by Eva Hudson
“Okay, now I’m a teensy bit intrigued.”
“They’ve all been made from the middle of Parliament Square.” Ingrid looked again at her screen. “You know what I want you to do now?”
Penny’s expression suggested deep thought. “No. Remember, I’m new to this.”
“I want you to request all the CCTV footage for Parliament Square at…” She looked back to the previous page of the report, “at three-oh-five this afternoon. There must be a hundred cameras there—it’s right by the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, New Scotland Yard. Downing Street is just a few yards away—because one of them must, must, have caught whoever made this call.”
“Okay. How do I do that?”
Ingrid blinked slowly. She needed to be patient. She got up, went to Penny and showed her the list of contact numbers and access codes. As she was talking her through the protocols, she saw the website on Penny’s screen.
“What’s that?”
“I, um, I googled that number you just gave me. It belongs to this pub.”
Ingrid recognized the name of the pub. She had heard it recently. The Green Goblin. Why the heck was that ringing a bell? Ingrid’s jaw fell. A sigh sank out of her mouth. It was the pub Wayne Burridge had spent the afternoon in. She gripped her scalp with both hands.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “I need to speak to Scotland Yard.”
“Why?” Penny asked.
Ingrid clenched her teeth as she recalled Burridge’s cockiness. Wiping the smirk from his face had just become her new mission. “Ah.”
“What?”
Ingrid was still holding her head. “I also need to speak to Sam Sherbourne, don’t I?”
“Do you?” Penny was lost, unable to follow Ingrid’s thoughts.
Sam had been in the Green Goblin all afternoon too, hadn’t he? Ingrid’s mind flashed back to seeing him in West Park. Her mouth contorted with a silent scream. He was their goddamn Russia expert.
Penny rolled her chair to face Ingrid. “What’s going on?”
Marsha appeared in the doorway. “I was about to ask the same thing.”
Ingrid beckoned her in. She closed the door behind her. Marsha held up a six pack of Michelob, the brown bottles glistening with condensation. “Found them in the fridge in my office. Guess they must be DeWalt’s.” She set them down on Ingrid’s desk, popped a cap on the edge, and offered the bottle to Ingrid.
“No.” Ingrid shook her head.
“Penny?”
“I haven’t drunk beer since college.” Penny didn’t take her eyes off Ingrid.
Marsha took a pull on her beer, saw Penny’s fixation on Ingrid, and realized she had interrupted something. “What is it, Ingrid? I know that face.”
Ingrid filled her in on the lines of inquiry. The call to the Green Goblin. The CCTV in Parliament Square, Burridge, the phone number in Florida, but with every sentence that left her mouth she sounded more and more demoralized. “This is a week’s work for a team. Unless we get lucky with the CCTV. And even if we do, we still have to actually find him.”
Marsha kicked off her shoes and took a long swig from her bottle. “I think you’ve forgotten something.”
Ingrid gestured for her to elucidate.
“You already know who Skylark is.”
“Huh?” Ingrid tugged at the collar of her blouse, loosening the fabric from her shoulders to get some air on her skin.
“An hour ago, you told me that, two nights ago, a Metropolitan police officer tried to kill you.”
Penny’s ears perked up. “What?”
“I didn’t say that was Skylark,” Ingrid said. Somewhere in her brain, a cog started turning. “It could be someone close to him.”
“I’m not so sure. We know he kills to protect his identity, don’t we? That author, Steinway. Either he pulled the trigger or he made the man kill himself. DeWalt, same deal. Either he pushed him or he persuaded him he needed to jump. Those killings don’t have the hallmark of the Kremlin, do they? There’s no specially manufactured nerve agent, no obscure herb in the smoothie at the gym. No forensics trail to embarrass Number Ten or the White House.”
Where was she going with this?
“The journalist in Australia. She was assassinated, right? The Kremlin left enough clues to make sure everyone else was scared off. But it’s different with Skylark.”
Ingrid rocked back on her heels. She clasped her face in her hands. Marsha was right. “He is killing in such a way that no one sees a conspiracy.”
