The Crocodile Hunter by Gerald Seymour (best summer reads of all time txt) 📕

nothing. He could have wished them well, could have urged that they think again on their futures and might contemplate withdrawing their resignations. He did not look back and went out through the door and closed it after him. They would have heard his footsteps going away down the corridor.

A cell door slammed. Keys rattled, footsteps retreated, a distant voice yelled abuse at an unnamed target. He sat on the bed, had nowhere else to sit and he gazed at the tiled floor, had nowhere else to look.

Sitting opposite each other at a canteen table, foreswearing the senior dining-room were the AssDepDG and the DepDG.

“He’s gone off home now. He’ll take a week’s leave: can’t say that he’ll use it all but at least some of it. It has actually been a rather extraordinary few hours. For us, because we are used to confronting home-grown fighters who have limited experience in weapons and tactics, though still danerous. For him, he will have come from a war zone and will be looking into the skies for fixed-wing fast jets and for missile-carrying drones, and expecting to have close-quarter fighting with top-drawer Special Forces and going right down the scales to Syrian press-ganged recruits but also with plenty of firepower. The ground chosen for our operation was wonderfully banal – a little corner of east Kent, and the most famous cathedral city in the Anglican world. Jilkes would have been awarded a ‘best in show’ rosette where he had been, whereas down there, Canterbury, he’d have been floundering like a bird with a broken wing. Jonas recognised it, and went for the boy’s jugular. Takes all sorts, and thank the good Lord we still have room for him, our Eternal Flame, our Wobby. An unsung hero, the best type . . . So good, these sausages, aren’t they?”

Other than the motor cycle in front of them, the road ahead was clear.

When he had reached the front step, had been fiddling for the key, Vera had opened the door.

“What’s this, some sort of scarecrow?”

He had grinned, a little sheepishly, had said something about needing a bath and a brush-up.

“I suppose you walked into a door.”

A bit of a shrug. He had stood in the hall and had eased out of his coat, then had discarded the stained jacket, had dropped his trousers, then had taken off his shirt and tie.

“Clever door, if it could make those bruises on your throat.”

He had given her a rueful kiss on the cheek, and she had pulled a face, then had gathered up his clothing and he had padded off up the stairs to run the bath, and in the mirror while the water cascaded from the taps he could see the damage on his face that the in-house nurse had sealed. He had called down his hope for a departure time, and she had started to prepare the necessary food, and what else they took, and had gone to the garage to find the cat’s basket. While he lay in the bath she would also have been around to the back door of their neighbour and warned her they’d be away a few days. Might have been asked for how long – might have said she had not been told, and grimaced.

The motorcycle took them at a steady pace, one that recognised without quibble the speed limit for that section of road.

He had come down the stairs and the cat had been shouting abuse from the cage. She had asked, “Not my business, Jonas, but what’s the state of the door?”

He’d said, “The door came off badly. The door’s shoulder took a whack from a truncheon which would have hurt, and the door’s ankle ended up with a dog bite, only a spaniel but done with vigour. And the door won’t be going off to the country for some quiet walks because it will be under lock and key. The best place for a door – be there for a bit, quite a bit.”

Which at the time was enough of an explanation. He was pleased with the expertise he’d shown when he hooked up the caravan to the tow-bar, then bringing it out of the parking area in front of their house, then beginning the journey from the tree-lined road in Raynes Park, where very soon the blossom would make a show. Vera had made a suggestion for a minor diversion as they had headed west. Had shown him a destination on the map, and he had agreed. There was a gin factory in a building once used as a printing works, and the Test river ran through an historic mill beside the factory. He had walked around the site, had seen brown trout from a footbridge, and had stayed close to his wife and had learned about the production of the drink and how the flavours were added from hothouse-grown plants – and then had had a sample, non-alcoholic, in their bar. He had permitted her all the time she might have wanted as if he had no distractions and his scabbing wounds gave no irritation. The place was crowded and several of the other visitors peered at him. At Vera’s guidance, Jonas had wrapped a loose scarf around his throat and it hid the flesh around his windpipe, but he heard her say to a woman who had shown particular interest that he’d “had a fight with a door, quite a rough door.” And while Jonas learned about the production of “mothers’ ruin”, he could reflect – briefly – that his opponent would by now have been marched out of the holding cell and would be in an interrogation suite. A relay of questioners would be forming an orderly queue and waiting to get at him and prise open his secrets’ box, which would be the interesting bit for Cameron Jilkes and would keep him alert; more interesting than the following months and years in the cell when no one would come to visit.