‘Think Brommer killed Titus?’ So she did believe me, sort of.
‘Maybe, I don’t know.’ Which was not exactly the truth.
‘The French woman you mentioned. How does she fit?’
I gave an edited potted history and told her about the Titus connection. For reasons I didn’t want to admit, I left out the nature of my relationship with Simone.
‘Titus and sex parties?’ She sounded surprised.
‘Is it so much of a stretch? All kinds of guys attend those gigs. Benz, for example.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘No?’ This took me by surprise. ‘Don’t you spooks share information?’
‘Only when there’s something relevant to say.’
‘It is relevant.’
She ignored me. ‘The fact is, with Benz dead and Brommer on the loose, it’s going to be difficult to locate the French girl.’
‘I found you.’
McCallen let out a laugh. ‘You were practically given an A–Z. We were supposed to die together, remember?’
I remembered. I also remembered something else. ‘I have to go.’ McCallen was abouy to say something, but I cut her off. I had my own ideas and I’d always worked better solo.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
I headed up Tommy Taylor’s Lane, past the swimming pool and, turning right, cut across the Evesham Road and into Western Approach. On one side, a tennis court and skate park, Pittville Pump Room on the other side. Dan was easy enough to pick out from the other long-limbed youth. So this was how he studied for a degree.
I hollered, my voice competing with the screech and grind of metal on tarmac. Dan looked up and gave me a ‘what the fuck is he doing here’ look? Undeterred, I marched towards him. He cast his eyes to the ground, walked with a low lope, shoulders rounded. Not happy to associate with me, it seemed. In his eyes, I was the opposite of cool.
‘Yep?’ he said.
‘Simone. Where is she?’
‘How should I know?’
I bit down hard to stop myself from giving him a slap. ‘Let me rephrase. Where did you last see her?’
‘At home.’
‘When was that?’
‘Dunno, a couple of hours ago, maybe more, can’t remember.’
‘What about Jack and Gonzo?’
Dan shrugged. ‘You’ll have to ask them.’
‘I would if they were there.’
‘Must be in bed.’
‘They’re not. I checked.’
Dan scratched his ear. ‘What day is it?’
I pulled a face. ‘Wednesday.’
‘Explains it. They’ve got lectures, solid.’
‘Does anyone else have keys to the house?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘What’s with the interrogation?’
I flung him a look that startled him. He took a smart step back. ‘Someone trashed Simone’s room,’ I said darkly, ‘and she isn’t there.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Fuck, indeed.’
‘Was she there last night?’
‘As far as I know.’
‘Did you see her this morning?’
‘Nope.’
‘You didn’t take her a cup of tea?’ I said, in a facetious tone.
Dan scowled, his look the equivalent of giving me the finger. ‘Did someone rearrange your face?’
Tempted to rearrange his, I stalked off.
Skirting the perimeter of the tennis court, I noticed a young girl, around fourteen years of age. Reaching up and over, she thwacked balls with immense style and precision over the net, her coach throwing one after another to improve her swing. Dark-featured, she could have been a young Simone. I ski when I can. I enjoy tennis and polo.
Shaken by the way my mind was working, I sat down on a low wall and pulled out my phone. I checked through the information I’d captured from Simone’s laptop and the list of hotel bookings she’d made in the past twelve months. It took me several minutes to find what I was looking for. Thinking it had to be a blind, I decided to corroborate the information before springing to hasty conclusions. Closing the picture, I logged onto the internet and punched in ‘New Forest Polo Club’. A website popped up with a list of fixtures. I compared it with the date Lars Pallenberg died – 20 May – and discovered that the Dunlop Cup was played on the same day. Scrolling down revealed that a high-class hotel sponsored the club, presumably in some kind of reciprocal deal whereby polo teams and social members could take advantage of hotel facilities. I called the club first and spoke to the polo manager.
‘Hi, I wonder if you can help me.’
‘I’ll do my best.’ So it was true what the website said. They really were friendly. Frankly, I was banking on it.
‘My girlfriend has let her membership lapse and I’d like to renew it, is that possible? She doesn’t know a thing about if, of course,’ I wittered on.
‘A surprise – what a nice idea. You say she’s a member, would that be social or player membership?’
I hesitated. ‘Social.’ I recalled Simone had told me she liked to watch. ‘The name’s Fabron.’
‘Simone Fabron?’ the manager asked.
I closed my eyes, cut the call and followed up the hotel connection, the same hotel that had appeared in Simone’s personal file. I started off the same way with a subtle variation.
‘Hi, I want to book a double room for next weekend.’
‘I’ll see what I can do, sir. May I ask how you found out about us?’
‘My girlfriend has stayed with you before and she recommended it.’
‘That’s always good to know.’
‘Would it be possible to have the same room? She stayed around 20 May last year, maybe the night before. The name’s Fabron.’
‘One moment, please.’ I waited, looked at the ground, made a pattern with the sole of my shoe, thinking about connections and lies, those we tell to ourselves and those told to us by others.
