by Andy Maslen
“Can you get down for a couple of days?”
“Not a chance. I’m surveilling some kuksugare who’s trafficking young girls from Eastern Europe into London.”
“Kuksugare?”
She laughed. A thrilling, raspy sound that made his stomach flip. “Look it up, Wolfe. Google Translate, Ja?”
“Ja, okej!”
“Got to go. Keep me posted on this new job, yes?”
“Definitely. Now go and catch your kuksugare.”
The line went dead but Gabriel held the phone to his ear for a few moments longer, listening to his pulse, rushing in and out like surf.
Would it help? The therapy offered by Richard Austin? What had Fariyah called it? Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing. His hijab-wearing psychiatrist seemed to think it was worth trying, and that was enough. But when should he call? No time like the present, Wolfe.
He pulled Fariyah’s NHS business card from his wallet. On the back, in small, precise handwriting, was a name and a number. He dialled, holding his breath, then realised what he was doing and let it out in a controlled sigh. The call was picked up on the third ring.
“Richard Austin.”
“Richard, it’s Gabriel Wolfe. I hope Fariyah Crace said I might be calling you.”
“Yes! Hi. I mean, it’s been a while, so I thought you’d decided against it but, hello. I’m really pleased you’ve called.”
“Fariyah thinks very highly of you, otherwise I wouldn’t have.”
“She and I go back a long way. In fact, we served together. You’re ex-Army, right?”
“SAS. You were in the armed forces, then?”
“Royal Artillery, ten years. I met Fariyah in Afghanistan.”
Gabriel poured another glass of wine as Austin talked.
“I wondered whether that was the connection. She knows my old CO. In fact, he recommended her to me.”
“Yes, she was a military psychiatrist. Embedded with the Royal Marines to be strictly accurate. I don’t think she ever gave up her private practice. When I got my discharge papers, I called her. I had an idea about retraining as a psychotherapist to help ex-service personnel with PTSD and other mental health disorders.” Austin stopped himself. “Sorry. I’m sure you didn’t call me for a rundown of my CV.”
“It’s all interesting background. But I really wanted to fix up an appointment to see you. I have some time on my hands.”
“Let me see, hold on a moment . . .” Gabriel could hear a diary being flicked through at the other end of the line. “. . . can you come in next week? Monday morning? Or Tuesday afternoon?”
“I should be able to. I mean, yes, of course. As I said, diary’s a blank page at the moment. And the weekend will give me time to get myself ready.”
Austin laughed. “There’s really no need to prepare. But shall we say Monday at ten, then?”
Austin gave Gabriel an address in Islington and they ended with an agreement to call again only if one or other had to move the appointment.
Gabriel went to the French doors that led from his small kitchen onto the back garden. He leaned forward until his forehead was resting against the cool glass, his breath misting it. A movement in the darkness caught his eye. The moon was almost full and in its silky, white light he saw a fox padding across his lawn. He remained motionless, watching the animal nosing in the flower bed, looking for worms or beetles, he supposed. Some sixth sense made the fox turn and stare right at Gabriel. Its eyes were ghostly, greenish-white marbles in a white-muzzled face. Its ears twitched twice, then it returned to its foraging. The human clearly posed no threat. Not to the fox, at any rate.
Gabriel spent Saturday morning researching Mozambique. It had gained independence from the Portuguese in 1975, then spent the ensuing seventeen years being torn apart by civil war as left- and right-wing armies shot their way to an uneasy peace. He assumed that one way or another Barbara Sutherland would smooth things over diplomatically so he could make his way into the forest and track down Smudge’s remains. Presumably, she’d arrange some sort of back-up or military support. Otherwise, it was going to take years to find whatever was left of the SAS trooper for whose death Gabriel still blamed himself.
He made a list of supplies.
