PROLOGUE
The pursuit had led northwards from the English south coast into the heart of the Surrey countryside, deep among thick broadleaf woods under a full moon. It was late March, the spring equinox, and the night was mild and balmy and filled with the sweetly pungent scent of the flowering bluebells that carpeted the woodland floor.
The man called Wolf had stalked his target for hours and for the moment he could go no further, waiting and hoping for the opportunity to finish the job he’d started. A job he did not particularly relish and wouldn’t have been doing unless he was getting well paid for it. A job he must nonetheless complete, lest he disappoint the ruthless men who employed him.
So far, the assignment felt like it was jinxed. It wasn’t Wolf’s fault. He’d followed the plan exactly until things had started going wrong. Which had happened very quickly, earlier that evening.
The hit was scheduled for 7.30 p.m. at the target’s home outside the pretty West Sussex village of Pyecombe, a few miles from Brighton. Abbott was expected to have been alone, but when Wolf had arrived at the nineteenth-century parsonage at the appointed hour and was concealed in the large garden preparing to make his move, he’d been interrupted by the sudden and unanticipated appearance of a gold Range Rover. The vehicle had pulled in through the front gates, rolled up towards the house and crunched to a halt on the gravel driveway next to Abbott’s Lexus.
Wolf had watched from his hiding place as the Rover’s doors opened and out spilled the target’s ex-wife in a red dress, their two young children and a twenty-something brunette that he assumed was the kids’ nanny. Wolf’s mission file contained details on the former Mrs Abbott (number three, the trophy, the most painful marital misstep of the fifty-eight-year-old politician’s career) and the two kids: little Emily, four, and her brother Paul, seven. Since the acrimonious split they now lived twenty miles the other side of Brighton, in a large house provided by the generous divorce settlement and alimony payments that Debbie enjoyed spending on expensive trips abroad. Her lifestyle habits, such as the recent fling with the ski instructor in Zermatt, were well known to Wolf’s employers; but none of the clever-dick analysts who provided the background intel had managed to foresee that she’d show up here today to mess up their plans. Typical.
Anthony Abbott emerged from his front door to meet his visitors, his silvery hair uncombed, casually attired in beige slacks and a cricket jumper. To shrill cries of ‘Daddy! Daddy!’ the kids rushed up and hugged their father. Wolf had a zoom telephoto lens attached to his phone, through which he could see that Abbott was as nonplussed as he was by old Debbie’s turning up like this. Judging by their facial expressions and stiff body language, relations between the couple were still frosty. Abbott appeared impatient for her to leave and kept glancing at his watch, as though he’d been disturbed in the middle of something important he was anxious to return to. If only he knew, Wolf thought, what her unexpected arrival had saved him from. Even if it was just a temporary stay of execution.
She didn’t hang around for long. Eleven minutes later, the Range Rover departed and Wolf watched it disappear up the quiet country lane. He was pleased to see her go, but now he had another problem: it appeared that the purpose of her visit was to dump the kids and nanny on her ex. Wolf wondered whether her intention was to liberate herself for another romantic trip to Zermatt or elsewhere, or whether she wanted to have the house to herself for a tryst at home with another of her numerous beaux.
Whatever the case, the unexpected turn of events screwed things up for him. While others in his profession might not have such scruples, Wolf went by certain rules. The most golden of which being that he would not kill a child, for any amount of money. If he chose to press ahead now, he would be compelled to break that rule, to avoid leaving witnesses. The nanny, too. Messy. Very messy.
And so, Wolf decided to hold back and wait. Improvisation wasn’t a problem for a man of his training and experience. He settled back and kept watching the house.
At 9.33 p.m., the hit now more than two hours overdue, Abbott re-emerged from his front door and started walking briskly towards his car. He’d changed his casual attire for a suit and tie and was carrying a leather overnight bag. It seemed like he was going somewhere, leaving the nanny alone to take care of Emily and Paul. Wolf had been told nothing of any planned excursions – then again, if not for Debbie’s interference, the mission would have been over and he’d have been long gone by now.
Wolf watched as Abbott climbed into his Lexus and set off up the driveway. By the time the car had reached the road, Wolf had already slipped away and hurried back to the Audi saloon he’d hidden around the corner. Like all the vehicles he drove in the course of his work, it had untraceable number plates and officially did not exist. He quickly caught up with the Lexus and followed at a discreet distance as Abbott hustled off down the country lane. Wherever he was going, the man seemed to be in a hurry to get there.
This new twist offered Wolf a fresh opportunity to finish the job, if he could track his target to a suitable location. He stayed on the Lexus, never letting it out of his sight but with always at least one vehicle between it and his Audi. Politicians, as a rule, weren’t very highly trained in recognising when they were being tailed, but you couldn’t be too careful.
The Lexus led northwards for fifty miles, taking the A23 and the M25 into Surrey. He seemed to be heading for Guildford, but then turned off the main road and headed into deep countryside. Wolf hung right back and kept following. Then, at three minutes to eleven, Abbott turned into the gates of a manor estate surrounded by woodland. Wolf drove on past the entrance, slowing down just enough to see the Lexus’s tail-lights disappearing down the oak-lined private road and the plaque on the stone gatepost that said KARSWELL HALL. The stately home itself was out of sight of the quiet country road.
A quarter of a mile further along, Wolf found a spot to hide the car and cut back on foot through the darkness, taking with him the things he needed. Karswell Hall was encircled by a high stone wall that he scaled with ease, and he dropped down inside the wooded grounds and made his cautious way towards the house. From a vantage point among the trees he was able to observe as more cars arrived and paused at a checkpoint on the private road where security guards examined papers before waving the visitors on towards the stately home. It looked like some kind of late evening event or gathering was underway.
It was 11.22 p.m. and he should have reported to base hours ago. Wolf was all too aware that his employers back in London would be wondering what the hell was happening. He faced the choice of whether to abort his mission and admit failure, or stay on his target until a suitable opportunity arose to eliminate him.
Wolf had never admitted failure in his life. He was still figuring out his best move when a black Rolls-Royce limousine purred up to the checkpoint and was halted by the security men. The chauffeur rolled down his window and showed them an admission pass. While they examined it, the driver stepped out of the car for a moment to check a front tyre, and the cabin of the limo was momentarily illuminated by the interior light.
That was when Wolf realised, with a shock, that he knew both of the back-seat passengers.
Wolf had personally met very, very few members of the secretive agency he worked for. But he instantly recognised these two men as his superiors. One was a much older man, easily eighty-five, wizened and gaunt, wearing a black suit and sitting in the back of the car clutching a cane between his knees. A very distinctive cane, topped with a silver bird’s head with a long beak and ruby eyes. Wolf remembered it, though he’d only seen the old man once before. The other back-seat occupant, twenty years younger than his travelling companion, was someone Wolf had had occasional contact with over the years.