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

assumed that, if he lived, he would try to get back to her, had readied her mind for it for months, years. Knew that if he returned, came back to the village, contacted her, that a net would close on him . . . Would she help him, her son, to evade it? Knew the answer.

Izzy’s head was on his shoulder. Tristram had his arm draped over her.

Not quite a sleep but almost. Izzy snored softly and Tristram faded in and out of awareness and time slipped . . . An old man had been looking for a lost dog, and that was clever of Merrick, Wise Old Bird, but then he would need to be clever if he was going to catch a crocodile. Gustave, who had killed, eaten, was it 300? God knows how many – African villagers. Actually, who cared how many it had eaten? Not Tristram, not Izzy.

Had never had a bolt on the kitchen outer door.

Just had a lock, and the key was never left in it so he could get into the house if he were out late, coming back from work when she and the baby would be asleep. Came in, eased the door shut and locked it again. Well oiled and quiet. The light was on in the hall and threw a beam on to the kitchen table. The day’s post was there. He tiptoed into the hall, left his jacket and overnight bag at the bottom of the stairs. Saw the trail of clothes from the front door, across the hall, and up the stairs to the landing. A mist went over his eyes.

He took the stairs two, or three, at a time and burst into the bedroom. Half-asleep, Cammy jackknifed.

The man was frozen in the doorway, his expression one of disbelief. Tried to speak but had not found his voice, wore a suit and a loosened tie. He held the door open and gawped.

Cammy heard little gagging noises from deep in Vicky’s throat and she had slid away from him and had the duvet up to hide her body, and her head was down and . . . Bit late for regrets, darling, he might have said.

But not much to say, Cammy reckoned, and wondered if the explosion – the poor sod was building for it – would be incoherent sobbing or violence.

She had grabbed too much of the duvet. Had exposed him. He was staring at Cammy’s body – where he was limp, and where the hair was and the scars of two shrapnel wounds, both highlighted by ragged stitching, and where there was a bullet wound, would have had an eyeful of it.

He swung his legs off the bed. There was a chair beside the door, covered with Vicky’s clothes. Tried a smile, nothing much else to offer, would have to come around the end of the bed. Nothing to say that needed saying. The guy, Gavin, grabbed the chair, spilled Vicky’s stuff to the floor.

Back at the car, Jonas attached the lead to the dog’s collar. Dominic asked him how he had done.

“Not bad, had a good look around. Saw pretty much what I wanted to see.”

Babs asked why he had needed a dog’s lead.

“Pretty basic. A dog has gone for a run, and he’s not come back. The owner cannot leave it out for the night so he goes to find it. Consider the time. Close on midnight . . . I reckon that half the street looked out of an upstairs window and saw me and hoped that the ‘poor old sod’ would find his animal and get back to the warm and dry. Clear to you?”

Was asked what they should do with the dog now.

“Don’t know. Have to see how things pan out.”

And now?

“I am expecting a lady to pass. I’m assuming on foot. Mrs Sadie Jilkes and it is her house we are interested in. It’s her son who we regard as a High Value Target. I suppose that with all those toys you have you are wondering if, when, you are going to be unleashed. First things first. You will follow my instructions to the letter. If I tell you to sit then you sit. If I tell you to keep your Safety on, then you keep your Safety on. I don’t argue and don’t negotiate . . . You do as I tell you or you take back the dog to its owner and you drive off and go back where you came from. Because if you dispute those instructions then you are of no use to me. Should this progress to the conclusion I believe will be the outcome, then a champagne moment in your police careers beckons. Even a dog biscuit would be welcome, I am famished.”

He sat in his place and the dog clambered over to settle on his lap.

Chapter 12

In the front passenger seat, the policeman slept.

Jonas was on his phone, had the ability to go into secure networks and chased for more on the destruction of the brothers, the group led by Kami al-Britani . . . Ironic because the stereotype would have had them drawn from refugee camps and the madrassas where kids learned by heart serious lengths of the Book, and the reality was this housing estate on the hill above a traditional village in the Garden of England. The others, he now knew, were from Europe and southern Africa and the north of the American continent. Which went to show that gobbling down easy interpretations was seldom sensible. Now he had a pecking order for the deaths. The dog on his lap sometimes broke wind, occasionally snored and wriggled to make itself more comfortable. He believed his overview was becoming clearer, as if he gazed through the prism of a glass of water that was gradually losing its cloudiness. The policewoman, behind the wheel, turned to him.

“You all right, Mr Merrick?”

“Couldn’t be better,” drily said.

She persisted. “Anything we can do for you?”

“Very kind, I don’t think so.”

“What we say, if you can’t catnap in a car then don’t