by Chris Ewan
Throwing back the blanket, she stumbled through to the bathroom and took a fast shower. The cubicle was cramped and mouldy, the water came out in a frothing dribble, but it was hot and there was complimentary soap in a chalk-paper wrapper and a small tube of shampoo. She washed her hair, so short now that it took barely any time to lather and rinse, and then she stepped out and dried herself with a thin, crusty towel, dressing in fresh underwear and yesterday’s new clothes.
Hanson and Becca were waiting for her across the hall. Kate helped herself to a breakfast roll and a mug of black coffee, then perched on one of the kitchen stools and watched Hanson approach.
His hair was matted and flattened down, his polo shirt creased. He’d propped his spectacles up on top of his head and his eyes were puffy, pupils blown.
He smiled blearily as he laid her new banking cards, driver’s licence and passport on the counter in front of her like he was spreading a deck of playing cards. He added an embossed card containing a National Insurance number as well as a birth certificate. Everything was in the name Kate Elizabeth Ryan.
‘Disappearance 101. Consider this your starter pack.’
‘What about money?’
‘I’ve placed a small amount of funds in a current account for you. Your own cash is shuttling between banks and jurisdictions. Once it’s stable, I’ll send you more details.’
Becca leaned a hip against the kitchen counter. She was freshly made up and dressed in a scooped pink blouse and Capri pants, her hair kinking out in lush brown coils.
‘How are you feeling, honey?’
‘Groggy.’
She winked. ‘And how was last night?’
Kate got what she was really asking but she wasn’t about to play the game. She tore off a chunk of breakfast roll and popped it in her mouth.
‘I slept OK.’
‘Uh-huh. Well, once you’re done eating, I’ve picked out some contact lenses for you to try. Brown tint. Right now, your eyes are kind of a pow. We have to dial them down a couple of notches.’
Kate felt the breakfast roll bulge in her throat. She washed it back with coffee, wondering if there was going to be anything of her left before the day was through.
A door swung back at the far side of the room and Miller stepped out of the bathroom. He had on a blue shirt with white stripes over faded blue jeans. There was a towel coiled round his neck, his hair was damp and his head was tilted to one side as he patted his ear dry.
Kate found herself wondering what he’d look like clean-shaven, with his hair clipped short, dressed in a fitted suit. Then she was struck by the realisation that perhaps he used to groom himself that way. He’d told her that he was in hiding, too, so it stood to reason that he’d need his own disguise. Maybe the mountain-man aesthetic was something Becca was responsible for.
‘Hey, you’re up.’
‘Mm-hmm.’ Kate looked down into her coffee. She could feel a burn in her cheeks.
‘Hanson, do you have the information I asked for?’
‘Hey, Hanson,’ Hanson said, in a pretty good imitation of Miller’s gruff baritone. ‘Great job on Kate’s new ID. I know you haven’t slept, and I’m being totally unreasonable, but why don’t you show me what else you have?’
He circled behind his tables of computers and tapped a key to wake a desktop, then swivelled the monitor for them all to see. Displayed onscreen was a washed-out photograph of the man Kate had shot. She could tell by the gory hole in the man’s throat and the black balaclava rolled up on his forehead.
She set her breakfast to one side.
‘If I’d had a little longer, I’d have more to go on. But this is definitely our guy.’
Hanson hit another button and a fresh image appeared in a new window. He lined the photographs up next to one another. The second image was a side profile of the same man, showing him in a suit and tie, opening the rear door of a dark saloon car in the middle of a city street. It was fuzzy and looked like it had been cropped from surveillance-camera footage.
‘Ooh, he’s cute,’ Becca said, and when everyone turned to her, she added, ‘What? I’m talking about the before image, obviously.’
‘Keep going,’ Miller told Hanson, ‘before she says something distasteful.’
‘His name is Ivan Pavlenko. Russian KGB. An active field agent with multiple kills against his name.’
Kate felt herself teeter on her stool.
