Who Dares Wins Read online

  Without another word, the phone clicked off.

  Nicola looked at the silent handset, then longingly back at the half-run bath. Then, muttering under her breath, she went to find herself a dressing gown.

  Sometimes, she thought to herself, she was just too obliging for her own good.

  *

  Sam replaced the phone on its cradle, then immediately walked away from the booth.

  He was just outside a parade of shops, most of them shut apart from a kebab shop half full of pissed-up kids. Sam was hungry, but something stopped him from wanting contact with anyone else, so he walked purposefully away. The half-hour passed slowly. He found a second pay phone in about ten minutes, then spent the rest of the time hanging around waiting to call his contact again. He didn’t really know what he was going to do if he found out an address for this woman – it rather depended on where she lived – but at the moment he didn’t know what else to do. It was just gone eleven when he made the call.

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Somehow I thought it would be.’ Nicola sounded annoyed.

  ‘Did you get the address?’

  ‘Yeah, I got it. You didn’t tell me it was a woman.’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ he lied.

  A disbelieving silence. ‘Look, Sam,’ Nicola said finally, ‘I don’t know what this is all about, but I’ve got enough trouble at work as it is. This isn’t going to put me any deeper in the shit, is it?’

  Sam sniffed. ‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ he lied. ‘I promise. It’s just personal.’

  He breathed steadily as he waited for Nicola to reply.

  ‘All right,’ she said, her voice heavy with resignation. ‘You got a pen?’

  ‘I can remember it.’

  ‘Fine. Ground Floor Flat, 31 Addington Gardens, W3. Hope your friend likes Acton, Sam. Personally, I think it’s a dump.’

  Acton, London. At this time of night he could make it in a couple of hours.

  ‘Thank you, Nicola. I owe you one.’

  ‘As far as I can remember,’ she replied, a hint of archness returning to her voice, ‘you already did.’

  For the first time that day, Sam smiled. ‘Don’t let the bed bugs bite,’ he told her quietly, but there was no reply. Nicola had already hung up.

  Fifteen minutes later, Sam was in the car, one finger on the steering wheel as he hurtled out of Hereford down the A road that would lead him to London. The screen of his SatNav illuminated the route, but he barely glanced at it. He knew the way well enough. The lights of the cars ahead of him were nothing but a blur – not only because the speedo was constantly tipping a hundred, but also because his mind wasn’t really on the road. The events of the day churned over in his head, a series of disjointed visions; but the more he thought about them, the more confused he became. Sam didn’t even know who he was going to find at Addington Gardens. Clare Corbett, whoever the hell she was? Or someone else? He glanced down at the passenger seat. The handle of his handgun was peeping out from under the document in its envelope. There were enough rounds in there for him to keep himself safe; he couldn’t shake the feeling that he would be discharging some of them before the sun was up.

  It was gone one in the morning by the time Sam approached London. The roads were practically empty and he burned up the tarmac, slowing down only when the time came to pull off the motorway. The female voice on the SatNav was irritatingly calm as it guided the speeding Audi through the West London suburbs and by a quarter past one he was nearing Addington Gardens. It was an ordinary residential road with a long line of terraced houses on either side. Sam didn’t turn into it, deciding instead to park several streets along. Once he’d come to a standstill, he took his jacket from the back seat, secreted the handgun and the document inside then climbed out of the car. The locking lights illuminated the dark street as he walked towards his destination.

  There was nobody about – just an urban fox further down the pavement who stared at him with glinting eyes for a few seconds before turning tail and disappearing. In the background Sam could hear the vague hum of traffic on the main road, but here all was still. At the end of Addington Street he loitered, his narrowed eyes surveying the scene. He didn’t really know what he was looking for, but he’d recognise it if he saw it. There was no sign of anybody at this time, and none of the vehicles looked suspicious.

  Except one.

  It was a white van, old, well used. Counting down the house numbers from the end of the street, Sam calculated that it was parked outside number 75. Too close to the address he was visiting for his liking. He decided to investigate further.

