by L. A. Larkin
‘Let’s face it, Olivia,’ says Cohen, ‘the poor sod has the word terrorist tattooed on his forehead, whether he’s guilty or not. A loner, a defector, ex-military, loyal to God knows who. Nobody’s going to fucking believe him. And, you know as well as I do, he can be held for up to forty days for questioning, without access to a solicitor.’ He takes a breath. ‘What you need to find out, Olivia, is why they’re holding him.’
‘I can guess. If bacteria LE31S is a pathogen and therefore a potential biological weapon, they’d want to stop Yushkov giving it to the Russians. But the first batch was destroyed and the second constantly guarded so I can’t imagine how he has any of it.’
‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way,’ says Negus.
Cohen holds the tips of his long fingers together as if in prayer, but prayer couldn’t be farther from his thoughts. ‘If Grankin is SVR, I’m guessing the SAS soldiers you saw were, indeed, going to Camp Ellsworth. Probably to stop the Russians getting their mitts on it.’
‘But Casburn’s SO15, not MI6. Where’s the terrorism link? Surely they don’t think Russia would sponsor a terror plot against this country?’ asks Negus.
‘We condemned Russia’s annexation of the Crimea,’ says Wolfe. ‘Could be payback?’
Cohen crosses his lanky, crane-like legs and leans back into his swivel chair. ‘We’re wasting time guessing.’ He stares pointedly at Wolfe, ‘I want you to find out what makes the Lake Ellsworth bacteria so special. Why do the Russians want it? Why is SO15 involved? What’s Yushkov’s role in all this?’
‘Will do.’ Wolfe stands. ‘Heatherton was right, by the way. Knox was murdered.’
‘How do you know?’ Cohen asks.
‘Dot Simons did his post-mortem. She and I go way back, from my crime-reporting days. I phoned her on the way here. Trouble is, what she told me is off the record, so I can’t use it.’
‘Which is?’ says Cohen impatiently.
‘She found traces of midazolam and an injection point in Knox’s neck. He would’ve been out in seconds. I’m guessing he was then dragged on to a snowmobile and driven away from the camp. Remove his outer clothes, dump him and, hey presto, tragic blizzard accident.’
‘Do you think Yushkov did it?’
‘No, but he’s hiding something.’
‘Stay ahead of the pack on this one,’ says Cohen. ‘The BBC may have delayed broadcasting, but they’ll chuck Harvey off the story and put someone like Minkley on it, and you know he’s bloody good.’
‘Yes, boss.’
Her mobile rings. She doesn’t recognise the number.
‘I’ll get on to it right away,’ she says, leaving Cohen’s office to answer the call. ‘Hello?’
‘Olivia? Is that you?’
‘Speaking.’
‘It’s Stacy Price.’
She’s whispering.
‘What’s the matter, Stacy? Something wrong?’
‘Um, look, I have to speak quietly. I don’t want my husband hearing. The less he knows, the better.’
‘Go on.’
‘Look, I don’t know if I should tell you this, but George called Michael, Michael called me.’
‘Why? Something happened at Lake Ellsworth?’
‘Yes.’
‘What?’
Price is silent but Wolfe can hear her agitated breathing.
‘Maybe I’m doing the wrong thing. It’s just, well, such terrible news.’
‘Please tell me, Stacy. Is someone hurt?’ Wolfe thinks of the men left behind: Beer, Rundle, Ironside and Adeyemi.
‘Michael told me not to talk to you or Harvey. Casburn wants a lid kept on it. But . . . well, I don’t trust that man.’ Silence. Wolfe waits. ‘This can’t come from me, okay?’
‘I won’t name you, I promise.’
‘Trent was using the tractor when it stalled, blades raised. He got out to check them and they fell. Crushed his leg. Bones shattered.’
‘Oh, Stacy, that’s terrible! Where is he now?’
‘On his way to Rothera, then a hospital. George says Trent’s in really bad shape.’
‘How did it happen?’
‘I don’t know. The blades were locked, so they shouldn’t have fallen.’ Price pauses, then drops her voice further. ‘Sabotage?’
‘But why? The mission’s complete. It doesn’t make sense.’
