Canterbury
12 noon
April 19th
The coach was moist and humid on the inside. The stop in Canterbury had been a short blast of fresh air on Stanton who was sat near the front. All the way to Canterbury Stanton had mused on Mason’s death. They’d penned him in alright. It was the thought of the bridge at Vauxhall that made Stanton realise that the police must have known where he was coming from. He knew for certain that the Priory Arms was being watched. Someone had talked he was sure. He knew that he had a problem. He couldn’t go to the meeting point because it was too ‘hot’. He couldn’t contact the ‘employer’ because he didn’t know who it was. He assumed that they knew he was alive as no news of his death had put out and he knew for certain that news of his boat being found in Dover would tell them that he was close.
His question to himself was ‘if he were them what would they think he would do?’
It wasn’t easy. He thought of places in London that would link to his background or past, but there was no glaringly obvious place they could link to him or assume he’d think of. They must know that he wouldn’t go to the Priory Arms.
It then struck him that the most natural thing for him to do was to find a hotel and wait for contact a message of some kind. His best bet was to find a hotel closest to the Priory Arms in distance and wait there. Assuming that they’d think he would do that they would most probably be there waiting for him. The question was would the security services work that out too? It was a chance he’d have to take if he was to get under the protective wing of his employer, not to mention get the one million pound hit.
The Kent countryside flashed by blurred into an impressionist canvas by rain drops being dragged across the glass work. The coach sped into London and Stanton knew that he was going to have to use the rail network. He needed no disguises, his hooded coat and woolly hat would serve, even if it matched McKie’s description, which was no doubt circulating. A million people in London would be wearing wet weather clothes with hoods up. It would be a bad day for CCTV watchers. Stanton willed the rain to get heavier.
He decided to get an hour’s sleep before he got into London. He was hungry and thirsty, but his Legion training helped him ignore the needs. He folded his arms and twisted in the seat to be able to sleep. He thought about McKie. The man had killed Wheeler, there was no doubt he could kill if pushed to it, but DIC, Stanton felt sure, weren’t made up of disciplined, hardened and fear exempt agents, he was sure. They were gifted amateurs, in a way, and yet the thoughts led him to feel the side of his head and the bruise there. McKie was a tough, strong, fast and quick thinking individual. Stanton resolved not to be too scornful of DIC and its people. If McKie was anything to go by they had both brains and brawn. He fell asleep thinking of the four men he’d spent two weeks on a submarine with and all of whom were dead, all accounted for by the work of DIC. There was no doubt, he yawned, that it was some machine and it was looking for him.