  Sam walked casually along the pavement. As he passed the white van he saw there was nobody in the front seats. But there was a panel blocking off the rear of the vehicle, so he couldn’t see inside. On the back doors there were blacked-out windows and a little sticker: NO TOOLS ARE KEPT IN THIS VEHICLE OVERNIGHT.

  With his right hand, he gripped the gun inside his jacket. He approached the back of the vehicle along the pavement side and then, with a sudden sharp jerk of the elbow on his left arm, he shattered the window, then immediately pulled out his gun and aimed it into the body of the van.

  Nothing. Empty. Sam drew a deep breath and withdrew his gun from inside the window. Somebody would be cursing the vandals first thing in the morning, but he wouldn’t be losing too much sleep over that. He turned his attention to the house numbers. Number 31 was only a few paces away.

  There was nothing to distinguish it from the other terraced houses along this street. It had a small front garden that had been concreted over and was now home to only a couple of wheelie bins and a few old crisp packets that had been blown in. The ground-floor flat had a large bay window at the front, blocked with wooden slatted blinds. On the wall just above the window the cover of a security alarm blinked in the night. As Sam opened the metal gate it creaked quietly, so he didn’t close it before walking up to the bright blue front door.

  By the side of the door was a video intercom with two buttons, one for the ground-floor flat, the other for the first floor. Next to each button was a scrawled name tag. The tag for the ground floor was simply marked ‘CC’. Clare Corbett.

  Sam took the envelope from his pocket and removed the document. Then, with one hand over the lens of the intercom camera, he pressed the button, holding it down for several seconds without releasing his finger.

  And then he waited.

  There was no reply.

  Sam cursed under his breath. He hadn’t really considered the possibility that there wouldn’t be anybody here. His hand still covering the camera, he rang the intercom again.

  Again he waited.

  This time, his patience was rewarded.

  The woman’s voice that came over the loudspeaker was groggy and throaty, as though its owner had just woken up. But it was wary too.

  ‘Who’s that?’ it demanded.

  Sam put his mouth to the intercom. ‘Clare Corbett?’ he asked.

  ‘Who’s that?’ the voice repeated. Tense. ‘Who is it? Why can’t I see you?’

  He let his hand fall from the camera and replaced it with the document. ‘I need to talk to you about this.’

  A pause.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘I’ve got some more information,’ Sam improvised. ‘You need to hear it.’

  A scratchy sound came over the intercom, the sound of movement. ‘All right,’ the voice said finally. Reluctantly. ‘Wait there. I’ll get dressed and let you in.’

  Sam put his hand back over the camera. He didn’t know quite why he wanted his face to remain anonymous, but he did, and there was nothing to stop whoever was inside the flat from looking out even when they weren’t speaking. Secreting the document back in his jacket, he used his free hand to grip the gun. He had no idea who was going to answer the door and he wanted to be prepared for any eventuality.

  A minute passed.

  Two.

  Sam looked over his shoulder, then back down
at the intercom.

  Why had nobody opened the door yet?

  He rang the bell again, but this time he didn’t wait for an answer. Something told him there wasn’t going to be one.

  Hurrying back on to the pavement he looked from one end of the road to the other. Had there been an alleyway leading behind the houses when he turned into Addington Street? He thought there had. Sam glanced back at the front door. Nothing. Not even a light. Whoever he had just spoken to was taking too long to answer the door. There was something else going on.

  He thundered to the end of the road. Sure enough, a pokey alley led down the side of the end-of-terrace house. Sam sprinted down it, turning a corner at the end. He knocked a dustbin as he ran; it clattered over and spilled its putrid contents on the ground. In the darkness he could see movement up ahead. He didn’t shout: he just upped his speed.

  There was an open door, a wooden one leading from the garden of one of the terraces. And beyond it, running towards him, a woman. She had blonde hair – shoulder length – and wore a chunky, knee-length cardigan. When she saw Sam bearing down on her she immediately turned and ran in the other direction. Sam easily caught up and grabbed her. The woman flipped and fought, like a fish that has just been pulled from the water. She kicked Sam hard in the shin, in the groin. It hurt, but he just held her, firmly, until it became perfectly clear that she wasn’t getting way. It took about a minute for the fight to go out of her, for her limbs to stop flailing and go limp. Only then did Sam realise how badly she was shaking.

