The History Book

by Humphrey Hawksley

  “Charlotte gave me an invitation and your name—”

  “N-not true,” says Liz.

  Kat’s hand reaches out again.

  “No,” Liz says, loud enough to turn heads, sidestepping away from Kat and slipping off. Her movements are awkward. Liz has a limp, and her hands are out of sync with how she walks.

  Kat tries to follow, but a group lingering in the doorway blocks her, and Liz is gone. Kat heads back to the window. Down in the street a tall, burly man holds Liz’s arm. A white van pulls up. The back door opens, and a hand stretches out to help Liz climb inside. Her body shakes with the effort of getting her balance right. She’s helped by another man, also in a red hooded T-shirt, jeans, and lace-up boots. He’s strong, either a manual worker or a gym junkie.

  The van pulls away. Kat’s not familiar with the make, and the plate number is unreadable, streaked with dirt.

  Nearby, Tim Prescott’s being pushed into a police car. But no one’s following Liz.

  TWELVE

  Sunday, 8:23 p.m., BST

  Kat’s driving back toward Suzy’s apartment. She wants time to think before calling Max Grachev.

  With her stutter and limp, Liz has some kind of coordination problem. But she sure knew who Kat was. Hers wasn’t the reaction of someone who’d just gotten a face wrong, and she wasn’t part of any group inside the hall. Her people were waiting for her out on the street.

  Navigating is tricky, especially with England’s opposite-side driving system. Just when Kat thinks she’s mapped a way back to Suzy’s apartment, she hits a one-way street that narrows, causing traffic to pile up.

  The evening light’s gone, headlights are on. Kat emerges at an intersection with a four-lane highway and has to turn left. Wandsworth Bridge, about a mile up, will take her across the river.

  On the bridge, a car comes up close behind, flashing its lights. Kat’s going slowly in the passing lane. She changes lanes to let the car pass.

  The sight in her rearview mirror becomes a stream of headlights. She keeps going straight after the bridge. At the end of the road, the lights turn from green to amber. Kat accelerates to catch them before they turn red, misjudges the power of the engine, and takes a tight left turn with a screech of tires. The other cars turn right.

  A searchlight hits her eyes, and she stops dead. Two police cars are parked at an angle, hood to hood, cutting the road down to a single lane. Her hand goes up, shielding her eyes from the glare. An orange light flashes. Over a speaker comes, “Turn off the engine. Engage the hand brake. Put your vehicle in neutral.”

  “Okay,” Kat mutters to herself. “Keep it cool.”

  “Turn slowly to your right, put your right hand, palm outward, flat against the window glass. At no time make us suspicious of your movements.”

  Kat presses her hand hard against the glass to give a palm reading. The United States doesn’t share ID recognition with any other country. They won’t have her palm print registered, but they’ll ask why she’s driving Charlotte Thomas’s car.

  Kat counts four cameras and two searchlights high up on separate lampposts. To the left is a trailer, emblazoned with red and black stripes over which is written STOP like the ones they have around the White House and the Hill. This one has a satellite dish on top.

  Eyes moving, head still, Kat spots more cameras, one at bumper level to capture a clear image of the license plate, one at windshield level to record the badges and registration, and two in the road itself to check the undercarriage of the chassis. Fifty feet beyond that, a yellow barrier is embedded in the road. Kat’s seen them all around Washington. They shoot up instantaneously to stop car bombers.

  Kat keeps her hands steady. Police in flak jackets, bioterror masks hanging from their belts, train their weapons on her. No one approaches.

  “With your left hand, release the bonnet and the boot.”

  Hood and trunk, thinks Kat. She hadn’t checked either before she’d set out. She does it calmly.

  Four streetlights have been switched off, making the checkpoint area dark. A blue light catches her eye from the rearview mirror as another car pulls up.

  Out of the shadows comes Max Grachev. Holding up a badge, he walks right up to her car.

  “Step out, so they can get a proper look at you,” he says, arm on the roof, speaking to her through the window.

