You Think You Know Someone

by J B Holman

  ‘Clear!’ he said. ‘He’s not in here. Foxx has fucked off.’

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ she said to Storrington, in the hall, her ears still ringing.

  ‘You can’t catch what isn’t there. Get your guys out of here and into the transport.’

  ‘What about the other flats? He could be there.’

  ‘Leave it to the bobbies. The bird has flown.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Storrington stepped slowly into the flat. He looked again at the kick on the door. Forced entry, but no damage to the lock. Civilians kick doors low down; the military kick doors up by the lock. He meandered through the flat, eyes alert. A pile of slightly damp clothes in the hall: female clothes; tidy flat, messy clothes. Two coffee cups in the lounge, one on a coaster, one not. A tiny length of plastic by the bed, the snippings of a cable tie, a blonde hair on the carpet. He looked round for a picture of the occupant. He found none, so checked her array of brushes on her dressing table. She wasn’t blonde. He moved to the kitchen; dishes not washed but left to soak, an incongruous habit in a flat that had been kept immaculately before the invasion. And the kitchen window was open, just a crack, but enough. He peered into the bathroom and left. He waited with the team, until the police had checked the other flats, but he knew there was nothing to find. The fox was on the lam.

  Foxx knew it was time to leave the second he saw the light on his phone. He knew the drill. A call from GCHQ tracking station to PM-SSS, a call from PM-SSS to the local police, a call to the nearest squad car and a short trip across town to the flats; maybe four minutes, maybe eight. They would assemble a SWAT team and prepare for extraction; maybe another twenty minutes. There was no time to waste.

  He barked orders at Serafina Pekkala, a Secret Service employee who should have known better. She packed a hasty bag of essentials, while he went from room to room removing evidence. He had not expected to be leaving so soon. She had not expected to be leaving at all. Holiday wash bag, handbag, purse, enough underwear for goodness knows how long, as many changes of clothing as she could cram in, a warm jacket and, of course, her favourite trousers. She picked up Duncan’s photograph to put in her bag, but replaced it where she found it. He could stay here and guard the flat. She kissed it, did the same with Lisa’s picture next to it, and left them both where they belonged.

  ‘Time to go,’ he said, as he saw a panda car pull up by the war memorial across the road. ‘Is there a back way out of here?’

  ‘There’s the bin door,’ she said as they left her comfortable flat, closed the door and skipped down the stairs two at a time. They were leaving through the back exit in the basement as a fresh-faced young policeman was looking through the glass front doors into the ground-floor lobby they had left moments before. He saw nothing unusual. He stood there and kept guard while his colleague took Grand Rise.

  ‘Have you got a car?’ asked Foxx.

  ‘Yes, in the garages across the way, about 200 yards in that direction.’ She pointed away from the police car.

  ‘Good. Let’s go.’

  Once outside the back door, his whole countenance changed. He came into his own, he was on a mission; this was his element. He became lithe and alive, supple and effortless, as he glided at speed across the grass and up the walkway towards the garages. She clunkily trotted behind him, like a three-legged donkey. He had vitality, energy and awareness; he was in control of his world and in control of his surroundings. This was the first time she had seen him really be him.

  In the supermarket he’d been acting, being a naïve, charming, but nervous singleton; in the flat he’d been a rampaging rapist, then a business negotiator bargaining for her help, then overly distressed at the fictional demise of the PM. Now he was being himself, she could feel it, see it, know it. It was hard not to be drawn in. He is a killer, she told herself, he’s a cold blooded murderer and an assassin; he’s a bad man. The first three descriptions reviled her, but the last, being a bad man, just multiplied the attraction.

  Once at the garages, her unintentional donkey-ness continued. Her fingers fumbled with her keys. She was not used to this lifestyle. She tried the key twice. The garage would not unlock.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ he asked.

  ‘Wrong key. This is my boyfriend’s garage key.’ She pointed at the garage next door.

