by Kate Johnson
I sat and drummed my fingers on the desk, then I typed in an Internet address and downloaded a new program we used to use at the airport. With this program, I started checking flights to Hartford, Connecticut, around the time of the murder. I ran a search on all airlines for Docherty, Michael. I’d travelled with him before and he’d used his real name then. But then he hadn’t had any reason to hide.
It couldn’t be Docherty. Surely I hadn’t slept with a murderer?
There were no matches, but then that didn’t prove anything. He obviously had no problem with fake passports.
I drummed my fingers a bit more, then, just for a laugh, typed in the names of the six people I’d sent to prison. Nothing there either.
Sighing, I went back to the BBC&H files and started cross-referencing Sir Theodore and Irene’s cases again, saving all the names in a Word file, then searching for them on the flight database.
‘Neat,’ Rachel said from the doorway, making me jump. ‘Where’d you find that?’
‘What?’
‘That program.’
‘SO17. Used to use it a lot. Actually it’s just a flight database we used to use at the airport.’
She nodded seriously. ‘Anything useful?’
‘No. I looked up Docherty, but he hasn’t flown to the States in a while.’
‘Maybe he used a fake name.’
‘Maybe.’
Rachel chewed her lip. ‘I’m sorry if I said too much about you and Docherty. Angel hardly tells me anything about him. Just tiny little bits that slip out.’
I looked back at her, standing in the light and warmth of the hallway, a little girl with skinny legs and a sweatshirt too big for her.
‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘It’s not a secret.’
She visibly relaxed. Sometimes I forget Rachel is just a child. ‘Who is he? Docherty?’
I shrugged. He was a former colleague of Luke’s, but in what capacity neither of them would tell me. I guessed SAS purely from his skill level. When I met him he was working in private security, which probably meant he knew where to hide bodies. He carried a matching pair of Heckler Koch .45s, and had a taste for theatrical cars. I’d only ever seen him wear black, apart from that one occasion I saw him wear nothing at all. He wasn’t above blackmail to get what he wanted, and although he’d never threatened me physically, I didn’t expect he’d think too hard about it if it would get him what he wanted. He made Luke look like the Good Angel.
He was a man of many talents, and just as many secrets. I had no idea what I actually meant to him, and if I ever thought about how much I ought to be able to trust him I frightened myself, because the answer was, against all my best instincts: not at all.
Rachel was still waiting for an answer. I told her as lightly as I could, ‘He could be Batman for all I know.’
‘Batman’s lame,’ Rachel said, standing on one foot and hanging onto the doorframe. ‘Has to wear a special suit to do anything. Buffy could save the world in a cheerleading uniform.’
‘Buffy sucked at cheerleading, remember?’
‘Only because of a spell,’ Rachel said dismissively.
I smiled at her, and she smiled back. Sweet kid.
Then she spoiled it all by asking, ‘So how close are you to him?’
I raised my eyebrows and tried not to blush. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You think he’d tell you what he was doing at BBC&H?’
I rolled my eyes and tried to sound like a mature, competent adult. ‘Rachel, if he really had framed me, do you think he’d tell me the truth about that? Anyway. There should be client notes or something in this system.’
‘Not that I could find.’
Which probably meant they were unfindable. I’ve really got to stop surrounding myself with such superlative people. It makes me feel very inadequate.
Teresa appeared behind her granddaughter. ‘I’m making dinner,’ she said. Her eyes flickered over the data on the screen. ‘It’ll be about an hour.’
I nodded and thanked her, and she took Rachel away to help peel carrots.
I turned back to my notes, and started the long, slow process of searching for each name on my list within the flight database. It took ages, because it could only search for one at a time, and I was searching for all flights into and out of Hartford. Then out of London – all airports. Each search took forever.
It didn’t help a lot that some of the appointments were just for J. Anderson or Mrs Beech or JB Finchley Esq. No first names. So many variables.
