by Eva Hudson
The smell of chlorine pricked her nostrils as the elevator doors opened onto the basement spa. There were a few men in the cardio room on treadmills, but the reception area was empty. A sign on the desk stated that no lifeguards were on duty and patrons used the facilities at their own risk. She pushed through the swing doors to the ladies’ changing room. She didn’t have a token for the locker, but she had never seen another woman use the fitness suite this late at night. She made a neat pile of her clothes, hiding her phone inside it, and slipped into her swimsuit.
The pool was the single best thing about living in a hotel. Dim lighting gave the place a spicy, hammam-like feel, with burnt orange walls with ochre accents. The pool, lit from below, was a deep turquoise, and the loungers down one side were dark, tropical wood. It was intoxicating to have it to herself. She stood with her toes over the edge and looked down at the shimmering water.
Ingrid closed her eyes, swung her arms back, bent her knees and pushed off, diving into the silky water, needing the cold to cover her. She stayed beneath the water for half a length, rising greedily for air, then diving again, trying to make herself disappear. Muscle memory kicked in. Her limbs started to move, her legs pushing out the anger and her arms dragging the cleansing water over her, purifying her rage. Ingrid picked up speed. The more her lungs burned, the more her muscles ached, the more she could purge her acrid mood. By concentrating on her strokes and her breathing, the less space there was to think about Skylark, or Mulroony or Operation Pinball. She was just a body moving through water. No will, no desire, only motion. A form of physical meditation.
Ingrid became an automaton, plowing the lane, up and down, over and over, in a quest for total depletion. She would swim until she couldn’t, staying in her secret isolation until her burdens were spent.
On a turn from one length to another, a man came out of the changing rooms. A tiny spike of hatred pricked her brain. This was her pool, her time. She didn’t want to share the space, but nor did she want him to think he had intimidated her into leaving. Her defiance insisted that she carry on. She tried not to look at him as they passed each other in the lanes. She wanted to give the impression that she hadn’t even noticed his arrival.
After a few more lengths, the calm she had swum into her limbs had evaporated. Her petty annoyance was coiling into anger. She needed to get out of the water and be alone. Angry, Ingrid hauled herself out of the pool and padded quickly to the changing room. She would go for another run instead.
Ingrid sat on the bench, a towel over her head, and let her tears merge with the chlorinated water dripping from her face onto the sandstone beneath her pruned feet. Her chest burned with exertion and grief.
The blow landed without warning, smashing her head against the lockers behind her. A hand clasped the towel against her face, covering her mouth and nose. His other hand gripped the back of her skull. She raged against his grip, writhing her neck to twist free. Blind and desperate for air, she moved her legs and stamped, but hit stone instead of flesh. She tried to stand up, but couldn’t.
Panicked, she struggled to the edge of the bench and jabbed her elbows upwards, trying to make contact. She needed air, she needed oxygen. Heat bloomed across her skull. She began to feel faint. He adjusted his grip, and she seized her chance to slip down, out of the towel and onto the floor. She saw his bare feet briefly before the towel covered her head again. At least she could be sure that a man wearing swim briefs was unarmed. She sucked in air before his hand pressed the towel into her mouth and her head into the stone. His other hand plunged onto her neck, gripping her tightly. His breaths were deep and rasping. The swim had taken something out of him. If she could hold on, he would fade.
Ingrid let him pin her down. Let him think he’s winning. She could breathe more than he realized. Think. He adjusted his position to straddle her, keeping one hand on her neck and the other on her head. His knees were on either side of her head, allowing him to exert more pressure. Pain radiated from her cheek bone as he pressed down. She didn’t struggle.
“You nearly ruined everything.”
The same voice from Tilbury. His grip strengthened, and he forced his palm harder against her windpipe. Stars appeared in Ingrid’s vision. There wasn’t enough oxygen in her system. He was winning. Ingrid’s body went limp. She stopped resisting. She thought about her hyoid bone. The same fate as Megan, twenty years apart.
He pulled his hand from her face. His grip weakened against her throat. And that’s when Ingrid raised her head, crushing her forehead into his balls.
“You fucking bitch, you—”
He slumped forward and she rolled out from under him. Her breaths were jagged as she curled up onto her knees and aimed her right fist into his chest, landing a blow on the bruise she’d given when she’d fired a bullet into his Kevlar vest. He winced and collapsed to one side. She pinned her knee against his neck and looked down at his reddened face.
It was Andy Scott, member of Parliament, Secretary of State for Justice, and a former SO15 detective. One thing was for sure: he was no longer a future Prime Minister.
The door opened and Ingrid’s neck twisted to see a familiar figure.
“Looks like I’m a little late,” Nick Angelis said.
“What the hell are you doing here?” She dropped her head as her chest heaved.
“Your phone, remember?” He waved his own at her. “I heard about Kathleen. I waited in case you needed a friend.” He tipped his head to one side. “Well, here I am.”
Ingrid didn’t know whether to kiss him or kick him in the shins.
