Predator. Wilbur Smith

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СКАЧАТЬ John, I appreciate it,’ Cross said. ‘Have your secretary send me the contact details and I’ll set up a Skype call as soon as I’m back in London. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve just spotted what looks like twenty pounds of prime salmon and I want to put a fly in its mouth before it disappears.’

      Cross dropped his fly on to the water downstream of where he was standing; then he lifted his rod up and back and into a perfect single Spey cast that sent his line and lure out to a point on the water where it was perfectly positioned to tempt and tantalize his prey. But though his concentration on the fish was absolute, still there was a part of his subconscious that was already looking forward to the task that Bigelow had set him.

      It seemed to Cross like the perfect assignment to get him back into the swing of working life. His military expertise, and his ability to plan, supply, train for and execute an interesting, important task would all be utilized to the full. But the work, though challenging, would essentially be precautionary. Just like all the soldiers, sailors and airmen who had spent the Cold War decades training for a Third World War that had thankfully never come, so he would be preparing for a terrorist threat that might be very real in theory but was surely unlikely in practice. If he was really going to lead a less blood-soaked life, but didn’t want to die of boredom, this seemed a pretty good way to start.

      It was half past eight in the morning of 15 November and all the morning news shows in Houston were leading with stories about the upcoming execution of the notorious killer and prison-breaker Johnny Congo. But if that was the greatest drama of the day, other tragedies, no less powerful to those caught up in them, were still playing themselves out. And one of them was unfolding in a doctor’s consulting room in River Oaks, one of the richest residential communities in the entire United States, where Dr Frank Wilkinson was casting a shrewd but kindly eye over the three people lined up in chairs opposite his desk.

      To Wilkinson’s right was his long-time patient and friend Ronald Bunter, senior partner of the law firm of Bunter and Theobald. He was a small, neat, silver-haired man, whose normally impeccable, even fussy appearance was marred by the deep shadows under his eyes, the grey tinge to his skin and – something Wilkinson had never seen on him before – the heavy creases in his dark grey suit. When Bunter said ‘Good morning’ there was a quaver in his thin, precise voice. He was obviously exhausted and under enormous strain. But he was not the patient Wilkinson was due to be seeing today.

      On the left of the line sat a tall, strongly built, altogether more forceful-looking man in his early forties: Ronald Bunter’s son Bradley. He had thick black hair, swept back from his temples and gelled into a layered, picture-ready perfection that made him look like someone running for office. His eyes were a clear blue and they looked at Dr Wilkinson with a challenging directness, as if Brad Bunter were forever spoiling for a fight. Even so, the doctor could see that he, too, was suffering considerable fatigue, even if he was more able to hide it than his father. There was, however, nothing wrong with Brad Bunter that a good night’s sleep wouldn’t cure.

      The patient whose condition was the reason for the Bunters’ visit to Frank Wilkinson’s office sat between the two men: Ronald’s wife and Bradley’s mother Elizabeth, who was known to everyone as Betty. As a young woman Betty had been an exceptionally beautiful, Grace Kelly blonde, with brains to match. She’d met Ronnie when they were both freshmen at the University of Texas; they had married in their junior year and they’d been together ever since.

      ‘I don’t know what I did to deserve her,’ Ronnie used to say. ‘Not only is she far too pretty for a guy like me, but she’s far too smart as well. Her grades were way better than mine all the way through U. T. Law. If she hadn’t given it up to marry me, she’d have been the one running the firm.’

      Now, though, she was a shrunken, hunched-up figure. Her hair was dishevelled and her immaculate everyday uniform of slim-cut, ankle-length chinos, white blouse, pearls and pastel cashmere cardigans had been replaced by an old purple polo shirt, tucked into baggy grey elasticated slacks over a pair of cheap sneakers. She was holding her purse on her lap and she kept opening it, taking out a tightly folded piece of paper, unfolding it, staring blankly at the handwritten words scrawled across it, folding it up again and putting it back in the bag.

      Dr Wilkinson watched her go through one complete cycle of the ritual before very gently enquiring, ‘Do you know why you’re here, Betty?’

      She looked up at him suspiciously. ‘No, no I don’t,’ she said. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong.’

      ‘No, you haven’t done anything wrong, Betty.’

      She looked at him with a desperate expression of anguish and bafflement in her eyes. ‘I just … I … I … I can’t sort it all out … all these things. I don’t know …’ Her voice tailed away as she opened her purse and pulled out the paper again.

      ‘You are merely suffering from a period of confusion.’ Dr Wilkinson said kindly, trying to cloak the awful truth with the gentlest possible tone of voice. ‘Do you remember we talked about your diagnosis?’

      ‘We did no such thing! I don’t remember that at all. And I’m a grown woman in her fifties.’ Betty was in fact three weeks shy of her seventy-third birthday. She continued forcefully, ‘I know what’s what and I remember all the things I need to know, I can assure you of that!’

      ‘And I believe you,’ Dr Wilkinson said, knowing that it was pointless arguing with an Alzheimer’s patient, or attempting to drag them from their personal reality back into the real world. He looked at her husband: ‘Now, perhaps you can tell me what happened, Ronnie.’

      ‘Yes, well, Betty’s been having a lot of trouble sleeping,’ Bunter started. He looked at his wife, whose full attention had now reverted to the piece of paper, and went on, his voice tentative and his words very obviously skirting around the full truth: ‘She became a little confused last night, you know, and she was … overwrought, I guess you might say.’

      ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Dad!’ Brad Bunter exclaimed with an anger born of frustration. ‘Why don’t you tell Dr Wilkinson what really happened?’

      His father said nothing.

      ‘So what do you think happened, Brad?’ Dr Wilkinson asked.

      ‘OK.’ Brad gave a heavy sigh, collected his thoughts and then began, ‘Seven o’clock yesterday evening, I’m still at the office and I get a call from Dad. He’s at home – these days he likes to be home by five, to look after Mom – and he needs help because Mom’s packed a case and she’s trying to get out of the house. See, she doesn’t believe it actually is her house any more. And Dad’s on the ragged edge because she’s been shouting at him, and kicking and punching him …’

      Ronald Bunter winced as if the words had hurt him more than his wife’s fists or feet ever could. Betty still seemed oblivious to what was being said.

      Brad kept going. ‘And she’s having crying jags. I mean, I can hear her sobbing in the background as I’m talking to him. So I go over and I try to get her calm enough to at least eat something, right? Because she doesn’t eat any more, doctor, not unless you make her. Then I get home about quarter of nine, to see my own wife and kids, except Brianne’s already put the kids to bed, so we watch some TV, go to bed.’

      ‘Uh-huh,’ Wilkinson murmured. He wrote a couple of words on his notes. ‘Was that the final disturbance last night?’

      ‘Hell no. Two o’clock in the morning the phone goes again. It’s Dad. Same thing. Can I come over? Mom’s out of control. I’ll be honest, I felt like saying, you СКАЧАТЬ