Gramps Cortes returned home from work, waved a vague hello and switched on the TV in the next room. I ate dinner with the family and made an attempt at polite conversation. Gave Rachel a hug goodnight and thanked Teresa once more for taking me in.
She regarded me with calm, dark eyes, and nodded. ‘Anything for a friend of Rachel’s,’ she said, and she was so damn inscrutable I had no idea if she was being sincere or not.
I stifled a yawn and went back to the computer screen. No new matches found.
‘Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way,’ I said to myself, pulling the keyboard toward me. ‘Maybe it’s not someone who came into contact with them together. Maybe it’s just coincidence that they worked at BBC&H together.’
I closed my eyes, the enormity of it hitting me. Maybe it was someone who knew Sir Theodore through MI5, and Irene through an American connection. After all, she was a lawyer over here for ten years before she went to England, and she’d been a Supreme Court Judge for five years, too.
That made a hell of a lot of people to work through.
My back ached, my eyes were dry, my brain throbbed with overuse. I wanted to just give up. Let them take me. This was all too hard.
I allowed myself precisely five minutes to wallow, then pulled myself together and angled the keyboard closer.
‘So then, Sophie girl. Where’d you want to start?’
It never failed to amaze Luke how Sophie could sleep through all sorts of noises in the middle of the night. Even when something woke her, she’d dismiss it as the house settling down, the ancient boiler, or Tammy.
Consequently, when he slept at her flat, he woke a dozen times a night. The place was noisy as hell. That damn boiler for one thing, creaking and groaning its way through the night like an old man complaining about his joints. He’d buy her a new one, if he didn’t think she’d refuse out of some kind of middle-class pride.
Then there was Tammy, who made an astonishing amount of noise for such a small cat. Thumping onto the floor from some high perch, knocking over books or clattering stacks of CDs, bringing in live mice which she let loose, squeaking in terror, to run around the living room and once, memorably, the bed. Squalling with another cat outside.
So when he woke to hear her low growl he initially dismissed it. Just the Tamster picking on another cat twice her size outside the window.
Except she couldn’t be outside the window, because he wasn’t at Sophie’s. He didn’t have a cat flap. His flat was watertight.
Except for the trapdoor. And Tammy couldn’t have opened that herself.
He came awake, alert, and opened his eyes very slowly.
The growl came from the doorway and he could make out the small shape of Tammy, back arched, fur bristled out, growling at something unseen in his living room.
Very slowly, very quietly, Luke reached for his gun. Beneath him a bedspring creaked and he held his breath, but there was no sound from the living room. No sounds at all, anywhere in the flat, apart from Tammy growling.
Achingly slowly, he gained his feet and crept to the door. It didn’t creak. He could open it silently, although the change in light might alert whoever was in the living room.
Stop being ridiculous, Luke. She’s probably just growling at a random shadow. She’s a cat, not a guard dog.
But every beat of his heart told him something was wrong.
He inched the door open, leading with his gun, and something clattered in the kitchen
.
Luke shoved out of his bedroom in time to see a figure bolting for the door. He squeezed off a round, but the figure – swathed in black, moving silently – threw itself into a roll, using the counter for cover. The bullet buried itself in a cupboard, and he heard glass shattering.
He leapt for the other side of the counter but the figure in black was already diving for the front door, whirling back on itself and raising an arm. Metal glinted in the moonlight and Luke hurled himself to the floor, but not before burning pain pierced his body and he fell, agony overwhelming him.
Chapter Ten
I was woken by my phone ringing. Luke.
But when I rolled over and peered groggily at the display, it wasn’t his name. It wasn’t anyone’s name. A UK mobile number.
Cold fear flashed through me. Harrington.
I jabbed at the screen until it went silent, then chucked it under the bed and pulled the covers over my head.
‘Ambulance,’ said a voice.
Luke stirred. Something hurt. Something hurt a lot.
‘Postcode: Charlie Mike Two Four …’
Someone was reading out his address. Someone was also pressing hard on his shoulder, which hurt like buggery.
