‘That remains to be seen. My guess is a link between Schreck’s lot and one of the bigger West London drug cartels.’
‘You think he’s got rid of the stuff from Amsterdam?’
‘I think he’s sold it on, yes.’
‘Drugs money funding the extreme right?’
‘Exactly.’
Jephson mopped up the last of his scrambled egg, visibly impressed. Keeping an eye on the nastier edges of the political fringe had always been accepted as a legitimate MI5 concern but recently Thames House had been eyeing a number of other areas of police work that might fall to some determined poaching. The biggest plum from this particular tree was so-called narcocrime, a phrase that covered everything from student cannabis busts to international money-laundering. Proving a link between drug money and the shock troops of the far right would be a very exciting development indeed, giving MI5 a bridgehead into the heartlands of traditional police work.
Jephson was coaxing a tablet of butter onto a triangle of toast.
‘Do you think you can do it?’
‘I think we’re very close, yes.’
‘And you think this Schreck’s the key?’
‘I think he’d make the point very nicely. We’ve no idea how much he might have made but on the usual tariff he’d have trebled his investment, at least.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Six thousand dollars, maybe more.’
Jephson was looking out of the window. Some of the more harassed executives were already on the forecourt waiting for the shuttle bus to the airport. Jephson lifted his cup, swallowing the last of the coffee.
‘Some of the Met people will be up in Leeds,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘The boy Schreck. You used the word investment. What does it mean?’
‘I don’t know. Schreck went out to Shepperton yesterday, once he’d got his money.’
‘Shepperton?’ Jephson had spotted his driver. ‘Why?’
‘We’re not sure. He went to an old farm. It belongs to a stage designer who used to work at the film studios. Evidently he still picks up private commissions.’ Louise paused. ‘He has a converted barn on the property. He uses it as a workshop. I’m putting someone in tonight.’
Jephson pushed back his chair. ‘So what do I tell our friends in Leeds when they start whingeing about trespass again?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Louise smiled. ‘National security? Isn’t that the phrase?’
Jephson was on his feet now, reaching for his briefcase and overnight bag. He beamed down at her, apologizing for a hasty exit. Traffic on the motorways north was always a nightmare and the weather would make it worse. On the point of leaving, he was struck by a sudden thought. ‘You mentioned an event in the last briefing I read,’ he said. ‘Anything specific?’
‘Nothing confirmed.’
‘But anything I should know about? Given the company I’m keeping.’
Louise permitted herself a moment’s reflection. She’d taken home the logs on the NF phone taps. The codes they used were remarkably sophisticated but Louise was as certain as she could be that something was planned for the south coast. Probably Portsmouth. Probably tomorrow. Prudence argued for sharing this information but she had already decided that the longer-term advantage lay in holding off. Headlines about the menace of the National Front would be the neatest way of making MI5’s case and the last thing she wanted was something promising nipped in the bud.
Jephson had his raincoat folded over his arm. He was still waiting for an answer. ‘Well?’
Louise shook her head. ‘Nothing definite,’ she said. ‘Nothing worth your while.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Positive.’ Her eyes went to the Thames House driver, waiting in the car outside.
Jephson hung on for a second or two, unconvinced, then turned on his heel and left. Minutes later, returning to her table with a second plate of food, Louise heard the trill of her mobile phone. She retrieved it from the Harrods bag beside her chair. It was one of the team she’d tasked to watch Schreck’s flat in Southsea. He said he’d completed his enquiries at the travel agency where Schreck had picked up his ticket and the currency. According to the local manager at Thomas Cook, the covering cheque had been tendered by a Mrs Elizabeth Barnaby.
Louise wrote down the name then returned to the phone.
‘Anything else?’ she asked lightly.
‘Yes.’ The voice chuckled. ‘She’s married to a lawyer. Can you believe that?’
Hayden Barnaby awoke to the opening headlines on the morning news. Normally he was at the health club by eight but today, exhausted by the aftermath of his trip with Zhu, he’d overslept. He rolled over, reaching for his wife, but found the bed empty. Liz was standing at the door in her new dressing gown. He’d bought two at Changi airport. Liz had the red one and it fitted her beautifully.