  She opens the door. He taps a permit on Suzy’s windshield. “This only authorizes you to drive outside Zones One and Two up until eight p.m. My fault. There was no way for you to know.”

  The temperature has dropped, and a chilly breeze zips through her.

  Grachev’s arm is on her elbow, guiding her onto the sidewalk. “Leave us for a moment,” he says to the uniformed police. He’s wearing sneakers, loose tracksuit pants, and a sport shirt. His hair’s tousled in the front, as though he’s come straight from the gym.

  “Good job at the meeting,” he says. “It worked well. But I must say, we didn’t expect that kind of reaction.”

  “You know who she is?”

  “We’re checking.” He turns and looks behind him. They’re on a pleasant, residential street, a couple of shops, a bank, a bus stop, a little green circled by houses, curtains drawn, with families inside. “Do you understand what all this is about?” he asks, pointing to the barricade.

  “I guess I don’t, or you wouldn’t be asking.”

  “London is not a safe city,” he says. “It’s crazy. Sometime soon, they’re going to announce a date for the signing of Project Peace. A lot of people in Britain oppose it. Some are willing to use violence to stop it.”

  Grachev looks away from Kat toward the bridge they’ve just crossed. The light picks up his features, his hair still wet and shining under the checkpoint lamps, his face smooth and relaxed, but unreachable. His eyes run freely over her, one second weighing her as a woman, the next cold, warning her.

  “A lot happens in a day,” he says. “When I asked you to help us with Liz Luxton, I wasn’t aware how . . . complicated . . . this was.” He pauses, choosing his words carefully. “You won’t want to hear this, Kat, but you ought to take Nate Sayer up on his suggestion, and go back to Washington.”

  Kat doesn’t move, just stares him down. His voice remains quiet and measured. “Investigating your sister’s murder is not a safe job,” he says.

  “Yeah, well, I’d like to help.”

  Grachev’s look is sympathetic, but without compromise. “Impossible.”

  “You used me once. Use me again.”

  “It’s too dangerous.”

  She waves toward the checkpoint. “Why? Because of this?” she says mockingly. “I don’t know a city anywhere that doesn’t have checkpoints.”

  “We’ve gone through Suzy’s e-mail. It seems almost certain that her death is directly linked to the CPS.”

  “Even if it is—”

  Grachev interrupts, voice raised. “What I would like is if you could keep your thoughts open and listen to me for a minute.”

  Kat says nothing, but holds his gaze.

  Grachev leans against the hood of one of the police cars. “You saw how your sister was killed. She was murdered by a professional killer or killers. We’re looking into the type of work Suzy did, the life she led. Who Charlotte Thomas was, or is.” He pauses, making a line with his finger in the condensation on the windshield. “We don’t have many leads.”

  “How does Liz Luxton fit in?”

  “We don’t see her as being able to have pulled the trigger on Suzy.”

  “You think she was her friend or enemy?”

  “We’re checking. We’ll know by morning.”

  Kat shrugs. “Once we’ve found Suzy’s killer, I’ll get out of your life. Until then, I stay.”

  “Slow down. Suzy was killed Friday night. Today’s Sunday. Your sister was popular, successful. But she wasn’t who people thought she was. For your own safety, I’d like you back in the States.”

  “I want to see where she was killed.”
<
br />   Grachev shakes his head. “I’m sorry. That won’t be possible.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s far away. Forensics is still working there.”

  “What was she doing there anyway if she didn’t like music?”

  “There are a lot of unanswered questions,” he says quietly.

  “This zone thing . . .” Kat lets it hang, prompting a pique of curiosity in Grachev’s expression.

  “Suzy had a zone expressway receipt,” says Kat. “Have you looked at the audience list for the concert, found out how many of them came from outside, like Suzy?”

  “We’re checking it.”

  “What d’you mean, you’re checking it? It’d take five seconds.”

  He signals to the police that they’re leaving and gestures at Suzy’s Mercedes. “Drive behind me. I’ll escort you back.”

  “Do you have an answer for me or not?”

