Page 103 of We Chase Shadows

So AI took his job, and now he’s in a ditch working out the best way to kill Vern Blackwood. Them’s the breaks. All Mark Drury knows for sure is that this is a job artificial intelligence can never take.

Shooting people for money and plumbing, they’re both future-proof.

Another vehicle makes its way down the long drive. Only a delivery though, a local off-licence. Third delivery this morning.

He’d heard about the first job, just over a week ago now, at his old gym in the City. This Eriksson was looking for someone to travel to a little town called Brockenhurst, track down a woman and give her a warning. Easy.

Did Mark know anyone? Yes, said Mark, feeling an old familiar feeling. I can do it. Have you ever done this sort of work before? Mark simply tapped the side of his nose. Leave it with me.

In the end he had improvised and given the woman’s husband a beating instead. Warning delivered. Worked a treat.

Yep, he’s got the skills to fall back on, and the money’s great. More than he was on in the City, to be honest, and the hours are a lot better. You never had to dig yourself into a grassy hollow and cover yourself with leaves when you worked in the City, but to all other intents and purposes this was the better job.

That’s if you are happy with killing somebody, and Mark is. Some people aren’t comfortable with killing strangers, and this wouldn’t be the gig for them. Honestly, people have asked him before, and that’s the advice Mark has given them.

He starts to clean his gun. It’s a Beretta 92FS, and he has always sworn by them. It’s easy to get swayed by the branding when you’re buying a new gun, some guys he knows will use Heckler & Koch, but Mark Drury thinks you’re paying extra just for the name. Some of the younger guys, the hipsters, will use a Glock or a Walther P22. That’s up to them, of course. You have to go with whichever one speaks to you.

Is Mark himself future-proof, he wonders? He will find out soon enough. He knows above all that his value to this Mr Eriksson is that he’s completely expendable. Completely replaceable.

But Mark Drury has been replaced once, by a computer brain that could play the markets, and he’s not about to be replaced again, so he’s not going to disappoint Mr Eriksson. A steady job is more important than ever in this economy.

There have been cars coming in and out all morning. He has names for most of the people currently inside. There’re two bodyguards, Amy and Lee, there’s the woman from TV, Rosie thingy, there’s the ex-cop, Steve, who just left, and, of course, at the heart of it all, Vern Blackwood. Mr Eriksson wants him dead asap.

You can tell Eriksson is a pro, this new job came from a new phone, the money from a new account. Mark had asked a couple of gentle questions about the first three jobs, just to make sure he was talking to the same man. All checked out, Eriksson just making himself hard to trace, so here he is.

As if on cue, Rosie now drives away from the house. Open-top E-type Jag, very nice. If Vern was in the passenger seat, Mark could take an easy shot from here. But they’re keeping him all wrapped up, just as they should.

Mark now starts cleaning the suppressor, what the kids call a silencer, and this is where Mark has to admit he has succumbed a little to the marketing. In the old days if he needed a suppressor, and you do have to keep things quiet sometimes, he had always gone with the Gemtech Lunar 9. I mean, why wouldn’t you? It just works. But tooling up for this job – where he definitely will need a silencer, there’s a house full of people here – he’s gone for a newer model, the Dead Air Ghost 9mm. I mean, how could he resist?

The house full of people is concerning Mark a little. If it wasn’t concerning him, he wouldn’t be doing his job properly.

It would have been a lot easier to kill Vern Blackwood in Italy the other day. No moats there. But who is Mark Drury to question Jakob Eriksson’s planning? He’ll have his reasons. Better to do what you’re told and take the money. Leave logical thinking to AI.

They say the New Forest is beautiful, but he’d seen so little of it when he was beating up that guy. That was just a day trip. This time though, there’s a hotel. He spent the night there last night and drove over here this morning. The Hunter’s Rest, it’s called. Laura would have liked it if she was still around, but at roughly the same time his brokerage replaced him with an algorithm, Laura had replaced him with a padel coach called Franco.

He’s made himself fairly comfy for now. He’ll be here all day and all evening, unless an opportunity presents itself to nip in, take a shot, then nip out again. The warm weather is helping. He’ll stay dug in till about midnight then head back to The Hunter’s Rest. He wonders if the bar will still be open.

To his left, Mark Drury hears a sound. He saw two foxes earlier. You’d think they’d be tucked up asleep by now, but they must have come back.

54

Rosie is not at the dentist, but she wishes she were.

People only come to see you in person if they have very good news, or if they have very bad news.

Her manager, Elspeth, is beaming from ear to ear, but Rosie is fairly sure that she doesn’t have good news. Elspeth smiles because Elspeth always smiles.

‘I got the train down,’ says Elspeth. ‘Can you believe it?’

‘Can I believe you got the train down?’ Rosie asks. ‘Yes.’

‘Normally I drive,’ says Elspeth. ‘But they took my licence away.’

‘Okay,’ says Rosie. ‘Okay. What did they take your licence away for?’

‘Literally nothing,’ beams Elspeth. ‘I hit someone.’

‘You hit someone?’