The Hornbeam Tree

by Susan Lewis

  Fellowes turned from where he was watching the search to face her. Seeing who it was, his left eyebrow arched. ‘Michelle Rowe,’ he stated, looking her up and down.

  Since he’d almost certainly have been told she was with Tom in the getaway car, she understood his surprise. ‘Legal Attaché Fellowes,’ she responded. ‘Can I ask what this is about?’

  ‘You know why we’re here,’ he retorted, ‘so don’t let’s waste each other’s time. You’ve just assisted a suspected felon to escape arrest, now you tell me where he is, and I won’t arrest you.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who’s the suspected felon?’

  His eyes seemed to cut right through her as taking two paces forward he came breath-smellingly close. ‘We know you were tipped off, we even know who made the call, so I’ll ask the question again, where is he?’

  Her eyes stayed rooted to his. This man was full of hate, she could sense it as though it were crawling all over her. ‘I don’t know,’ she answered.

  He stared back and waited, but was the first to look away as DI Wilding joined them. ‘Time to get them inside,’ Fellowes said roughly. ‘Make sure they give it a thorough going-over, and take the computers for forensics.’

  After glancing at Michelle, though making no attempt to reintroduce himself, Wilding barked the order, and stood aside as the other officers came swarming towards them. Michelle went in ahead and shot Katie a warning look as they began filling up the kitchen.

  Katie watched, then tensed with outrage as they began pulling out drawers, rifling the contents, then dumping them on the floor.

  Michelle moved swiftly to her side. ‘Just think of Molly,’ she muttered. ‘You want to be here when she gets back.’

  Katie looked at her, then at Fellowes as he squeezed in behind the others.

  ‘Mrs Kiernan,’ he said. ‘Let’s hope you’ve got more sense than your sister.’

  ‘If you want anything from me, you can tell these men to stop their vandalism right now!’ she retorted fiercely.

  ‘This house is known to have been used by a suspected terrorist,’ he responded smoothly. ‘It has to be searched.’

  Michelle’s heart was thudding. ‘You know damned well he’s no terrorist,’ she said, unable to keep the contempt from her voice.

  Fellowes’s face was an unpleasant mask of distaste as he turned back to her. ‘What I know,’ he said, ‘is that scum like him should never be allowed to call themselves an American.’

  ‘What the hell?’ Katie exclaimed, as something smashed in the sitting room, and charging in there, she saw one of her mother’s vases in pieces on the hearth. ‘What have you done?’ she cried, glaring at the man who was turning a couple of pieces of paper over in his hand. ‘Why did you do that? You could have just taken them out. They’re my daughter’s premium bonds, for God’s sake.’

  Seeing she was right, he tossed them on to a chair and continued his search.

  Behind her, Fellowes said, ‘Mrs Kiernan, if you tell us …’

  She spun round.

  ‘If you tell us where he is,’ he continued, ‘we can be out of here in a couple of minutes.’

  ‘I don’t know where he is,’ she retorted. ‘And I’d like to know what jurisdiction you have here in this country, and in my house.’

  Ignoring the demand he said, ‘The fact that he was here makes you a co-conspirator, Mrs Kiernan.’

  Katie’s eyes moved to Michelle. ‘Tell him what happened,’ she said. ‘When you left here, tell him where you went, and what happened.’

  Michelle turned calmly to Fellowes. ‘We drove to the station,’ she said. ‘There were no trains due, so he took the car and I came back here. So neither of us knows where he is now, or where he’s heading.’

  Fellowes’s mouth curved in disdain. ‘You’re not helping yourselves, ladies,’ he told them. ‘You’ve got to know what a bad position you’re in, so why do this? You could be looking at as much as ten years for your part in all this.’

  Overcome by a strong need to sit down, Katie started towards a chair. As she got there she heard the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs, telling her that the bedrooms were now about to be ransacked too. She closed her eyes, took a breath, and gave a couple of little pants – a small effort to block the creeping exhaustion that was starting to claim her limbs.

  Dragging her eyes from the window where she’d spotted Laurie moving in behind one of the cars, Michelle looked at Katie and felt immediately concerned. She was horribly pale, and clearly had somehow to be released from this ordeal, so turning abruptly to Wilding and Fellowes, she said, ‘Could I speak to you gentlemen outside please?’

  As she closed the door behind them, she said coldly, ‘I think you probably know how ill my sister is, so all you’re achieving right now is considerable distress to a terminally sick woman whose only crime is to be related to me. She didn’t know Tom was coming here, and when he arrived he certainly wasn’t a wanted man. The minute we heard that he was he left, so she’s provided no safe haven, nor was she in any way involved in his departure. Now, I’ve told you the part I played, you know he isn’t here, you also know that not one of us, including Tom, is a terrorist, so can we please end this farce before my sister collapses under the strain.’