‘Yes, Miss Fabron stayed in room 10 on the 19th. Would you like –’
Moving fast, I hung up.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
I jumped on the first bus heading back to the centre of town. Staring out of the window, I went over all the little things that had snagged in my mind, that like a fool I’d discounted. My mind reeled back to the hotel room in London. I’d believed that Simone’s laptop, left deliberately open with an easy-to-crack password, was a sign of her trust in me, rather than a deliberate ruse to put Mathilde Brommer in the frame for murder. Then there had been the alleged rape.
When people wake up and bad things have happened to them, their initial reaction is one of optimism. It lasts usually for no more than seconds, half a minute at most, before reality kicks in, and with it a terrible sense of unhappiness. After Simone’s rape, this never happened. I was there. I watched her face. I thought it odd at the time, yet I didn’t know why.
I’d expected bruising on her body as she’d struggled with her rapist. There was none. The brand of cigarettes she smoked matched the Gauloises I’d found in the grass in the graveyard, close to the crypt where Titus had met his death. In matching the timing of key events, I saw that she had plenty of time to be involved in abduction and murder. Whether she carried out every killing herself was debatable. It would take a level of skill that I found tricky to credit. What was certain was that she had killed Lars Pallenberg. Her leather shoulder bag had given her secret away. I knew because I’d used a similar trick myself once. Front opening, purpose-built, a bag like that could easily conceal a weapon like an MP5. I imagined her stopping Lars for directions, her fabulous looks turning his head and halting him in his tracks. It was so simple to empty three bullets into his head, and to spray the rest of the magazine at the unfortunate couple who happened to stumble upon the scene. I understood how Phipps had met his end; China, too. A hapless pawn who initially believed it would save him, China had helped Simone to wipe out his enemies. I could almost hear her stringing him alo
ng, carrot and stick, seductively assuring him that it would suit his best interests, and threatening if he didn’t comply. As for Titus, God only knew what happened, but I suspected she’d suckered him like she’d suckered me, his crime to pillow-talk in the dead of night and give away priceless information about McCallen. Right up until the last moment, I bet Benz thought they were in it together – until she put a bullet through his brain.
I called McCallen. ‘Brommer’s clean.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I know.’
‘Well, she’s definitely not in the country and from our latest information she never left Berlin. The BfV are giving her the once-over.’ Internal German security, I registered. ‘This French woman …’
I sharpened. ‘What of her?’
‘She’s not coming up on our system.’
‘She has to. She runs businesses. She pays taxes. She works here, for Chrissakes.’
‘No, you don’t understand. Simone Fabron is a fabrication, as Hex is yours. She’s a ghost.’
Modelled on me, of course. ‘Like Billy.’
‘Shit!’
‘Fabron has been jerking our strings from the beginning.’
‘The other half of the Benz duo. Right, I need to get out of here.’ I had visions of McCallen throwing back the covers, grabbing her clothes and heading out of the hospital.
‘No way.’
‘Fuck’s sake, I’m part of this. It was my mission.’
‘It’s always your blasted mission.’
‘I’m serious.’
‘So am I. For once in your life, do as you’re told.’
‘You might need backup.’
‘You’re in no state and you need rest.’
‘Sweet of you to care.’
She was sarcastic and I was vexed. McCallen was thinking of targets and results and promotion. Give me revenge any day. It was more honest. Picking up on my anger, she tried a more conciliatory approach.
‘It was a joke.’
‘I know.’
‘Hex, you sound strange.’ I felt strange, as if all the demons I’d locked inside were throwing a party. ‘Reminds me of when we worked together before.’
‘That’s good.’ I rallied. ‘We won.’
She fell silent. ‘But that was then. You’re out of that business now. I’ll alert Flynn. He can take care of it.’
‘Why? This was never about national security. It’s personal.’
‘But Benz –’
‘Is dead, used like all the rest until he exceeded his sell-by date. The security services got the outcome they wanted.’
Seconds ticked by. My stop was coming up. I stood up to exit the bus.
‘You can’t go after her alone. Kill her and you lose.’
‘I’m not going to kill her. I’m going to bring her in.’ Did I mean a word of it? The thought of killing a woman made me baulk. The only time I’d ever set out to do so I’d been beaten to it and it had got me into a shitload of mess. I also had a major problem in that I no longer had access to a gun.
I stepped off onto the pavement. ‘I have to wrap up the call now.’
‘Hex?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Don’t get hurt.’
‘I don’t intend to.’
‘Are you armed?’
‘No.’
The line went quiet. I was about to hang up when McCallen suddenly spoke and gave me a location. ‘There’s a DLB there. Inside is a replacement.’ She meant a dead letter box with a gun.
‘You’re taking one hell of a risk on me,’ I said.
‘I did that the first day we met.’
I smiled and thanked her.
‘Win this time,’ she said, ‘for both of us.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
The thirst for revenge does not diminish with time. There is no statute of limitations. For Fabron to go to extremes, to plot and scheme, to play cat and mouse with her primary victims, with all the associated mental torture, she must have had a close association with Billy. Fabron, a ghost in the eyes of GCHQ and MI5, had outwitted us all. So far, her luck had held. That was about to change. Everyone had a weakness. Drugs, debts, an important relationship, whatever – I needed to know what hers was. It wouldn’t be easy. I’d been intimately involved with her and yet hadn’t known her at all.
