The Tunnel Rats (Coronet books) Read online

  He found Kruse’s apartment at the end of the corridor, on the left. He stuffed his handkerchief into his trouser pocket and knocked gently on the door. Meacher waited. The paint was peeling off the ageing wood and a small glass lens stared blankly back at him. There were three locks in the door: a Yale and two high security locks. Meacher knocked again.

  ‘It’s open,’ said a voice.

  Meacher pushed the door. It squeaked open.

  Kruse was sitting on a wooden chair in the corner of the room, his back ramrod straight and his hands resting on his knees. He was naked except for a pair of khaki boxer shorts, and his eyes were closed. It had been a little under three years since Meacher had seen Kruse but he didn’t appear to have changed. His upper body was trim but muscular, his thighs thick and powerful. His hair was close cropped, light brown and flecked with grey at the temples, and there were lines around his eyes and mouth that made him look older than his twenty-eight years.

  ‘Hello, Len,’ said Meacher.

  The room was little more than a cell, three paces wide and four paces long with a single bed that had been stripped of its bedding, a cheap wooden wardrobe and a door which Meacher presumed led to a bathroom. A bare lightbulb hung down from the middle of the ceiling. There was no curtain at the window, though a thin wire had been strung across the top of the frame as if one had once been there.

  ‘Hello, Jody.’ Kruse slowly opened his eyes. ‘Long time, no see.’ His face crinkled into a smile but there was little warmth in it, and the expression vanished just as suddenly as it had appeared.

  Meacher walked into the room and closed the door behind him. There was no carpet, just bare floorboards, but they had been polished to a shine. Kruse was a fanatic when it came to cleanliness, and Meacher knew that if he ran his fingers along any surface they’d come away spotless. Kruse remained seated and watched Meacher with dispassionate eyes as he waited for him to speak.

  Meacher smoothed his beard with his right hand. ‘How’ve you been, Len?’

  The corners of Kruse’s lips turned down a fraction. ‘Same old, same old.’

  Meacher lifted the briefcase. ‘Are you available for a short-term contract?’

  The smile appeared again. ‘Who do you want me to kill this time, Jody?’ Kruse asked. His chest shuddered as he laughed, a dry, rasping chuckle that sounded more like a death rattle.

  ‘Dad!’ Sean’s voice jolted Wright out of his reverie. He turned and grinned at his seven-year-old son. The boy ran forward for a hug and Wright scooped him up off the floor. ‘Hiya, Dad,’ said Sean, throwing his arms around Wright’s neck.

  ‘Whoa, you’re choking me,’ said Wright, but he didn’t try to break free. Over his son’s shoulder he saw Janie, her face a polite mask. She looked pointedly at her wristwatch.

  Wright set his son down. He stepped forward, prepared to kiss Janie on the cheek, but her eyes hardened, leaving him in no doubt that the gesture wouldn’t be appreciated. Wright’s stomach lurched at the thought that she couldn’t even bear to touch him any more. ‘Do you want a coffee or something?’ he asked.

  Janie shook her head and looked at her watch again. ‘I’ll pick him up here at six.’

  ‘That’s okay, I can drop him off at home.’

  ‘No,’ she snapped. Her lips tightened as if she was holding something back, then she forced a smile. ‘Here’s fine.’ She knelt down beside Sean. ‘Give Mummy a kiss,’ she said. Sean kissed her dutifully on the cheek. ‘Be good,’ she said.

  Wright watched her go, her heels clicking on the tiled floor of the burger bar. He ruffled his son’s hair. ‘What do you want to eat?’

  ‘Mummy gave me breakfast already,’ said his son.

  ‘Yeah? What did you have?’

  ‘Muesli.’

  ‘Rabbit food,’ said Wright scathingly. ‘Wouldn’t you like a cheeseburger?’

  ‘Mummy says red meat is bad for you.’

  ‘Burgers aren’t red. They’re brown.’ Sean giggled and Wright’s spirits lifted. He might have lost his wife, but his son was still very much his son. Even if he was having muesli for breakfast. Flecks of rain peppered the window. ‘So, where do you want to go?’ Wright asked.