26
Cambridge, UK
Before placing the titanium cylinder inside a hyperbaric chamber at his home laboratory, he drops a minuscule sample of the bacteria’s watery solution into two Petri dishes. One he positions under a hydroponic light, blinking at the ferocious brightness. His gloved hands tremble. He adds something to each dish, convinced the aggressive bacteria, given the right stimulation, will attack. The second dish is placed inside a fridge that’s had its light removed. Now he must wait.
After taking off his surgical mask and gloves, protective eyewear and coverall, he leaves the basement to make a cup of tea. He spills milk on the kitchen bench - his hands won’t stop shaking. Wiping up the mess, he then sips his tea, acutely aware of the silence that embalms the empty house. His eyes rest on the rainbow-coloured, alphabet fridge magnets arranged so they spell DADDY. He opens a package delivered to his neighbour while he was away, unwraps the portable CCTV camera he bought online and plugs it in to charge the battery. Leaving his tea half drunk, he heads upstairs, showers, shaves and changes his clothes. He removes his equipment from a backpack-style camera bag and carries it downstairs. Each vial fits neatly into the padded pockets.
It’s time to check the dishes. He slowly descends the basement stairs, his heart thumping, and clambers into his protective gear once again. He takes a hesitant step towards the Petri dish under the hydroponic light. Then stops. Part of him wants to be proved right. Part of him is horrified at where this will lead. He takes another step and leans in, peering into the dish.
‘Oh — my — Lord!’
As if on the receiving end of a defibrillator discharge, he leaps back from the bench. He slowly turns to the fridge, removes the twin from its dark confines and lays it on the workbench where he can see it better.
‘Yes!’ he shouts, elated.
It’s just as he expected.
But it won’t be long before others discover what he now knows. He must act, and act fast. First, he will say goodbye.
There are few places left in England where light pollution doesn’t stain the night sky a sepia brown, hiding the stars. But on the low-lying marshland of the Cambridge Fens, the sky is punctuated with millions of dots of light that seem to welcome him back. He stops for a moment, remembering the black paint on his little boy’s ceiling and the fluorescent stars he’d stuck there. He shakes his head, pushing away the memory, and moves his hand behind his back, gently tapping the backpack’s outer pockets. The foam that protects the five glass vials compresses slightly at his touch but the vials are intact. Satisfied, he keeps walking.
The reflection of the moon in the water appears to follow him along an overgrown path edged with reeds. He wears the hood of his coat up, and keeps his head down, focused on the beam of light from his torch pointed a few feet ahead. For a stranger to this boggy area, a night walk is fraught with potential mishap: at best a muddy tumble, at worst a drowning. But he has made this trip so many times, he hardly needs a torch. To his left, tall meadow grasses whisper as if trying to soothe away the pain of their deaths. But their faces are always with him. If only he’d known that the goodbye would be so final. If only he could turn back time and undo his mistake.
The ground is muddy and his boots squelch. The meadow is in darkness, but he hears a short-eared owl call out as it hunts, its unusual sound like the braying of an angry pony. He glances round and catches a glimpse of the owl’s round yellow eyes. Not long now. He spots the peg, hammered deep into the ground, then the mooring rope, and lifts the torch beam so he can follow the rope to the narrowboat’s stern.
His fifty-foot narrowboat has been moored here fo
r the last two years, alone, no other boats for miles. She is dutifully maintained, in perfect working order, the engine turned over regularly, but the moorings are never untied. Made locally of steel, by a family business that’s built narrowboats for five generations, she was designed to outlast him. When they’d commissioned the build, they knew they wanted the motif on the boat’s sides to be of two swans, because they mate for life, and being married for life was how it was meant to be.
As he approaches his narrowboat, he’s convinced he hears children’s laughter. He stops and peers into the darkness, but knows it cannot be. This neglected stretch of water is silted up and seldom used, and no children live nearby. His head is pounding like a migraine; he rubs his temples. It’s a memory, so clear and so dazzlingly bright, he can barely look at the two skipping figures chasing a Red Admiral butterfly, the sun warm, their arms and legs bare. She’s in her favourite yellow summer dress; he’s stumbling after her, the younger of the two, in shorts and a Winnie-the-Pooh T-shirt.