  ‘Is there a car in there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you have the keys?’ She nodded. ‘The car keys?’ he confirmed. She nodded again.

  ‘Even better! We’ll take that.’ She hauled up the door to reveal a sporty hatchback that would be their base for the next few days. The car was dusty, the garage was damp. It had clearly not been used for a long time. Two hooks on the garage wall caught his eye. One had a crash helmet hanging on it, the other was empty.

  ‘He left his skid-lid,’ observed Foxx.

  ‘No, he didn’t. That one’s mine.’

  She got in the car, it started second time and she carefully reversed out. Foxx peered through the bushes to see increasing activity at the front of the flats. He checked his exit route. He walked down the short driveway that circled the back of the garages. It came out on to a small side road twenty yards from its junction with Jurors’ Road in one direction and the oblivion of Cheltenham suburbia in the other. It was a good escape route, except for one thing; it was blocked by a police van full of six large, heavily armed men and one equally well-armed woman, all ready for action. He knew they would move when they were needed, so he strolled back to Julie. She had closed and locked the garage and was ready to go. He gave a sign to kill the engine. She looked back at him quizzically. He just turned and peered through the hedge. She scurried over.

  A branch was edged to one side to allow her to observe the bustle of police activity in front of the previously quiet Berkeley Heights. She moved closer to him to get a better view. Police were coming and going, talking on radios and getting in and out of cars. He gave her a running explanation of what was happening and what they were thinking. He predicted their actions like it was a rerun of his favourite movie. She put her arm round his waist, only so that she could squeeze in closer for a better view, his arm fell across her shoulders, their heads pressed closer together. They watched. He described every action step by step. He was one step ahead, always . . . until the helicopter arrived. He had not expected that.

  They heard it flying low overhead, but it didn’t stop above the flats. Hovering would have been bad news, heat sensors would have found them in seconds, but it was not looking for them, it was coming down.

  ‘They’re landing on the school playing field,’ said Julie. She had jogged across it often.

  ‘I wonder who that is,’ he said out loud. The activity stepped up a gear.

  ‘You see her, the one in the full combat gear, walking towards the front door?’ he continued. ‘She’s the boss of the SWAT team. I saw her in the van at the end of the lane here. But she’s not SWAT, she’s full-on military. This is a military operation, not a police operation.’ They watched the woman stand with confidence as she took a commanding position over the assembled police presence. People came and people went.

  ‘Who’s that?’ asked Julie, as she saw a tall slim man exit a squad car.

  ‘Him? Well, he’s a surprise for sure. He’s the reason for the helicopter. We are in the presence of greatness. That is the Number One, Commander Storrington, Leader-in-Chief of the Prime Minister’s Special Security Services. What the hell is he doing here? Why is he here, in person? That’s very interesting.’

  ‘What’s happening now?’

  ‘The captain’s talking to the boss. They’ll call the van round the corner in a minute. There it is. That means they’re about to enter the building. They know we’re in there, so we’re safe out here. We’re good to go.’

  They were standing close together. She felt ragged, like her whole head had just gone through an emotional spin cycle. She had spent twenty-four hours being scared of Mr Eduard Foxx and now she was
scared by all the guns, uniforms and military activity that had come to get him. She was small, but she felt the warmth of his body next to hers and it felt good. He was not like anyone she had ever met, and she was determined not to admire him. But he was in a different league; he had an air about him, a charisma; and, perversely enough, for a cold-blooded, callous, murderous assassin, being with him felt safe. She moved closer and stared at the guns that she feared one day would be aimed at her.

  ‘Those six guys and their captain are his blood hounds and it’s our blood they’re after. They would shoot us as look at us. That, my dear Serafina, is what you’ve brought upon us.’

  ‘I’m sorry. It was a genuine mistake. What do we do now?’

  ‘Simple. He’s invading your home, so we will invade his.’

  13

  The Wrong Trousers

  ‘Who owns the flat?’ asked Storrington.