‘Nah, just messing with you, Kate.’ Hanson grinned at her stupidly. ‘His real name was Duncan North, an ex-squaddie from Peterborough. Low-level scumbag.’
‘That’s supposed to be funny?’
‘North has served time for GBH. This shot was taken from outside Connor Lane’s central Manchester HQ. North was working a year or two back as a bodyguard for one of Lane’s business associates. Seems he branched out into contract killing. Not very successfully.’
‘Did he have any family?’
‘Survived by a mother and an older brother. No wife. No kids.’
It made Kate feel a little better to hear it. She’d been worrying about that. But still, a mother without a son. A man without a brother. And she was responsible.
‘I checked, by the way.’ Hanson glanced at Miller. ‘North was serving an eighteen-month sentence four years ago. He was locked up when Sarah and Melanie were killed.’
Miller closed his eyes and was silent for a moment. ‘Any concrete link to Lane? Something provable?’
‘I’ll keep looking but it’s unlikely they’ll have been that stupid.’
‘Do it anyway.’
Kate was still reeling but she couldn’t miss the hurt in Miller’s voice. She guessed he was probably haunted by the idea that the man who’d stolen his family from him was still out there, somewhere. She knew she would be.
‘Tell me the rules,’ she blurted, acting on a sudden impulse to distract him from his pain. ‘I’m ready for them now. I have to know what this is going to take.’
Chapter Fourteen
DS Jennifer Lloyd shunted the rusted bolt aside with the heel of her hand and shouldered the ill-fitting door, stepping out on to the flat roof of the National Crime Agency. It offered a spectacular view of St James’s Park and The Mall, but Lloyd headed in the opposite direction, leaning her forearms against the sooty masonry, looking over office buildings and rooftops towards the Thames, Waterloo station and beyond. London was a collision of murky greys and browns, splintered by the mirror-gleam flare of distant skyscrapers.
‘So this is where you sneak off to.’ Foster cupped a hand round her lighter and sparked a cigarette. ‘Young has a pool going. My money was on Commissioner Bennett’s office.’
‘Bad bet.’
‘Except your route up here takes you past Bennett’s office. Perfect for telling tales.’
Lloyd let the barb go, mostly because it was accurate.
‘About Young . . . ’ she began. ‘There’s a reason he’s pushing the theory that Connor Lane is behind whatever just happened on the Isle of Man.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Foster took a draw on her cigarette. ‘It’s because it’s the obvious theory to push.’
‘Maybe. Maybe not.’
‘Seriously? Lane has form for this. The only question is whether we can prove the link.’
‘Which we won’t.’
‘Way to build morale, Lloyd.’
‘I’m just saying what we all already know. Lane wouldn’t take a risk like this unless he was insulated from it.’
‘Just like four years ago.’
Lloyd hummed noncommittally and looked down twelve storeys to where a red double-decker was pulling into a bus stop. Commuters weaved along the pavements, checking phones, carrying coffee cups.
‘I read the file,’ Foster continued. ‘Think what you like about this team but I don’t just rely on hearsay. Young had his version. I wanted to make up my own mind.’
‘And did you?’
‘I did. And I agree with him.’
‘Based on the file.’
‘That’s right.’
Foster’s smoke was getting in Lloyd’s eyes. It was hard to tell if it was deliberate or not.
‘The thing is, the file was incomplete.’
‘I don’t think so. The name Nick Adams cropped up more than once.’
‘But not in one crucial respect.’
The file Foster was referring to was a report compiled by an outside investigation team that Lloyd had been part of four years ago. The team had been tasked with evaluating what, if any, mistakes had been made by the witness protection unit of Greater Manchester Police that might have contributed to the murders of Sarah and Melanie Adams. Nick Adams and his wife and daughter had been scheduled to be taken into witness protection on a temporary basis the morning after Sarah and Melanie were killed. The plan had been to relocate them to a safe house until the conclusion of the rape trial against Russell Lane.
