by Kate Johnson
He did, and when we got out at BBC&H, I told the driver to wait for us with our luggage.
‘Are you crazy?’ Jack said. ‘That’ll cost a fortune –’
‘We won’t be in there long,’ I said, smoothing down my skirt and trying not to think about how much it had cost. ‘Trust me, we won’t.’
He frowned, but followed me in. The lobby was very expensive and tasteful, and I straightened my back and pretended my suit was Gucci and my shoes were Prada. My hair was by Michaeljohn and my make-up Chanel. I was rich and important.
‘May I help you?’ asked the rather immaculate receptionist, and I had no doubt that her designer stuff wasn’t imaginary.
I am wearing Prada, I am wearing Prada, I am wearing Prada …
‘Hi,’ I smiled, channelling Julia Roberts. ‘I need to talk to one of your partners.’ She opened her mouth to tell me they were all very busy, and I added, ‘About Sir Theodore Chesshyre and Irene Shepherd.’
That shut her up.
‘Mr Barton is currently out of the country,’ she said, looking apologetic and even a little afraid, ‘and Mr Holt is in a client meeting in Chelsea …’
‘I believe there are two Bartons here?’
‘Ms Barton is in court for the rest of today,’ the receptionist said, looking at a huge computer screen, annoyingly angled away from us. ‘But she is available tomorrow at … ten a.m.?’
I looked at Jack as if to say, What do you think? He frowned.
‘Ten will make it a bit tight,’ he said. ‘Eleven?’
‘Ten-thirty?’
‘Ten-thirty will do fine.’ I smiled, and turned to leave.
‘Excuse me, miss?’ the receptionist called, and she was nearly smirking. ‘Your name?’
I gave a cool smile. ‘Julia –’ dammit, nearly said Roberts there – ‘Julia Gere.’
‘Oh,’ the receptionist said, ‘of course. Miss Gere.’
‘Ms,’ I snapped. ‘Ten-thirty.’
And I clicked out of the place on my sale-price shoes and got into my waiting taxi.
‘What,’ Jack asked, getting in after me, ‘was that?’
I smiled as elegantly as I could, which is to say a manic cheesy grin, ’cos I was damn pleased with myself. ‘I didn’t take A level Drama for nothing.’
‘Do you do this often?’
‘I’m a little bit out of practice.’
‘I’m impressed.’
I beamed.
‘Where now?’ the driver asked in a bored tone.
I looked at Jack. ‘We could do with somewhere to stay tonight.’ Again, the thought flashed into my mind that I was no more than an hour away from Luke. I shook myself and asked the driver to take us to the nearest chain hotel. He did, we checked in, and I kicked off my heels and flopped onto the bed.
‘Did Luke’s car really get blown up this morning?’ I asked.
Jack nodded, unzipping his bag and taking something large and bulky out. Vallie’s laptop.
‘Did you nick that?’ I asked in amazement.
‘Borrowed it.’
‘With her permission?’
‘Ah, she won’t mind. She’s family.’
I tried to imagine my brother’s reaction if I ‘borrowed’ his computer and took it out of the country without asking. Not pretty.
My stomach growled. It was getting late, and all that acting had made me hungry.
‘Did I see a McDonalds on the way in?’ I wondered out loud.
‘I don’t know. Did you?’
I nodded thoughtfully. ‘You want anything?’
Jack shrugged. ‘Cheeseburger and Coke.’
‘Chips?’
He looked at me blankly.
‘Fries. How long did you spend in Yankland?’
He ignored that. ‘Cheeseburger, fries and a Coke. Do they supersize meals here?’ I nodded. ‘Supersize me.’
So many innuendoes, so little time.
I put my shoes back on and went out into the afternoon. There was a queue at McDonalds, made even longer by me having to wait for my veggie burger. On my way back, I spotted a phone shop and dashed in, bought a couple of phones, and made my way back to the hotel a happy little camper.
‘Food,’ I tossed Jack his meal, ‘and phone.’ I chucked him the box. ‘Don’t throw this one out of a window.’
