Aidan’s eyes shifted sluggishly in his father’s direction. It was, the Prime Minister thought at first, a blank look. But then Stirling caught something else in the gaze. The eyes seemed to narrow, to laser in on him with a look of utter contempt.
He could feel his blood suddenly boiling and marched into the room, heading straight for the sofa with his arm outstretched. Suddenly a hand grabbed his wrist and Stirling turned to see Charlotte. Although she’d come out of nowhere, he somehow wasn’t surprised to find her lurking silently there. She was never far from her child. Now, with the added role of medication-giver, that proximity had a new legitimacy.
‘Don’t you dare,’ she said.
Stirling shook off her grip. ‘How can you defend him?’ he said. ‘After all he’s put us through?’
‘“He’s put us through”?’ she snapped back. ‘What about you?’
Stirling groaned. ‘Let’s not go over that tired old ground again, for fuck’s sake. The dreary therapy speak. I’m not responsible for him. And neither are you, for that matter. He’s an adult, for God’s sake. A fucked-up, train crash of an adult.’
The hand that had, moments before, held his own violent strike in check, lashed out, smacking him across the face.
Stirling would have liked nothing better than to punch his wife in the face at that point. Thinking of his Chief of Staff overhearing their fight or Charlotte sporting a black eye or broken nose, he managed to hold his clenched fist still by his side.
‘Do what you do best, Philip,’ she hissed. ‘Leave us alone.’
Part II
Chapter 34
Penrith, Lake District
Sam woke with a jolt, unsure of where he was. He was lying on a bed, dressed in a surgical gown, a blanket draped over him. The curtain around the bed was drawn. He’d dozed off, and that worried him. He had to find Eleanor.
He tried to sit up, then felt an intense pain in his forehead, as if he’d just walked into a steel girder. He winced, his head dropping back on the pillow.
He remembered arriving here, brought by ambulance. Their wet clothes had been removed – Sam’s jeans cut from his legs – and they’d been wrapped in blankets and given some warming intravenous fluids. A handful of cuts and bruises had been cleaned and bandaged, as well as the leg wound Sam had sustained exiting the Peugeot. They’d been lucky, they were told. Nothing worse than mild hypothermia. Sam was given painkillers and then Eleanor was led off to another bed. The doctor said the police would be by later, interested in knowing just how their car had ended up in the lake.
The imminent arrival of the police was not worrying Sam. It was their assailants. Once they discovered the car crash had failed to kill them, they’d be back. And he knew a hospital presented no obstacle.
Sam lifted his head again, more slowly. The pain was still there, but not as bad as before. He lowered his feet to the ground, feeling an agonising twinge shoot up his left leg.
He opened the cupboard by his bed. Inside were his wallet and keys, but no clothes. He drew the curtain back. Occupying the bed next door was an older man, fast asleep. Sam was no thief, but a surgical gown, open at the rear, was not the ideal outfit for escaping a hospital. He gently opened the cupboard next to the man’s bed. There was a washbag on the top shelf and below, a plaid shirt, dark trousers and a pair of trainers. He pulled them out slowly, then returned to his bed, drawing the curtain again.
He’d just buttoned up the shirt when he heard footsteps. He froze. The curtain began to peel back. And then he saw Eleanor, her brow furrowed with concern. She was dressed.
‘The nurse told me you were here. How are you? Can you walk?’ she asked.
‘I’m fine. I can shuffle.’
‘I’m scared.’
‘Me too,’ said Sam.
‘What if they come back?’
‘Let’s make sure they don’t find us.’
Eleanor nodded, Sam’s direct talk clearly comforting. She slipped an arm around his waist and they began to move through the ward. Aside from the sleeping man, the other beds were empty.
‘How come your clothes are dry?’ asked Sam.
‘A nurse took pity on my sob story of a romantic weekend ruined. She had them dried. By the way,’ Eleanor said. ‘I owe you an apology, Sam. I nearly killed you today.’
