He’s already across the room. “Cate—”
As he reaches her she flails. He grabs for her wrists, catches one, misses the other. Her arm whips round, her hand clawing at his cheek. He jerks his head back, clutches at her loose arm, grasps it. Her body arches away from him. He’s talking to her, hushing her, but she’s fighting him, fighting Brice, fighting all of them. The noise she makes is barely human: the only word he can make out is “no.”
“Cate, it’s me, it’s—”
She hurls herself against him, driving her head into his chest. He releases her wrists and wraps his arms around her, pulling her close and tight, hushing into her hair while she struggles against him. She’s tiny, like a small bird in a net or a starved cat in a bag. He never realized how tiny: nothing but skin and bone and sinew.
Suddenly she stops fighting. She huddles against him, shaking with adrenaline, gasping for air.
On the floor below, a door bangs. Feet pound up the stairs—one man, moving fast. The door opens: Riley, eyes wide and frantic.
Against Johanssen’s chest, Cate’s head moves. He pulls away from her a little. Saliva drools from the corner of her mouth. He wipes it away with a thumb.
“Where were you?” she whimpers. “Where the fuck were you? You could have—”
Her face crumples, and she begins to cry. He draws her against him.
Riley turns and steps outside, pulling the door until it’s open just a couple of inches. He slumps down onto the stairs with his back toward them. After a moment he puts his head in his hands.
For a while she cries. Then for a while after that she could be sleeping, he’s not sure. Then he looks down, and her eyes are open, a faint slick reflection glancing off the whites.
“Vinnie,” she says. Her voice is a whisper.
“I know.”
“Didn’t deserve that,” she says. “Didn’t deserve that.”
Her gaze is elsewhere. Another memory has slid in beside the first, the gate with dragons on it, Daniel, all that blood. In her head, on an endless loop, they’re playing. And they’ll go on playing, for weeks, months … Even years from now, when she’s far away from here, living a different life, those memories will still have the power to ambush her. He knows that. In his own head, beyond a locked door in a remote farmhouse, a man still screams.
Around four in the morning she stretches and moves away from him and tells him she needs to piss. He stands outside the door while she urinates into a bucket. He’s alone: Riley has left his post at the stairs.
There’s a window at the top of the staircase, looking out over the yard. Outside a light rain is falling, no more than a mist. Over by the gate, half a dozen men loiter under the floodlights. Their voices, blurred by distance and glass, drift across the yard to him. If he opens the window he’ll be able to smell their cigarettes, but he doesn’t move.
Quillan hasn’t touched Brice. What does that mean?
From behind the door he can hear Cate moving around, shifting things. He goes back in. She’s fully dressed now, but still holding a bundle of clothes. She puts them down and rubs her face with one hand, distractedly.
“I have to get back to the clinic,” she says. “I have to work.”
“Clinic’s closed.” Then he says, “I’m going to get you out of here.”
She just looks at him dully.
“You have to leave the Program,” he says. “They know you’re here, they’re coming for you. I’m going to get you out. There are people waiting on the outside who’ll make you safe—”
Her head comes up a fraction. “Coming for me? To kill me?” she says. She doesn’t sound afraid. But she’s on some sort of time lag, the words reaching her belatedly, stripped of their impact. They haven’t hit her yet.
“Yes,” he says, “to kill you.”
She frowns. “How do you know this?”
“I’m the one they sent.”
A long moment’s silence, then she says, “Do your job.”
“No,” he says. She can’t have understood. “You have to trust me, we can get you out—I’ve talked to someone, they’ve got resources, they can do it: a day, two days, we just have to keep you safe, then they’ll get you lifted, new life, new ID …” It sounds so simple, so cut and dried. We do this, and this, and this … Like a child’s story, with magic and a happy ending.
“No,” she says. Her voice is flat now. “I’m not going anywhere. Just do your job.”
“I can’t,” he says.