Marsha raised the bottle in salute. Penny looked at them both, her head twisting round like an owl’s.
“It’s like he wants to make sure there’s no investigation.” Ingrid swiped the bottle from Marsha and took a glug. “Which kind of makes sense if he’s a cop.” She paused, letting another cog grind through the motions. “Penny?”
Penny looked surprised to be called on. “Yes?”
“That list of eleven names? The police officers who play golf?”
“Yes?”
“Can you check them against the Operation Pinball personnel?”
“Operation Pinball?”
“Tilbury? DeWalt must have mentioned it.”
“Ah, yes.” She turned to her computer and hammered her keyboard.
Ingrid leaned against her desk and handed the bottle back to Marsha. “And killing me the other night could have been put down to the failings of the operation. He could have switched the casings, made it impossible to say which gun killed me.”
They looked at each other and smiled. Progress felt good. They listened to Penny type, waiting for her to tell them who Skylark was.
“There’s something else,” Ingrid said, not taking her eyes off Penny.
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s like he’s quietly taking care of business.”
Marsha’s lips contracted. Her head nodded rhythmically. “You’re right. Like the kid that cleans up the party before the parents get home.”
Ingrid lifted her eyebrows. “It’s like he doesn’t want to get into trouble.” She turned to Penny. What was taking her so long? It was only eleven names. She reached down and pulled a beer out of the pack. She knocked off the cap on the edge of the desk. “Penny? You found anything?”
Penny looked apologetic. “No, I mean, I don’t think so. Diaries and meeting rooms, remember.”
Ingrid strode across the office and looked over Penny’s shoulder. She peered at the files she had open. There was no correlation between the list of names. Penny hadn’t missed anything.
“Nothing?” Marsha asked, reading Ingrid’s face.
“Nope.”
If Skylark wasn’t one of those eleven men, then they were as far away as ever. Marsha saw the disappointment in Ingrid’s face.
“Then, we try a different tack.”
“Such as?” Ingrid asked
Marsha ran her palm over her face, then looked at Ingrid very deliberately. “How many hours do we have?”
Ingrid looked at the clock. “I really don’t know. If Nick is correct—”
“He’s very rarely wrong.”
“Then we maybe have fifteen hours. Twenty at most.”
“Okay, then.”
“Okay?”
“If we can’t find Skylark in that timeframe, then we have to make sure he finds you.”
Ingrid’s eyes widened.
“He’s already tried to kill you once. We just need to give him another chance.”
40
“You mean use me as bait?”
“I mean, obviously, we’d make sure you were fully protected, but yes, that is what I’m suggesting. He wants to silence you, doesn’t he? He wants to tidy you up before Papa Putin comes home and gets angry about the mess he’s made. So, we just need to tempt him to take another shot. Only at a time and a place we control.” Marsha drained her bottle.
Penny wriggled in her chair. “Is this something we really do? I mean, can we do things like this?”
“Not ever
y day,” Marsha said. “But when you haven’t got time to play by the rules, you gotta write yourself some new ones.”
Heat bloomed under Ingrid’s shirt. Her heart rate ticked up. Marsha was right. They could set a trap. “I have an idea. Well, half of one.” Her skin was tingling.
“Fire away.”
“If I was going to kill me, I know where I’d do it.” Ingrid stopped herself. “That was a very strange thing to say out loud.” She took a sip of beer. “I go for a run almost every day. Since I’ve been living at the hotel, it’s always been through Hyde Park. A lap of the Serpentine and a route through the woods. There’s no CCTV, there are ten escape routes. Also,” she added. “Burridge told me he’d followed me there and I had no idea.”
“You think Burridge, or whatever his real name is, is the scout?” Marsha said.
“I don’t know. Maybe. The point is, Hyde Park offers Skylark lots of hiding places.”
“It’d make our job harder,” Marsha said.
“But it also makes it more likely he’ll take his chance. If he knows he’s about to be extracted, and if you’re right that he would rather tie up his own loose ends rather than have them tied up for him, then he knows he’s only got a few hours to accomplish what he tried at Tilbury.”