  He doesn’t reply, and she follows Grachev’s car to Suzy’s apartment. They pass a roadblock, where the police have two men spread-eagle on the road with guns at their heads. Grachev waits for her to drive into Suzy’s garage, flashes his headlights, and leaves.

  Once in the apartment, she lies on Suzy’s sofa, lights off, staring at the deep blue dome of the sky spread above the river. For a moment, and it can’t be more than that, she lets the exhaustion of the past two days take her. Suddenly, she wakes, sitting straight up, hands reaching to answer the ringing phone.

  It’s Nancy. She’s soft, persuasive. “We’ve been trying to get ahold of you,” she says. “We wanted to have you over for a real meal.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Aunt Nance,” Kat says, lets herself pause. “Sorry, you caught me napping. Must be jet lag. No, I’m fine. Guess I’ll get an early night.”

  “Have you thought any more about Nate’s suggestion? We can all go together in the morning.”

  “You, Nate, me, we’re pretty good at doing funerals together.”

  Nancy gives it a second. “Let me come over, Kat. You need someone to talk to.”

  “Yeah, but not tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Tell Nate I’ll sign all the papers he needs.”

  THIRTEEN

  Sunday, 9:17 p.m., BST

  Kat curls her legs under her, pulls down the blinds in Suzy’s bedroom, and closes the door. She doesn’t want to see the river, the night, the distorted reflections of streetlights, the pattern of clouds in the humid night sky, cars driving on the left-hand side of the road.

  She calls Cage. “I need you to call me back.”

  She cuts the line, holding the phone until it vibrates with Cage’s call.

  “You there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “You okay?” he asks.

  “I’m fine,” says Kat.

  Kat imagines Cage in his little study off his bedroom on P Street, blinds down, too, bathed in an emerald light, keeping his eyes on cryptic letter-number combinations flashing up at him on the screen. As long as they change smoothly and regularly, he knows no one is listening to their conversation. If he’s suspicious, he’ll prime one of the recordings he and Kat have on file and insert it into the signal so that the eavesdroppers hear the recording instead of the real conversation.

  Cage’s words will be secure, so he can talk in detail. But Kat’s end may not be secure, so she must speak in generalities that would not catch the attention of eavesdroppers.

  “How is it?” The vagueness of his question is a signal for her to proceed carefully while he tests the line.

  “It’s okay. I guess it’s lonely more than anything. A detective called Max Grachev is investigating. He’s a Russian, a specialist in organized crime, working with the British police.”

  “Hold a second, I have to take another call,” he says, using another familiar code phrase. “I’ll get back to you.”

  By hanging up, using the word “second,” he’s told her he’s not happy with the security of Suzy’s landline.

  Kat lies on the bed, hands behind her head, staring up at the ceiling, ankle hooked over knee, waiting for Cage to finish.

  Cage’s title is senior operations officer. He’s good at his job, better than many at higher pay levels. He’s 53, but he has the energy of a man a generation younger. She saw Cage shirtless once, changing into a tuxedo in the back of a limousine, his torso strong, sinewy, not a ripple out of place, as if he’d relocated all his body’s age and punishment into his face.

  One night after a successful job, when they were driving through Washington’s empty streets toward their separate homes, he told her that every middle-aged man at some time ends up looking at a younger woman who brings back memories of the person he thinks he should have married.

  Kat liked him more then. Cage told her about a woman named Sally whom he’d never stopped loving, and their son Paul, who gave them a reason to stay in touch. Years ago, Cage and Sally had failed to make a home together. Now it was too late to do it with anyone else.

  When the phone rings, she answers it casually.

  “You’ve got two separate surveillance tracks on you,” Cage says. “One is from the American embassy, which is being routed directly to the FBI. I know that system, so there’s no problem with it. The second is less sophisticated, and I expect it’s the British police. You may have to handle that one yourself.”

  “Okay.” Her tone is measured. She sips coffee, letting its bitterness wash around her mouth.

  “Every time you leave or enter the apartment, they’re watching you. By morning, I’ll know the blind spots and tell you a way out without being seen. I’ll e-mail it to you.”