‘You should have stayed there,’ she said, holding out a cup of tea. ‘Singapore. It’s all over the news. Some trader or other. A Brit.’
‘What’s he done?’
‘No one seems to know. He’s gone missing.’
Barnaby struggled half upright in the bed, grateful for the tea. The newscaster was talking about a young merchant banker. He’d fled Singapore, leaving a large hole in the company’s trading account. Liz was perched on the side of the bed, opening an envelope.
‘What’s that?’
‘A letter. Charlie wants me to sort out the gas people before he moves down.’
‘Has he got a date?’
‘Apparently not. Typical, isn’t it?’
Barnaby laughed. He was running his fingertips up and down Liz’s back. He could feel the contours of her body through the thin silk. She began to shiver, reached back and caught his hand.
‘Cold?’
‘No.’
‘Like it?’
‘Yes.’
‘The dressing gown?’
‘That, too.’
Liz glanced over her shoulder. Aroused, her face acquired a fuller, softer look. She had another envelope on her lap. She opened it, pulling out a card. It came from Zhu, an exquisite nineteenth-century engraving of the view east over Southsea Common. Inside, Zhu had penned a personal invitation for Liz to join him for the opening of the newly restored Imperial. ‘It will be a pleasure to repay you for your patience and your many kindnesses,’ he’d written.
‘But you’re invited already.’ Barnaby looked mystified. ‘Why this?’
‘He’s being a gentleman. It’s nice.’ She read the card again. ‘It means he knows how much you’ve put into it. The time it’s taken. He’s saying sorry.’
‘Sorry for what?’
‘Sorry for taking you away.’ She folded the card and put it back in the envelope. ‘Isn’t that right?’
Barnaby didn’t reply. He finished the tea and got out of bed. A thin rain was drifting in from the sea, a gauzy curtain that softened everything it touched. Barnaby could just make out the big wheel in the fun-fair, barely a quarter of a mile away. He yawned, stretching his arms wide, running through the checklists in his head.
As agreed, Zhu had flown in a catering team from Singapore for the reception. Once the celebrations were over, the hotel would open for normal business and one or two of the Singapore people would be staying on to help form a core group around Zhu’s new manager. He, too, was Singaporean, a young Chinese with impeccable English and limitless self-confidence. He’d been working at one of the prestige hotels in Brighton and, with Zhu’s money, had been able to attract some first-class people for the rest of the management posts. In this, as in everything else he touched, Zhu seemed to have a faultless gift for converting an idea, or a vision, into something that had all the makings of a solid commercial success. Over the past six months, Barnaby had watched this process at work. It had never ceased to amaze him. It was, he thought, so utterly different from the way in which the English might tackle something similar. Instead of caution, boldness. In place of buckpassing and indecision, a wholehearted preparedness to take the lead
.
‘Hayden?’
Barnaby glanced round, still preoccupied with everything he had to chase before tomorrow. The unacknowledged invitations on the guest list. A follow-up call to the local TV station. The full page ad in the Sentinel. Liz was lying on the bed, her back propped up on the pillows. The dressing gown lay open and she was naked underneath. She smiled at him, her hand opening the drawer on the bedside cabinet. She produced a tiny bottle of coconut oil and unscrewed the top. She dribbled a little into the palm of her hand and then began to rub it softly between her breasts. Barnaby watched her, feeling himself stir. In recent months, Liz had lost well over a stone. Not drinking quite so much had done wonders for their sex life, as Barnaby was the first to admit.
The bottle of oil was back on the bedside cabinet. Liz’s fingers were between her thighs. She closed her eyes and told him to go downstairs. He’d find the fruit bowl on the breakfast bar and the yoghurt in the fridge. Aroused now, Barnaby fetched them. As well as bananas, there were mangoes and tangerines. He lifted a mango to his nose. He loved the smell. He put the bowl on the bed. Liz’s hand found a banana. He peeled it slowly and coated it thickly in yoghurt, straddling her chest while she enfolded her breasts around him. She had big breasts, beautifully shaped, and he began to move, back and forth, very slowly, touching her on the lips with each upward stroke, drawing her tongue from her mouth. After a while, the yoghurt a little warmer, he reached back and her hand met his, taking the banana, guiding it inside herself, then letting him take over. She was moist already and he slid it in and out, an inch, no more, matching her rhythm to his own.
