear in the material. It was going to be a long night, he thought. A long, cold night.
The stream had cut its way into the earth over time, creating a kind of trench, and it zigzagged down to the sea a few hundred metres distant from the lodge. The two of them followed it down until they were parallel to the house. Hidden from view of the windows by tough, thorny gorse bushes and buffeted by the endless salt wind from the sea, Hanlon and Enver lay on the ground, looking towards the lodge-house. Hanlon had taken a pair of binoculars from her rucksack and they were pressed to her eyes as she studied the terrain.
Enver’s shoes were covered in mud and waterlogged. His trousers were filthy and the fabric was soaked with water. He was very cold. Hanlon, by contrast, looked in her element. Enver’s father used to take him hunting when they went back to Turkey, to Rize, where the Demirel family had come from. They used to go there on holiday; it was up by the then Russian border. Now it would be some other independent former Soviet Republic. It had been equally uncomfortable. Enver remembered his father’s suppressed excitement as they drew near their prey, his old rifle in his hands. He sensed the same emotion in Hanlon but didn’t share it. This is what they were doing now, he thought, stalking Conquest before striking.
He hadn’t liked hunting then either, come to that. He’d wanted to go to Fethiye or Kas, sunbathe, go swimming, look at girls. They never did, of course. They went to sodding Rize. There was a lot of rain, he seemed to remember, and a disproportionate number of mosques. They were very religious in Rize. No bikinis there. The noise of an engine broke his train of thought. A Porsche drove down the narrow strip of road and stopped outside the house. Enver saw the driver’s door open and simultaneously a man appeared from the lodge. He’d either heard the car or been expecting it. Then someone got out of the car. He heard an exclamation from Hanlon. She obviously recognized the driver.
‘Who is it?’ said Enver. She handed him the glasses. He put them to his eyes and adjusted the focus. The magnification was excellent and the resolution high. There, talking to the lodge-keeper was a man who he recognized from his TV appearances as a prominent, crusading QC. Not that long ago he’d heard the man had been made a judge; the papers had talked about a poacher turned gamekeeper. The man in the car was Lord Justice Reece.
The last time Hanlon had seen Reece was when Bingham was sent down. Reece was the presiding judge at the trial. She was beginning to feel a strange sense of fate about this investigation. The protagonists had all met before. Reece, Bingham, Conquest. Bingham was connected to her by his past trial and his current role as unwilling informant. Anderson was linked by virtue of proximity to Bingham and as a direct result of Hanlon’s vendetta.
Reece was a surprise. She guessed it shouldn’t be. Sex crimes were democratic, they cut across all bounds of class and money and societal divide. Why should a paedophile judge be worse or more unusual than, say, a famous paedophile film director or child rapist pop star, DJ, TV presenter or actor? Or carpet fitter, labourer, postman or bank clerk, come to that? She supposed because it was a double betrayal, a betrayal of the innocent and a betrayal of justice. Hanlon was ambivalent about the law, but she was passionate about justice. Corruption and hypocrisy turned Hanlon’s stomach. She preferred the company of criminals like Anderson. They didn’t pretend to be anything other than what they were. Anderson was at least honest. He might nail people to doors but he didn’t bleat about upholding their human rights while he did so, or righting wrongs. Reece was far worse. Anderson’s words to Julie Demirel came back to her as if borne on the sea breeze, ‘He’s a supplier, not a user.’ Reece would be the customer. Hanlon clamped her jaw tight in impotent rage. She wouldn’t be able to do anything until evening, until darkness could cover her movements.
She watched through her binoculars as Reece parked the car and the man from the lodge pulled a small rowing boat in from a mooring buoy with a rope on to the shore, a running mooring as it was called. The judge climbed in awkwardly and sat uncomfortably in the bows. He was obviously unused to boats. The boatman handed him his suitcase, tied the mooring up with a sheet-shank, then pushed the old clinker-built boat out into the sea and jumped gracefully into the stern as it moved away from the shore. He started the outboard motor and they headed off towards the island. The boat’s keel bounced a little on the choppy surface of the sea. The judge sat stiffly on the thwart, clutching his suitcase as it balanced awkwardly on his knees. Hanlon’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully as she examined the water. She was thinking of currents, tides and wind strength. She looked at her watch: seven o’clock. Maybe an hour, an hour and a half, before it was dark enough for her.