  ‘Anywhere.’

  ‘What about the Trocadero? We could hit the video games.’

  ‘Mummy says I shouldn’t play video games,’ said Sean.

  ‘She said what?’

  Sean wiped his nose with the back of his hand. ‘She says they encourage violence.’

  Wright snorted softly. He knew that he shouldn’t contradict his ex-wife, but sometimes she talked absolute nonsense. What did she hope to achieve by feeding the boy muesli and keeping him away from video games? She’d be putting him in a dress next. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘What do you want to do?’

  Sean drummed his fingers on the table, his brow furrowed. ‘We could go to the zoo,’ he said eventually.

  ‘You want to go to the zoo?’ said Wright, surprised.

  ‘Fine. I guess.’

  ‘Okay, it’s the zoo, then.’

  They went out to the car park. Wright opened the door to the Fiesta for Sean and waited until he’d fastened his seatbelt before getting in himself. It took several turns of the key before the engine burst into life. Wright drove to Regent’s Park, doing his best to keep the conversation going. His son seemed happy enough, but it was clear from the number of questions that Wright had to ask how little they knew about each other.

  ‘Here we are,’ said Wright, stopping in the zoo car park. As they walked towards the entrance, spots of rain began to fall. Sean pulled up the hood of his blue anorak. ‘You’re not cold?’ asked Wright.

  ‘I’m okay,’ said Sean.

  Wright looked up at the clouds gathering overhead. They were grey rather than black and the rain didn’t seem to be getting worse, but Wright wondered if he should suggest going somewhere else. The problem was, he couldn’t think of a single place to take a seven-year-old boy on a wet Saturday morning.

  He paid for them to get in and they walked together towards the large cats enclosures, which was always Sean’s favourite part of the zoo. They passed several other father-and-son couples. The zoo was a popular place for divorced fathers to go with their children.

  ‘Can you see them?’ Wright asked.

  Sean shook his head. ‘Lions don’t like the rain,’ he said.

  Drops of rain began to pitter-patter on the hood of Sean’s anorak and water trickled down the back of Wright’s neck. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Wright. He put his hand on his son’s shoulder.

  Sean looked up at him. ‘What for?’

  ‘The rain.’

  Sean smiled up at him. ‘It’s not your fault.’

  In the distance there was a flash of light followed a few seconds later by a roll of thunder. Wright and Sean hurried back to the car as the skies opened.

  Sean looked out of the window as Wright drove towards Tavistock Place. ‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s a secret,’ said Wright.

  It was only when Wright pulled up in front of the Gothic-style brick building in Tavistock Place that Sean realised what their destination was.

  ‘It’s your office,’ he said, his eyes wide.

  ‘Smart lad,’ said Wright. ‘You should be a detective.’ The black metal gate rattled up and Wright drove through to the courtyard. There were fewer than a dozen cars parked there and Wright pulled up next to Tommy Reid’s Honda Civic.

  They found the man himself in the CID office, slouched in his chair with a naked foot propped up on his desk, clipping his toenails. He seemed totally unfazed by the appearance of Wright and his son and continued to drop pieces of clipped nail into a wastepaper bin. ‘I thought you were playing video games,’ he said.

  ‘Nah, they encourage violent tendencies,’ said Wright.

  Reid raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘Do they now?’ he said. ‘I must remember that.’

  ‘Then Sean here said he wanted to see animals. So I thought . . .�
� He gestured around the office.

  ‘What better place?’ Reid finished for him with a wry smile. He put down his clippers and pulled on his sock. ‘How are you doing, Sean? My name’s Tommy.’

  Sean said hello but he was more interested in a large whiteboard which Reid had placed in front of the window on an easel. On it Reid had stuck a photograph of the body in the tunnel. ‘What’s that?’ asked Sean, pointing at the photograph. ‘It’s a body, isn’t it?’ he said, stepping forward for a closer look.

  Too late, Wright realised what Sean was looking at, and dragged him away. ‘What the hell’s that doing up here?’ he yelled at Tommy. ‘It’s meant to be in the incident room. That photo’s enough to give the boy nightmares.’