“Why not? Your girlfriend—” She stops, and her face changes, the realization clicking into place. “You’re not Ryan Jackson, are you?” She gives a tiny, sickened smile. “So Brice was right.”
“I can’t do it. Not this time.”
Her eyes snap open. “Why not? You know what I’ve done. Don’t I deserve it?”
As if her death is something she’s earned, by killing the man Daniel. As if there’s some simple balance sheet somewhere that says her debt’s due … He thinks of Terry Cunliffe suddenly, of another balance sheet, another debt, this time with his name against it. He can’t tell her.
He says, “You have nightmares about it. Sometimes you’re afraid to sleep. You count the ones you save, but there’ll never be enough—”
“And that makes it okay?” She’s folded her arms—that stiff protective gesture, shutting him out. Her expression’s tight and cold. He doesn’t know what to say.
She says, “If you don’t do it, what then?”
“They’ll send someone else.”
“Then let them.” She turns away. “Now go.”
He wants to say something more. He doesn’t know what it is.
But when he reaches the door, she says, “If you’re not Ryan Jackson, who are you?” and she’s looking back at him. “Do I get to know your name?”
He shakes his head. She thinks about it, and then she nods.
“You’ve done this sort of thing before,” she says. “The killing part. It doesn’t usually bother you.” He looks away. His gaze snags on the scratches on the wall. Slowly he starts to count.
She says, “I’d like it to be you, if there’s a choice. At least it would be quick.”
She turns away again.
He goes down to the bunk room, pulls off his boots, lies down. Quillan’s men stir and mumble in the waiting room below. If the phone rings, he’ll hear it.
No sound from upstairs: no scratching at the wall.
Over on the bunk opposite, Drill lies stretched out on his back, still as a marble figure on a tomb. But he too is awake, and the whites of his eyes glisten in the dark.
DAY 23: THURSDAY
KARLA
Just after 4:00 a.m. a bulky Toyota pulls into the car park by the reservoir. Its number plate matches the text that I received an hour ago, the last time I turned the phone on. It parks beside Devlin’s silver Audi, and a man gets out. He goes to the back of the car, lifts the tailgate, pulls back a blanket, takes out a thermos, drinks coffee looking out across the water. Then he screws the lid back on the flask, replaces it, walks a little distance away, and with his back to me unzips his fly and begins to piss.
The tailgate of the car is still up. I climb in and pull the blanket right over me.
Footsteps as the man comes back. The tailgate slams down right next to my head. The driver’s door opens, the car shifts on its springs, the door shuts. The engine restarts, and we’re away.
Two hours of driving. I tune it out. Try not to think at all.
At last the car stops. The man gets out and walks away. Ten minutes later someone else opens the tailgate and pulls back the blanket: a woman with bleached-blond hair, a hard mouth, too much jewelry. We’re in a big garage, almost empty. Without a word she leads me to a van, helps me into the back. There’s nothing inside except another blanket. When she shuts the door I’m completely in the dark.
Someone gets in the front and starts the engine. The woman? Someone else? Craigie’s using people I don’t know. To them I’m ju
st another client: some poor bitch who’s got out of her depth and has had to buy a rescue. It’s not far from the truth.
It’s gone 9:00 a.m. before I’m back in Docklands, in clothes that aren’t my own. Through the door, straight in the shower, scrub myself hard, robe, into the main room. TV on: news channel, mute the sound. I’ve gone beyond hunger, tiredness, even shock. I’ve switched to automatic.
Devlin’s dead, but that doesn’t mean it’s over. He was going to call someone else, someone who’s still out there, still in play—someone who warned him about me—someone who knows—
So: call Craigie, get him over here. Then call Powell. Get Catherine lifted. Do it.
For a second the glowing smears and smudges from the wall, that small bright handprint, flare out at me. With Catherine in Powell’s hands I’ll never know who Daniel was, or why he died. But right now there’s nothing else I can do.
I’m reaching for the phone when someone hammers on my front door, and I freeze. I don’t get surprise visitors.