‘Gunshot wound, upper chest, male, mid-thirties.’
‘Early thirties,’ Luke corrected, but his voice came out as a mumble.
‘Sharpe? He’s awake. Listen to me, can you breathe? Take in a deep breath?’
He tried. It hurt. Everything hurt. But he’d been in pain before. He took as deep a breath as he could manage, and let it out again. A woman knelt above him, unfamiliar, her face dark in the unlit room.
‘Do it again.’
‘F’koff,’ Luke mumbled, but he took another deep breath. Checking for punctures of the lung. ‘Breathing’s fine,’ he said, making an effort to be clear.
‘No … no, we can handle that.’ She was talking into her phone again. All that breathing effort gone to waste. ‘No … I’m overriding you. Because I’m MI5. Just send that bloody ambulance, would you?’
She put the phone away. Luke stared up at her, thoroughly confused. Who the hell was she? Had she been the dark figure shooting at him?
Wait, Luke. Be logical. She just told you who she is. MI5 might sneak in and snoop around but they wouldn’t shoot you in a panic.
Probably.
‘Sharpe,’ she said. ‘I’m Sunita Sakib. I’m with MI5. You’ve been shot. Did you see the intruder?’
He attempted to sit up. Failed. Sunita Sakib pushed him back down again by means of pressing hard on his shoulder. His vision swam.
‘I don’t think it’s fatal but there’s no point aggravating it. Stay down and keep calm. My partner is searching for the intruder. We have more men on the way. Did you see the intruder?’
He shook his head. Nodded. ‘Saw someone. In the kitchen.’ He rolled his head in that direction but couldn’t see over the counter. He saw Tammy, however, sitting on the work-surface looking down at him with an expression of polite curiosity.
‘Male or female?’
Luke shook his head. ‘Couldn’t tell. Bent over the counter. Black hat, jacket.’ He paused to think. The figure had been neither large nor small, and had moved too fast for him to discern a single feature. ‘White.’ But it had been dark. ‘Maybe Asian.’ Which narrowed the field massively.
She nodded, lifting her hand to check the bleeding. Shoulder wound. Could be messy. Likely broke, or at least chipped, the bone. Bullet could still be lodged there.
Facts. Recall facts. ‘Knew how to handle a gun,’ he told Sunita. ‘How to dive. Forces. Maybe Service.’
‘A professional.’ Her lips thinned. ‘Are you currently on anyone’s hit list?’
‘Dull day when I’m not.’
That earned a glimmer of a smile. Luke shivered, but then he didn’t consider this surprising, since he was wearing boxers and the shredded remains of a t-shirt, which Sunita appeared to have ripped off him.
He heard a siren approach. Fabulous. Crappy ambulance beds, people poking at him, the stench of disinfectant. He hated hospitals.
‘Sunita?’ he said as the siren grew louder and he heard voices outside. Her men.
‘Yes?’
‘Could you get me some damn clothes?’
I slept late, woken eventually by the chiming of the front-door bell. It took me a while to figure out where I was, and by the time I’d worked it out, the bedroom door had been pushed open and Rachel bounded in, holding a package that was nearly as big as she was. It was covered in ‘Fragile’ stickers and express labels.
‘Special delivery,’ she said, placing it carefully on the bed next to me. I blinked at my name on the label, and then I smiled.
‘Very, very special,’ I said. ‘Thank you for bringing it up. Now bugger off.’
‘Aw come on, let me see!’
‘It’s not for childish eyes,’ I said. ‘Your grandmother would crucify me.’
Grumpily, she left, but I knew she would be loitering outside the door. I ripped open the package and, using the lid of the box to shield the contents, took out a carefully packaged gun and a full case of ammunition. My beloved SIG. Yeah, I know I’m scared of it, but Luke got me this gun. It’s like his version of a diamond necklace. In an envelope attached to it was a licence for the SIG, in Alice Maud’s name.
