‘And who can blame him?’ mumbled the commander under his breath.
‘But that won’t be easy, even for someone with Ross’s particular expertise,’ said William, ignoring The Hawk’s comment.
‘Don’t forget he spent four years in the SAS, four years with the murder squad, and has been undercover for the past three. There can’t be many people better qualified to kill someone.’
‘I think I should pull him in,’ said William, ‘and spell out the consequences.’
‘Agreed,’ said The Hawk. ‘But if you’re going to stop him doing something he’ll later regret, you’ll have to find him first. And if he does manage to kill Roach, we’ll have an even bigger problem on our hands.’
‘Namely?’
‘He’ll come back to work in a few days’ time and tell you he’s been in mourning or looking after his daughter, but now he wants to get on with the job of putting Faulkner back behind bars. But all he’ll really have on his mind is how he’s going to kill him.’
CHAPTER 23
THE TRAMP WALKED SLOWLY DOWN the road pushing an ancient pram, a cigarette butt drooping from the corner of his mouth. He wore an old army greatcoat that almost touched the ground, along with four combat medals – the only parts of his disguise that were genuine – suggesting he was a veteran of some long-forgotten war. His dark hair was matted and stuck out from under a woollen hat that looked as if it had been a tea cosy in an earlier life. His face was unshaven and you could smell him from several feet away. He clocked the varying reactions he received from those who passed him in the street: sympathy, usually women; disgust, tattooed youths; and some even handed him a pound coin to relieve their guilt.
He approached a pub out of which was blasting ‘I Can’t Get No Satisfaction’。 Don’t worry, he promised those inside, it will only be a matter of time.
As he passed the pub, he kept an eye on the two bouncers who’d been posted on the door to make sure no uninvited guests intruded on the birthday boy’s celebration. He’d arrested one of them several years ago, but the man didn’t give the old git a second look as he shuffled past. If he’d glanced into the pram, all he would have seen was a torn packet of cornflakes, a dented tin box that had once contained ‘Edinburgh’s finest shortbread biscuits’， an empty Kleenex box and a Marlboro packet with one cigarette butt sticking out. A couple of threadbare blankets that Oxfam would have rejected were stuffed into one corner.
When he reached a set of traffic lights, he pressed the button and waited for the little green man to appear before crossing the road. He kept up his slow pace until he came to a crossroads: the demarcation line that unofficially marked the boundary dividing the two empires controlled by the Roaches and the Abbotts. Two aggressive-looking youths were patrolling the pavement on the far side, their sole purpose to ensure a Roach didn’t stray onto the Abbotts’ territory. The tramp stopped and asked one of them for a light.
‘Bugger off, you stupid old fart,’ was the immediate response. So he did. He kept on walking until he reached an unlit alley that even the most passionate young lovers would have avoided, and the police didn’t venture down on their own after dark.
He pushed his pram half-way down the alley, then, checking that no one was taking any interest in him, he removed his tea-cosy hat and put it in the pocket of his greatcoat, which he folded and placed under the blankets in the pram. The hair was still matted, the face still unshaven, the smell still nauseating, but the man dressed in a black tracksuit and black trainers now drew himself up to his full height and took one more look up and down the alley. Not even a stray cat to observe him.
He reached into the cornflakes box and pulled out the stock of a rifle. Next, he flicked the lid off the ‘Edinburgh’s finest’ and extracted a small night-vision telescope. Finally he unscrewed the handle of the pram, tapped it gently on the top, and a slim, perfectly weighted barrel slid out. It took him only moments to piece together a Remington M40 sniper rifle. It wouldn’t have been his first choice, but it was the model Ron Abbott favoured. He finally grabbed the Marlboro packet and slipped it into a tracksuit pocket. Moving swiftly towards the building at the end of the alley, he began to climb the drainpipe on its rear wall with the ease of a cat burglar, bringing back memories of the Iranian Embassy siege when he’d been a young lance corporal serving with the SAS, later mentioned in dispatches.
When he reached the top floor, he looked down once again to check if anyone had spotted him. No one had. He’d chosen his vantage point carefully: he was overlooked only by an old warehouse that closed its doors at six o’clock every evening.