Medical Kit
Analgesic
Intestinal sedative
Antibiotic
Antihistamine
Anti-malaria tablets
Surgical blades
Butterfly sutures
QuikClot sponges
Plasters
Water purification tablets
Survival Kit
Fish hooks and line
Needles and thread
Waterproof matches
Candle (shave square so packs tighter)
Flint and striker
Magnifying glass
Kindling
Compass
Snare wire
Flexible saw
Torch, spare batteries
Knife plus whetstone
24-hour field rations
Other
Change of clothes
Plastic carrier bags for keeping spare clothes dry
Survival bag
Personal weapon, pref. SIG Sauer P226, ammunition
Night-vision goggles
Mosquito net
Human remains recovery kit (brushes, forceps, tweezers, bags)
As he wrote this last item, Gabriel realised he had been avoiding thinking about what, precisely, he would be bringing home for burial. Somewhere in his mind he had been visualising a complete skeleton. But now that he contemplated the reality of the situation, he knew he would be lucky to find anything at all. Predators and scavengers would have disturbed the body of his old comrade, maybe carried off parts of it to their dens or tunnels, or even into nests if raptors had arrived on the scene.
He put his pen down and leaned back until his head hung down over the back of his office chair.
“Smudge, mate, I’m sorry,” he said to the ceiling. “But I’m coming for you now. I promise.”
The two other remaining members of his patrol, Ben “Dusty” Rhodes and Damon “Daisy” Cheaney, had remained in the Regiment. But Gabriel had resigned his commission almost as soon as he got back to Hereford. He’d been unable to cope with the guilt he felt over leaving a man behind – a man he had ordered back into the teeth of enemy fire to retrieve a briefcase full of a warlord’s plans.
How long had it been? He counted back to 2012. In a handful of years, he’d been hired – and fired – by an advertising agency, set up as an independent corporate negotiator, then moved into private security consulting.
As part of the last role, he’d landed a semi-permanent contract to work for The Department, an off-balance-sheet team of government-backed troubleshooters run by Don Webster, his old Commanding Officer in 22 SAS. This group of professional intelligence-gatherers and killers was deniable, funded through discreet channels neither the media nor run-of-the-mill MPs would ever discover, and charged with eliminating enemies of the State too troublesome, elusive or lawyered-up to go down through conventional legal channels.
And now, for “services rendered”, Prime Minister Barbara Sutherland had granted permission for Gabriel to retrace his steps to Mozambique and recover whatever was left of Smudge’s remains for a military funeral in the UK.
Gabriel lunged forward in the chair. There was someone he needed to see. Someone so important he couldn’t understand how he’d forgotten about her.
3
A Long-Delayed Meeting
DENMAN Road was a narrow street of Victorian terraced houses in Peckham, in southeast London. Gabriel parked his indigo Maserati in a space about halfway along. He walked down towards the main road for ten yards or so and stopped outside a house with window boxes crammed with miniature conifers and ornamental cabbages in shades of mint-green and rose pink. The gate opened smoothly without a screech from its iron hinges. He walked the short distance up the black-and-whi
te-chequered tiles of the path to the front door. The wood was painted a deep shade of red that contrasted with the bright brass of the letterbox, knocker and knob. It echoed the red in two panels of geometric-patterned stained glass. There was a brass-collared spyhole between them, and three locks – mortises top and bottom, and a high-end Banham smack in the middle. House-proud and security conscious.
Gabriel pushed the button for the doorbell and as it rang in the hall beyond the door, he felt his heart rate spike. He’d been calm all the way up to London from Salisbury, but now he was finally here, his pulse was racing. Let it. No need to control it this time.
Through the glass, which was lit from within, he saw a shadow moving closer to the door and then close enough to look through the spyhole. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, wiping his right palm on his trousers.
He heard the sound of a chain being unhooked and a bolt being withdrawn. Then the door opened.
The woman standing before him was smiling, yet her eyes looked sad. The irises were the bright blue of cloudless summer skies, yet dark shadows lay beneath them on her pale, pink-tinged cheeks. She was wearing faded jeans and a white sweater over what looked like a man’s shirt, pale blue with dark grey stripes. Her ash-blonde hair was tied into two tight plaits no thicker than a finger, arranged symmetrically on each side of her collar.