  Fellowes’s expression turned thunderous as his face closed in on hers. ‘The evidence is stacked so high against your boyfriend, Ms Rowe, that none of you is going to escape the shadow. And you think she’s the only one with cancer in there? Well, let me tell you, we’ve got a world full of cancer out here, thanks to the scumbags your boyfriend knocks about with. Oh yeah, we know all about him. We’ve got his every move tracked from Somalia, to Afghanistan, to Pakistan, and whose footsteps does that put him in? Eh? The most wanted man on the planet’s, that’s whose …’

  ‘He’s a journalist, for God’s sake. Those are the kinds of stories …’

  ‘… he covers,’ he finished for her. ‘And what a great cover, except we’re seeing right through it. Sure, he might report the stories, but you know what he’s really up to, you’ve known for years, because you’re in on it too. You’re Arab-lovers, the pair of you. Anarchists. Subversives. You’ve turned against your own to join their war and help them kill, maim and terrorize the innocent people of your own countries. That’s who you are. You there in those refugee camps, stirring up hatred, recruiting for your boyfriend who hands them over to the madrasas where they get turned into the filthy, murdering bastards who spread out like a plague into the civilized world, waiting their time to tear it apart. Tell me, since when did either of you live in your own countries? Since a very long time. So it’s all bullshit about your sister. You’re only here, Michelle, to make contact with some sleeper cell to start …’

  ‘Are you completely out of your mind?’ she said tightly. ‘If that’s what you’ve been told, and you believe it …’

  ‘He’s been in those Afghan training camps,’ Fellowes hissed. ‘He hangs out in those hate-breeding Islamic schools and back-street cafés. His friends are all Arabs and Pakistanis and devout followers of the Prophet. He even dresses like them. Shit, he’s even got himself an Arab name. And now he’s got you here, doing his dirty work for him, connecting up with other operatives.’

  Being quite clear now of the spin they were putting on Tom’s life, and her own, Michelle turned to Wilding and said, ‘This man who sounds very like a white supremacist, and certainly a racist, has clearly been successfully brainwashed by the far right-wing elements of his own government into believing exactly what they tell him, so there’s little point in me standing here trying to defend myself against such raging prejudice. But what would you say, Inspector Wilding, if I told you that the plans Legal Attaché Fellowes is referring to originate from a top secret task force known as the P2OG? That’s Proactive Pre-emptive Operations Group, whose brief is to incite acts of terrorism in order to facilitate a swift military response in countries where the US has something to gain. And who’s behind the P
2OG? Who’s giving the orders? For that we go straight to the highest corridors of power, where a small but select group of neo-conservatives is contriving by all means possible to keep the world’s biggest power base under their control. Wreaking fear on their own people by constantly upping and dropping security alerts, cancelling flights, and sending sniffer dogs into crowded areas to search for non-existent dirty bombs is a part of it. As is subjecting anyone with a swarthy complexion to despicable human and civil rights abuses, and dispensing with due process of law if anyone, such as Tom Chambers, challenges their authority. The other part of it is to prove to the American people that the threat still exists – which it does, no-one’s arguing with that – but that it still exists in a form that can reach them on their own soil, even in their own homes. To allow an attack on the American homeland would suggest they’re not in control, but an attack on Britain, their staunchest ally, and partner in a special relationship, now that would be effective. Even an aborted attack, if its intent were lethal enough, would get the American fear level soaring, just prior to a presidential election – and that’s the date on this plot Legal Attaché Fellowes has told you about – and who’s going to vote for a change of leadership when there’s an emergency on?’

  Fellowes started to applaud, a slow, sarcastic clap that earned him an unruffled smile from Michelle and an unreadable stare from Wilding. ‘Congratulations,’ Fellowes said scathingly, ‘you just keep that up, because you’re putting a big fat noose round your own neck with all that subversive bullshit.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Michelle responded, watching Laurie as she came around the corner of the house with a camera on her shoulder. Fellowes and Wilding had their backs to her, so weren’t immediately aware of her presence, though she’d been there the whole time, Michelle knew that. It was why she’d let Fellowes rant on just now, hoping Laurie was getting it all on tape, and had then gone into so much detail herself on their version of the story. What she didn’t know was why Laurie was showing herself now.

  Glancing in the direction Michelle was looking, Fellowes’s eyes suddenly bulged with shock. ‘What the fuck!’ he spat when he saw Laurie, and grabbed the camera so fast she had no time even to tighten her grip.

  ‘Who the fuck are you, and what the hell are you doing here?’ Fellowes raged, tearing open the camera to check for tape.