Ellis’s face bulges in the spy hole. But he shouldn’t be here, he knows this place is off-limits, he’s not allowed anywhere near Charlotte Alton—
His hand comes up. His warrant card is in it. This time it’s official.
I open the door. “Ms. Alton?” he says. “DI Ellis, mind if I come in?” And then he looks beyond me into the main room and grins, a savage grin that doesn’t come anywhere near his eyes. “Oh good,” he says, “are we on?”
I turn. Through the open doorway, the TV shows a helicopter shot: forest, a winding ribbon of road, a flat expanse of water. Police cars parked at angles on the road. And then the clearing: more police cars, and a red fire engine pulled up beside a crime-scene tent. The Beamer’s hidden by the trees. The house is untouched. The Annex is a blackened, smoking ruin.
I have to make a call, Mark Devlin said. When it didn’t come, did they come looking? And it was a mess when they arrived: the burned-out Beamer buried in the trees, and Devlin …
They could have cleaned it up, but that would have taken time, and manpower, and I could be coming back. They did the next best thing: destroyed the evidence of Daniel’s murder, and left.
When I turn back Ellis is watching me. “A few questions, if you don’t mind, Ms. Alton.” He gives the standard phrase a vicious spin. “It’s just routine.”
He stalks into the main room behind me. I gesture to a seat. He doesn’t take it. Immediately he’s checking out the room, his gaze going from wall to wall to window, like a dealer pricing the furnishings. “Nice place you got here, Ms. Alton—or can I call you Charlotte?” Then, quick as a knife—“Thanks for the heads-up on Mark Devlin, Karla. That call of yours, it really got me thinking. Decided I’d better double-check his alibi. I called round his flat first thing this morning. Was on my way to his office when the news broke. You do know he’s dead, don’t you? You don’t seem that surprised. Or that upset.”
He turns and begins to wander down the room, away from me: another casual survey. He says, “He was mown down by a vehicle attempting to leave the scene. They found a shotgun, both barrels discharged; car crashed in the trees. Whoever was in that car, he tried to stop them.” He turns, glances back at me. “Is any of this news?”
I say nothing.
For a long moment he watches me. Then he says, “You’ve always tried to keep me from the truth. First time you called me? You knew she was dead. You didn’t know who did it, you didn’t have a motive, but you knew.” He shakes his head. “What’ve you got? A body? But then why not tell me? Or a witness. That’s it, isn’t it? Right from the start, you’ve been protecting someone. Who is it, Karla?”
I just blank him back.
He stares at me. He’s read me. His look’s close to contempt. “I should have you in an interview room,” he says. “I should be sweating this out of you.”
“Then why aren’t you?”
A pause, and then his voice takes on a sneering, official tone. “I understand you knew Mr. Devlin socially—can you tell me when you saw him last?”
So that’s the way we’re playing it. “I spoke to Mark last night. He’d left a message, suggesting we meet up. I called him back, but by then he had company. Do check the phone records.”
“Oh, I will. And where were you?”
“Here, at first. Later I went out.”
“Anywhere in particular?”
“Visiting friends. In London. Nowhere much. Don’t push it, Ellis.”
For a moment we square up to each other. Then he says, “This isn’t over, Karla,” and he leaves.
I walk into the office. All the unanswered questions … I slam a lid on them. Powell. Nothing else for it. Contact Powell, do a deal, get her out of there, make Johanssen safe. Get this all closed down.
There’s a message light flashing on one of the machines. I hit PLAY, and Whitman says, “Laura, I really didn’t think you’d do it.” He sounds pleased.
The message ends immediately.
I call him back. “Do what, Mike?”
He says, “Square it with Washington. I got a call from a guy I know in the Department of Justice. He’d had a call from someone in your department. We had one of those conversations—nothing stated, but he’s in the loop. He sounded impressed; you pulled some weight on this one. So, we’re fine.”
Someone in your department. But he thinks Laura’s something in intelligence—
Oh no no no.