  A policeman flipped through his notebook. ‘A Miss Julie Connor, thirty-four, civil servant. Pays her council tax and keeps herself to herself. Never been on our radar, except two years ago, but that was nothing criminal.’

  ‘Civil servant? Here in Cheltenham?’

  ‘Yes, we assume so.’ Storrington had what he wanted. The picture had fallen into place. He walked away, took out his phone and called his Head of Investigations.

  ‘Julie Connor, thirty-four, civil servant. Find out what we’ve got on her and which department she works for. Check the Doughnut first. If she’s GCHQ, I want to know. And her car registration, get me that too. On the double.’ Hoy took down the details and hung up. There was a lot he needed to find out, but just one question that needed an answer: Julie Connor, friend or foe?

  The M5 was not the quickest route to London, but it was the fastest way out of Cheltenham. Julie Connor was driving her boyfriend’s car, slowly and steadily as instructed. Anxiety, remorse, insecurity and unwarranted guilt were all eating her from the inside out.

  ‘So?’ asked Foxx.

  ‘So, what?’ she asked him back, with no energy or real desire to know what he was talking about.

  ‘The crash helmet?’ She ignored the angst-ridden shot of adrenalin that pricked her heart.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘That’s what I’m asking. What about it? The crash helmet, the dusty car, his keys still in your handbag.’ Her eyes welled up. Reality hit him. ‘Oh, Julie, I’m so sorry. Clumsy of me. I’m really sorry. I have no tact.’

  Julie stared at the road ahead. A tear slid down her cheek. ‘It was a big flashy racing bike. It didn’t suit him at all; he wasn’t like that. He said he would get rid of it, so we took one last trip round the Cotswolds. It was my idea. I was on the back. It wasn’t fair. I was thrown clear: cuts, scratches, bruises, a fracture and concussion. He slid right under the lorry.’ Her face felt the pain of it still. ‘And that was it. I should get rid of that bloody crash helmet, I don’t know why I’ve kept it.

  He was a good one; the only good one. All the others were even worse than you.’ He ignored the implied, but justified insult. ‘I’m still mad with him for dying. Why did he do that? Why leave me? Why? I still haven’t forgiven him.’ Speech faded to thought. The car was silent. Her hurt wouldn’t go away. It was too much.

  ‘You drive,’ she said, as she pulled off the motorway and into the services.

  The Commander and his captain stood very close, on the edge of Jurors’ Road, a short distance away from the others. She looked up at his bony weather-beaten face.

  ‘Do you think he saw us coming?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘He knew as soon as the phone went on that we’d be on to him.’

  ‘Then why turn it on?’

  ‘My guess is it was her. But was it a mistake . . . or a signal to us?’

  ‘When you figure that out,’ she said, ‘let me know, so I know whether to shoot her or not.’ There was a trace of bullish bravado in her voice born of the frustration of a failed raid.

  ‘You’ll get your chance soon enough. Your boys did well.’

  ‘Mostly. A couple of them want to go it alone, see the target and chase it. But I have hammered formation into their heads a hundred times.’

  Storrington looked at his watch. ‘When this is over,’ he said, ‘I want to take you to tea. We have too much catching up to do.’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ said the lightly smiling captain.

  Julie sat. Foxx drove. They were on the M4 now, heading for London. Foxx was talking, but Julie wasn’t listening to the words outside her head, only the images that tormented her within.

  She felt small, like she had so many times before: when she was ten and Archie, her stepdad, had made her feel insignificant; when she was with Terry, her first real boyfriend, and he’d made her feel stupid; or when she was with any of the next three poor choice, egocentric, unchivalrous, incompatible boyfriends, who just made her doubt she had any value at all.

  Duncan had been different: he understood her, taught her to be herself. With Duncan she’d had a value; without him she had nothing. Men weren’t like women. They had all diminished her, misread her, mistook her quietness for weakness. But in truth she had been weak, she had diminished herself and she had made a promise to Duncan that she would never do that again. And here she was sitting in the passenger seat of his car, hunched into her own self, subsumed by her self-inflicted sorrow, being no one, showing nothing, being invisible. She was wallowing in that all too familiar, self-subjugating, downtrodden, self-betraying miasma.

