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

stopped her as she had trudged up the hill from the bus-stop. Not a frightening man. Had he been, she would have hurried away.

A sort of guarantee had been given him. A price came with it. She had thought it a good deal and the best one likely to be offered.

He had seemed a man who could be trusted and had had a kindly tone in his voice . . . She thought that had her elder boy been with her, and not banged away in a cell, he would have warned her: “Beware the ones you think are sensitive, friendly. Sure as day follows night, they’re the ones who’ll screw you”.

She watched the window. And knew what she would say. Had it clear in her mind.

Knew also that a young man and a young woman had taken over the front room of the Hunters’ house. Knew also that in a few hours she would be up and dressed, clean clothes, washed but not ironed, and would be away down the hill to catch the bus at the Margate road stop and be taken into the city for her first shift. In a few hours it would be the start of another day for her, and her life would have moved on.

It had been a clipped and quick conversation, enough time to register what she presumed was the character of the man, and he had known what he had wanted and she had been determined on what best suited her. She had asked: “He is coming, you seem to know that, and he’s been identified and is close?” His answer: “Not seen, nothing positive, but it is what I expect.” And her next question: “And that is enough for you?” And his answer, after a thoughtful pause, “It’s what I have.”

She watched for him, and tiredness engulfed her. She struggled to stay awake, and the darkness outside stayed thick and she saw no movement.

Her final question: “How long will he be here?”

His answer, “Not long, just passing through.”

“Going where?”

“Cannot answer that, not at liberty to.”

Her eyelids became heavy and her breathing was soft and regular, and the view from the window faded.

He drove the van slowly, steadily, observed the speed limits though the route took him on side roads and away from dual carriageways. Wolfboy avoided, he believed, the vehicle registration cameras. At times he seemed to crawl but he thought it necessary to travel within the law.

His own city, Leeds, was now behind him and he had been around the outskirts of Dewsbury. He knew of homes in that community, now quiet and dark, where there would be an understated wave of triumph passing between activists, hidden, when the news was broadcast the next day. It would interrupt TV programmes, what they called “breaking news”. If he had taken a direct route then he could have done the journey in under two hours, but he would take longer and would travel through the Peak District National Park on lonely narrow roads. He wanted to be at his destination by nine in the morning so it would be necessary for him to find a lay-by and rest up. He had gone so early from the makeshift garage where the conversion had been fashioned because the guys who had worked on the vehicle’s armour-plating were trusted men, but were frightened men. He imagined by now, with him gone and Upper Heaton and Upper Hopton on his satnav phone screen, they would be scrubbing down the garage interior, working at it with bleach and scalding water and using a yard brush to clean the floor. They had helped, but not willingly, and arms had been twisted, and warnings given as to the fate of “touts”. And a teenage boy, wearing Wolfboy’s visored helmet, would be driving the scooter back to the internet café; that too would have been well cleaned, and the boy would be wearing a pair of thick, mass-produced gloves. A police car went by . . .

A moment of panic. Wide, staring eyes. His foot frozen on the pedal. Waiting for the indicator to wink at him and a uniformed arm to emerge from a window and wave him down. One of them advancing, cautious but threatening in the bulk of the yellow coat worn over the stab vest, and a torch beam in his face. Another hand close to a truncheon or a Taser weapon. Would he survive? Would he be able to resist the persistence of hostile questioning in a police cell? Would he betray all those who . . .? But the police car was disappearing into the distance and had not slowed. Heart beating faster, Wolfboy drove on.

Vigilance is paramount. You may just have a ripple to identify, like a fly lands on still water. Not a splash, nothing easy. Updates please. Jonas pressed Send.

Dominic and Babs talked quietly in the front, mostly in the shorthand of their jobs, about overtime rates and kit issue and duty rosters, and when was the next training day for marksmanship assessment . . . Only the last seemed to concern them, and that would have been vital in their lives, Jonas assumed. Keep missing with the aimed shots and it would be the fast heave-out, and disappointment, and a glamour zone removed. Or they listened to their music – one ear for communications and one for jazz or hip-hop. The dog was comfortable. Jonas stroked its head every few minutes. He believed it a transitory friendship, and one that suited them both, but there would come a time when the little beggar decided that it wanted home, and its breakfast, and a crap and a pee, and the relationship would end. The dog suited him. There were times enough in caravan parks in the west country when – to please Vera – he could be everybody’s chum and so helpful: plenty of advice on other sites, on tow-bar maintenance, on the best rates for gas cylinders. Then, time to pack up and go home and those who had