by Eva Hudson
“Sure. What do you want to know?” Ingrid heard Mike’s fingers stabbing his keyboard.
“How many agents work there. How many civilian staff.”
Mike made a lame attempt at humming hold music. “Okay. Got it. Two agents. Nothing about civilians, but what do you reckon? An office manager, a couple of clerks?”
Ingrid’s nostrils flared as she sucked in air. “Sounds about right. Thanks, Mike.”
“What, that’s it?”
“Uh-huh. That’s all.”
“How disappointingly straightforward.”
“I can only apologize.”
They said their goodbyes and Ingrid got to her feet. She pushed aside the net drapes and looked out at the black expanse of Hyde Park, hemmed in by the orange streetlights of the surrounding thoroughfares. Her breath misted briefly on the glass. She didn’t even feel the need to check that DeWalt’s posting to the tiny Burlington RA coincided with Libby’s tenure in the same five-person office. She knew it did.
DeWalt had been the one who’d left that file on the system. He had set the trap, and as soon as he knew she was digging around into Mulroony’s disappearance, he had installed his old contact from Burlington to spy on her. Ingrid shuddered: Libby’s deletion of her voicemail about the license plate hadn’t been accidental.
Ingrid looked at her phone. Sol still hadn’t called.
23
Sunrise was at five thirty-eight. The high-rise Hilton cast a rectangular shadow over the greening expanse of the park. Overhead, the lights of descending passenger planes tracked west to Heathrow, crossing the milky sky at regular intervals. Ingrid blinked at the view. She had barely slept. But on the plus side, she had come up with a plan.
She opened the closet and pulled out her running gear. She had eight miles to figure out if her plan was any good. Ingrid secured the arm band that held her phone tight over her bicep, then stopped. If DeWalt was Skylark, and he knew she was onto him, the phone was a bad idea. She glanced over at her fitness tracker charging on the dressing table. That was probably a bad idea, too. She swiped a bottle of water from the minibar and slid a bank card and the rectangular plastic room key into the waist pocket of her running shorts.
A copy of that day’s Sun newspaper was on the hallway floor. Ingrid hadn’t ordered a paper, and if she had, it wouldn’t be a tabloid filled with celebrities she didn’t know and sports she didn’t follow. She bent down to check which room really had requested it, and saw the handwritten note.
Tonight. Connaught bar. 9 p.m.
Whoever had written it had circled the word ‘Sun’ in several heavy rings of ink. Ingrid checked the corridor, made sure it was empty, then headed for the stairs. She left by the tradesman’s exit and slipped into the back streets of Mayfair. When she came to a trash can a few blocks away, she ditched the newspaper, but not before taking one last look at the message.
With no phone and no watch, Ingrid had no music to accompany her run. Instead, she paid attention to the city as it yawned into life. Garbage trucks prowled the alleys as shutters were rolled up and doors unlocked. She ran east, past an almost empty Trafalgar Square, past the High Court toward St. Paul’s cathedral, and then on to the Tower of London. For the first two miles, she checked behind her, making sure she wasn’t being tailed. Satisfied the early start and the lack of a phone meant she was on her own, she powered on. When the fatigue entered her legs at the five-mile mark, she started smiling. Pushing her body, knowing it could still do what she asked of it, was an endorphin kick like no other. She was going to be in great shape when the Laussat docked in two days’ time.
Ingrid wasn’t entirely sure of her route, but an occasional glimpse of the river between the buildings reassured her she was heading in the right direction. When the corporate skyscrapers of Docklands loomed over the low-rise Victorian housing stock, she knew she only had another couple of miles to go.
By the time she reached the Royal Docks, it was six fifty-five. A coffee cart outside a Docklands Light Railway station had just opened up, and she stopped for a long black and a pain au chocolat. She walked the rest of the way to West Park, keen for her body to cool down before she took up residence on the dewy lawn.
Ingrid circumnavigated the small park as she sipped her coffee. The posters for Mason Stebbings were now a little sun-bleached, and it seemed they had multiplied either out of desperation or hope. Almost certainly the former: it was now four days since the lad had gone missing, and the odds weren’t good for his safe return.
