“Before you went into the Camp, they thought they had her. Honor – isn’t it? She was holed up in some fancy asylum, but she gave them the slip.”
The Board needed North to lead them to Honor.
He’d been naïve. Complacent. Trusting.
The implications of Stella’s betrayal – not just Newcastle, but that Tarn knew he was at the camp all along. That hurt. Bunty’s faith, and Walsh. The conviction he could help when he was only ever bait. The Board let him break into the camp, and leave again. The nasty boys who died as they chased him over the moors were casualties of war. Tarn let him go because he calculated that North was only ever going to carry everything he knew straight back to Honor. And what did North do as he made his way back to London? What was his first thought? To call Stella, and tell her where he was heading. A place no one knew existed except JP and Honor and Michael North. His first thought was to reach out to his friend and ask for help.
“And Ned?”
“You weren’t straight with me, North. Bruno told me all of it. You’re one of them.”
“Not any more.”
“None of us walk away free and clear from the past.”
Even through his boots, he had the illusion his feet felt warm, wet from the blood spreading around each of the bodies. No surprise. He stood in the blood of other men, and had done for years.
“The Board killed Ned – not me, Stella.”
“What does it matter?”
“He left a message. Said to tell his mum he loved her.”
“I’ll pass it on.”
“Said to tell Jess.”
“Jess doesn’t need telling.”
“But why go to all this trouble when all they want is Honor dead?”
“Someone’s stepping out of line, and the good news is they’ve decided she’s leverage. At least for the moment. She’s a looker I grant you, but there’s no happy-ever-afters there for you. I know the type.”
“And these guys?” They tried to kill him. But they were on her side.
“Bruno told them to beat you to death and to take their time doing it,” Stella shrugged. “Even so, I’d have my money on you because you’re one hard bastard. Don’t get me wrong – I like that about you. But I also like to sleep at night, and I’ve you pegged as a man who bears a grudge. My way’s better for both of us. Quicker for you. Safer for me.”
The distant roar of a far-off jet on its way into or out of Heathrow. Stella smiled without showing her teeth. The only reason Stella ever smiled was the thought of Jess.
“Do you know what this is, Stella? These people are planning a coup. This is real.”
“Not to me. All I know is I’ve a plane to catch before they shut down the airports.”
As she raised her hand North lifted his foot and stamped hard on the belly of the dead man nearest him. The noise that came from his throat was ghastly. North didn’t think he was alive – just that the last of the air trapped in his chest had forced its way out. But if he had been alive, he wasn’t once Stella had shot the corpse again once, twice, three times.
The distraction wasn’t much. A matter of seconds. But it was all he had. North threw himself through the air into the living room and on to the floor, rolling as he grabbed for the Glock 43, using the sofa for cover. As Stella appeared, still firing, he lifted his own gun. The bullets ripped through the snakeskin jacket before they ploughed through the flesh and muscle and into her stomach. Staggering, she clutched her belly, then dropped to her knees.
Her face was ghastly. As if the blood had other places to go.
Slumping back hard against the wall, her legs splayed, her hands pushed into the wound, blood pulsing, squeezing itself between her fingers, their tips still sparkling green.
North stood over her, the gun in his hand. He had a code. He didn’t kill women. Except he just did.
A picture of Jess in the concourse of an airport filled his head. Stiletto heels. A mock-croc vanity case at her feet. Huge fake Louis Vuitton handbag. Glossy mags: Vogue and Tatler, OK. Passports in new names – both in hot pink leather covers. Tickets to Florida for her and her mother. Were the pictures real? He didn’t know. Either way, Stella wasn’t coming back. She had sold up the bar and liquidated her interests. Survival was everything. Start again. Where oranges grew in front yards and Jess wouldn’t go hungry.
He felt Stella’s urgency for Jess to do as she’d been told – climb on a plane to Nowhere even if her mother didn’t show. Especially if her mother didn’t show.
“You still owe me ten grand, North.” The voice was husky with pain, with the effort of staying alive. “Shake my hand and we’ll call it quits.”
