Wild Flower Read online

  Wild Flower

  Philip Bentall

  © Philip Bentall 2018

  Philip Bentall has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Part 2

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Part 3

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Part 4

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Part 5

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part 6

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Part 7

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Part 8

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Part 9

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  The sound of a chainsaw came from a wood. Sunlight poured into a clearing. Piles of cord wood stacked in rows. A man put down the saw and started throwing logs into the back of a 4x4 Toyota Hilux. He was in his mid-thirties, slim, fair-haired. Sawdust covered the lower half of his shirt and the top half of his legs; a fresh cut bled on his cheek. He placed the saw in the back of the 4x4, walked to the driver’s side, and got in. According to his file, the man’s name was Tom Findon.

  Tracking him through binoculars, the man watching him, known for this job as Taylor, adjusted the zoom to stay in focus, and followed him through the wood. Taylor didn’t know any more about Findon than his name. But to do his job that was enough.

  Taylor watched Findon’s truck as it left the wood and came round the edge of a maize field. A flock of woodpigeons took off from the field and scattered across the trees.

  Taylor then lowered the binoculars and walked through the wood to a muddy lane where a red Ford was parked on the verge. He climbed into the Ford and drove off.

  At the end of the lane, Taylor stopped at a T-junction. The junction was at the top of a hill, with grass fields either side. There were sheep on the lower slopes.

  Taylor took up the binoculars again and, scanning the valley below, picked up the Hilux coming down a long drive, and followed it as it snaked through an avenue of beech trees, the sun glinting on the metalwork, to the roadside where it stopped and waited at a set of automatic wrought-iron gates with decorative finials.

  The gates opened slowly. There was an underground automation system on the inside and a digipad on the outside to get in. Taylor zoomed in on the driver, Findon, who was resting his forearm on the windowsill, his shirt sleeves rolled up, dried blood on his cheek.

  When Findon pulled out onto the road Taylor put down the binoculars and followed him.

  About a mile down the road they entered a small village where Findon pulled up outside a shop. He got out of his pickup, brushing sawdust off himself, and entered the shop. Taylor continued past, keeping an eye on him in his rear view mirror, and stopped further up the road by a church.

  Sun flashed through clouds. Taylor pointed a camera in the direction of the shop, resting the camera lens in the crook of his arm.

  He saw Findon leave the shop carrying a two litre bottle of milk and a loaf of bread. Taylor took a series of pictures of him climbing back into the Hilux, placing his purchases on the passenger seat and then pulling back out onto the road.

  Taylor then lowered the camera and followed Findon’s progress over his shoulder, watching him turn left by the village green, drive past a cricket pavilion, and then pull up on the other side.

  Lowering a side window, Taylor then repositioned the camera and waited once more for Findon to get out.

  Through the lens of the camera, Taylor watched Findon climb out of the Hilux and walk down the road. He noticed there was a stiffness in his movements, the signs of physical labour taking its toll, and thought he looked older than his thirty-four years.

  Still through the lens of the camera, Taylor watched him stop and stand outside a school where other adults were stood waiting. He didn’t speak to anyone. Within a minute, the doors of the building opened and children swarmed the playground.

  Taylor then observed Findon take hold of the hand of a young girl and walk back to the Hilux with her. The girl was wearing a wool earflap hat and it partially hid her face. As they were walking back, Taylor snapped their pictures several times.

  *

  The sun was setting; mist rolled in off the fields. In a muddy layby, Taylor placed a laptop on the passenger seat of his car, plugged in the camera and began uploading the photos. As he waited, he watched a crow sitting on a fence post. It had a loose wing feather that flapped in the breeze. It reminded him of the crow he’d seen eating a dead rabbit on the drive over. The crow was reluctant to fly off and had been equally dishevelled-looking. Taylor thought they looked like the same crow. And it made him feel like he was being followed.

  The laptop bleeped to signal it was done and Taylor began viewing the photos of Findon — working in the woods, leaving the shop, holding the hand of the girl. Then compared them with a selection of surveillance pictures that were taken a few years ago.

  Checking in his rear view mirror, Taylor then retrieved a packet of cigarettes from his coat pocket along with a mobile. He put one of the cigarettes in his mouth and lit it with a Bic disposable, then pressed dial on the only saved number on the phone. He was lowering the window, exhaling smoke, when the phone was answered.

  A man’s voice said, “Hello.”

  Taylor said, “It’s him.”

  “The girl?”

  “She’s with him.”

  “Okay. Get into position.”

  *

  It was getting dark. Taylor parked the red Ford just off the muddy lane, removed a case from the boot, and crossed the road into the wood he’d been waiting in earlier.