He gently removed Eleanor’s arm. He could walk independently, albeit with difficulty, and if they were going to leave the hospital without interference, he couldn’t afford to look like a patient in need of care.
He felt the sweat break out on his face, as the pain in his leg pulsed. ‘You were right to be angry. I should have shown you those notes.’
They’d reached the end of the ward. Across the corridor was the nurses’ station. A large family – a mother and father, and four squabbling children – was blocking the nurses’ view of them. Sam and Eleanor slipped by.
‘You and I both know it wasn’t that simple,’ said Eleanor. ‘They were my father’s words to you, not me. You knew they could have upset me more – which they did. You weren’t concealing them from me. You were protecting me.’
Sam swallowed hard. It was easier looking ahead – at the corridor in front, at hospital staff and patients moving by – than at Eleanor. ‘I was also trying to help myself. I was worried that if you got upset or started jumping to conclusions, I’d never find out why those people were on my back.’
‘Everything I hear about my father is upsetting, Sam – particularly reading that he’d done something terrible, something he believed he couldn’t burden me with.’
She reached out and squeezed his hand. ‘But I don’t blame you. I can see why you asked for my help – and why you needed me to be focused. Besides,’ she said, turning to him with a slight grin, ‘having nearly killed you today, I think we’re quits.’
‘I suspect tampered brakes and bright lights had more to do with it, but thank you.’
Sam felt a wave of relief, as if he’d been absolved by Eleanor. But a small niggling knot in his stomach reminded him of the calculation he’d made concealing the notes, and where such behaviour might stem from. Suddenly something else was concerning him, the sight of the doctor who’d treated them turning into the corridor ahead.
Sam pulled on Eleanor’s arm, dragging her left down another passage. Up ahead was a set of swing doors. Sam turned and saw the doctor walk past. His shoulders dropped.
They moved through the doors and were now on a main corridor, a series of signs hung from the ceiling. Sam spotted one for the main entrance, pointing right. They headed in that direction, past the X-Ray Department and then Paediatrics.
Eleanor was fumbling in her coat pocket. She drew out a damp white ball.
‘At least the notes are no use to anyone else now,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry you’ve lost them though.’
A repetitive beeping sound made Sam jump. He turned to see an elderly lady in a pink dressing gown being driven in a silent electric buggy towards them. They moved out of the way, prompting a sluggish thumbs-up from the porter at the wheel.
Eleanor then spoke. ‘The sight of that man at the window really scared my father, didn’t it?’
‘Given what we’ve experienced since,’ said Sam, ‘it’s understandable.’
They had reached the hospital entrance. There was a help desk to their left and glass doors in front of them opening on to a drop-off area.
Sam’s eyes scanned the foyer for signs of the narrow-eyed man, or the bulky bald figure who’d visited him at the house. The coast appeared clear. They moved towards the doors, which opened automatically, and were blasted with cold air. Sam felt the stabs of pain in his head and leg dull. The pills were kicking in.
They walked on, finally stopping when they were well clear of the main building, by the hospital laundry. Steam billowed from an extractor above their heads. Blue containers on wheels, piled high with white sheets, were being dragged up a ramp by a man in grey overalls, who seemed indifferent to the two figures standing against
a nearby wall.
‘What do you think that man had on my father?’ asked Eleanor, her breath turning to vapour in the cold air.
‘I’ve no idea,’ said Sam. ‘All I know is that, once he’d seen him, he didn’t want to talk any more.’
Eleanor’s head dropped, as if she were hiding her distress.
Sam remembered how she’d been as they left the hotel earlier in the day, her frosty manner, the barely contained rage. She was experiencing the full gamut of emotions right now.
As he thought of their departure that morning, another memory began to emerge from the fog induced by his painkillers – his final conversation with Fay, the manageress.
‘It didn’t seem the right moment to mention it in the car, but just before we left, the manageress at the hotel said something else about your father’s exchange with Jane Vyner. Something significant.’
‘Oh God,’ sighed Eleanor, ‘not more ranting I hope.’
‘No,’ said Sam. ‘According to her, Jane Vyner named the place that had so changed your father.’
