The Alex King Series, A BATEMAN [good books for high schoolers .TXT] 📗

that King felt it almost impossible to assimilate. He had barely paused for breath since Simon Mereweather had handed him the letter in Scotland. He could not tell, without concentrating hard, whether it had been weeks or days. But he had given his all, pushed through fatigue and his own fears to buy Caroline the time she needed. She was tough and resourceful, possibly one of the most intelligent people he had met, and he knew deep down, that the likelihood of a gallant rescue was slim. Caroline would have to use her military and intelligence training to get out of her situation. All he could hope for was to keep up what he had started. Keep Helena from seeing Caroline as a loose end of no future value, and now, unbalance the woman as he bought himself some precious time. He would have to act fast. It would be a fine line emotionally for Helena. She would undoubtedly be trying to find out what had happened to King, and while she was doing that she would be exposed. She would have to make enquiries, pay-off people in a position to extract information, and that would always create a trail.

King knew his time was limited. Stay under the radar too long and Helena may well abandon her plans and cut her losses, including her ties to Caroline. He would have to resurface soon.

He had already revisited the post office and been mildly rebuked at first, threatened with a call to the police when he had persisted. Data protection was a key right to living in Sweden, and the Swedish protected their freedom so fervently. King could tell that no amount of cajoling would work. He was unofficial, and a flash of his MI5 ID was about as useless as the mild flirting he had tried at first. He was ruggedly handsome, but certainly the wrong side of forty to have the desired effect on a twenty-year-old woman with looks worthy of Vogue’s front cover. He had been told that all recordings were digital and held both on cloud and hard-drive, and only a court order would retrieve them. King had known that he had been close to the wire, knew he had to appear to give up and walk away. But appearances are deceptive, and King always played more than one card.

He watched the teenagers practice on the goals. There were a few girls, but mainly boys and the skill-level was high. It was called soccer in Sweden, but King would always call it football. Each player would dribble the ball a few metres, then power a kick towards the goal. It was quite an onslaught for the goalkeeper, but he was coping well, saving far more than he was conceding. After ten-minutes all the players were taking long passes and strikes towards the goal from just shy of the centre line. The goalkeeper coped admirably and saved all but a few. There was no element of surprise, and unsurprisingly he had more time to meet the ball. The coach seemed to recognise this quickly and he brought half the players in close, the other half split between the two corners. He shouted and made some gestures, and the players kicked in sequence to avoid a blast of multiple balls, and the goalkeeper let more than a few goals into the net. After five-minutes, the players ceased fire, gathered the balls and started to perform some warm-down exercises and stretches. The coach tossed a few spiky foam rollers into the mix and the players alternated working it along their hamstrings and quads. They all took on fluids, some drinking from bottles of water, others squeezing sachets into their water bottles. King guessed they were syrupy fruit cordials packed with electrolytes. It made him smile when he thought about playing football as a boy using jumpers as goal posts and downing a fizzy pop afterwards, or later training with the SAS on nothing more than tea, Mars Bars and bacon rolls. Perhaps a can of Guinness and paper-wrapped fish and chips smothered in salt and vinegar, his muscles aching and cramping after fifteen-mile runs with a fifty-pound Bergen on his back. But always up for a beer and some chips off base in the evening.

The coach was dismissing the players and packing the balls away in nets. He was forty-something, wore his thinning fair hair in a crew-cut. He had put on some weight in the years since King had seen him last. Par for the course. Not everyone lived such an active life as King did.

The coach dragged the nets of balls off the pitch, King guessed the Volvo estate backed up with its tailgate open belonged to him. It seemed the obvious choice, given that most of the parents waiting for their children had parked facing the pitch, most driving expensive SUVs and either talking on their phones, texting or surfing the internet on various devices. King got out of the Volkswagen hire car and made his way towards the coach. He walked unhurriedly, hands in his pockets. Just another parent waiting for their child to get changed.

The coach was pushing the nets in place, moving equipment to make room. He spoke before King could, didn’t turn around.

“Time caught up with me?”

“It catches up with everyone.”

The man wedged a cooler of bottled water between the nets of footballs, then turned around. He looked older than when King had last seen him. Of course he would, it had been over seventeen years, but even so, the crow’s feet, wrinkles and extra weight in his face aged him considerably. “I thought the day would come,” he said. “What can I do to change your mind?”

King looked him up and down. He was about to allay the man’s fears, but saw the way he looked at him, noted the sense of foreboding in the man’s voice. He needed some stick and carrot.