Stella reached for him. The brush of her sleeve against the reptile body of the jacket. A fleshy suck and pull; her right hand vivid and gory, as her life’s blood gushed from the gaping wound. Regardless, she kept the hand out, trembling with the effort. A stomach wound is a messy way to die. Men died screaming, but Stella wasn’t the screaming kind. He moved the gun away from her with his foot, pulling across the chair to sit astride it as Stella’s hand fell back to her lap.
“Did Jess know what you came to do?”
Jess. The only person Stella loved more than Stella. More than money. Stella bit into her lower lip, shook her head. More blood. “She’s better than us. You know that.”
“They’ll kill her anyway. She’s been too close to all this. And you won’t be there to keep her safe.”
The pain of his prediction – its self-evident truth – would have killed a weaker woman outright. Instead, Jess’s mother made to stand up, and behind her hand, pale pink guts pushed and squirmed their way from behind the prison of her fingers into the light.
“I’ll call her.” He made it sound like a reasonable thing to do. Obvious. “She’s at the airport isn’t she? I’ll tell her to leave. Go to art college. Marry a dentist and have American children with perfect teeth. Cheryl and Sting.”
He dipped into the snakeskin jacket pocket for the iPhone. “One six zero five.” She told him her password, her teeth bared, incisors too long, and he pushed the numbers, found Jess. Her daughter’s smile wide and a little wicked – the picture taken on a summer’s day.
North hesitated, his finger over the green call button, as if something had crossed his mind, as if clarification was needed. Stella rested her head against the wall, struggling to keep her eyes focused on him.
“Where have they taken Honor?”
It wasn’t the inevitability of death, nor was it the wrenching pain that pushed the solitary tear out from Stella’s bloodshot eye, down the ravaged face to drop off her jaw into nothingness. It was the fact she didn’t know. That she couldn’t make the trade and that Jess was going to die. “Please, North…” For the sake of her only child, she offered the only thing she had. The notebook she was holding out was drenched in her gore. Stella had taken it as he lay unconscious and fire destroyed Peggy’s house. An insurance policy against the Board.
A bubble of blood broke from the corner of her mouth. Another and another, a honeycomb of blood. The book fell, and Stella’s eyes rolled into her head as North took hold of her. He rattled her back and forth, between Life and Death, but Stella had gone. On the ground, next to her mother’s body, an anxious tiny voice. “Mam. Mam?”
He picked up the phone. His hands dripping with Stella’s blood. “Run for that plane, Jess,” North said. “Call the boy Ned – name the girl after your mother. She’d have liked that.” He didn’t wait for her reply.
Chapter 65
BANQUETING HALL, WESTMINSTER, LONDON
7.40pm. Friday, 10th November
North picked up one of the silver trays of champagne flutes from the kitchen counter and pushed his way through the swing door at the same time as a young waiter burst back into the kitchen. “It’s carnage,” he said, pushing his floppy blond hair out of his eyes and dropping the empty tray on to the counter with a clatter.
“Isn’t it always,” North said.
North kept up links with every official catering company operating in London. His security clearance and impeccable silver service credentials proved useful more times than he could count. This evening at the reception of the G8 heads of state, he replaced a 25-year-old Australian actor-come-waiter who rang in sick. “Sick” and £5,000 wealthier than when North met up with him an hour before. Everyone was happy – the Australian happy to help “the Metropolitan Police” with their man in the kitchen, the catering company with their ever-reliable first reserve who had rung in so opportunely, and most of all, North himself.
Above the guests in evening suits and designer gowns, above the brass chandeliers with their curling arms and electric candles, the Rubens ceiling glowed, the Divine Right of Kings ignored by one and all in favour of frantic politicking, discreet influence-trading and outrageous gossip. The bas relief columns along the walls were uplit in red, white and blue as North, wearing the politest of smiles, ignored the reaching hands as he dipped and swerved, his head reeling from the expensive scents and the poly-glot babble, in search of his target.