‘And?’
‘Marrakesh.’
Eleanor paused in thought. ‘I remember Dad mentioning he’d been there.’
‘Do you remember the last time he went?’
She shook her head. ‘Mum and I struggled to keep tabs on him from one day to the next. It was the nature of his work. He was always travelling. And while some of his trips were public knowledge, openly available on the DFID website, other visits he made were kept more secret, I guess to protect sensitive work.’
‘We should try and find the date, but I bet anything we’ve found the place where it all happened – whatever “it” is.’
Eleanor seemed to be thinking through a series of options, her eyes rapidly moving from side to side. She then looked up, the determination Sam was familiar with back on her face.
‘We need to finish this.’
There was a small spasm of pain in Sam’s head, a reminder of the near-death experience they’d recently escaped. Of the lengths their pursuers were willing to go to.
‘I hate to be the voice of reason,’ he said, ‘but our odds of success are narrowing by the day. They won’t make another mistake.’
‘If that’s the case,’ said Eleanor, ‘then we need to be even more careful.’ Her eyes bore into Sam’s. ‘I’m not giving up,’ she said. ‘These bastards need punishing.’
Chapter 35
Penrith, Lake District
The distant hum of heavy traffic suggested their next step, reminding Sam that the motorway was nearby. He’d peeled off it just the night before. A lift to London seemed a better idea than the train. If the local police decided to come looking for them, the railway station and any train heading south were obvious places to start.
Sam was keen to avoid wandering around the town centre, and asked the man working in the laundry if he’d call them a minicab. He looked them up and down suspiciously, then offered to drive them himself. For a fiver.
They were dropped in the car park of a service station by the motorway. An hour later, just as Eleanor was losing faith that they’d ever escape Penrith, Sam negotiated a lift with a group of climbers who, for a small donation towards diesel, were only too happy to give the couple whose car – and contents – had been stolen in the Lakes a lift back to London.
Sam and Eleanor sat opposite each other in the rear of the mini bus, wedged in between rucksacks packed to bursting point. Towards the front, the other passengers dozed.
‘We’ve got a problem,’ said Sam, his voice hushed. He didn’t want the driver overhearing.
Eleanor was tying her hair back, pulling the dense locks away from her fine features. She looked at him and he was momentarily caught on the back foot – by her flushed cheeks, the dark intensity of her eyes.
‘Besides the fact we’re being hunted by a group of homicidal maniacs?’
She flashed him a smile and Sam had to smile back, the thoughts in his head now amplified.
‘Besides that,’ said Sam. ‘If we’re to leave the country – and that’s a big “if” – we need to get our passports.’
‘And in all likelihood, our homes are being watched.’
‘Exactly.’
Eleanor cupped her face in her hands, then drew them slowly away, massaging the skin back to life. She tipped her head from side to side, wincing with discomfort as she exercised a stiff neck.
She looked at Sam again. He wondered whether his face was reddening. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ she said.
*
They reached Stoke Newington late in the afternoon. They first visited a sports shop on the high street. Sam bought a hoodie, which he put on. Outside the shop, they parted ways, Eleanor heading for a café and Sam for his house, the protests from his leg and head dulled by the painkillers he’d taken as they’d reached the outskirts of London.
Despite feeling confident his features were obscured, the adrenaline was still racing through his system. Since their near-death experience in the Lakes, it was as if they both felt bolder – reckless even – but now that he was potentially approaching one of their pursuers, he felt vulnerable and exposed.
The streets around his house were, as usual, jammed with parked cars. Sam kept his head down, inspecting each vehicle in turn. He was looking for one facing the property, one from which a decent view of his front door could be enjoyed.
He’d passed his front door and was about to turn down a side street when he spotted the car on the opposite side of the road. Sam felt his heart leap in his chest. Behind the wheel was the stocky man who’d paid him that threatening visit days ago. The man was on the phone, looking away from Sam. He seemed to be barking into the mobile, a finger prodding the air angrily. Sam passed the car, then walked as casually as his pounding heart would allow back towards the café where Eleanor was waiting.