But I had a head start.
Knowing the enemy is key to survival. If you know how they think, you can stand tall in the winner’s enclosure. I knew that Simone was cunning and clever, a mistress of deception, as cruel as she was patient. She liked the long game and she enjoyed the art of manipulation. I knew all this because I was the same animal. Where we differed was that she enjoyed mental and physical torture. This had never turned me on.
I took my usual cut-through on the way back home. A nursing home overlooked the alley with a wall running alongside its boundary, rising in height after a couple of metres. Shrubbery and dead leaves spilt over the lower section almost covering a chalk mark in the brick. Directly beyond this were a couple of parked cars and a large plane tree, the earth beneath a repository for all kinds of junk, tin cans, discarded plastic water bottles and general detritus. The way ahead clear, I glanced over my shoulder to ensure I was not seen, reached over, my hand touching what appeared to be a food carton half submerged in the undergrowth. I pulled out the reinforced box and tucked it inside my jacket and walked on.
Home again, I opened my treasure trove. A loaded Glock, identical to the gun I’d stolen, nestled inside.
I called Jat once more. Where the combined forces of the security services had failed, Jat might yet succeed. It was worth a punt anyway.
‘Forget everything I asked you to do,’ I told him, ‘and see if you can dig up anything on Simone Fabron. It’s not her real name. She’s a French national with an English mother, allegedly dead, and has a connection to the late William Franke. She runs a number of businesses.’ I gave him the rough spec. ‘I also need you to find out who owns a property in Cheltenham.’ I gave the address where McCallen had been held.
Jat doesn’t curse – it’s not his style – he whinges. Two minutes of moaning later, he hung up.
By the time, I finally set off for Chobham, Billy’s former family home, it was after four. Due to heavy traffic and a road closure, a journey that should have taken me the best part of two hours took almost double that. It gave me plenty of time to think about the woman I’d willingly allowed to dupe me.
I have never underestimated the female of the species. In my opinion, and based on fifteen years of dealing with horrible people, a ruthless woman has the edge on a ruthless man any day. Their capacity for cruelty is epic. Their ability to discern emotional vulnerability and manipulate it to advantage spellbinding. When women are bad they are very bad: more scheming, more reckless, more creative. When they hate, they make it entirely personal. I had met women like this before: Mafia women, Russian wives who allow their crime lord husbands to believe that their more dastardly plans are their own creation, and Lady Macbeths of the Orient. Simone and her ambitions exceeded anyone’s I’d ever met. She was off the scale.
I pulled up outside the wrought iron electronic gates of the Franke residence a little before eight. I’d been working on how I was going to lie to gain access. Should I say I was an old friend of Billy’s? How would that play? And if, by whatever means, I blagged my way in, would they read death in my eyes, see the blood on my hands, spot that the man standing in their living room asking questions was the same man who’d pushed a husband and father under a moving train? I needn’t have bothered. A sign outside stated that the property was sold.
Dejected, I cut the engine, climbed out, stretched my legs and arched my back. The air temperature had dropped several degrees, a thin rime of frost already on the ground. At the end of a long drive, the black and white farmhouse was impossible to see from the entrance. That was the way Billy liked things. No trace and no connection between Billy landowner and family man and Billy vicious ga
ngland boss. I thought about his widow, the revelations that must have rocked their world.
Unless she’d known all along.
I climbed back into the car and drove to the nearest pub. Old English in style, with lots of brass, highly polished beer pumps and gleaming glasses, it was a decent, honest-to-God local. I bet the beer was good and asked for a pint of the most popular, along with a menu. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. Adrenalin has a deadening effect on my appetite. With the pressure eased off, I was suddenly ravenous.
Tall, lean, bald-headed with a moustache and an authoritative manner, the guy behind the bar wore a tie with a tiepin. I had him figured for the landlord. I also had him down for ex-army. It’s difficult to shake off the vestiges of years serving in the military.
I ordered and paid for local sausages with onion gravy and mash.
‘Where do you want to eat?’ he said. ‘You can either sit here at the bar, or at one of the tables.’
‘Here’s fine.’ I sipped my beer, which was clean and with the right balance of hop and malt, and took a good slow look around the bar. A group of red-eyed regulars were gathered at one end, the rest of the customers were businessmen dining alone and couples out for a few mid-week drinks. It didn’t look the type of place where anything kicked off. The military landlord would never allow it.
‘Come far?’ he said.
‘Gloucestershire.’
‘Home of my old regiment.’ His eyes shone with fond memory.
He went off to serve a customer. My dinner arrived and I ate. Twenty minutes later, I pushed my clean plate away and thanked the waitress who appeared delighted. Maybe people didn’t express their gratitude often in this neck of the woods. Small and pretty with bright blue eyes, she had a ballet dancer’s walk.
‘Is there anywhere around here I could stay for the night?’ I asked her.
‘We’ve got a couple of rooms.’
‘How much do you charge?’
‘£90 with full English. Want me to check to see if one’s free?’ She spoke well. I reckoned she was a sixth-former, working the odd night to earn a few quid.
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