Ingrid walked slowly past number thirty-six. The drapes were still drawn at the upstairs bedroom window, but the light was on downstairs. The house occupants were just waking up. She hoped her timing would coincide with the school run.
During her restless night, Ingrid decided to assemble as much evidence as possible before accusing DeWalt of being Skylark. His blemish-free resumé and recent promotion meant she’d need concrete proof before she would get anyone in the bureau to listen. Her plan was to find a link between DeWalt and each of Mulroony’s photographs. She was starting with the image of the three colored Post-its.
West Park was no bigger than a third of a football field. Along its southern edge was a road separating the grass from the dock, and on the other three sides were rows of almost identical houses clad in charred timber set at different distances back from the sidewalk. It looked almost haphazard, but their front gardens with raised planters burgeoning with big-leaved statement plants gave the houses a unified look. The gardens were so uniform they must have been planted by whoever built the properties. The whole place had a corporate but slightly hipsterish vibe, as if Starbucks designed homes.
The sun nudged above the roofline and thrust its first morning rays onto the far corner of the park. Ingrid’s sweat-cooled skin needed the heat: it might be an hour or two before anyone emerged from number thirty-six. To avoid suspicion, and getting cold, Ingrid started a bodyweight workout in the growing triangle of sunshine. Tricep curls against a wooden bench, chin-ups using the branch of a cherry tree, bunny jumps over the low perimeter fence. She was on her fourth repetition of reverse angle press ups when she sensed movement at number thirty-six.
The front door opened inward. Whoever was leaving was obscured by the dramatic shrubbery. She waited, arms straight in a plank position, for them to take the handful of steps to the sidewalk.
A mixed-race male. Thirties. Six feet or thereabouts. Suit. A bounce in his step.
Ingrid’s eyes widened, then she looked down at the grass to hide her face. She was so shocked she couldn’t maintain the plank. Her elbows buckled and she collapsed onto the lawn. She craned her neck to make sure.
It was definitely him.
What the hell was Sam Sherbourne doing there?
Ingrid took her time getting back to the Hilton. She lingered in West Park for another hour and watched as two teenage boys left for school and a woman she presumed was their mother jump in a Tesla and drive off in the direction of the city. Then she picked up another coffee from the same vendor and started walking back toward Central London. When the roads snarled into a busy intersection that resembled spilled spaghetti, she flagged down a black cab.
She stared out of the window at the blur of streets, computing the significance of Sherbourne’s departure from number thirty-six. Ingrid was sure Sherbourne had said he had a young baby. She could almost visualize the photo of the little boy in a frame on his desk. Hadn’t he even said something the other day about the baby having had a bad night? She was damn sure that when the final occupant had left thirty-six West Park earlier that morning, a baby had not been abandoned inside its walls. What was his relationship with Lisa O’Shaughnessy? It wasn’t just Sherbourne’s ethnicity that made it unlikely the white-skinned teenagers she’d watch slope off to school were his. He would have barely been out of high school himself when those boys were born.
Sam Sherbourne was the bureau’s Russian intelligence specialist in London. If he was Skylark, not only did it mea
n the Kremlin had a well-placed asset, it would call into question all the advice he had given the bureau during his tenure. It would be devastating for US counterintelligence.
After a long shower at the Hilton, Ingrid arrived at the embassy a little before nine thirty, intent on gathering evidence on Sherbourne. She marched through the lobby heading for the stairs, but something pulled her back. Curious, she returned to the bank of elevators. A sign had been taped next to the call button.
Circuit fault identified
Do not press 6 and then a lower floor.
If you need the 6th floor, wait until all other levels have been selected before pressing 6.
Press 6 last.
Specialist attending soon.
Ingrid read it several times, then headed slowly for the stairs. So that’s why she had missed her meeting with Andy Scott. That’s why they had been trapped for six hours. Had DeWalt known about the fault? Why would he deliberately stop her from meeting Andy Scott?
