by Zoe Sharp
‘How the hell do you know about that?’ I demanded, shaken.
‘I know plenty,’ he said, dignified enough that I moved the can further back, saw his shoulders drop a fraction.
‘Perhaps Thomas knew things about Fourth Day that Bane didn’t want made public,’ I suggested.
‘Randall?’ He snorted. ‘Now you’re the one who’s way off base! You want answers, kiddo, look closer to home.’
I knew he meant Lorna Witney, but Parker had covered up the link to Epps, had not told us about his own far more personal connection to the grieving widow. And she seemed strangely detached…
Suddenly, Dexter swerved over to the side of the road without indicating and pulled up, yanking on the Renault’s handbrake so the mechanism ratcheted noisily. I glanced at the building alongside and read THISTLE and THE CALEDONIAN in large letters above the covered portico.
‘Ride’s over, kiddo,’ he said, nodding to the entrance. ‘You want to know more, you’re going to have to find it out for yourself.’
I glanced at the stubborn set of his jaw, debated briefly on forcing the issue further. But even Tony, I reasoned, would not be so easily caught a second time, and I wasn’t prepared to go further than I had done already.
Quit while you’re ahead, Fox.
I climbed out of the car, but hadn’t taken more than a couple of steps across the pavement when Dexter’s voice called me back.
‘Hey, kiddo,’ he said. I turned to find Tony had lowered his window and the American was leaning across from the driver’s seat.
‘Just one thing you might wanna give some thought to. When Thomas went into Fourth Day, he was convinced Randall Bane had somehow caused Liam’s death. So, why else would he stay – unless he couldn’t face the truth of who really was behind it?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
‘Well, Parker always did like redheads,’ Sean said. ‘I’m often relieved that your hair’s more blond than red, although—’
‘Sean, this is serious. We don’t know what the hell is going on, or what we’re really involved in.’
I was in my hotel room, lying on my bed in the semidarkness, talking with Sean on my cellphone. The phone was a recent upgrade, one that came with a radio function, which I never used, and twin earpieces, which I did. They were great for blocking out unwanted sound in a noisy location, and using them now seemed to bring his voice directly into the centre of my head. The line was good, with no echoes or delays. It felt close and intimate, almost like he was alongside me rather than three thousand miles away.
‘OK,’ he said, sobering. ‘But I don’t see what all this has to do with Witney, or with what Bane might be up to. Don’t let yourself get sidetracked by rumours. I’d be more inclined to take this intel seriously if it came from a slightly more reliable source.’
‘They had no reason to lie to me.’
‘Charlie, they had every reason to lie to you. Create anarchy and chaos. Standard operating procedure for that kind of organisation. And it’s worked, hasn’t it? Here you are, doubting everybody’s motives – including your own. I very much doubt Parker will agree to this one, so forget it. The job’s over.’
But I remembered Lorna Witney’s conviction of his compliance and didn’t share Sean’s confidence. ‘Not if she has anything to do with it, it isn’t,’ I said. ‘And there’s no way I’m being a part of grabbing that kid out of Fourth Day until we know for certain we have a legitimate reason.’
I heard Sean sigh. He was at home in the apartment. In the background I could hear the classical music he only liked to listen to when he was alone. A requiem piece of such soaring sadness it made my throat constrict.
‘OK. If Parker gives this the green light – and that’s a big if – you can be sure we’ll check out Maria’s background pretty bloody carefully before we do anything.’
‘If she and Liam were together in college, just before he dropped out, that kid of hers is just about the right age.’
‘You think Witney discovered he had a grandchild and decided to give up everything just to stay close?’ Sean asked, and I winced at the sheer disbelief in his voice.
‘He’d just lost a son,’ I said quietly. ‘Maybe the prospect of being with his grandson was too tempting to pass up.’
Sean sighed again. ‘OK, leave it with me,’ he said. ‘You haven’t told me how Lorna Witney reacted to these accusations when you got to the hotel, by the way.’
‘How do you expect?’ I said, grim.