Marsha pursed her lips together and nodded. “Okay. So we let Skylark know your run route. Are you on social media? Can you post something? Strava?”
“I have a Facebook account, but it’s just family and friends. My privacy settings are maxed out. Besides, Skylark needs to know I’m going for a run tomorrow and take action tomorrow.”
Marsha exhaled. “Then it’s just as well we’ve got a journalist on the team. Can’t McAdoodle-doo place a story somewhere?”
Penny looked from one to the other like a spectator at a tennis match. “Sorry, are you two really contemplating arranging for Ingrid to be shot in Central London? Am I missing something here, because this sounds like something out of a very bad movie.”
Ingrid and Marsha exchanged a look to decide which one would answer. Ingrid won. “I’d be very surprised if he tried to shoot me. We know he’s a Met officer with access to firearms, but those firearms have to be signed back in at the end of every shift.” Ingrid paused. “Besides, guns are too… traceable. If he’s a cop, he’d try something… else.”
“Like what?” Penny asked.
“Baseball bat,” Marsha said, very matter of fact. “Kitchen knife.”
“Gee, thanks.” Ingrid got up and retrieved a list from the spare desk. “These are the people we already know he’s killed.” She looked at the names. “David Steiner. Shot himself in woodland but there’s reason to think the wound wasn’t self-inflicted.” Ingrid paused to consider if the next name really was also one of Skylark’s victims. “Jacob DeWalt. Either blackmailed into taking his own life or was pushed. And then there’s Mulroony’s assistant.”
“Who’s that?” Marsha asked.
Ingrid tried to remember the woman’s name. “Julie Something. Jen told me she was attacked with a hammer walking home. She didn’t die, but she spent months in a coma and now needs full time care. She never recovered. Julie Bairstow. That’s it.”
Marsha and Penny both winced.
“If he’s done it before… I mean, if that’s how he tries to kill women…” Marsha paused. “I don’t need to pull out the profiling handbook to know misogyny when I see it. His male victims get swift ends they probably didn’t know much about, yet the last thing his female victim sees is his hand wielding a hammer at her face.” She stopped, unwilling to go on.
The three of them were silent for several moments before Marsha spoke again. “So, we, correction, you, lure him to somewhere he feels powerful, and we have a team in place to intercept him before he can land a blow.” Marsha turned her head. “Penny, can you find out everything we know about how Julie Bairstow was attacked?”
“Um, yes. Of course.”
Marsha got to her feet. She was taking charge. “Ingrid, what story are we going to give the press? And where the hell is that Australian?”
“Sleeping, I imagine. To be honest, I’m not sure he’s that useful, anyway. Skylark isn’t going to be reading the Australian papers. It’s got to be a London title. And even they’re not just going to print my run route, are they? We have to give them a story.”
“They’ll want photos too.” Marsha sighed. “Can you catch a purse snatcher on Oxford Street or something and go viral?”
A sense of calm descended on Ingrid. “Actually, there might be a story. There’s even a photograph.”
Marsha and Penny listened as Ingrid outlined the scoop.
“And, well, you know, the First Lady thing,” Penny said when Ingrid had finished. “I mean, six months ago they wanted to put you on the cover of Vogue.”
“She’s right,” Marsha said. “They will definitely want to run something about the FBI’s poster girl in London. It could work.”
“I’d want to read that story,” Penny said, helpfully.
Marsha’s head started to bob up and down. A decision had been made. “Do it.”
Ingrid scrolled through her contacts until she reached the Ts. Her finger hovered over Angela Tate’s name before she tapped it. Her stomach somersaulted as she waited for Tate to pick up.
“Special Agent Ingrid Skyberg, what a pleasure,” Tate said. “It’s almost nine on a Friday night, so I’m thinking this is going to be tasty.”
“Not sure how tasty it is, but I’ve got a story that I need to run tomorrow. I’m figuring you’ve got the contacts to make it happen.”
“Depends on the story. Luckily for you it’s a Saturday tomorrow. Papers are always looking to fill space at the weekend.”
Ingrid told her about the pictures of the retail magnate drenched in wine at Sabrina’s.