  ‘They’ve only just finished connecting the phones and computers downstairs.’ Reid went over to the coffee machine. ‘I’m still checking lists of missing persons on the Police National Computer.’

  ‘Any joy?’ asked Wright.

  ‘Do you have any idea of how many middle-aged men go missing every year?’

  ‘A lot?’

  ‘Yeah. A lot. Mind you, I thought of doing a runner when my wife set her solicitor on me. You were probably the same, right?’ He froze as he realised that Sean was listening. He looked across at Wright, who shook his head admonishingly. ‘Do you want a coffee?’ asked Reid.

  ‘Sure,’ said Wright coldly.

  Reid made a gun of his hand and pointed it at Sean. ‘Coke?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said the boy. Sean looked up at his father, his face suddenly serious. ‘You’re going to find the man who did it, aren’t you?’

  Wright nodded. ‘Sure I am.’

  Jody Meacher pulled the door closed and walked down the dimly lit corridor. He took his pocket watch out and opened it. With luck he’d be back in Washington for lunch. A door opened to his right and Meacher flinched, but a single eye glared at him for a second and then the door slammed shut again. Meacher put his watch away and pushed open the door that led to the stairs. This time the smell didn’t seem as bad.

  He switched the briefcase to his right hand. The briefcase had been mainly for show, a badge of office. The briefing he’d given Kruse had been entirely verbal: no papers, no photographs, not even a copy of the Polaroid that had been sent to the senator. Kruse had listened in silence as Meacher explained what had to be done. There had been no questions, a credit to the thoroughness of Meacher’s briefing and the sharp intelligence of the man who had been nicknamed ‘Missile’ during his brief time in Special Forces. Kruse hadn’t even asked how much he’d be paid this time.

  Meacher wasn’t concerned by the man’s apparent lack of enthusiasm. Or by his curious living arrangements. Meacher knew that between missions Kruse simply shut himself down, like a piece of machinery that was surplus to requirements.

  Meacher knew that in his resting phase, Kruse was almost robotic; but primed and briefed, given an objective, he became a human juggernaut. His personality underwent a transformation, too, like an actor assuming a role. Kruse would produce whatever characteristics were necessary to get the job done, almost on demand.

  Meacher walked slowly down the stairs, taking care not to touch the walls. He had come across Kruse five years earlier, shortly after he’d left the army. Kruse had served with distinction in Desert Storm and had stayed behind in Saudi Arabia as part of a special anti-terrorist unit protecting the Saudi royal family, but one of his best friends had been killed by a suicide bomber. Kruse’s retaliatory attack had killed three Iranian terrorists, but bad timing had led to two innocent bystanders being injured, one of them a Saudi prince. The Americans pulled Kruse out before the Saudis discovered that he was involved.

  On his arrival back in the States Kruse was given a battery of psychological tests, the result of which was a recommendation that he be removed from Special Forces. He’d quit the military a week later, and according to an FBI report that had passed across Meacher’s desk, he’d tried to begin work as a contract killer. He approached a New York Mafia family but they were suspicious of the non-Italian and sent three of their own men to kill him. They were found two days later in a dumpster, shot with their own guns. That was when Meacher approached Kruse, offering him a chance for occasional work on condition that he worked solely for him. The arrangement had worked perfectly so far.

  Kruse didn’t know the reason for the missions he was given, and as far as Meacher knew, Kruse was unaware that Meacher worked for a US senator. The man simply didn’t care. All he cared about was being given the chance to use the skills he had. Killing skills.

  Wright dropped Sean back at McDonald’s to meet Janie, then after spending a lonely and depressing evening in an Indian restaurant he drove back to Tavistock Place, parked his car in the BTP courtyard and walked up to the CID office, showing his warrant card to the security guard at the entrance. The guard was reading a first edition of the News of the World, his feet on the desk. He nodded a greeting at Wright and then went back to his paper.

  Wright went up to the first floor, but the CID office was deserted and the whiteboard had gone, so he took the stairs down to the incident room in the basement. He took off his coat and dropped it on the back of a chair, then went over to the whiteboard and stared at the photograph of the mutilated corpse for several minutes, rocking backwards and forwards on his heels. Wright picked up a black marker pen and drew an ace of spades next to the photograph on the whiteboard, carefully shading it in. He stood back and admired his handiwork. The playing card was the key to solving the murder, he was sure of that.