At the time of the family’s planned inclusion in the scheme, Nick Adams had been second-in-command of the witness protection unit run by Greater Manchester Police. This was in the era prior to the co-ordinated, UK-wide approach to witness protection now being undertaken by the National Crime Agency.
DS Young had also been part of the Greater Manchester team, though he’d been a detective constable back then. He’d stayed loyal to his boss, even when Nick Adams had disappeared in the wake of the killings.
‘So what was missing?’ Foster asked.
‘Arguments. Lots of disagreements.’
‘Between you and Young?’
‘Between Nick Adams and his wife. She didn’t want her daughter to testify against Russell Lane. She didn’t want the family to enter witness protection. Adams insisted.’
‘And you know this how, exactly?’
‘By interviewing witnesses. Their neighbours. And I had a handwriting expert take a look at the consent document the family signed. He agreed, on the balance of probabilities, that Nick Adams faked his wife’s signature.’
‘So why wasn’t this in the file?’
‘Good question.’
‘And the answer is?’
‘Sometimes evidence can be unwelcome if it doesn’t tally with an accepted theory. Even if we’re talking about a report by an outside investigative unit.’
‘And you accepted that?’
‘Not for one second.’
‘So what happened?’
‘My additions to the file were excised. And I was exiled. All very neat. Until Commissioner Bennett gave me another chance.’
Foster closed one eye and gestured at Lloyd with her cigarette. ‘You seriously believe there was a cover-up? Isn’t it more likely that Adams vanished because he was broken? That he blamed himself for placing his family in danger? Maybe he began to see that his wife had been right and his daughter shouldn’t have agreed to testify. Or maybe he knew he should have got them protection sooner.’
‘Look, I’m no conspiracy theorist. I get that Connor Lane had plenty of motivation. He had the means. And everyone – including Young – was at pains to tell me that Adams was a good man, that I was crazy for even suggesting he might have cracked and murdered his wife and daughter before using all the skills he’d acquired, and maybe even certain loyal members of his team, to arrange his own disappearance.’
‘But you still believe that’s what happened, don’t you?’
Lloyd pursed her lips and moved her head from side to side, as if there were other arguments to be weighed up. Which, as far as she was concerned, there really weren’t.
‘Doesn’t mean I want to believe it. That’s the part Young doesn’t get.’
Foster took a final hit on her cigarette. ‘So what do you want from me?’
‘I want you to think some more about Kate Sutherland. I want you to consider that issuing an arrest warrant for her might be the way to go.’
‘And if I don’t agree with you?’
‘You will. Eventually. Because I’m going to prove to you that I’m right.’
Chapter Fifteen
‘You’re ready?’ Miller asked.
Kate nodded, watching as he fixed himself a coffee and slid on to the stool next to her. His shirt was damp at the collar and twisted a little. Kate fought the impulse to reach out and straighten it.
‘OK, we let you keep your first name, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Well, that’s about all you get to hold on to. That’s rule number one.’
‘That’s a pretty sweeping rule.’
‘Lawyers. Nearly as bad as actresses.’ He tried a smile that didn’t seem to fit him quite right. ‘Rule two is you don’t contact anyone from your old life. You sever all ties. Family. Friends. Passing acquaintances. They’re all gone. Like they never existed for you.’
‘My family are gone anyway.’
Miller raised an eyebrow and Kate worried that she’d sounded flippant and crass. Then he looked at her some more and she began to sense something behind it. There was a queasy turning in her stomach.
‘We know you’ve been looking, honey.’ Becca stepped closer. ‘We know what we’re asking you to give up.’
‘You were getting close,’ Hanson added.
Kate felt the room begin to tilt and spin. They couldn’t know. Nobody did. She hadn’t told anyone about the search for her birth family – not even the police who’d hidden her before.
‘We’re sorry for you,’ Miller told her. ‘Truly. If there was any other option, we’d offer it to you, Kate. We understand how badly you want to find them.’
She closed her eyes.
‘How do you know?’