43
The reason Andy Scott had chosen the changing room to attack Ingrid was the same reason they were able to smuggle him out without involving the police: for privacy reasons, there were no cameras in the women’s changing room. A discrete team from Fortnum Security arrived and escorted them to a secure facility near Biggin Hill airport on the outskirts of London.
Ingrid and Nick sat with him in an armored truck inside a hangar at the edge of the airfield, as ambassadors were summoned, the Prime Minister was called and the Chief Constable was briefed. It wouldn’t be long before the phone would ring in the Oval Office and a decision would be taken. They were expecting a plane to arrive from a USAF base in Suffolk that would then take Scott to an airfield in Germany. He would be held there until the exchange for Mulroony could be arranged.
“I think you can be fairly sure the Brits will abandon you,” Nick told him. “Our American friends here are offering to cover up all the embarrassments you’ve caused. A far-right sympathizer, a member of the banned group England for the English, a quisling cop who allowed himself to be blackmailed by a foreign power.” His lip snarled. “Believe me when I tell you the Prime Minister will gladly accept Washington’s offer to make that clusterfuck of headaches disappear. A Russian asset sitting at the cabinet table? A meteoric rise based on Kremlin kompromat? A Prime Minister in waiting? It’s the political scandal of a generation. The kind of thing that destabilizes governments. Trust me, when the phone rings, it won’t be Number Ten.”
Nick had made the call not to provide Scott with clothes: humiliation was a surprisingly effective negotiation technique. For every answer Scott gave, he could have an item of clothing. Yet, after three hours, Andy Scott was still in his swimwear, the purple bruise on his right pectoral deepening by the hour. He’d prided himself on his Action Man physique, and he sat with his legs apart, his privates bulging against his briefs in an act of absurd machismo. Nick had turned up the air conditioning and was counting down the minutes until Scott started cooperating.
Ingrid’s phone rang. “Marsha, hey.”
“Hey.”
“Have you slept yet?”
“I had a power nap. Listen, something came up I thought you’d want to hear.”
“Go on.”
“Penny’s just sent you the recording.”
“Of what?”
“The seven oh-seven call Scott made to DeWalt. Jacob re
corded it. We found it when we searched his phone.”
Ingrid’s tired eyes widened. Her mouth fell open.
“What?” Nick asked. “What?”
Ingrid slapped him away.
“But before you listen to it, you remember that Florida number?”
“Sure.”
“It’s a telephone booth on the beach in Sarasota. I called a contact in Tampa. He told me he knew someone who lived at almost exactly the relevant intersection. A retired agent, no less.”
“Who?”
“You won’t believe it.”
“Who?”
“The legend that is Frank Geest.”
Ingrid’s jaw slung even lower. “Is he…” She couldn’t believe she was going to say it about the great Frank Geest. “Is he… Starling?”
Scott’s eyebrows raised at the mention of Starling.
“It would certainly explain why the operation Geest ran in the Nineties to find him failed.”
“Oh. My. God.” Ingrid was stunned.
“Tampa’s putting a file together. I imagine they’ll be knocking on his door before the sun comes up.”
Ingrid’s phone dinged: Penny’s file had downloaded. “Scott is right here. Should I play the file in front of him?”
“Hell, yeah.” Marsha ended the call.
“What?” Nick said again.
“Just wait a minute.” Ingrid navigated to the audio file and hit play. Her heart practically stopped while it buffered. She looked at Nick and smiled.
“… do it.”
“Just reassign her. Send her to Timbuktu for a few weeks. Get her out of the fucking country.”
“So you can arrange a plane crash in the jungle? I told you, I won’t do it. I won’t do anything anymore.”
“Sounds like you’ve forgotten about the photos, mate.”
“You honestly think I’d have done any of this without those goddamn photos? Five years ago, you asked for a favor and that guy Mulroony disappeared off the face of the planet. I kidded myself that it was a coincidence, but it wasn’t, was it? I don’t know why you wouldn’t see her the other day, why I spent six hours in a fucking elevator, or why you wanted her security pass, but that’s it. Release the photos. I won’t have her death on my conscience too.”
Ingrid watched Scott as he listened. She’d seen it happen in court many times, the moment when the guy in the dock realizes he’s going down. The stare fixes, the jaw clenches, the color drains. A living rigor mortis.
“Greencoat College, isn’t it?”
“You leave my kids out of this.”
“Be terrible if something happened to them on the way home from school, wouldn’t it? You don’t seem to understand, mate. You do what I say, or I make you do what I say. How many fingers do I have to send you in the post before you realize I’m serious?”
Ingrid could hear DeWalt’s heavy breathing. She could feel his anguish. She remembered what Dr. Ives had told her about DeWalt’s mental health, about his moral code.
“Who do you think is paying for your fucking penthouse, Jakey boy? It isn’t me, is it? You don’t like dealing with me? You really couldn’t handle the shit I have to shovel every day.”
“Wow, you’re actually trying to make me feel sorry for you, you sick, sick fucker? What happens if you do get the keys to Number Ten? What will you be like then? No, I’m not going to help you anymore.”