‘Docherty, I think I love you,’ I said, kissing the document.
‘I heard that!’ crowed Rachel from outside, and I went pink, even though no one could see me.
I went even pinker when I tucked the licence back inside the envelope and realised there was a note inside. In thick black handwriting, it read, ‘Now you really owe me.’
Gulp.
Someone knocked on the door and it opened to reveal Teresa with a cup of coffee. She handed it to me and I gave her a look of adoration. Some people have alcohol addictions. Some people do drugs. I do coffee.
‘Is that a gun?’ Teresa asked, eyes widening.
‘Yes – but don’t worry, I’m not going to shoot anyone,’ I reassured her.
‘I don’t usually let Harvey bring his gun in the house,’ she said. ‘I don’t want them near Rachel.’
‘How about I put it in the car?’ I suggested. ‘In the boot. The trunk. Locked.’
She looked troubled. ‘It’s not that I don’t trust you –’
‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘I understand.’ I wouldn’t want Rachel anywhere near a gun either.
Reluctantly, she nodded. I nodded in return, and closed the lid on the box, pushing it to the far side of the bed as Rachel sidled in.
She handed me a sheaf of paper. ‘The computer found some more matches overnight,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if these names mean anything to you?’
I looked them over. Sarah Wilde, JD Phelps, Robert King, Martin Colvin.
‘Nope. What were they matched with?’
‘The first three are people Theo had appointments with who’ve flown to America at the right time. Colvin was already over here, but he flew back just after. And Wilde came over here the day before Irene was shot, then went back to London the day after.’
Our eyes met. ‘You found anything else on her yet?’
‘It’s still searching.’
I thanked them both and Teresa shepherded Rachel out so I could get dressed, which I did in jeans and a t-shirt. Then I fastened on the shoulder brace Docherty had thoughtfully included, tucked my SIG into it, and fastened my hoodie over the top.
I considered myself from all angles in the mirror. The gun was a smaller, lightweight version of the piece Luke carried. For a semi-automatic, it was fairly unobtrusive. I couldn’t detect the shape of it under my clothes.
I slipped my trainers on, took the gun case out to the car, ostentatiously waving it at Teresa as I passed her, and locked it in the boot.
Sorted.
Rachel was frowning at the computer screen when I went into the den.
‘Seriously, don’t you go to school?’
‘I told them I was sick.’
‘Rachel, you can’t keep skiving off like this.’
She turned big brown eyes on me. ‘Skiving? Is that, like, a British word, or, like, an old word?’
‘British,’ I said, stung by the ‘old’ comment. ‘Teenagers say it. Got anything on Sarah Wilde?’
‘Nope.’
‘Well –’
‘Nothing at all. It’s like she doesn’t exist.’
‘But that doesn’t mean anything. I can never find myself on the Internet and I’m pretty sure I exist.’
To demonstrate, I typed my name into the search box and waited.
Not a single thing came up. Not one thing. This was weird, since I knew I had profiles on various social networking sites, fan pages and even on the bookshop’s website.
I searched for myself on Facebook: nothing. I found my brother’s profile, and Angel’s, both of which were empty of any mentions of me.
I stared, shocked. MI5 had just erased me.
‘You were saying?’ Rachel raised an eyebrow.
‘Yes, well, obviously before I became an international fugitive.’
You have to admit, that sounded kind of cool.
Rachel typed a few things and came up with the news stories about Sir Theodore. I wasn’t named on any of them, but she pieced together tiny bits of info to produce a profile that sounded a heck of a lot like me.
‘The ex-government operative, former airport worker … formerly a video rental clerk … used to work in a lab … in a stationery shop … How many jobs have you had?’
‘A few, all right?’
‘But you’re …’ she cocked her head. ‘Says on your passport you’re twenty-eight.’
‘Says on my passport my name is Alice.’
‘How old are you?’ Rachel asked, peering at me as if I was a museum piece. Exhibit: Sophie Green, 12thC, believed oldest in existence.