‘We’re careful. We know everything there is to know.’
No, not everything, Kate thought. No one but her could know how much it hurt.
Kate had been abandoned by her birth parents outside Cheltenham General Hospital when she was almost nine months old. Soon after, she was taken in by her foster parents, James and Caroline. When Kate turned five, they adopted her, and she grew up happy and privileged in the idyllic setting of their Cotswolds farm estate, but from the day they first told her the truth, shortly after her thirteenth birthday, she’d been plagued by questions about who her real parents might be and why they’d left her. Then, when her adoptive parents were killed in a small-plane crash two years back, she discovered that she’d been willed half their fortune.
Suddenly, Kate was wealthy beyond all reason, but she was grief-struck and rootless. It was only in the past year that she’d summoned the courage to begin searching for her birth parents. Until recently, her attempts had proved fruitless. Then the specialist agency she’d hired had given her one fragment of information to hold on to. Kate had a brother who’d been left at the same time as her. His name was Richard and he was three years older than Kate. But Richard hadn’t been so fortunate. He’d grown up inside the care system, shuttled between a succession of foster parents and children’s homes until, at the age of sixteen, he became a blank. As far as the records were concerned, Richard simply ceased to exist.
Where had he gone? What had become of him? Did he even remember Kate?
She’d spent countless hours thinking about him, speculating about what he might be like, wondering if he knew of her existence, and if he didn’t, whether he somehow sensed her absence from his life, in the same way, she believed, she’d always known that a piece of her was lacking; a hole she couldn’t fill.
Finding her parents had been one thing. There was always the possibility they wouldn’t want to meet with her if she tracked them down because they’d abandoned her once before. But Richard hadn’t made that choice. Neither of them had.
She wanted so much to find him. She had ample money to throw at the problem, and yet a solution had so far eluded her. Now, she was being asked to walk away from the search before she had the answers she craved. She was being asked to walk away from Richard.
‘I’m sorry,’ Miller said again.
And damn if she wasn’t starting to cry.
‘You s
aid I was getting close to finding them?’ She looked up at Hanson.
‘I think so, yes. To your brother, anyway.’
‘Well, that could be dangerous, couldn’t it? Connor Lane could get to him. He could threaten him to get to me.’
‘We don’t think that will happen,’ Miller told her.
‘Lane doesn’t know about Richard,’ Hanson put in. ‘I had to do some serious digging to find out myself. The agency you hired have a first-rate security system. But I’ll monitor the situation. If a crack appears, I’ll fill it. And you should know that I haven’t been able to locate your brother. I’ve tried. If I can’t find him, then Lane can’t either.’
Becca put an arm around her and Hanson smiled awkwardly, looking very young all of a sudden. Kate blinked at Miller, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes.
‘Where will I live?’
‘Europe.’
‘Do I get to pick a place?’
‘That’s rule number three. I choose. At least to begin with.’
‘But not England?’
‘No.’
‘You don’t ask much, do you?’
‘You’ll also need to work. We can’t allow you to access the majority of your funds for the first year. And then we’ll drip feed them. We have to make sure the money’s not being followed. That’s how Hanson found you in the Isle of Man, by the way.’
‘So place me somewhere with an international law firm.’
‘Not an option. You can’t work as a lawyer. You’d be too easy to track. Menial jobs are best. But not anything where you’ll meet lots of people. Being a waitress is bad. Working in a bar or a coffee shop is worse. We’ve had clients work as late-night cleaners in factories or stockrooms. Data input is OK. Basically anything that keeps you away from the public or your face behind a computer terminal.’
Hanson glanced up from behind his laptop. ‘I’m going to choose not to take offence at that.’
Kate had excelled as a lawyer. She’d been on the partnership track at her firm. And now she was being told she had to turn her back on eight years of hard work. To become a cleaner. Or a factory worker. To live in a strange place that was not of her choosing, leaving without saying goodbye to any of her friends or colleagues, giving up the search for her brother and her birth parents.