  Through the binoculars, he saw the Hilux was parked beside a small cottage, that the lights were on in the cottage and that smoke rose from the chimney. He put down the binoculars and, kneeling beside an oak tree, he opened the case, with cut-outs for a stock, action, scope, bipod, bolt, and moderator. Taylor was familiar with the rifle, the L96A1, from the army. He began setting up, screwing the parts together, the action, the folded stock, inserting the 7.62×51mm rounds into the box magazine.

  Jackdaws crossed the darkening sky. Taylor crawled to the edge of the wood and looked through the rifle’s scope. He saw steam pouring out of an upstairs window, and through the obscured glass, the outline of someone showering. Downstairs, the TV was on in the sitting room, and he saw the back of the girl, sitting by the fire. In the kitchen, he saw plates stacked by the sink and an empty wine bottle and pots of herbs on the windowsill.

  Taylor lifted his head, hearing the sound of a car c
hanging down gears. He saw headlights turn into the driveway.

  Taylor adjusted the position of the rifle and looked through the scope again.

  He saw a VW Polo stop at the gates, an arm extending from an opening window. Music blared from the car. He got a glimpse of the woman inside, early-thirties, brown hair, as she punched in a code on the digipad.

  The gates started opening. The window went up, the music muted again, and the VW continued down the driveway.

  The gates stood open for a moment and then started closing with a barely audible whirring sound before the final clicking noise as they latched shut.

  Taylor followed the VW’s progress down the driveway through the rifle scope, crosshairs on the driver’s window. It turned into the courtyard beside the cottage and stopped.

  The woman got out, obscured behind trees, locking the car doors from a key fob, the indicators blinking. She was wearing a quilted coat, skinny blue jeans and sheepskin boots. She was about five foot five, Taylor estimated.

  Taylor had the crosshairs on the woman as she walked across to the house. He wasn’t able to see her face clearly for the trees.

  When the woman disappeared inside and the door closed, Taylor moved the scope upstairs. The bathroom light went out. Another upstairs light went on, and Findon appeared, bare-chested at the window. Taylor covered him with the crosshairs of the scope. Findon drew the curtains, his outline visible for a moment the other side.

  Back downstairs, the woman appeared at the kitchen window, running the tap for a drink, her face half-hidden behind bottles and plant pots. Then Findon entered the room. The woman turned. They kissed briefly. And Findon drew the blinds.

  Taylor, lying prone in the woods, shifted slightly to one side and removed his phone. He dialled the saved number, and putting the phone to his ear, he said, “I’m in position.”

  The voice at the other end said, “Wait for our word.”

  Chapter 2

  Two years earlier, it was Findon who was closing in on a target, not Taylor.

  Boarding a flight at Gatwick in the early hours of a Monday morning in March, Findon was off to kill a scientist. It was to be his last job for his employers at Triune.

  Three years. Three hits. Then out. That was the deal.

  How could he forget? Triune had first got in contact with him the day after his mother’s funeral. Which was around the same time the MOD had him under investigation for unlawful killings in Afghanistan. And not long after, he’d broken up with his fiancée, Bridget. It wasn’t the best of times in his life.

  Conditions were that he had to start again — a new life.

  It wasn’t much of a decision, just as they hadn’t intended it to be. An organisation like Triune, Findon realised, wasn’t going to be recruiting people whose lives were on the up. But what did he have to lose? What with the investigation, his break up from Bridget, and having no family, now his mum was dead (his dad had long-since done a runner) — it was a no-brainer, as they say. Plus, the money was good.

  The training period would last for a year, he was told. Then the first assignment would begin. The investigation would all be taken care of, with people thinking he was in a military prison, when in fact he was somewhere receiving his training. Quite how all this was going to be achieved, Findon didn’t know and didn’t ask.

  As for the killing, Findon decided, he’d treat it like the army. He’d shot at people in Afghanistan. What was going to be so different? Besides, it was unlikely he was going to be killing anyone that would leave the world poorer for it, he thought.

  For three years, Findon was told he would live undercover, a dead double, taking on the names of the deceased, never allowing his true identity to be known. For three years, he would live like a ghost waiting to be brought back to life.

  Three years. Three hits. Then out.

  What could be simpler?

  The money would be paid into a secure account after each job. Then a bonus if all three jobs were completed successfully.

  Then he could retire and forget it ever happened.

  That was the plan anyway.

  *

  Geneva, 9:06. The plane touched down in a blizzard. Findon took a bus into the city centre and then a train up into the mountains; on the way, looking out of the window and checking off place names on a map and eating a bar of chocolate.

  At 11:11, he arrived at his destination, Wyss, a small town with a population of eleven thousand and an elevation of five thousand feet. The town was covered in snow when he arrived and minus three degrees, according to the display screen on the station platform.