Lucien Tarn didn’t so much as glance at the waiter in the white tuxedo as he took hold of the long-stemmed glass of Veuve Clicquot. North had come up to the group from behind and found his way blocked by the throng. An arm reached out. Another. Trapping him. A discussion among the powerful about money, a discussion among rich people about power. Tarn nodding as the grey-bearded man next to him held forth on Government debt spiralling out of control. The smell of cigar smoke. The journey in the Bentley.
Affable laughter at some joke, and North stepped backwards and away. The elite didn’t see those that served because they didn’t need to. Glasses filled. Glasses re-filled. He was invisible. North let the crowds fold around and carry him away.
Tarn was here. In the same room. It wasn’t the original plan. Should he take him instead? Catch him and finish this? But Tarn was already on the move, steadily, through the crowds. Weaving and travelling further away. At the doorway he turned, his razor-sharp focus slicing through the churning moving throng and his eyes locked with North’s, the slightest smile. He knew. Had known as his darling boy stood sentry serving him while considering his death. Untouchable. Untouched. Predator not prey. North cursed as the door closed behind the judge, and the nearest party-goer looked at him askance before forgetting he existed. There’d be another day for Tarn. They both knew it. He looked around the crowds. But it wasn’t happening twice.
Ripples spread outwards from the US President. From around each head of state surrounded by security, political minders, hangers-on, their own ministers, other countries’ ministers, their own diplomats, other countries’ diplomats, the ambitious, curious, and star-hungry. For a deal-maker, for a money-maker, for a politician, it was the hot ticket in town, the only place to be – which made it all the more surprising that JP Armitage was leaving.
Under his tan, JP Armitage was sweaty with the heat coming off the crowd. Tucking the paisley silk handkerchief into his top pocket of his dinner jacket, he was moving away from his companions, the famous smile switching off like lights going out over a city. North kept him in sight as he steered his way through the crowds, clapping old friends on the back, shaking hands with new ones, pumping up-down, up-down, index finger pointing to the select – “I see you” – kissing cheeks as he passed, but stopping for no one. For a second, North asked himself whether Armitage too had clocked him, but the eyes had slid over him – another lackey, insignificant, nothing to be gained from shaking his hand or acknowledging his existence.
North let the thirsty grab for his glasses, the last a mature, full-hipped blonde in a black silk cocktail dress who winked at him, blowing a glossy, scarlet kiss, “Thanks, hon – I’m sweatin’ bullets here,” she said as she took the flute before turning back to the elegant, dark-eyed woman next to her. “Would you like a sparkling water, honey?” For a split second the huge dark eyes met those of North and it was electric. Desperation. Terror. Need. North hesitated. But with the door already closing on Armitage, there wasn’t the time to wonder why. Instead, North lowered the silver tray, keeping it tight against his side before sliding it behind maroon velvet drapery as the waiter became one more guest at the party.
Out of the huge oak doors, the hubbub of global citizenry dropped away to only the leather soles of handmade shoes, slapping against the shallow steps. Armitage had already started down the stone staircase, towards security and the exit.
“Mr Armitage,” anyone listening would have put North’s accent somewhere in the cultured streets of Georgetown, Washington, via Harvard and an expensive, affluent childhood in the mid-West.
Armitage turned. His brows were gathered. This was an impatient man. A power to be reckoned with – call him back at your peril.
North smiled with smooth East Coast insincerity. He raised his voice – allowing it to travel to the police guarding the exit. “Mr Armitage, The President very much hoped for a word. He’s a big fan of your New Army. He thinks it’s great – so great.”
If Armitage had been feathered, the assumed courtesy would have swelled him to twice the size. Even so, the tycoon frowned, appearing strangely dismayed by the invitation, his handmade, patent dress shoes still pointing away from North and towards the door.
“It will only take a few minutes. The President insists – you understand.” The perfect political aide stood back, holding out his arm. The leader of the Western world waited.