  He tapped the pen on the palm of his hand as he nodded slowly. He smiled tightly, then stepped forward and began writing on the board in large capital letters. WHO? he wrote. WHEN? HOW? WHY? He circled the last word. Then he circled it again. And again.

  Superintendent Newton pushed open the door to the incident room. It was seven o’clock in the morning and he didn’t expect to see anyone in before him, but to his surprise Nick Wright was sprawled in a chair, his head slumped down on his chest. He was wearing a pale green cotton shirt rolled up to the elbows and khaki Chinos, and scuffed, dirty Nike training shoes. Newton frowned and his pale lips tightened into a straight line. It was most definitely not the standard of clothing he expected to see his plainclothes operatives wearing. Newton walked over to Wright and stood looking down at him. Wright continued to snore quietly. A thin dribble of saliva had run down his chin and plopped on to his shirt. Newton clasped his briefcase to his chest and coughed. Wright shifted his legs. On Wright’s desk was an opened can of Coke and a plastic-wrapped sandwich. The superintendent realised that Wright must have spent the night in the office. He coughed again, louder this time. When Wright still didn’t react, Newton gently kicked his leg.

  Wright opened his eyes sleepily. ‘Huh?’ he said, trying to focus. ‘What?’

  ‘What are you playing at, Nick?’ asked Newton.

  Wright sprang to his feet. He ran a hand through his unkempt hair and grinned shamefacedly. ‘Sir? Sorry. I was, er . . .’ He swallowed and realised there was saliva on his chin. His hand flew up to cover his embarrassment and he wiped away the mess.

  ‘Have you been here all night?’ Newton asked.

  Wright wiped his hand on his trousers. ‘I must have fallen asleep,’ he said. He picked up his can of Coke and drank, swilling the cola around his mouth before swallowing. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘My mouth felt like something died in it.’

  ‘When I said that you should move out of Tommy’s place, I didn’t mean to suggest that you should take up residence here,’ said Newton dryly.

  ‘Oh no, I wasn’t—-’ began Wright, but he stopped short as he realised that the superintendent was joking. ‘I’ll go home and change,’ he said.

  Newton looked at Wright through narrowed eyes. ‘Are you okay, Nick?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah, really. I fell asleep, that’s all.’

  Newton nodded at the whiteboard covered with Wright’s doodles. ‘The tunnel case?’


  Wright put down his can of Coke. ‘I was going through the PNC, checking missing persons.’

  Newton waved for Wright to sit down. Wright dropped down into his chair and Newton perched on the edge of his desk, his briefcase still in his arms. ‘How far have you got?’ he asked.

  ‘Based on what little we’ve got, the PNC computer’s generated some two hundred-odd possibilities,’ said Wright.

  ‘That seems a lot,’ said Newton.

  ‘That’s the number of men aged between forty-two and fifty-eight who’ve been reported missing and who haven’t been accounted for yet,’ said Wright.

  ‘Nationwide?’ asked Newton.

  ‘Except Northern Ireland,’ said Wright, picking up a print-out of names and addresses. ‘Trouble is, it’s not an exhaustive list. A lot of men that age go walkabout and nobody misses them. Single men, contractors, tramps.’

  ‘And you can’t be more precise about the age?’

  ‘Pathologist reckons fifty, give or take five years. We widened the age range a bit, just to be on the safe side.’

  ‘And you’re telling me that two hundred men in their forties and fifties have gone missing?’

  Wright handed the print-out to the superintendent, who ran his eyes over it as Wright talked. ‘They’ve been reported missing within the last three months, but a lot will have turned up, it’s just that the police weren’t told. People are quick to call up if someone goes missing, but not so quick to phone to say that the guy’s turned up again. I’ve been going through the list, checking to see who’s still not been accounted for and requesting photographs where possible. The problem is, sir, the face is in a real mess and I don’t think we can rely on getting a match from a photograph. I want to narrow it down before we start bringing in people to identify the body.’