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

They had joined the A303 at the Beacon Hill roundabout, where the motorcycle had awaited their arrival. Jonas flashed his lights and received an acknowledging wave and the rider had pulled out ahead of him, and the rotating blue light on a pole at the back of the bike had been activated. That had been good of the AssDepDG, fixing it with a county’s traffic division, had been appreciated.

“Is that for us?” Vera had asked.

He chirped, “Must have the wrong vehicle to escort, but we’ll not deny a gift horse.”

The road in front stayed clear. Behind Jonas and Vera would have been a convoy of motorists going puce with frustration. He and Vera, and the constabulary, would have been subject to violent abuse, and a few tried to take the matter into their own hands and accelerated up the road in an attempt to pass the caravan, then had found the centre of the road occupied by a police motorcyclist. No overtaking was permitted. They passed Stonehenge. It looked spectacular that late afternoon. Clean sunshine fell on the stones and the lichen was highlighted and the sky was scoured by the winds so the clouds moved fast. Very pretty . . .

Not so in the interview suite. He imagined an atmosphere of scrupulous politeness directed toward Cameron Jilkes, and they would have been beavering to locate the weapon he would have used . . . By now, but for the scrap in that Canterbury park, it would all have been over at the Station that Jonas assumed would have been the target. Blood and guts and smoke and sirens, and recriminations on a grand scale. They would want to find that weapon and quickly, and learn about the contacts in this country and abroad. Would want to exploit that window of opportunity when the prisoner had so recently gone into the net.

After Stonehenge and Winterbourne Stoke, the A303 widened to dual carriageway. Not that it would help the grumbling convoy in their wake. Nothing passed him. Jonas reckoned the motorcyclist might have been the most perverse character in that force’s traffic section. The rider was out in the fast lane, and brooked no overtaking. After Wylye, and after Chicklade, were steep hills where Jonas needed to drop his speed below the limit, and then the rest of his following log-jam had to ape him. So pleasant, Vera remarked, not to have the hassle of traffic. It was good not to speed and the cat in its basket would not be thrown around on the back seat of their car. By the time they reached the turning for Wolverton Oak, Jonas imagined that the cars and lorries and vans behind him stretched all the way back to the Keysley Down crossroads. He thought himself richly rewarded for his encounter in the park.

Coming towards the junction for Stoke Trister to the south or Stoney Stoke to the north, he flashed his headlights, and the rider acknowledged him, gave a gloved salute. He indicated left . . . There was a small site they had heard of at the pub in Stourton Caundle, a Dorset village. He swung the wheel, waved to the motorcyclist, and he was gone and the traffic squashed behind was in racing mood. He felt quite tired. Not as tired as his opponent would be. The questioning would be remorseless and, from what Jonas had read, they would exact every possible advantage from the early sessions because opened windows should always be used to maximum effect.

They were now on narrow B roads and she called out the directions from her phone. There were cows grazing beyond neat hedgerows, and sheep, and a tractor was shifting silage on a trailer. Jonas felt the stress drip off him and Vera had looped her arm around his, and he thought he might sleep many hours when he had parked the caravan, hooked up the power and the water, and stretched and walked around the site as dusk fell. Cameron Jilkes was unlikely to see any cows or sheep for twenty years, and no country dusk to watch as the sun dipped through the trellis shapes of leafless old trees.

She gave him good warning of the turning out of Stalbridge Weston to Stourton Caundle, and said, “Jonas, I suppose I ought to know . . . what sort of day was it for you?”

He pondered for a moment and a low branch scraped the caravan’s side. They would be working hard on Cameron Jilkes, bleeding him, and unlikely he would hold out much longer, would want a bed and food and to lie in darkness and contemplate his misery. He deliberated on what he should say. Took a deep breath.

“A near-run thing. That sort of day. Could have been worse – yes, quite a bit worse.”

“Are you finished with it, Jonas, or not finished?”

“The cat will be glad when we get there. Trouble is that those sort of near-run things keep coming along, without an end in sight. Probably, sorry and all that, not finished . . . The cat’s been very good . . . No, not finished if they sniff out another crocodile.”

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Table of Contents

About the Author

Also by Gerald Seymour

Title Page

Imprint Page

Dedication

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Endmatter page 1

Endmatter page 2