‘Did she offer any kind of explanation?’
‘Not really, although she did admit she was involved with the exploration project Debacle were protesting against in Alaska.’
‘All right,’ Sean said, giving in. ‘I’ll ask Parker to see what he can dig out.’
‘Whatever it is, Parker should have already dug it out,’ I said sharply. ‘What makes me most uneasy is why didn’t he? What’s he trying to hide? Who’s he trying to protect?’
As I spoke, the conversation I’d had with Lorna Witney in the hotel bar came to mind. She’d been angry and insulted when I repeated what Dexter and Tony had just told me, and I couldn’t be entirely sure if the cause of her fury was because she’d been wrongly accused, or because – after more than five years – she thought she’d got away with it.
‘You think I’m a cold-hearted bitch, don’t you?’ she’d thrown at me. ‘My God, you must, if you think anything would be worth the deliberate murder of my only child. What would I gain from it that could possibly be worth so high a price?’
Her voice had risen and she suddenly became aware of heads turning, the barman glancing over uneasily. She leant closer. ‘Shall I tell you what I gained?’ she demanded, low and bitter. ‘Heartache and pain, that’s what. The kind of pain I carry with me every single day, because there’s not an hour goes by when I don’t think of Liam, and it’s like being told of his death for the first time all over again.’
‘Everybody responds to tragedy in their own way,’ Sean said now, when I reported her words. He paused, as if picking his way with care. ‘Look at what happened to you in the army, Charlie. It would have been enough to finish most people, but you didn’t let it finish you.’
‘It changed me, though.’
‘Every action, every chance meeting and hesitation – even every breath we take – changes us.’
‘For the better?’
‘It brought you here,’ he said gently. ‘Everything you’ve ever done has combined to bring you to this point. Only you can say if “here” is the place you want to be.’
He waited, but for some reason the confirmation wouldn’t come and I found myself listening to my own silence, reflected back at me down the line.
Eventually he sighed. ‘Look, you’ve got an early flight tomorrow. Get some rest, Charlie,’ he said. ‘You’ll think more clearly in the morning.’
‘Everything you’ve ever done has combined to bring you to this point.’
Hours later, the words still echoed in my mind as I lay, restless, staring at the darkened ceiling.
I thought about the combination of circumstances that had crossed Sean’s path with mine in the first place. By all rights, we should never have met.
He was a working-class lad from a run-down council estate in the north of England. If he’d followed the example of his father, he’d have married early, bullied his kids, and died young. Most likely with a can of triple-strength lager in one hand and a steering wheel in the other.
Sean’s only career prospects had been a dead-end factory job, or on the wrong side of the law. In his teens he had flirted with right-wing yob culture before he’d somehow pulled himself out of that self-destructive nosedive. His chance of escape had come via the army. Joining up had given him discipline, purpose, and broadened his views in every sense.
The only organisations I’d been a member of in my teens were the Girl Guides and the Pony Club. Compared to Sean, I’d grown up in rarefied and privileged surroundings. My own path into the military had been by ch
ance, not so much to rebel against my parents, but trying to provoke a reaction from them.
If I’d followed my own father’s footsteps, I would have gone into medicine and probably spent my entire life trying to measure up to his impossible standards. I remembered again taking down the three men from the van. Perhaps that arrogant disregard for consequences showed I had inherited enough of his ruthlessness to have become a top-flight surgeon. After all, you had to act with absolute conviction that the operation you were performing was right, even if the patient died.
I’d never really discovered what my mother’s plans had been for me, only that I’d been a quiet and constant disappointment to her. Perhaps my biggest failing had been never to quite work out what she had expected.
I wondered, just for a moment, if presenting them with a grandchild would have provided any compensation.
Well, that was one thing I was not going to find out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I arrived back in the States at Newark International Airport just after two-thirty the following day, flying from Aberdeen via Manchester. Without a coffin in tow, the return journey was a lot more straightforward than the outward leg.