The cry of a fox startles him. He must hurry. The tarpaulin covering the cruiser stern has become detached at one corner, and that corner has blown into the muddy water. No matter. He throws it over the roof of the main cabin, then steps on board. He touches the swan’s neck - the S-shaped steel bar welded to the rudder post - and pats it as if patting the arm of an old friend. Then he unlocks and opens the saloon-style cabin doors.
The haunted man steps down into the cabin. Two fixed single berths, the beds hugging the hull, with a narrow aisle between them. He aims his torch at the kids’ paintings stuck to the walls, curled with damp. On one bed, a white floppy-eared toy bunny. On the other, a hot water bottle, covered in a big-bellied Winnie-the-Pooh. He stops, unable to go any further. Picking up the bunny and the yellow bear, he hugs them. A tear runs down his cheek. Minutes pass. He is lost in reverie, so lost, he forgets why he is there.
The narrowboat creaks. Taking a deep breath, he wipes his eyes. This is their shrine; where he can grieve, away from friends and relatives and colleagues who think it’s time for him to move on. But what would they know about loss? He takes the toys with him into the main cabin and sees his wife’s coat hanging on a hook, her gloves still sticking out of the pockets. He takes hold of one sleeve and holds it to his lips.
‘Goodbye, my love,’ he says.
On the table is a paperback novel she was reading. It lies open, the bookmark in the crease between pages 153 and 154. He sees her clearly, relaxing into the cushions, a steaming cup of tea next to her, lost in her reading. He gently closes the book, their story together over.
From his backpack he removes a portable battery-powered CCTV camera, which he screws to the cabin’s wood panelling so that it faces the main living area. He switches it on and checks he’s receiving the camera’s images on his phone. Pulling on latex gloves, safety glasses and face mask, he takes a foam-wrapped test tube from an outer pocket and removes the airtight seal. Opening the hatch to the engine bay, he pours the test tube’s contents into the cavity.
Then, as gently as if they were made of the finest porcelain, he places the book, the toy bunny and the Winnie-the-Pooh in his bag and leaves.
27
It’s almost midnight when Wolfe switches on the hall light, closes the door to her Balham flat and latches the chain. Eyes closed, her back to the door, she breathes a sigh of relief. She’s surprised to smell rose, vanilla and white almond, and the fragrant gum resin, benzoin. It’s her favourite perfume: Keiko Mecheri’s Loukhoum Parfum du Soir. But she hasn’t worn it for weeks. How can the scent still be in the air? Has Daisy used it? Or dropped it by mistake? But the purple glass bottle that looks like a black tulip on fire is in her bathroom cabinet, just as she left it.
Her stomach rumbles. She last ate something on the flight from Mount Pleasant. Wolfe moves from room to room, switching on the lights and then the central heating, the timer having turned it off hours ago. The sitting room radiator rattles as hot water is forced by the boiler through old pipes with noisy air pockets. A familiar and somehow comforting sound. Wolfe heads for her galley kitchen and pulls a curry from the freezer and takes a packet of jasmine rice from the pantry.
Wolfe fills the kettle and gets the rice boiling. She heads for the bedroom, strips off her Antarctic gear and wraps herself up in a dressing gown. It’s then that she notices her plantation shutters are open.
She freezes. Only Daisy and Jerry have been inside her flat while she was away and both know she keeps the shutters closed, otherwise people on the street can see straight into her bedroom. Wolfe snaps them shut, embarrassed that a passer-by may have seen her naked. Standing with her back to the window, she tries to control her growing unease. There are new locks on windows and doors. But the fine hairs on the back of her neck prickle. She fears she’s not alone.
Wolfe races to the hall and takes the Maglite torch from her backpack and holds it up as a weapon. She heads back to the bedroom. She slides back the doors to her fitted wardrobe and sees only clothes, bags and shoes. She jumps at a hissing sound from the kitchen, then remembers her saucepan of boiling rice. It’s bubbled over on to the hot gas ring. Turning off the burner, Wolfe takes a kitchen knife from its wooden block, holding the torch in the other hand. In the sitting room, she double-checks the French doors are locked and draws the curtains.