  He turned her round and looked at her face. The silver moon illuminated her features. The skin was white apart from where Sam’s hand had been, where it was a mottled red. A sob escaped the woman’s lips and her eyes were suddenly filled with an unmistakable look of total, abject fear.

  ‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘Please! I haven’t told anyone. I’ve done what you said. I haven’t told anyone!’

  She hid her face in her hands.

  ‘Please!’ her voice was muffled now. Filled with brutal, racking sobs of terror. ‘Please, don’t kill me.’

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  SIX

  Sam held the woman in silence for a moment, while she continued to cry. Beneath the tears he could tell she was attractive. She smelled of perfume. But she was a pitiful sight with her raw eyes and streaked mascara.

  ‘Who else is in the house?’ he demanded.

  ‘Nobody,’ she breathed. Sam heard a trace of a Northern Irish accent in her voice.

  He waited a couple of seconds and then, with a sudden movement, pulled out his handgun and held it to the side of her head.

  ‘Who else is in the house?’

  ‘Oh, God . . .’ The woman’s knees buckled. ‘Nobody. I swear. Oh, sweet Jesus, I swear . . .’

  Sam narrowed his eyes. She was telling the truth. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Get back in there. I’ll be right behind you. If you shout for help, I’ll shoot. Do you understand?’

  No reply. Just a trembling wreck of a human being.

  ‘I said, do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  He nodded at her and stepped aside. With shaky, nervous steps the woman moved into her garden. The back door to her house was still open, but there were no lights on inside. Sam followed her in, closing the door behind him. He was in a kitchen. Behind him were wide French doors with slatted blinds above them. Sam stepped further into the room. ‘Put the blinds down,’ he instructed.

  The woman did as she was told, slowly and clumsily. Sam found himself growing impatient. But the woman was scared. Telling her to hurry up wouldn’t have done any good. When the blinds were finally lowered, she turned to look at him.

  ‘Turn the lights on,’ he told her.

  She edged round him, her eyes constantly glancing at the gun. By the main door was a light switch. She flicked it on and illuminated the room. Sam looked around. The kitchen was immaculately tidy, nothing out of place on the work surfaces. There was art on the walls and cookbooks on the shelves. It was a pleasant, comfortable, ordinary place. In the middle of the room was a pine table with four chairs neatly tucked underneath. The woman still trembled as she stood by the door.

  ‘Are you Clare Corbett?’ he asked.

  She nodded her head.

  He pointed his gun at one of the chairs round the table. ‘Sit down,’ he told her.

  Clare didn’t move. ‘Are you going to kill me?’ she asked.

  ‘Sit down.’

  The woman stepped fearfully towards the table, pulled out a chair and sat. Her wide eyes looked up at Sam, who tucked the gun back into his jacket.

  ‘If I was going to kill you,’ he said, ‘you’d already be dead and I’d be halfway out of London by now.’

  Clare closed her eyes. ‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’ Her breathing was a little steadier now, however. She appeared fractionally less frightened.

  Sam pulled out the document and dropped it on the table in front of her. ‘This fell through my door a couple of hours ago. Care to tell me what it is and why it’s got your name scrawled on it?’

  The woman looked down at the papers in front of her. For a moment she didn’t reply, but just gazed at the document.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked finally. ‘How did you find out where I live?’

  ‘You’re not asking the questions, sweetheart. I am. What do you know about that document?’

  Clare looked up at him again. ‘I can’t tell you,’ she replied weakly. ‘You don’t know what they’re like. You don’t know what they’d do to me.’

  Sam didn’t take his gaze from her. ‘You’re right,’ he replied. ‘I don’t even know who they are. But I’ll tell you what. Why don’t we pretend that I make them look like Mother fucking Theresa?’ He pulled the weapon from his jacket again. ‘What is it?’ he demanded.