As soon as we were on the ground in New Jersey, I switched my cellphone back on and received voicemail while we were still taxiing to the gate. The woman next to me rolled her eyes exaggeratedly.
‘Life and death, is it?’ she asked.
I didn’t look up from the screen. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it usually is, actually.’
The message was from Sean. ‘Call me as soon as you get this,’ he said, voice grim. ‘There’ve been developments.’
Not having hold baggage meant as soon as I’d cleared Customs and Immigration I could head straight for the New Jersey Transit rail system, which was the fastest and most convenient way from the airport to the centre of Manhattan. As I rode the escalator, I was dialling Sean’s number.
‘Where are you?’ he asked without greeting.
I paused only fractionally. ‘On my way to get the train in.’
‘Don’t bother,’ he said. ‘I’ll meet you outside Arrivals in five minutes.’
‘Sean, what’s going—?’
‘I’ll brief you on the way in,’ he said, and cut the connection.
I stared briefly at the dead phone. ‘And I’m fine,’ I muttered. ‘Thank you for asking…’
I walked out of the air-conditioned airport building into a gutsy wind that whipped through the traffic and curled itself brutally around my legs. That wasn’t the only reason I was glad to see one of the company Lincoln Navigators swing in to the kerb a few minutes later.
I jumped into the front seat and Sean clutched at my cold fingers for a moment before he was muscling his way back out into the traffic flow.
‘Turn up the heat,’ he said. ‘You’re freezing.’
Instead, I jabbed the button for the heated seats and stuffed my hands under my thighs against the leather upholstery.
‘So, are you going to tell me what’s with the VIP treatment?’ I asked cautiously.
Sean flicked a glance at me and smiled, said in a soft voice, ‘Am I not allowed to come and pick you up, for no other reason than I missed you?’
I gazed at him blankly for a moment, pleased out of all proportion. ‘Of course you are,’ I said faintly.
‘And, next time I question your female intuition, or casting of bloody runes, or whatever else goes on inside that head of yours, Charlie,’ he said, ‘tell me to just shut up and get on with it, will you?’
‘Thank you…I think,’ I said dryly. ‘Why? What’s happened?’
‘Parker’s agreed to take on Lorna Witney as a client for the possible extraction of the kid from Fourth Day.’
I took in that one in silence for a moment, idly watching a Continental jet lumbering heavy out of the airport. ‘You sound surprised,’ I said then. ‘But you didn’t see her, Sean. The look in her eyes. Whatever she and Parker had going might have been brief, but it must have been memorable.’
‘Well, after we spoke last night I went to see Parker and we…straightened out a few things. Yes, he admits he had a brief fling with her. I told him he was a bloody idiot, but it was not long after his wife died, apparently. Caught him at a bad time.’
‘Parker was married?’ I said, wondering why that fact should surprise me so much. Parker had no personal photographs on his desk, and although we’d been to his home on numerous occasions, I hadn’t picked up the faintest echo of a woman there, and he’d never mentioned a wife. He didn’t want for female company, that was for sure. I’d just assumed – wrongly, it now appeared – that his work kept him at a certain distance.
‘Yeah, it was news to me, too,’ Sean said. ‘Anyway, he claims it’s never happened before or since. I believe him.’
‘O…K,’ I said slowly. ‘Did you ask him if he investigated the circumstances surrounding Liam’s death five years ago, when he agreed to be Witney’s safety net?’
He nodded. ‘Liam joined this group you encountered straight out of Fourth Day, just months before his death. The Witneys had never heard of Debacle, despite the industry Lorna was involved in. They formed in the early Eighties, but didn’t appear on anyone’s radar until they suddenly got an influx of cash and new members after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in ’eighty-nine.’
‘Well, Debacle’s not exactly a promising kind of name, is it?’ I said. ‘Doesn’t it mean a failure or disaster?’
‘It also means a complete collapse; the breaking up of ice on a river; a violent disruption as of an army; or a sudden flood which leaves its path strewn with debris.’ His eyes flicked across again. ‘They have a website. A lot of rhetoric, but some interesting stuff on there, if you like your environmental issues on the inflammatory side.’