  He left the station, shouldering a medium-sized rucksack and wearing sunglasses and ski jacket. He looked much like any other tourist on holiday there, as was his intention.

  After a short walk, he checked into a hotel, and opened a laptop on the bed. Using the hotel Wi-Fi, he logged into a secure message board, where his controller at Triune, Kimi, was already online.

  “Hello Tom,” Kimi’s text read. “Did you have a good flight?”

  Findon typed in an affirmation. It was through Kimi that he received all his instructions from Triune.

  Kimi continued. “The cable car takes you up Mount Shrive to the Garten peak. From your window you can see the gondola station.”

  Findon turned to the window where he saw the station housing and cable lines running up the steep slope, the cable cars just visible through the mist.

  Kimi went on, “Piste 39 leads to the Blauherd restaurant. There’s a viewing spot. Spend some time looking at the view. Drink a coffee in the café. Someone will make contact.”

  The story was he was there on a skiing holiday, that back home he ran a landscape company. And this was his first holiday since losing his wife in a car accident a year ago. His organisation, Triune, was nothing if not thorough when it came to planning.

  Changing into ski trousers, Findon left the hotel and made his way towards the cable car station, which was a hive of activity with people getting off buses and making their way over to the lifts with their skis. He entered the building through a sliding door and walked down a rubber walkway past a ski hire shop where a bearded man was fitting a young couple for skis. At the end of the corridor, he entered a locker room, swiping his lift pass, zipped into the arm pocket of his jacket, over a scanner. As he did so, a locker clicked open in one of the aisles.

  He walked over to the locker and took out a pair of skis and ski boots, then sat on one of the benches and changed into the boots. Then he shut his shoes in the locker and, shouldering the skis, walked back upstairs to the cable car.

  As always, his organisation had thought of everything.

  Upstairs, Findon joined a queue for the lifts, noting as he did two men sat behind monitor screens in an office, capturing everything on CCTV. Cable cars turned round the housing station, their doors opening automatically, as people shuffled forward, slotted skis into the side-racks and climbed aboard.

  Sticking close to the group in front of him, Findon moved forward in the queue, wishing to appear part of a group, so he didn’t stand out so much if someone happened to play the tape back. They boarded a cable car and soon rose above the bristly tops of conifers and a quiet, as only you get in the mountains, descended upon them. Below him, Findon observed animal tracks in the snow and wooden outbuildings with stacks of logs under the eaves. The town disappeared behind them and a steely gloom enveloped them. But the cloud soon shifted and patches of blue appeared in the sky.

  By the time they arrived at the summit, the sky had almost completely cleared and they exited the cable car in bright sunshine to a panorama of mountains.

  Findon used his ski poles to knock snow off his boots and ski bindings before clipping on his skis. Then, waiting for a gap in skiers, he pushed off down the slope.

  There was nothing quite like it, he thought, as he snaked down the gentle incline, making wide, sweeping turns, getting the feel and rhythm back into his legs.

  Sliding to a stop
beside the mountain café, he felt a buzz of adrenaline.

  Using his ski poles to unclip his bindings, he removed his skis and placed them in the storage rack by the café then walked up the steps onto the wooden decking, where people were sitting on reclining chairs under the overhang of the roof enjoying a drink.

  Removing his gloves, Findon looked at the piste map attached to the railings. As he did so, he scanned the seating area. A young couple taking selfies; snowboarders drinking beer; a family of four dipping chips into a bowl of ketchup. Satisfied with how things looked, he walked into the café.

  Ordering a coffee, he carried it to a table and sat down. Someone had left an English language newspaper behind and he looked at the front cover, a picture of three babies in incubators. Miracle triplets ran the headline. Looking at the picture, Findon experienced a memory file self-load in his head. Trained to view the workings of the brain like a computer and memories like a series of files, he’d learnt to control these files. However, periodically, the computer took charge and made its own selection. The computer, you had to remember, treated all files the same, being indifferent to their content. On such occasions, it was up to you to step in and take control, remembering you had control over the files and could change them at will.

  The loading file contained Bridget, his ex, before their breakup. They were having dinner together on Bridget’s birthday. They were happy; getting drunk. It was near the beginning. But Findon knew from experience it didn’t last. Soon, the arguments would start; the talk of children, the accidental pregnancy, the miscarriage. This file had it all.

  Findon stopped the file loading and replaced it with a file about work. The rule: only one file could play at any one time. The work file loaded and Kimi’s instructions came into his head: Drink a coffee… Someone will make contact.

  Findon sipped his coffee, back on track again after his ex’s visitation. People were coming and going from the café. He knew six tables were currently occupied in his section of the café (two families, four sets of couples) and that two waitresses were clearing tables. He also knew that the building had two side-doors and a staff exit at the back.