  Clare looked nervously at the gun. When she spoke, her voice was cracked and timid. ‘It’s an article,’ she whispered. ‘I wrote it. It got spiked.’

  ‘Spiked?’

  ‘Pulled. Withdrawn.’

  ‘Why?’

  Clare took a deep breath, as though steadying her nerves. ‘Reasons of national security,’ she replied. ‘At least that was the phrase they used.’

  ‘You keep saying “they”. Who are you talking about?’

  ‘They said they were from the Government. They took my laptop and all my notes.’ Words started to tumble from Clare’s mouth. ‘I’m a journalist. I contacted the Foreign Office for a quote and an hour later they were here. Three of them. One of them sat at this table. He told me . . . he told me that I should forget about my story. That if I didn’t, people would die. That I wouldn’t be safe . . .’

  She started to cry again, wiping the tears away from her face with the back of her cheek.

  Sam lowered his weapon. This woman, whoever she was, was a mess. But she was also a mess who had information he needed, and now that she had started to speak, threatening her wasn’t going to be the best way of making her open up even more. He pulled out a chair and sat opposite.

  ‘You thought I was one of them?’ he asked.

  ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then who are you?’

  ‘What was your story?’

  She shook her head. ‘I can’t,’ she breathed. ‘They meant what they said.’

  Sam allowed a silence to fall between them. When he spoke, his voice was softer. Calmer. ‘Is your front door locked?’ he asked.

  She nodded.

  ‘What about the burglar alarm?’

  Clare shook her head. ‘It’s a dummy.’

  ‘All right then. Listen to me carefully. I’m in the military. As long as I’m here I can make sure nothing happens. You believe me, don’t you?’

  She nodded again.

  ‘Good. Listen, Clare, I’m sorry if I frightened you out there. Truth is, I’m not quite sure what’s going on or who I can trust. I think I can trust you, but you’ve got to
tell me what you know. Will you do that?’

  Still she looked at him timidly. ‘All right.’ She smiled, a scared little smile. Her breath came in long, slow sighs, as though she were psyching herself up to speak.

  And then she did. Slowly. Nervously.

  ‘About a month ago, this guy got in touch. He’d read one of my articles – I can’t remember which one – and said he wanted to talk.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘He didn’t say. To be honest, I thought he was a nutter. Refused to meet anywhere there might have been CCTV. I kept trying to put him off – thought he sounded like the type to do a Jill Dando on me – but he kept calling till I agreed to meet him just to shut him up.’

  ‘Where did you meet?’

  ‘To start with, out of town. He wanted to go somewhere deserted, but I wouldn’t do that, so we met in the car park of a service station on the M4. He was scared shitless.’ Clare looked down. ‘I know I’m not one to talk.’

  ‘Carry on.’

  ‘He said his name was Bill. Cockney lad. I didn’t believe him, but I don’t think he expected me to. He was . . .’ She shrugged. ‘Mid-twenties? A bit younger maybe. Bolshie. Would’ve come across as a bit of a wide boy if he wasn’t so frightened.’

  Clare started to chew on her thumbnail, clearly perturbed by the memories.

  ‘What was he frightened of?’

  She paused and breathed heavily, steadying herself. ‘I didn’t believe him at first,’ she said. ‘It just sounded like . . . I don’t know . . . just rubbish. Thought he was a timewaster. He said he’d been recruited by MI5 as some kind of operative. Someone to do their dirty work.’

  ‘MI5 already have people to do their dirty work,’ Sam stated.

  Clare looked sharply at him before carrying on. ‘He said he’d been taken to some kind of training camp, a place where they were trained up in certain techniques. Weapons training, surveillance, things like that. The camp was in . . .’

  ‘. . . Kazakhstan,’ Sam completed her sentence under his breath.

  Her eyes narrowed at him as she nodded. ‘Like I said, I thought it was all bullshit. Bill could tell I wanted to get away so he stopped talking. He just made me promise to call him if I wanted to know more.’