  “They want me to go home,” says Kat in a non sequitur that will fit into what the eavesdroppers are hearing.

  “It’s best you’re away for a few more days while the Kazakh embassy thing is properly cleared up. They’re getting IDs on the two guys who tried to kill us. The Kazakhs are cooperating by not going to the press. The families have agreed. You and I are not involved.”

  The way he says it, so relaxed, makes Kat take a breath deep into her chest. Her throat is tight with the thought of Friday night. “Thanks,” she says softly. “And thanks for being on the other end of the line.”

  “Now,” he says. “I’ve got a bit on Tracy Elizabeth Luxton. If it’s the right one, she turned twenty-seven ten days ago, on August 20. Father and mother are down here as Robert and Caroline. They used to run a seaside circus. Elizabeth went to school in Great Yarmouth in Suffolk, a county on the east coast. No college that I can see. No current address listed. She doesn’t seem the type of people your sister would naturally have mixed with. The file is thin, which means either that she doesn’t matter, or that she matters so much that the main file is held with an agency that doesn’t share with us.”

  When Kat replies, it’s as if Cage has been asking her about her evening.

  “No, I got there real late. I ended up taking Suzy’s car, remembering to drive on the left and everything, and I got there just as it was finishing. But it was worth it. Good to see the type of people Suzy hung around with, and to get in . . .”

  She’s hoping Cage will get the drift of what she’s trying to tell him.

  “. . . I had to have her driver’s license swiped at the door, so I guess that has everything on it, address, social security number.”

  “The system at Linton Community Hall is not listed here as being networked,” Cage says tightly.

  “It’d be great to get to meet some of her real friends,” Kat replies innocuously.

  Cage comes back immediately, a trace of irritation that Kat’s being so specific. “Don’t speak, just listen,” he says curtly. “Hang up and do things as you normally would in the morning for at least an hour. I’m going to intercept the FBI’s video surveillance and then feed your movements back into them. So go to the bathroom, shower, make coffee, look around Suzy’s desk. Do them slowly. No rushing. Do not listen to the radio. Do not turn on the TV. Do not look out the window. Then go to bed. Leave a night-light on so
mewhere and the blind partway up so I can pick up the changing light of the morning. Make sure no clocks are in open view. Get up after full daylight. Sunrise is at 6:11. You should be safe at 6:45. As soon as you’re out of bed, close the blind. That will be my signal to run the recording, and by then I’ll know the safest way for you to operate.”

  Cage will know how many staff have been assigned to watch surveillance from Suzy’s apartment, and he’ll move in on the shift change. There’s little chance the incoming shift will recognize that Kat is repeating exactly what she’d done the previous evening.

  When she closes her eyes to sleep, she sees Liz Luxton, so determined, so surprised, so mistrustful, so desperate to get away, and, in the way she moved, so vulnerable.

  FOURTEEN

  Monday, 6:50 a.m., BST

  Sunlight pours through the open inches left under the blinds and hits her face, warm and hard. Kat is sleeping on her back, both arms across her chest, something she started doing years back, protecting herself.

  She’s in a pair of Suzy’s elephant-pattern pajamas, and her sleep has been so deep and dreamless that it takes her a moment to remember where she is. Eyes blinking, she acclimates, reading her watch at 6:50, which means it’s okay to start the day.

  Kat plans to do two things. First, she will see if Cage has found how she can get out of Suzy’s apartment without anyone seeing. Then, she will find Liz Luxton, which means going back to the lecture hall, getting into the desktop computer there, and finding her ID details.

  She gets up, puts on loose blue jeans over shorts, opens the terrace doors to morning chill and sun, with whitish light, rising over the river.

  A gust brings in river smells, a mix of dankness, summer leaves, and boat oil. Kat steps back inside and shuts the door.

  On her cell phone screen, she sees that Cage has sent a file on surveillance in the apartment. He’s countered the surveillance inside and marked the fields of view of the cameras in red and a safe path out through the apartment in green.

  But the screen on the cell is too small to read it accurately. Suzy’s desktop has a slot for SIM cards. She turns it on and it boots up without asking for a password.