  She felt so alone. She had sat in that passenger seat a hundred times with Duncan at the wheel, feeling safe, feeling loved. Now she looked over and saw the wrong man. It was not right: on so many levels, it was as wrong as it could be.

  Her life was a mess, even before Eduard Foxx had barged into it. Depression dropped her head and she looked down at herself. What had she become? Scruffy top, moth eaten and baggy, over last Thursday’s T-shirt. That was bad enough, but it was the trousers; they were the wrong trousers. Saggy, misshapen tracksuit bottoms, stained, unwashed, tramp-like; they made her look fat. Foxx was right: she had become frumpy. She didn’t feel special, she hadn’t been special, not since Duncan died. She’d had offers from men, but she’d let them lapse in preference for a life of loneliness and self-pity.

  She looked back at Foxx. He was enjoying the adventure. She wasn’t. The feeling got worse. She knew that if she let him control the relationship, like all the Terrys and Tysons before him, it would not end well. Julie for god’s sake, be Julie! Get a grip. Be yourself. Be Serafina, be the Queen of the Witches.

  ‘Stop the car!’ she yelled. ‘Pull off at this junction.’ He’d almost passed the exit. He swerved and took the slip road. It was the Newbury turn-off. She knew it well: Head Office of ‘2’ was just down the road. She guided him round the roundabouts, along a short winding lane and into the car park of the Hilton Hotel, venue of many tedious management meetings. Today, it was a temporary sanctuary of familiar ground.

  She said nothing, but grabbed a small vanity bag, a hairbrush, a blouse and the right pair of trousers from her roll bag, left the car and headed for the hotel. He made no effort to stop her; she knew the consequences. He got out of the car, locked it and sat on a bench in the sunshine by the door of the reception.

  A change of clothes worked for Clark Kent and his Superwoman counterpart. One of Julie’s earliest memories was of her dad, her real dad, wearing a suit. It had been a rare occasion for a metalworker, but he’d said it made him feel like a real man. She walked into the reception area and up to the desk. She knew the Duty Manager. A room was borrowed and the transformation began.

  She brushed her hair and put on the lightest trace of make-up, but it was enough. She did her lippy, subtle but fresh, and shed her sloppy, ill-fitting scruff bags, like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. She changed her attire, her attitude and her approach. She held up her favourite trousers, looked at them, put them on, pulled them up and did the zip. They felt tight, good tight and s
he knew she was back. She knew that clothes didn’t make you a different person, but they made her feel like herself, her real self, and that was all she wanted. Julie ‘withering’ Connors had entered that hotel, but Serafina Pekkala, Queen of the Witches came out.

  He saw her as she approached. Same person, different attitude. She had purpose, a determination in her strut. She was the girl from the flat, but more so - a lot more so. Her movements were seductive, her demeanour more decisive, her desirability had increased tenfold. She walked past the bench where Eduard was sitting.

  ‘Keys,’ she said, holding out her hand, as she walked past. He handed them over.

  As she walked in front of him, he kept his eyes on her. Both she and he were enjoying the trousers, differently but simultaneously. She looked good and that’s all he could say. But he didn’t: he didn’t say anything, no comment was needed. She drove, with enthusiasm, back round the roundabouts and out onto the motorway.

  ‘I’ve got a question for you, Mr Eduard Foxx.’ Her tones were firm and decisive. ‘If you’re just a lowly desk jockey, what were you doing in Azerbaijan and Georgia?’

  ‘I never said lowly.’

  ‘Implied,’ she replied. ‘And the question still stands.’ She forced herself to be strong.

  ‘I used to be in Operations. That’s how I know Brekkenfield. I did five years, almost all of it undercover on foreign soil. It had its moments, but my real talents lie in planning and tactics, so I transferred to a desk, trading my pistol for a laptop.’