He looked it over but said nothing, tearing into his food instead. Men.
I looked at him, sprawled on the bed in smart clothes, his tie loose around his neck, the white of the shirt making his skin look very dark. He looked gorgeous. He looked available. He looked like if I took the burger from his hands and kissed him, he wouldn’t ask me to stop.
I finished my meal silently, thinking hard, and when I was done I washed my hands, took the two identical phones out of their boxes and programmed their numbers into each other.
‘Jack,’ I said, and he didn’t reply. ‘Jack?’
He was spread out across the bed, eyes closed, his lashes longer than mine. He was asleep.
I left his phone by the bed, removed the food wrappers and changed silently into my jeans and fleece. I tucked my gun into its hidden holster, my phone and my wallet into my bag, and left.
Chapter Seven
‘You got anything new for me?’
Docherty paused. ‘No.’
‘I don’t like that hesitation, Docherty.’
‘I don’t like that refrigerator you drive, Sharpe, but I don’t complain about it.’
Luke ground his teeth. Outside, the streetlights flashed past, garish in the darkness. Currently he was driving a rental car, all the harder to trace. Sophie’s car was too damn visible, not to mention torturously slow, and it almost certainly had been fitted with a tracker. He’d taken public transport to the airport, carefully ignored the check-in desks where he’d first met Sophie, and hired a Mondeo for twenty-four hours.
After that, he’d change it for a different car, with a different firm. Paranoia died hard.
‘Have you heard from her?’
‘Not lately.’
The really annoying thing about Docherty was that it was impossible to know if he was lying.
‘She’s probably not in France any more,’ Docherty offered.
‘Yeah, no kidding. What the hell is there for her in France?’
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Chesshyre had been shot in London. He lived and worked in London. The sensible place for Sophie to be, if she was trying to get to the bottom of the case, was London. Hell, it was where Luke was.
He’d come begging to 5 for information, but Harrington wouldn’t even see him.
He’d gone to BBC&H, the law firm that had employed both Shepherd and Chesshyre, but they’d remained tightlipped about the entire affair. Seemed someone else had already been enquiring there. On his way out of the law firm’s office, he’d noticed a couple of men who hadn’t been there when he went in, lounging around, looking as if they were poised to run.
Spooks.
Luke had got straight back in his car and turned himself homewards, seething.
London was a big enough place to swallow Sophie. Okay, so it was the most surveillanced city in the world, and not just by CCTV. On every street there were spies from every corner of the globe, watching and monitoring.
She might be able to go to ground here. But would she know how? Would she dare?
‘She should be here,’ he muttered, and Docherty, to his surprise, made a sound of sympathy.
‘You miss her?’
‘Of course I bloody miss her. She’s my girlfriend. It’d be a pretty poor show if I hadn’t noticed she’d gone.’
‘She can take care of herself.’
‘Can she?’
‘Speaking as someone who’s been rendered unconscious by her, yes, she can.’ Docherty paused. ‘You got anything from 5 yet?’
‘Yes. Our friend Harrington is on the case.’
‘Shit.’
‘My sentiments exactly.’
‘I’ll see what I can do. Maybe s
pread some misinformation.’
‘What, like that Sophie’s back in the country?’
Docherty said nothing.
‘Fuck me, Docherty, tell me she’s not back in the country?’
‘I couldn’t tell you where she is,’ Docherty said smoothly.
‘That’s not the same as not knowing, is it?’
‘Not at all.’
The other really annoying thing about Docherty was that he knew more about Luke’s girlfriend than Luke did. He knew where she was. He knew her alias and passport number. He had contacts Luke could only dream of.
You know the scent of her skin and the taste of her lips, he reminded himself, and saw red for a moment as he recalled that Docherty bloody knew those things, too.
‘Call me if you get anything,’ he said dispassionately, and dropped the phone onto the passenger seat.