“Then start looking over your shoulder. Comply or die. How many times have I told you that? You’ve seen how they do it. Polonium in your tea, novichok on your door handle, they won’t just push you under a train. They’ll leave a signature. They’ll want the world to realize you were a traitor.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“I, I thought…”
DeWalt fell silent as he realized who his friend really worked for.
“I thought it was some alt-right shit.”
“You knew. Don’t pretend you didn’t.”
There was a long pause in the conversation. In the background, Ingrid heard the sounds of Parliament Square, buses and car horns and tourists.
“So, you’ll get rid of her?”
Another pause.
“Fucking answer me man or this is not going to end well.”
A muscle in Scott’s jaw started to twitch.
“Answer me!”
There was another thirty-three seconds of audio. Footsteps and traffic. And then it cut out. Ingrid pictured DeWalt pacing in his apartment. Taking a last swig of beer. Opening his balcony doors. She didn’t want to imagine the rest.
The three of them sat in silence for several minutes.
“That sounds like a plane,” Nick said. “If you don’t want to spend the whole flight in your trunks, now would be an excellent time to start answering my questions.”
Scott scratched his balls.
“How eloquent,” Nick said. “Those military planes tend to be very cold at twenty-thousand feet.”
Scott wasn’t going to talk. The only power he had left was his silence, and he was holding on to it.
Ingrid’s phone rang. Marsha again. “That’s some recording. Who’s heard it?”
“Ingrid, that’s not why I’m calling.” She sounded serious.
“What is it?”
“It’s just come up on the news. The jury’s filing back in.”
Hairs raised on Ingrid’s neck. Ice plunged down her throat. She didn’t know if she could speak. “Really? Now?”
“Reporter says they’ve reached a verdict.”
Ingrid swallowed to lubricate her mouth. “Oh.”
“Have you got a TV there?”
Tears stung the corners of Ingrid’s eyes. “I… I can watch on my phone.”
“I’m here if you need me, okay?”
Ingrid yanked open the truck door and stepped into the cavernous hangar. Several Fortnum cars surrounded the van, and their drivers stood in a huddle. They looked at her as she strode past them and out into the humid night.
A frozen picture of the courtroom loaded quickly, but there was no sound. Ingrid leaned against the hangar wall and looked up at lilac clouds buffeting a crescent moon. The runway lights stretched out to the north, where one of the stars was moving. The plane was coming.
Ingrid kept her chin up, looking at the sky, unable to glance down at her phone. She had carried the uncertainty of what happened to Megan for twenty years. It was like a major organ and she didn’t know if she would be able to function without it.
Her phone emitted a short burst of sound, and then another, and then the audio finally kicked in. “And on count three, the murder of Megan Avery, have you reached a unanimous verdict?”
“No.”
“Have you reached a verdict on which ten of you agree?”
“We have.”
“And how do you find the accused?”
Ingrid couldn’t bear to listen. Her entire body trembled.
“Not guilty.”
Her head fell back against the hangar, pain erupting from her bruise. She stared up at the sky, her mouth agape. Tears spilled down her cheek.
“And on count four, the murder of Rebecca Bradlington, have you reached a unanimous verdict?”
“We have.”
“And how do you find the accused?”
“Guilty.”
Ingrid’s chest heaved. She tried to drag oxygen into her lungs as the subsequent guilty verdicts came in. She wiped away her tears and steeled herself to look at her phone. A breaking news banner confirmed the not guilty verdict for the first three victims.
Svetlana would be ashamed of her. She would blame her. Punish her. She would say she was the reason there was no peace for Kathleen. Or justice for Megan.
Ingrid slumped down onto her haunches. She felt she would collapse. If there was a single speck of solace, it was that Kathleen had been spared the agony that now coursed through Ingrid’s body.
Ingrid had only ever found one way to deal with her pain. It was a promise
. She had originally made it for Megan, but now she looked to the sky and made it for Kathleen too. “One day, I will find him. I swear. One day.”
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THE INGRID SKYBERG THRILLERS
Run Girl - Prequel (A novella)
Secretary of State Jayne Whitticker is in the middle of delicate negotiations when her favorite grandchild disappears from Paris.
Special Agent Ingrid Skyberg is hauled out of her FBI training session at Scotland Yard to head the hunt for the eighteen-year-old girl, who the FBI believe is now in London. Will she succeed in her unexpected mission? Or will her failure lead to the collapse of the crucial peace talks?
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Fresh Doubt - Book One
A story of lies, secrets and deadly mind games.
Two hours ago, brilliant American psychology student Madison Faber found her roommate lying in a pool of blood. Now she is in police custody and suspected of murder. Madison persuades Special Agent Ingrid Skyberg to find the real killer, but the investigation soon puts Ingrid in danger. Can she unmask the murderer before she becomes a victim herself?
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Kill Plan - Book Two
An American trader is poisoned in his office in the City of London. Two days later, a Latvian immigrant is discovered floating face down in the River Thames. These seemingly unrelated crimes are the work of an audacious serial killer working on both sides of the Atlantic.