A little later, Sam retraced his steps, stopping before he reached his street and positioning himself behind a tree where he had a partial view of the car and its driver.
It took longer than he’d expected, and for a moment he wondered whether Eleanor’s call had worked, but suddenly there was a roar of engines and two squad cars emerged from a westerly direction and stopped adjacent to his pursuer’s vehicle.
There was an exchange, which quickly became heated as the man’s temper flared, and then he got out of his vehicle and into the back of one of the squad cars.
Sam watched the cars move off, marvelling at how Eleanor’s tale – the concerned mother who’d noticed a man taking pictures of children – had worked.
With the cars gone, Sam wasted no time, moving down the side street and round the corner to his front door.
From the outside, the house looked untouched. Inside, it was a different story. The consulting room was in the worst state, with case notes pulled from filing cabinets and scattered everywhere. Other damage was more gratuitous. His Yeats print had been ripped from the wall, as had his certificate of accreditation. Both lay in a pile of splintered wood and broken glass. In the living room, chairs were upended and cushions slashed, the floor scattered with thousands of small feathers. Books had been pulled from the book cases and left in a pile, as if someone was planning to come back and use them to start a bonfire.
Sam went straight upstairs to his bedroom, concerned that his pursuers had turned it over as efficiently as downstairs and, in doing so, discovered the place where he hid his passport.
The chest of drawers to the right of his bed had been searched, the contents pulled out and dumped on the floor. But not all the drawers had been fully removed. Sam eased out the bottom one, revealing a cavity below, and a metal box. He unlocked it. Inside, sitting on a pile of old bank statements and other papers, was his passport.
Minutes later, carrying a bag stuffed with some clothes, Sam was back on the high street with Eleanor.
By late evening, they were in Haywards Heath, outside a modern house in a cul-de-sac. A car was parked in the drive and, though the curtains
were drawn, the lights were clearly on inside. Eleanor pressed the doorbell.
A moment later a short, round woman with tight blond curls answered the door. Wendy Scott’s carer, Jill, greeted Eleanor with a hug and then a barrage of questions about where she’d been, and how much her mother needed her, what with the funeral coming up at the weekend and so much to arrange –.
‘I’m fine,’ said Eleanor, cutting her off. ‘And I’ll be home soon to sort things out. But I need your help first.’
Eleanor’s reassurances, delivered in an even tone, seemed to calm the woman.
‘Where are my manners?’ said Jill. ‘Come in, come in.’
Seated in the living room shortly after, steaming mugs of tea before them, Eleanor explained the purpose of her visit. She had an overseas trip to make – ‘an urgent one that’s just come up’ – and she needed her passport.
‘The thing is, Jill, I’d fetch it myself but I don’t want to upset Mum by rushing in and out.’
Sam watched as Jill smiled and nodded, accepting Eleanor’s lie. God, he thought, she’s good at this.
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ said Jill. ‘Listen, I don’t want to upset you any more, but she’s all over the place at the moment. Crying one minute, slapping the arms of her chair the next.’
Sam saw Eleanor’s eyes glass with tears.
‘’Course I’ll get your passport, love,’ said the carer. ‘And I won’t mention your trip either.’
Jill shot them both a look. ‘Listen, you two look exhausted. Do you need to stay? I’ve got a spare room.’
Neither Sam nor Eleanor had got that far in their planning. Sam was exhausted and looking at Eleanor, at the bags under her eyes, could see she was too. If they headed back to London, it would only be to find another anonymous and quite possibly nasty bed & breakfast where they could pay in cash.
‘We should probably –’ began Eleanor.
‘We’d love to,’ interjected Sam.
An hour or so later, Sam watched Eleanor as she emerged from the bathroom. The lights were out and she appeared as a silhouette, illuminated by the glow from the street outside. Long bare legs, breasts outlined in the cotton of an oversized t-shirt.
Disorder (Sam Keddie thriller series Book 1) Page 11