He knew the scent of Sophie’s skin and the taste of her lips. He knew that in unguarded moments she referred to herself as Tammy’s mummy. He knew that she couldn’t bear milk in coffee and that her hands ached when she was sad. He knew that she was beautiful, intelligent and funny, but that she only believed these things on rare occasions. He knew she was wildly jealous of her brother’s ability to play the guitar and that she loved the smell of cold weather. He knew what she was proud of, and what made her ashamed.
He knew all these things about her, all the things that made her who she was.
But he still had no bloody clue what country she was in.
The flat was in darkness. I looked around carefully before I even turned the corner, but could see no car watching the place. No vehicles outside that didn’t belong to either me or the roofer’s yard below.
A pang of conscience poked at me as I thought about the fate of Luke’s Vectra, but I pushed it aside. Tonight wasn’t about cars.
I crept up the stairs, keeping to the shadows, and was about to punch in the code to disable the alarm when I realised it was offline.
Hell. Did this mean he’d been compromised?
With one hand I took my keys from my bag, and with the other I reached for my SIG. The door swung open silently into darkness.
I could only see by the light from the open doorway and the window. I scanned what I could see of the room before I blocked the light from the door with my shadow. I could see no shapes there that weren’t pieces of furniture.
Cautiously, heart pounding, I eased inside and closed the door as silently as I could. Silence enfolded me, thick and deafening –
– a tiny sound split it –
– and I pressed my hand to my heart in sheer relief.
‘Tammy!’
She came trotting out of Luke’s bedroom, eyes glowing in the dim light from the window. My gun clattered on the kitchen counter as I swung her up into my arms and hugged her close. My precious baby wriggled, squirmed, and then licked my nose.
‘I missed you too, baby,’ I said, hot tears burning my eyes.
Tammy swiped at my neck with her claws. I think that’s the cat version of, ‘I love you, Mummy.’
I let her down and switched on the light. Luke’s flat looked exactly the same as always: neat, classy, devoid of personality. It was a beautiful space, but rather like Luke when I first met him. Desperately in need of someone to create some chaos.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and wondered if I should sweep for bugs. This posed several problems, not least of which was that I had no idea what a bug might actually look like.
Surely Luke would already have done this? Or, given that the alarm was disabled, maybe someone had come back and replanted them. I didn’t know.
I turned a slow circle in the middle of the room. Nothing leapt out at me. I’d been here a good five minutes, and nobody had turned up outside. From here I could see into the bedroom and it, too, looked completely unchanged.
I waved at all four corners of the room. ‘Anybody there?’ I said out loud. ‘Dudes, if you’ve been watching me this long and you haven’t come bursting in with all guns blazing, then you’re not the security service I thought you were.’
No response. Suddenly feeling horribly weary, I picked up my bag and gun and traipsed into Luke’s bedroom.
His furniture in here was as expensive, classic and bland as in the living room, but here I could feel his presence. The slightly rumpled bedclothes. The jacket slung on a chair. By the bed was a paperback of essays on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
I smiled. There was some teasing to be done about that.
The bed smelled of him. Luke wasn’t really one for cologne, but when I laid my head on his pillow I could smell his shampoo and the spicy shower gel he used. I could smell him, the scent of his skin.
I closed my eyes, and breathed him in.
There was a light on in the flat. Luke’s blood ran cold as he saw the warmth spilling out from the window.
Tammy could have stood on the floor switch for the standard lamp, but it wasn’t likely. She barely weighed enough to trigger it.
He parked the car and waited for five cold, agonising minutes. Then he got out, gun in hand, and slipped quickly up the stairs, glancing about as he did. No unfamiliar vehicles. No one lurking in the shadows.
His heart pounded. He ignored it.
He put his key in the lock. Why the hell hadn’t he reset the alarm? The door swung open and light glared out at him. Not the standard lamp. Kitchen lights. The bedroom door was closed and he knew he’d left it open.
Fear turned to a kind of sharp, vicious glee. How careless to leave the light on. He’d got them now. Harrington had sent someone to break in, which might be within his jurisdiction but sure as hell wasn’t something Luke was going to let slide.