“I can see the headline,” Angela said, her voice unusually girlish. “‘FBI’s golden girl saves the day… again’.”
“And you understand the story needs to be a profile of me? It must include that I go running every day, same route, same time—”
“Geez. I remember when I had to extract teeth to use your name in a story. Now you want to be a bleeding leading lady.”
“I don’t want to, Angela, but I’ve got no choice. And it’s got to run tomorrow.”
“Understood. First, let me see if any of the agencies still have the photos. If they do, then I reckon I can get it on BuzzFeed this evening. They’ll pay a little for it. I’ll negotiate a syndication deal. The Mail Online will deffo pick it up and if I hold back a couple of choice quotes and to offer exclusively to the Sun. That way they’ll probably run you on page nine.” Ingrid could almost hear Angela’s brain working. “I could even make five hundred quid out of this.”
“More importantly, you might also save a life,” she said, thinking of Mulroony. “But I can’t give you that story unless this one runs tomorrow, okay?”
“Leave it with me.”
Ingrid hung up. Marsha was leaning over Penny’s shoulder and looking at her monitor. Ingrid joined them and saw they were examining a map of Hyde Park. “If this is your route round the Serpentine, I calculate we’ll need a team of six to protect you. I’m in, but we still need five more agents. So, Ingrid, who do you trust?”
Penny almost laughed. “Ingrid famously trusts no one.”
Ingrid’s eyes widened at her assistant’s candor. But Penny was right. Who did Ingrid trust? Who did she trust enough to protect her from a rogue agent desperate to save his own skin?
41
Angela Tate had done her job well. The paparazzi pictures found their way online by midnight, and in the morning, gossip pages on both sides of the Atlantic had picked up the story. Ingrid’s circled face appeared in the panel above the main headline of the Sun with the teaser ‘Look who saved the day… again! See page 9’
The article itself featured a small inset photograph of Sir Richard Black, the owner of several retail chains, his red wine stain enhanced to l
ook like blood, a photo of the chichi Italian restaurant and a larger image of Ingrid walking away. Either the photographer had managed to capture her from an angle that made Sol invisible, or—she suspected—he had been photoshopped out. Along with a fabricated quote from an eyewitness who wouldn’t lift a finger to help the loathsome Black, Tate had got a quote from the man himself. “I honestly thought I was going to die,” he said. Ingrid was billed as ‘an everyday hero’ who didn’t like attention and mostly kept to herself. “Most days are exactly the same,” the modest Skyberg claims. “My life is really very dull and routine. I eat the same thing for breakfast. I even run the same route through Hyde Park every evening, always the same time between seven and eight, always two laps of the Serpentine.” Tate had made up the bit about breakfast. Ingrid didn’t even care if she had breakfast, let alone what she ate. It didn’t matter: the line had been cast, and now they had to hope their prey would take the bait.
Ingrid pretended not to see Natasha McKittrick standing outside the Queen Mother gates of Hyde Park as if she was waiting for a date. She ran straight past her and into the park, running alongside the flower garden toward the main path that led to the Serpentine. Ingrid had never understood how the L-shaped lake had acquired its name—on a map it looked more like a skinny whale than a snake—but it was the centerpiece of London’s biggest green space. The eastern part of the park near her hotel was mostly grass, but toward the middle, the trees thickened into woodland, before giving way to the formal lake. Beyond the water were Kensington Gardens, the Serpentine Gallery and Kensington Palace, still most famous as the place where a shocked nation came to lay flowers after the death of Princess Diana.
Instinctively, Ingrid checked her pace on her watch, forgetting that she had deliberately not enabled the feature. It would be too easy for her to start focusing on her time or cadence. This way, every time she looked at her watch—a square electronic screen connected to her phone—and saw the time, it would remind her that this wasn’t a normal run. Somewhere in the park, Nick Angelis was tracking her phone, which was fitted with spyware. It enabled him to record everything her phone camera saw, even when the phone was switched off. Her headphones had an inline mic that allowed her to communicate with Nick and Marsha, who was soaking up the last of the summer rays on a picnic blanket at the point in the route where they thought an ambush was most likely.