“Hi, Melody,” Gabriel said, feeling a blush creeping onto his cheeks.
“Gabriel,” Melody said softly. “I thought we’d never see you again. Come in.” She stepped towards him and hugged him tightly. “I’m so glad you’re here. Mike looked up to you like an older brother. I swear he loved you more than me.” Melody held him at arm’s length, staring into his eyes and looking him up and down. “Civvy Street obviously suits you.”
“I’m sorry I haven’t come to see you since . . .”
“Since Mike was killed. It’s OK, Gabriel. You can say it.”
Gabriel ran his fingers through his hair, ruffling it into spikes. “I know it was wrong of me. I don’t really have any excuse.”
“And I don’t want any. Can I get you something to drink? Tea? Coffee?”
“Coffee, please.”
“Come on, we can talk in the kitchen. Nat’s there – Sunday’s homework day.”
Gabriel followed her along the hall. One wall was a mosaic of photos. A wedding picture caught his eye: Smudge and Melody emerging from the church, Melody grinning with her veil thrown back, carrying a bouquet of pure white roses. Smudge was resplendent in his ceremonial No. 1 dress uniform, a row of campaign medals above the left breast pocket of his jacket, and smiling at someone to the left of the frame.
In another photo, Smudge was holding Nathalie as a baby. A third, taken by Gabriel himself, in Afghanistan, showed the other three members of his patrol, part of the F Squadron’s Mobility Troop in 22 SAS: Daisy, Smudge and Dusty, arms round each other’s shoulders, smiling out of dust-skimmed faces.
Gabriel stepped into the kitchen. At a scrubbed pine table, bent over a metallic royal-blue laptop, was a girl of thirteen or maybe fourteen. She looked up as her mother and Gabriel entered the room.
“Gabriel!” she squealed. She scraped her chair back on the slate tiles and ran into Gabriel’s arms, throwing her arms around him and squeezing hard enough to make breathing difficult.
“She’s been impossible since you phoned,” Melody said. “I managed to get her to bed before midnight last night, but even that was a struggle.”
Her tone was indulgent, and her smile told Gabriel things were going to be OK.
“How are you, Nathalie?” he asked, once the girl had released him from her hug.
“I’m in Year Nine now, as you probably don’t know. I’m on the school senate and I’m captain of the soccer team. I’m going to be a lawyer like Mum when I grow up. Other than that, you know, normal teen stuff.” Nathalie fixed him with an inquisitor’s gaze, leaning forwards as she looked up into his face. “Mum said you’ve got some news. Is it about Dad?”
Gabriel nodded. “Yes. Yes, it is. Can I sit down?”
Nathalie hurried back to the table and pulled out a chair for him.
While Melody made two cups of instant coffee and poured apple juice for her daughter, Gabriel asked Nathalie inconsequential questions, about what subjects she enjoyed, how her team were doing, what her teachers were like. Topics he assumed early teens wouldn’t find embarrassing to talk about. When the drinks were made and sitting on the tabletop, Melody asked the question to which he’d been trying to find the best answer since the previous day.
“Why are you here, Gabriel?”
He paused before answering, and looked out of the window, at a tiny patch of lawn bordered with cut-back roses waiting for the spring. Then he took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh.
“I’m going back to Mozambique to find Sm – , to find Mike. If I can. To bring him home.”
Melody reached across the foot of pine between them and gently took his hands in her own. She looked at him with eyes that glistened in the pale winter sun lighting the kitchen.
“Can you really do that? After all this time?”
He looked over at Nathalie, who was dry-eyed but frowning, as if trying to solve a particularly hard homework problem.
“You’re going to get Dad?” she asked.
“I’m going to try,” Gabriel said. “I have permission from the Prime Minister to go, so I think I’ll have really good support from the people I was there with.”
“You mean the Regiment?” Melody said. “Can they do that? Now you’re a civilian, I mean.”
“I’m not sure. But our old CO, Don Webster, do you remember him?”