For Armitage to refuse would have been remarkable. With a heavy sigh, he made to go back through to the banqueting hall, but North shook his head, a charming smile. “A private word.” He emphasized “private” – privilege indeed. North guided Armitage back up the stairs towards another door, this one with its own key pad and through which he could only hope would be a private function room, an office – he would settle for a broom cupboard. Armitage checked his Rolex as North keyed in the numbers which he’d watched the harassed banqueting manager punch in earlier and pushed open the door. To the left was a narrow stairwell. Straight ahead, a closed door. North held his breath – hoped luck was with him. He turned the handle. It was unlocked.
Deferential – the suave courtesies of a political lackey in the presence of a superior, North stood back to allow Armitage entry and as he passed though, Armitage checked his Rolex again. Seven fifty-one. North already knew what it said. He followed Armitage, almost stepping on his heels – the heady smoke and pepper of expensive malt – pulling the door closed behind them, turning the old-fashioned brass key in the lock.
Armitage scowled as he took in the emptiness. The old-fashioned desk with its captain’s chair – the ancient computer next to a grimey phone. He was a busy man. He had to be somewhere else. Could not wait. Another time. Pass on his apologies to the President. Tomorrow he had all the time in the world if the President could free up five minutes then.
He stopped talking as North drew Stella’s gun.
“Where are you in such a hurry to be, Armitage?” In North’s experience, given the choice between a gun and a watch, men watched the gun. But Armitage stared at the Rolex again, apparently hypnotised by it. Seven fifty-three. The tycoon’s gaze flickered to the door. He took a deep breath – steadying his nerves. Stopped himself from checking the time yet again though North felt the urge in him – felt the magnitude of each and every second as it passed. As if Armitage was ageing in front of him.
“Who are you?”
“Does it matter?”
The door handled rattled as someone on the outside attempted to turn it and Armitage opened his mouth to call out. North raised the gun, sighting it so the bullet would go down the tycoon’s throat. Armitage closed his mouth and the rattling stopped. He was sweating again, beads of perspiration running down his temples
– the smell of him spiced and expensive. It crossed North’s mind that although the tycoon was steady enough and there was no slur to his speech, Armitage was thoroughly, stinkingly drunk.
“Whoever you are, we need to get out of here.”
North perched himself on the green leather-topped desk, one knee bent resting on the polished seat, his foot on the floor.
“If we don’t, we’re going to die,” said Armitage.
Men exaggerated in the face of death. “I’ll give you anything,” when they had nothing. They lied. “I didn’t do it,” when they did. Said “I can explain,” when they couldn’t. But North believed Armitage. Time was running out for him.
“Then talk fast, and be on your way.”
For years, the bullet had made North doubt himself. Words, pictures, the worst kind of emotions came to him unbidden. He had enough bad memories of his own, enough violent urges, and too many things he should forget. But the urgent, ruinous call in Armitage’s eyes made him curious, made him want to go beyond, to step over the threshold into the darkness at the very core of the man with him. But if he went walk-about in that wasteland of misery, North didn’t know if he’d ever find his way back.
Armitage blinked.
With a sensation of pulling away from the brink of a chasm, North came back to himself just as the old-fashioned metal keyboard smashed against his hand. There was a moment of blinding pain as the gun dropped to the floor only to skitter under the desk. Armitage seized hold of the captain’s chair, using it to keep North away as he made for the door. Armitage wasn’t a coward, but he wasn’t a man whose job it was to kill other men either.
North gripped the curved back of the chair and seat to force it upwards, overbalancing Armitage, making him stagger – knocking the tycoon sideways and into the wall, as he brought the chair down against the other man’s head and shoulders. If the wall hadn’t taken the brunt of the blow, Armitage would have died then and there. Instead North took hold of him and dragged him across to the wall on the other side of the room, slamming him against it, then flipping him, pressing his face to the plasterwork. Before Armitage could gather himself North pulled back both arms, ripping the phone wires from the ancient phone to coil them around and around his wrists, knotting them as he wound the other end around the old Victorian radiator. Armitage’s voice was shrill as he attempted to wrench himself away from the radiator. Instead, the wire tightened itself and the tether pulled him brutally short. He made for the door again, almost dislocating his shoulders – his hands already crimson as the blood vessels constricted.
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