Ingrid leaned against the wall in the stairwell, unready to enter the Attaché Program offices. She had to think. She couldn’t trust Sherbourne, she couldn’t trust DeWalt and she definitely didn’t trust Libby Greenwood. Ingrid glanced up at the door to the fifth floor. She needed to walk in there calmly, she needed to do her day job, and she needed to gather evidence.
The lack of sleep was already catching up with her. It was possible the run and the workout were too much. She was mentally and physically low and the prospect of testifying for the defense was weighing on her more than she had realized. She breathed in through her nose and pressed her back into the cool wall. Dig deep, kiddo. Dig deep.
Ingrid pushed herself to standing and climbed the remainder of the stairs. She walked the short corridor toward the bullpen where Sam Sherbourne appeared to be waiting for her.
“Can we talk?” He seemed nervous.
Ingrid popped her head inside the Criminal Division office. She smiled at Libby.
“Not in there,” she said.
“I agree,” he said, his voice barely louder than a whisper. “After work? The Golden Lion? On King Street?”
Ingrid nodded. She had to be at the Connaught at nine. “Eight o’clock?”
He pressed his lips together sheepishly. “See you there.”
Ingrid watched as he slunk off to the CT office, then rolled her shoulders back, filled her lungs, and plastered a smile on her face. “Morning, Libby. Sorry I’m late.” She threw her bag under her desk. “What have you got for me?”
“Good morning, Ingrid.” Libby picked up a notebook and stood up. She leaned against the edge of her desk. “Okay, let me see.” She reeled off a list of requests from field offices around the States as Ingrid logged on and scrolled through her emails. One from Deputy Director Aziz at the National Crime Agency marked URGENT made her heart beat in double time. Ingrid didn’t hear anything else Libby said as she scanned it quickly, barely daring to breathe. She made a fist and punched the air with relief. Nothing had gone wrong. Aziz was merely informing all participants of Operation Pinball that the Secretary of State for Justice would be present for a photo op. Perhaps the macho Andy Scott thought an image of him in SWAT gear could replace the boxing photo in his next election leaflet.
The good news was that, if it was like every other sting operation Ingrid been part of, there would be plenty of sitting around doing nothing. And that meant she would get her ten minutes with Scott after all.
24
Ingrid smiled as she entered and looked around. No one appeared to be waiting for her, so she took a stool at the bar. The Connaught was one of those five-star, maybe even six-star, hotels that you only found in European capitals. Unobtrusive, elegant, demure. Low, soft lights and a dark interior of leather and satin made walking into the hotel’s bar like walking into a black and white movie.
Ingrid wore a ruched black silk blouse, figure-hugging slacks that were a little warmer than was ideal, and open-toed sandals. She had been slightly overdressed for her drink with Sam Sherbourne in the Golden Lion pub, but was now a notch or two below the Connaught standard. She pushed her hair behind her ear and caught the eye of the bartender who was fixing a pair of whisky sours.
“Excuse me.”
A man on a stool halfway down the bar turned to her. He had the taut, tanned skin that only money can buy.
“Have you got the time?”
He was annoyed to have been asked and twisted his arm to reveal a Breitling timepiece. “Five to nine.”
He had already returned to his younger, female consort by the time Ingrid said ‘thank you’. She had left her watch and her phone in her hotel room as a precaution against surveillance. She was relieved she wasn’t late for her rendezvous.
“What can I get you?” The bartender had a thick Spanish accent and a tiny splash of something—Angostura bitters? Campari?—on the cuff of his otherwise immaculate white shirt.
Ingrid had already had a beer with Sherbourne, but ordering another in such elegant surroundings seemed almost disrespectful. “Dirty vodka martini, please. Dry.”
She watched him work while she processed what she’d learned from Sherbourne, replaying their conversation word for word. His opening gambit had been: ‘Did DeWalt send you?’ and that had thrown her. Sherbourne told her he had noticed someone exercising in the park as he’d left number thirty-six, and after he’d rounded the corner in the direction of the station, he’d doubled back. His girlfriend, Lisa, was looking for a personal trainer and he assumed the woman he’d seen in the park was waiting for a client and planned to ask for a business card. When he’d realized it was Ingrid, he’d been too shocked to say anything.