For a while they made love this way, Liz teasing him with her tongue, flicking at him, scalding little touches, and Barnaby let himself drift away, flooded with warmth. Eight brief months had shaken his world inside out. Gone were the feelings of inadequacy and creeping middle age. Gone were the worries about the legal practice and the near-conviction that his career had bogged down. Gone, too, was the numb defeat he’d seen every morning in the mirror, waking up to a dead marriage and a social life stuck firmly in bottom gear. The key to it all, of course, was Kate. She’d blessed him with a second chance, and this time neither of them was going to let the real world intrude. Kate understood him like no other woman ever had. She understood his pride, his fear of failure, his need to succeed. She’d mapped his path to her cave, and she’d guaranteed the kind of privacy he knew to be beyond violation. No one would be hurt this time. Because no one would ever know.
Barnaby looked down at Liz, a mute question in his smile, and when she closed her eyes and nodded, he slipped round, his mouth finding the banana through the warm yoghurt, eating it slowly, savouring the strange sharpness of the taste. Liz was teasing him again, her tongue like a tiny soft dagger, and then she took him deep inside her mouth, sucking and sucking, and suddenly he was back in June, back in the pool at the health club, fretting and fretting about the D-Day celebrations. That weekend seemed a million light years away, part of some other life. Fuck Clinton, he thought gleefully. Fuck the banquet and the fat cats and the crowds flocking to the Common to see their precious Queen. Could any of them match this? Could any of their lives possibly compare?
He felt Liz stiffening beneath him and he withdrew from her mouth and turned again, easing himself into her, as far as he could go. When the phone began to ring, he ignored it, feeling her pushing and pushing against him, her hands round his buttocks, her nails scoring his flesh. Finally she gasped, her whole body arching upwards while Barnaby drove on and on until he felt the world splintering around him.
After a while, prone on top of Liz, it occurred to Barnaby that the phone was still ringing. His hand crabbed across the bedside cabinet. Happiness was the spreading pool of creamy wetness between his wife’s thighs.
‘Hallo?’
For a moment, Barnaby heard nothing. Then, unmistakably, came the sound of Kate’s voice. ‘Hayden? Is that you?’
Charlie Epple was in the shower when he heard the peal of the front-door bell. He let it ring for more than a minute, working the shampoo into his scalp, letting the hot water sluice the suds down his chest. This was his last morning in the Wimbledon house. If it was the estate agent again, she could come back later. If it was the guys from the removals firm, they were too bloody early. The ringing went on and on. The shampoo rinsed away, Charlie stepped out of the shower. Most of the stuff in the bathroom was already crated, ready for the move, and he stood on the bare floorboards, watching the water pool at his feet. Then he reached for a towel and padded downstairs.
Outside, in the spring sunshine, stood Jessie. Beside her, smiling up at him, another girl, much smaller. Charlie beckoned them inside but Jessie was saying something about a cab. The driver was still waiting. The fare had been more than they’d expected. Might Charlie oblige with a loan? He peered past her, into the street. A big Vauxhall was parked beyond the hedge.
‘Where have you come from?’
‘Guildford.’
‘Guildford? Fuck me. How much?’
‘Forty pounds.’
Charlie tut-tutted then disappeared inside the house. He kept an emergency supply of spare cash in a jam jar on the fridge. He emptied it, giving Jessie two twenty-pound notes. Outside, from the street, he could hear the chink of coins as the cabbie gave her change. When she came back, she hugged him. ‘It was forty pounds,’ she said. ‘Exactly.’
Charlie got dressed and gave the girls breakfast, astonished at how much they ate. Jessie’s friend, Lolly, was definitely noshing for England. After the last of the Weetabix and two boiled eggs, she began to work her way through a small pile of toast. For someone so tiny, so delicate, her appetite was prodigious. ‘No one been feeding you?’