Melody nodded.
“He’s not in the Army any more but he’s helping too. I think it’ll be fine.”
Nathalie tapped Gabriel on the arm.
“Why didn’t you come to see us? Before, I mean. We thought you would.”
“Nathalie, it’s fine,” Melody said. “Gabriel’s here now and that’s what matters.”
“No, it’s OK, Melody. She has a right to know,” Gabriel said. He turned to face Nathalie and found himself looking into Smudge’s eyes. “Your Dad was a brave man. One of the bravest I ever met. I asked . . . I told him to get something we’d lost and he did it without thinking because he was a very well-trained soldier. And that’s when he was killed. I blamed myself for causing his death. And for having to leave him behind. I still do. I was ashamed to come and see you.” He stopped talking, trying to dislodge the lump in his throat by swallowing but it seemed to have become fixed there. He swiped a hand across his eyes.
“Gabriel,” Nathalie said. “Nobody blames you except yourself.”
He cleared his throat, amazed at the girl’s maturity. “Thank you.” He looked across the table at Melody. “I’m seeing someone about it. Trying to sort it out.”
She nodded. “You’re a good man. You shouldn’t be suffering. But there’s one thing that puzzles me.”
“What’s that?”
“Hold on. Nat, darling, do you want to go and finish that in your room?”
The girl let out a theatrical groan. “God, Mum. I’m not a kid any more. You can talk in front of me, you know.”
Gabriel smiled at this exchange.
“Yes, I know you are and I know I can. But just this once indulge me, OK?”
“Fine! Come and see me before you go, Gabriel. That’s an order.” She gathered up her laptop, notepad and pens and stomped off.
“So what’s up?” Gabriel asked, once the sound of Nathalie’s door slamming had confirmed she was out of earshot.
“Barbara Sutherland is what’s up.”
“What do you mean? Up . . . how?”
Melody took a swig of her coffee.
“Did you know I was studying for a law degree while Mike was serving?”
“Open University wasn’t it?”
“Yes. Cost a bloody fortune. I had to borrow off my parents and get a loan. But anyway, I
got my degree and then went on and did my Legal Practice Course at Westminster University. Now I work in the legal department of a non-profit organisation called Scrutiny International. We monitor governments for breaches of UN resolutions, international treaties and conventions, that kind of thing.”
“And what, Barbara’s corrupt, is that what you’re saying?”
“Barbara? You are cosy with the elite, aren’t you?”
“I’ve met her a couple of times, that’s all.”
Melody smiled but there was a watchfulness in her expression now. “Nobody’s saying she’s bent. But there are a few little blanks in her CV. A few places where an uncharitable person might decide she was hiding things from the public. When she was Secretary of State for Defence, for example, we know she was meeting some really dodgy characters in Africa. Now, we submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act for the minutes of those meetings and they’re not there. In fact, the Ministry of Defence denied they ever took place.”
“Maybe they didn’t.”
“We checked locally. We’ve got sources in Zambia and Tanzania, Zimbabwe . . .” She paused and looked at Gabriel. “. . . Mozambique. All over. She was there at the times we claimed she was. We have photos. Video, even.”
Gabriel looked out of the window again. Then back at Melody.
“I’m not saying she’s perfect. She’s a politician, for a start. But she’s a straight arrow, you have to believe me.” A straight arrow who oversees a covert assassination squad run by your husband’s and my old commanding officer.
“Just be careful,” Melody said. “And bring Mike home, if you can. It would mean a lot.”
“I will. Both of those things. I really will try.”
Gabriel checked his watch.
“I should go. I’m leaving as soon as I can and I’ve got a ton of preparation to do back at home.”
“I’ll show you out,” Melody said, getting to her feet. At the foot of the stairs she stopped and shouted out to Nathalie. “Gabriel’s going, love. Come and say goodbye.”
The bedroom door opened and Nathalie ran down the stairs so fast she almost slipped on the final step. For the second time, she threw her arms around Gabriel and squeezed tight before releasing him and staring into his eyes.