Ingrid had played dumb. “Why would DeWalt send me?”
“Come on, don’t pretend you don’t know.”
“I’m not pretending.”
In the ten minutes that followed, Ingrid reassessed her prediction that Sherbourne was a future director of the FBI. Not only was he cheating on his wife with whom he had just had his first child, but he was cheating on her with his boss’s ex. Lisa O’Shaughnessy had reclaimed her maiden name after her divorce from Jacob DeWalt.
Ingrid tried not to make moral judgements about other people’s marriages—there was always another side to the story—but the six-month-old baby thing, and the boss’s very recently ex-wife thing, seemed like two dubious moral judgement calls from the man who had downed a whisky at the bar before bringing their beers to the table.
“I had no idea.” She sounded genuine because she really hadn’t had a clue. “And if DeWalt suspects—”
“He knows.”
“Well, he wouldn’t ask me to spy on you. He’d get one of his golf buddies.” She looked him square in the eye. “I promise you, I didn’t know. DeWalt never said a thing.”
Sherbourne’s dark brown eyes narrowed. “For real? I thought you two were tight. Not tight tight, I didn’t think there was anything going on, but I thought you were friends.”
“What gave you that idea?”
Sherbourne’s mouth crinkled. “Dunno. Guess he’s been talking about you a lot lately.”
That was new information. “Must be because I left him such dreadful handover notes.”
Sherbourne wasn’t buying it. “Maybe he’s sweet on you.”
“Ew.” It was an involuntary reaction.
“I mean, you could do way better.”
It was the kind of intimate talk Ingrid tried to avoid with co-workers.
“So, what were you doing there?” Sherbourne asked to fill the silence.
Ingrid had prepared a cover story for that question. “You’re not the only one who’s dating, you know.”
“You’re also seeing someone who lives on that square?” Sherbourne was incredulous. “What are the chances?”
“No, not the square. The other side of the dock.” She hoped she sounded convincing. “I just ended my run there. Perfect spot for a warm down.”
Sherbourne’s forehead crinkled. “Which complex?�
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It was a question Ingrid hadn’t anticipated. She tried to picture the buildings she had seen from the dockside. “One of those warehouses on the water.”
He jutted out his lower jaw. “That’s where DeWalt lives. He says it’s to be near the boys, but he could almost have a telescope aimed at Lisa’s bedroom window.”
“Well, I promise you I am one hundred percent not dating DeWalt,” she told him.
The bartender placed an ice-cold martini glass in front of Ingrid. The olive brine swirled through the vodka, making the transparent drink seem gelatinous. She took a sip and let the salt rest on her lips before swallowing. She checked the paper coaster under her glass, half expecting a message. There was none. She looked around the bar, but no one was looking back at her. She would have to be patient. In the meantime, she had the consolation of having connected DeWalt to one of Mulroony’s photographs. He had lived at 36 West Park at the time the photographs were taken.
A bowl of complimentary almonds was placed next to her glass, though she was aware the price of the cocktail had been sumptuously inflated to absorb the cost of the ‘free’ bar snacks. Ingrid was never sure if it was the done thing to eat an olive in a dirty martini, but as she got closer to the bottom of the glass, it became more and more of an impediment to draining it. She eased it off the cocktail stick with her teeth and pressed it against the roof of her mouth with her tongue, pressing out the tangy brine.
“Another?” the bartender asked.
Ingrid looked at her glass. It was two-thirds empty. “No, thank you.” She’d been drinking too fast for the vodka and vermouth to have made their way to her cognitive function, but after the beer she’d already had, it was wise to slow down. “But a glass of ice water would be wonderful.”
The bartender swiftly placed the water in front of her before answering a phone call. Ingrid had just popped another almond into her mouth when the bartender handed her the phone. “It’s for you.”