Quietly, very quietly, he closed the door behind him, then slid open a kitchen drawer and took out a set of plastic ties. He had handcuffs, but they were in the bedroom. These would do for now.
He padded to the bedroom door, took a breath and let half of it out.
Then he shouldered open the door and aimed his gun at the bed.
‘Game’s up,’ he said. The light from the kitchen illuminated a figure lying on the bed, wrapped in a bulky fleece, head turned away from him. It flinched, but didn’t move.
‘Did Harrington send you?’ he demanded.
‘Don’t shoot me,’ she said, and Luke froze, every muscle in his body paralysed with shock.
She rolled over, hands up in a motion of surrender. ‘Love of God, Luke, don’t let me get this far and then shoot me yourself.’
He stared. The gun clattered on the floor unheeded. His voice came out on a wheeze. ‘Sophie?’
‘Yeah.’ She looked up at him, eyes big and face pale, hair short and unfamiliar. Greedily, he took in every detail he could. Her hair was different, her eyes were darker, and she looked tired, but she was still the same. Still his Sophie.
His heart pounded. She was here. Sophie was here.
It was over.
Sophie stared at him hungrily, and he realised he probably wore the same expression as she did. That of a starving man faced with a big juicy steak. He could barely believe she was real.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Passing through.’
His heart constricted. ‘I thought you were in France.’
‘Change of plan.’
It was hell being this close and not touching her. His fingers twitched with the need to memorise her skin. He ached for her. Questions could bloody wait.
He moved towards the bed and she met him halfway, arms flying around him, lips meeting his. Her soft body pressed against him and he held her tight, keeping her safe from harm. He kissed her, over and over, that amazing kiss which set him on fire, every time.
He came up for air but she kissed him again, which made him smile against her lips. His hands slid under her fleece and caressed her body through her t-shirt. She was hot, and soft, her curves wonderfully familiar.
‘God, I’ve missed you,’ he breathed when she let him go.
&
nbsp; ‘Missed you more. Who’s Harrington?’
He sighed, loosened his hold on her a little bit. ‘The guy who’s after you. MI5. Looks like a puppy dog but he’s more like a pit-bull.’
‘He’s not watching this place, is he? I checked for surveillance but I wouldn’t know a bug if it came up and bit me.’
He’d spent months trying to teach her. ‘No. I hacked the bugs, they’re showing looped footage when I’m not here. And I’m driving a rental car so it’s harder to track.’
Sophie bit her lip. Her plump, luscious lip.
‘What?’ Luke asked guardedly.
‘Erm, about your car …’
‘You didn’t leave it in France, did you? How did you get here?’
‘Train.’
‘Because …?’
‘Your car kind of got slightly blown up this morning.’
Luke blinked. She offered him a contrite, I’ll-make-it-up-to-you smile.
‘Slightly?’
‘Well, totally. Took out another car with it.’
Luke sat down on the bed, hard. ‘You got my car blown up?’
She bit her lip again. ‘Well, Jack might have got it blown up …’
‘Jack?’ Another reason to hate the bastard. ‘Where is he?’
‘London.’
‘You came here alone?’
She nodded, looking down at him anxiously.
Luke ran his hands through his hair and asked the question he’d been dreading. ‘Why?’
Sophie sat down beside him and leaned her body against his. She stroked his cheek with one finger. ‘To see you.’
Not because it’s over. God bloody dammit.
Luke put his arms around her and held her very close. ‘You know you shouldn’t have?’
‘I know.’
He sighed and kissed her neck, just below the ear. ‘How long can you stay?’
Sophie closed her eyes. ‘Long enough.’
I left him sleeping, looking twice as beautiful as Jack ever would, got dressed out in the living room where he wouldn’t hear me, and left, kissing Tammy a tearful goodbye. Luke had explained that he’d made an emergency exit in the cupboard, and I dropped down into the roofer’s warehouse.
‘Blimey, love,’ said one of them as I hit the ground and stepped on a bunch of pallets to replace the cover. ‘Something wrong with the front door?’