He slowed. Throwing her into the fjord now seemed lightweight. ‘Not my problem. Divorced, remember? You of all people…’
His ex had cited Lorne in the divorce, though Anne didn’t know her surname, so the document referred to her simply as ‘a woman named Sara.’ Not that that was the real reason for the break-up of his marriage, especially as Anne had been seeing someone else beforehand, for some time. Besides, Anne hadn’t talked to him in three years, not since… And would never talk to him again. Quite right. He took a few more steps, heard Lorne turn around.
‘She’s on a bad track, Jake. Drink, debt.’
He carried on walking, though it wasn’t easy.
She raised her voice. ‘And a boyfriend who hits her.’
He stopped. Replayed it again in his head, to hear the way she’d said it. She’d let some actual emotion slip into her voice. He knew Lorne’s history. Abusive father. This was one area she couldn’t – wouldn’t – fake. So, it was true. Jake felt his blood rise. If someone laid a finger on Anne… His fingers flexed, curled into fists. Anne was on a downward spiral. He wasn’t surprised. And it was his fault. In spades.
‘We can help her, Jake. Get her back on track. Persuade the new boyfriend –’
He stopped listening. He and Anne were over, done. But he still cared what happened to her. And she deserved so much better. If he was there, he knew what he’d do.
‘Break the boyfriend,’ he said, knowing full well what he was asking, given Lorne’s resources at MI6, both the official and the dark ones. But men who hit women… it was the one thing for which he had zero tolerance.
She didn’t miss a beat. ‘If that’s what it takes.’
He turned around. ‘The Rose, Lorne, and then I’m through. And I work wherever I want. Not the office.’
‘Deal.’
He walked right up to her, his face close to hers, into what she’d once called the kissing zone. ‘And then I never see you or hear from you again.’
Her hazel eyes, clearer now, became as hard as the pebbles at his feet.
‘Fine,’ she said. She opened her purse. Inside he glimpsed a pistol and two identical mobile phones. Nothing else. She handed him one of the phones, then walked away.
Something didn’t fit. ‘What aren’t you telling me, Lorne? Why me, in particular?’
She didn’t turn around, didn’t slow down. ‘The guy who stole it was a diver. Check your phone.’
He watched her disappear around the corner.
Back in his car, he switched on the mobile she’d given him. It asked for a code. He typed in 0-0-0-0. No good. Two more tries. He keyed in 1-2-3-4. Nope. One more try. He shook his head, swore, changed to text, and keyed in S-A-R-A. He was in. There was no option to change the password. Always got what she wanted.
He checked for photos. There were four. A helicopter at night, then at a crazy angle just above a bridge, then in the water, then… Hard to make out. A man in the water in a pilot’s uniform, with a stab jacket wrapped awkwardly around him, lit up by a powerful beam. Unconscious. Jake looked closer. Someone just beneath the pilot, underwater. The guy who stole the Rose. The photo was grainy. He played his fingers and thumbs over the smartphone to stretch the image until he could just about see the masked face.
Lorne had been right. Jake saw things in the data. Patterns, connections, but also faces. He saw things others didn’t. No idea why. But it was clear to him, maybe because he was a diver, and you learned to see behind the neoprene.
The diver was female.
Where to start? Easy. London. Scene of the crime. Get the measure of this diver. But in a sense he already had an idea of her. She’d gone to a lot of trouble to save the pilot. And the thought came to him unbidden, that he should find this woman before Lorne did.
He started the engine, and glanced over to the fjord. ‘Later, Sean,’ he said, then tore away, scattering pebbles into the water.
Nadia nursed her backpack as she tried to forget yesterday’s killing spree. In front of her the harbour was crowded with expensive sailing yachts and sturdy fishing vessels. The sun beat down on her face. The yacht rigging rattled in the onshore breeze. A distant ambulance siren was barely audible above the cawing of seagulls fighting over rancid morsels in the fishing nets left out to dry on the quay. The image of Janssen’s bloody corpse intruded in her mind. Fish would be eating away at what was left of his face. She opened her eyes, gripped the bag hiding the Rose, held it closer.
Sammy had saved her, but she should have killed Janssen, for Katya’s, if not for her own sake. Why couldn’t she pull the trigger? She’d been living in a fantasy world, believing that she could work for Kadinsky for five years and never kill anyone. Okay, there had been the vow to her mother, and she didn’t want to become her father, but still. She should at least be able to defend herself, or protect Katya. She had to get her head in the game, especially now Sammy was gone and she was on her own. She went over it again, for the umpteenth time. Why can’t I kill?
Of course she had, once. A bear. As a kid she’d loved animals. Her father taught her to shoot, but when he took her hunting in the woods she would aim to miss, to scare away a deer or a rodent. He never reproached her, just repeated the same phrase: ‘Next time’. Then one day a bear had been terrorising the village, and the men were called out to track it down and kill it. She and her father joined the search, and after several hours, spotted it. He gave her the shot. But even though it had maimed two people already, she aimed high, and it ran off. The other men were furious when they found out, and her father had to send her home with her rifle. As she neared the house she heard Katya screaming in the back garden. Nadia raced around and found the bear on its hind legs, incisors bared, Katya and her mother pinned against the shed. Nadia didn’t hesitate, shot it through the mouth, blew out the back of its skull, and put another two bullets in its chest to make sure. Nadia would never forget the look of horror on her mother’s face.
But a bear wasn’t a person.
Her father had been a killer. She’d not known before his death, but had found out later. Her mother had made sure of it. Maybe some of those he’d murdered had deserved it. But one had been a journalist doing an anti-corruption piece on the government. Later, during a short break from Kadinsky’s training camp, Nadia had gone to see his widow, tried to give her money. It didn’t go well, once the woman realised who Nadia was.
‘I don’t want your fucking money, suka, I want my husband back!’ She’d slapped Nadia’s face hard, then attacked her. Nadia could have defended herself, had been trained to, but she didn’t, just let the blows rain down on her. After a while the widow, exhausted, tears in her eyes, held up a trembling hand in the crude shape of a pistol, her second finger the trigger. ‘Back of the head. Just a small movement’ – she made a clicking sound with her tongue – ‘and my man’s life was gone.’ She looked down at Nadia. ‘Why the fuck are you crying?’
‘I don’t know,’ Nadia answered, because she didn’t. She left the money on the table, went to a bar and got seriously drunk.
But the question remained. Could she kill?
Next time.
She got up and walked around the crumbling edge of the dock. The horn-blast of the Scillonian, the massive blue and white ferry bound for the remote Scilly Isles, made the seagulls take flight. The Scillies. Her hideaway destination. Off the mainland. Smallville. Most people on the run wouldn’t go there, because it was difficult to get away from. Like retreating into the corner of a chessboard. Limited moves remaining. But that also made it a blind spot for the authorities, and the local police there would be little more than