‘Long story.’ Jessie pulled a face, telling Charlie about the re-hab centre. She and Lolly had been abused, day and night. Not just by the residents but a couple of the staff, too. Jessie had done her best to protect them both but against a couple of dozen men they’d been virtually helpless. Thankfully, the pregnancy tests had been negative.
Charlie blinked, still watching Lolly. She seemed so fragile, so flawless. She had the kind of face certain art directors would kill for. Meeting someone like Lolly was the moment you chucked the whole campaign in the bin and started again. ‘You serious? You were raped?’
Jessie nodded, wide-eyed. ‘Often.’
‘Been to the police?’
‘We can’t.’
‘Why not?’
Jessie began a long, rambling story about a couple of the residents. She said they were pretty heavy. One had convictions for GBH. The other belonged in the nut-house. Both had made it plain that grassing them up would be unwise.
Charlie no longer believed a word. ‘So you’ve done a runner?’
‘Had to. No choice. Mum’s livid.’
‘I bet.’
‘Hasn’t she been on to you?’
Something in Jessie’s voice sounded an alarm in Charlie’s head. He knew from Barnaby that she had been referred for therapy and the last couple of weeks he’d been meaning to get an address so that he could drop her a line but things had been so chaotic after the decree absolute that he hadn’t got round to it. He was sure, though, that the course had been long-term. Six months. Maybe more.
‘So are you better? The pair of you?’ he said.
Lolly nodded, looking at the coffee pot, and Charlie took the hint, hunting for the jar of instant he’d been saving for the removal men. The last of the milk had gone on the cereals.
‘Black I’m afraid, girls.’
Jessie’s hands closed around the mug and Charlie wondered what had happened to her nails. Like Liz, Jess had always had beautiful hands but now the nails were bitten to the quick. She had a ring, too, a tiny cheap-looking thing with a fake ruby set in peeling gold. Jessie saw him looking at it.
‘Lolly’s,’ she said proudly. ‘She’s letting me wear it.’
Nearly an hour later, when the removal men arrived, Charlie was close
to getting to the bottom of it. Lolly’s daughter Candelle was in care and the social workers had a problem with letting her out. Lolly’s mother, meanwhile, had taken up with an unemployed truck driver who was permanently on the piss. When provoked, he often turned violent and life in Guildford had become impossible. He’d throw stuff around, smash up the place. Last night he’d upended the goldfish tank and poured the contents over Lolly’s mum’s head. After a fruitless search for the goldfish, Lolly had had enough. From now on, her mother was on her own.
Jessie was standing by the kitchen door, watching the removal men emptying the front room. ‘Mum told me about your new place,’ she said. ‘Sounds lovely.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘She said it had two bedrooms. Old Portsmouth, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right. Opposite Hot Walls.’
‘Yummy.’ Jess turned to Lolly, explaining the geography of Old Portsmouth. In summer, Hot Walls could be wicked.
Charlie shuttled up and down the hall with more mugs of coffee. He was due at a meeting in Portsmouth at half past two. It was already ten forty but there was a fast train from Waterloo in an hour and he was assured by the removals people that they would leave the empty house secure.
Jessie was talking about Liz again. Evidently she was keen to have her daughter back home.
‘Do it,’ Charlie said at once. ‘Sounds a terrific idea.’
‘I couldn’t. It wouldn’t work. I know it wouldn’t. A couple of days and we’d be at each other’s throats. You know what she’s like, banging on all the time. I couldn’t cope with all that. Besides …’ She looked at Lolly. ‘There’s two of us.’
Charlie shook the last of the coffee granules into a beer tumbler. The mugs had all gone.
‘Two of you?’ he said carefully.
‘Yes, me and Lolly.’
‘Ah.’ He looked up, the kettle poised, at last scenting a solution to Jessie’s unvoiced plea for somewhere to crash. To be honest, he wasn’t keen on taking sole responsibility for Jessie but a couple of lodgers might just work. Mutual support, he told himself. Someone for Jessie to confide in.
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