‘That interpretation of the name suggests their aim was disorder as much as environmental protection,’ I said. ‘Where did the money come from?’
‘Parker’s still digging on that one. He did manage to find out some more about this Dexter guy you mentioned, though.’
He waved towards the glovebox. Inside, I found a thin manila folder containing a couple of colour prints. Dexter’s good-looking face stared defiantly into the camera, formal mug shots with the height lines behind him. His full name was Marlon Dexter – hardly surprising he dropped the first part. Underneath the photos were copies of Dexter’s arrest record. It ran to several pages. Basic public order offences, turning to trespass, property damage and vandalism, escalating over a relatively short time period into full-blown assault and arson.
‘If you check out the one listed for Galveston,’ Sean said, braking for an intersection, ‘you’ll find that at the time Liam Witney was killed in Alaska, Dexter was getting himself arrested outside a chemical plant in Texas. There’s no way he witnessed what happened.’
‘If Dexter wasn’t there,’ I said, suddenly back in the white Renault in Aberdeen, ‘then he’s a bloody good actor.’ I shook my head slowly. ‘There was something so intense about the way he spoke. It just didn’t sound like he was making it all up.’
Sean shrugged as we moved off again, accelerating into the outside lane out of habit, making progress. ‘Well, we’ve double-checked the dates. Sorry, he was spinning you a line.’
I was silent for a moment, listening to the roar of badly mended asphalt under the Navigator’s tyres, then asked, ‘What was Debacle doing in Alaska, anyway?’
‘According to Parker, there’s been controversy for years about oil exploration in the ANWR – the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,’ he added, sensing my automatic next question. ‘When the company Lorna Witney was subcontracted to at the time were granted rights to do some exploratory drilling, it caused an uproar. Not just the potential for pollution, but something about caribou breeding grounds, from what I could make out. It’s a real political hot potato.’
‘There’s a surprise.’
‘Well, there were a lot of threats of action against equipment and personn
el, and the exploration company called in a number of outside contractors to handle their security.’
‘Anyone we know?’
Sean reeled off a list of names, some of which were familiar and some not. ‘The guys who shot Liam Witney worked for an outfit who had a reputation for putting the boot in first and asking questions later. They now do a lot of private work in Iraq, incidentally.’
‘Now, why doesn’t that fill me with confidence?’ I murmured, reminded of Dexter’s comment about consequences. Had we ignored the repercussions, too?
Sean smiled slightly. ‘Parker managed to sneak a look at the official report on the shooting. I didn’t ask how. It was judged to be justified at the time, by the way.’
‘And did he feel there was anything dodgy about it?’
‘It was brief, put it that way, but he said it seemed pretty clear-cut. They caught a bunch of intruders planting what were later found to be improvised explosive devices on certain key pieces of equipment. They were challenged, at which point the intruders started shooting. Security returned fire with some enthusiasm. When the dust settled, Witney was dead with the proverbial smoking gun still in his hand.’
‘All neat and tidy,’ I agreed. ‘No independent witnesses, I assume?’
‘Liam wasn’t alone, but nobody else has ever come forwards – not that you can blame them. Debacle issued a statement – more of a rant, I suppose you’d call it – giving much the same version of events Dexter told you, so maybe that’s why it sounded so slick.’
I closed the folder, slid it back into the glovebox. ‘So, it’s a dead end.’
Sean’s head ducked. ‘Not necessarily. It would seem that your pal Dexter had more in common with Liam than he was prepared to tell. Before joining Debacle, Marlon Dexter was also a member of Fourth Day.’
‘So, that’s how he knew so much about Witney,’ I murmured. ‘But it’s not in his file.’
‘It’s only just come to light,’ Sean said. ‘Parker widened out the search. Ex-members of Fourth Day have turned up in all kinds of radical and extremist groups. Not just environmental, but animal liberation, human rights, pro life.’