I end the call. Redial. This time it’s Fielding. He answers as usual, with a grunt.
“Johanssen’s client—”
He says, “You do my fucking head in, you know? How’d you work it out?” Then as if he knows I won’t reply, “Yeah, I saw the news.”
“Mark Devlin. You said he came with references.”
“That’s right,” he says. “D’you think I’m stupid? D’you think I’d send Johanssen in there without—?”
“Who supplied the references, Fielding?” Nothing. Try again. “You said you didn’t know the guy. He could have been anyone. But you knew he was fine, he could be trusted, because he came to you through someone you’ve worked with before—”
Still nothing. Then, as if it hurts to say it: “The guy had a code.”
“And this code told you what?” Please no—
“That he was safe. I told you—fuck it, Karla. Sometimes I get approached to sort stuff for people who can’t be seen to be involved—”
“Intelligence.”
For a moment Fielding says nothing. Then, more quietly: “Johanssen’s done the odd job for them. He doesn’t know.”
“They don’t use people like him. They’ve got their own.” The Spec Ops unit that rejected him, for starters.
“Oh yes they do,” Fielding says. “They do when they don’t want to use their own.”
“And when’s that?”
“What do you think? When no one wants to admit how badly they’ve screwed up. When they want it all just flushed away so nothing touches the sides. I told you: it’s fine, he’s safe. So, when’s this wrapping up?”
“Devlin’s dead,” I say. “You don’t have a client.”
He says, “Oh yes I do.”
Safe. That’s the irony. I wanted to protect him all along. But from the outset they were watching: watching him appear in Program Reception with his fake ID, watching him go in and out through those gates, ready to step in the moment he was challenged. Watching over him, to make sure he did the job.
Like you; but stronger.
Smarter, too, and better at keeping themselves hidden. But still, like me: deleting Catherine Gallagher the way I’d delete an inconvenient file—wiping it from the record because it’s their job. Intelligence.
Intelligence, interrogating a man called Daniel—who was he? A terrorist? A traitor? But someone who had to be made to talk, and fast. But torture’s something they can’t do, so they set up the blackest of black ops, fronted by civilians, all deniable. Catherine Gallagher supplying medical cover: brou
ght in to keep the man alive, keep patching him up so they could start on him again the next day and the next, so he didn’t die until they’d got everything they wanted—because that’s what clever, ambitious Catherine was good at, keeping people alive. They’d have known exactly what buttons to press with her. Use your skills, help your country, fight terrorism, you’ll see how grateful we can be … Easy to agree, when you already believe your patients are another species.
Catherine Gallagher persuading Devlin to let them use the house. And when it was over, Catherine Gallagher killing Daniel and walking away, leaving Devlin to clean it up. That’s why he couldn’t go to the police. I have experience with these people: I know how they work. Cooperate and this will go away. Talk and you’re in the frame.
And when they tracked Catherine down to the Program, Devlin fronting negotiations with Fielding, with just a nod to say he’s one of theirs—
And if I phone Powell now? I’ve read his file. He’s a company man, and a janitor. Good at cleaning up inconvenient messes; flushing away the shit, just like Johanssen. He’s not the one behind all this. He wants a deal with Knox, and he’ll say anything to get it. But however many promises Powell makes, the moment Catherine enters his protection, a clock starts ticking.
He’ll tell me that she’s fine; abroad, with cover, a new life. I’ll never be able to prove him wrong. But I know: if I place her in Powell’s hands, she’s as good as dead.
And that matters, does it?
Isn’t this what’s coming to her? She sold out on an intelligence deal, supervised a man’s torture and death. Isn’t this payback?
Contact Powell. Just do it.
I don’t move.
I promised Johanssen, didn’t I? That I would keep her safe. Because saving her somehow makes up for Terry Cunliffe. Somewhere a voice inside me says, He’ll never know, but I know I can’t trust it. I’m not going to lie to Johanssen now.
The Distance: A Thriller Page 35