‘There’s nobody here,’ she says. ‘You’re being paranoid.’
But a knot of anxiety in her gut kills her appetite, and after a few mouthfuls she throws the food away and heads for the shower. The hot water is relaxing and Wolfe begins to unwind. She hardly notices the phone ringing above the loud splashing. When she does, she decides to ignore it. If it’s urgent, the caller will leave a message. She’s almost towelled dry when her mobile rings again. She runs from the bathroom naked and snatches it from the coffee table. It’s a blocked number. She answers.
Silence.
‘Hello?’ she repeats.
She hears breathing and thinks it might be Price having second thoughts.
‘Stacy?’
The breathing doesn’t sound the same. Price’s was fast and feminine. This is slow and loud, as if the caller is holding the phone too near his mouth.
‘Can you speak up? I can’t hear you.’
Just breathing. Wolfe ends the call, frowning at her phone. Aware of her nakedness, she pulls on her dressing gown and ties it tightly.
The phone rings again. Another blocked call.
‘Yes?’ she answers sharply.
This time she knows what to listen for. The same slow, deep breathing.
‘Whoever you are, piss off! Go and annoy someone else.’
The voice is androgynous, metallic and distorted, as if somebody is speaking through a megaphone from inside a corrugated-iron shed.
‘I like your flat, Olivia.’
Wolfe gasps, betraying her shock. The caller laughs, the sound like pans clattering. Her stalker is using a voice distorter, which means they’ve prepared for this call. Clearing her throat, she speaks slowly, determined not to betray her fear.
‘Are you going to tell me your name?’ she asks.
‘You know who I am.’
‘Okay, well, I’m pretty tired, so help me out here. Who are you?’
The voice tuts at her. It sounds like a mechanical chicken clucking. If it weren’t so creepy, she’d find it funny. But Wolfe isn’t laughing.
‘Where’s the fun in that?’
‘If you want me to guess, then turn off the voice distorter.’
‘You’ve been a bad girl, Olivia, and you’re going to pay.’
His taunting makes her angry. ‘I don’t do phone sex, you jerk. What do you want?’
‘I want you. I’m coming for you.’
Wolfe’s eyes dart around the room. In the background, a car engine starts. The line goes dead. Wolfe is trembling. It takes a few precious seconds to realise the significance of the car engine. She heard it both through her phone and outside. Her stalker is in Elmbourne
Road. She seizes the kitchen knife and bolts from her flat, flinging the communal door open. The entry light flicks on, illuminating the path, front garden and pavement outside the house. A car disappears around the corner. She’s too late to clock the number plate. Peering into the shadows of the park opposite, there is no movement. A young couple sway up the street, giggling, arm in arm, a little drunk. Wolfe shuts the door.
Light creeps from under O’Leary’s door and Wolfe hears the pulsing rhythm of Whitesnake’s ‘Still of the Night’. Daisy is awake. Upset by the call, Wolfe is about to knock when she hears a male voice begging for forgiveness.
‘I’ve been a very naughty boy,’ he says. ‘I deserve to be punished.’
The words chill her.
Back inside her flat, Wolfe bolts the door. Despite the cold night, she has broken out in a sweat. She squats down with her back against the door and toys with the idea of calling the police. They could try to trace the call, but if he’s careful enough to use a voice distorter, he’ll be using a burner phone too.
What did he say? She’s been bad.
How?
She’s going to pay.
For what?
Refusing to lie to keep her brother out of prison? Giving SO15 Kabir Khan’s name? Eavesdropping on Grankin and Yushkov?
Wolfe heads for the freezer and takes out a bottle of vodka. She pours a shot and drinks it neat. The burning in her throat feels good. Glass in hand, she sits, but is up and pacing a moment later, going over the caller’s words. She starts to pull apart what she knows, as though investigating a story. The stalking started six months ago, which rules out Grankin. Unless that call wasn’t from her stalker.
Davy was still in gaol then, but it has escalated since she got back from Afghanistan, which coincides with his early release. Her brother would know the significance of the diamond stud earrings. But why take Nooria’s photo?
Lalzad, on the other hand, has the money and connections to employ someone to intimidate her and to hack her system. Perhaps he doesn’t know she’s off the story?