  ‘That’s my property,’ she said, ‘and you’ve got no right …’

  ‘Just get the hell out of here,’ he hissed, snatching out the cassette and pocketing it.

  ‘But I’m not trespassing, and this isn’t a crime scene … Is it?’

  Fellowes thrust the camera back at her. ‘Disappear, or you’re going to find yourself in a whole lot more trouble than you can handle.’

  Laurie’s smile remained pleasant. ‘I think you know who I am,’ she said, ‘but just in case, my name is Laurie Forbes. I’m sure you’ve heard of me, so you’ll be aware that one phone call from me is all it will take to fill this village up with press.’

  Fellowes looked murderous. ‘Are you threatening me?’ he demanded.

  ‘It probably sounds like it,’ she conceded. ‘Though it’s really just a statement of fact.’

  ‘You do realize I could arrest you right now for obstruction of justice?’ he snarled.

  Laurie nodded. ‘I don’t think you want the publicity though – do you?’

  Fellowes looked at Wilding, as though expecting him to deal with this mess.

  Wilding pulled him to one side. ‘You’ve got the tape,’ he muttered, ‘the house has been searched. We’re not going to achieve anything else here today.’

  Fellowes was boiling with outrage, but Wilding was right. Chambers was long gone and what they were engaged in now was tantamount to intimidation, which wasn’t going to read well with his superiors should it ever find its way to the airwaves. So biting back his temper, he fired a blistering look at Laurie, then throwing open the kitchen door he shouted, ‘Time to go!’

  Katie was still at the kitchen table, feeling slightly better now, but still tense enough to jump severely at the yell. She wondered what Michelle had been saying out there, and what damage had been done to her belongings.. She wasn’t used to just sitting there while chaos erupted all around her, but the exhaustion that had suddenly taken her had been so debilitating that even now she was finding it hard to stand. However, she was in no pain, nor was she wholly dispossessed of her senses, so she was fully aware of the exodus as it happened, and the relief of seeing Laurie come in with her camera once they’d all gone.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Michelle said, going straight to her.

  ‘Yes, I think so. It must have been all the champagne. I came over very peculiar for a while, but thank God you’re here,’ she said to Laurie. ‘Look at the place. You have to shoot it. We have to get visual evidence of what they’ve done.’

  Laurie was looking around in disgust. ‘The bastards,’ she muttered.

  ‘So let’s get to it,’ Katie cried impatiently.

  Coming to her senses, Laurie said, ‘I need the tape I left here yesterday. There’s plenty of space on it, and it’s all I’ve got to shoot on.’

  ‘Why on earth did you let them know you had a camera?’ Michelle demanded. ‘When I knew you were there … Did you get anything?’

  ‘Come with me,’ Laurie told her, and leading the way back outside, she raised the lid of the dustbin and extracted a videotape from under an empty carton of milk. ‘He’s taken a blank,’ she said, ‘which is really going to piss him off, so I can probably expect a bit of harassment from that direction now. The important thing is to get this to a safe place, because it’s pretty powerful stuff – short on pictures, I’m afraid, but the sound should be perfect, and if we lay it over the shots of the mess inside …’

  ‘They’ve taken the computers,’ Michelle was saying, as they started back into the kitchen. ‘And God knows what else. I guess we’ll find out. Did you bring the document from Nick?’

  ‘Three copies of it. They’re in the car, which I left behind the pub. I didn’t want to bring it any closer in case anyone saw me arrive.’

  ‘Where’s Katie?’ Michelle said, frowning.

  ‘Up here,’ Katie called from the top of the stairs. ‘Let’s get Molly’s room cleared up before she comes back. She’ll go berserk about her computer, but thank God it doesn’t look as though anything’s been broken.’

  As they joined her Laurie’s phone started to ring. ‘It’s Elliot,’ she told them, clicking on. ‘Hi. Where are you?’

  ‘Just coming into the village. How’s it going there?’

  ‘OK. They were still here when I arrived. I’ve got some excellent footage, and I’m about to get some more, because they’ve left the place in a dreadful mess.’

  ‘Is Katie all right?’

  ‘I think so. A bit shaken up.’ Her eyes went to Katie. ‘She’ll probably enjoy a visit from you.’

  ‘I’ll be there any second,’ he said.

  ‘No news from Tom, I suppose?’

  ‘There won’t be. He can’t risk it, and it’s best if none of us knows where he is. Have you got the stuff from Nick?’

  ‘Yes. There are lots of copies now, so it won’t do anyone any good to confiscate one.’

  ‘OK. I’m just turning into the lane. Can you meet me outside?’

  By the time she got downstairs he was pulling in next to Katie’s car, so she walked across to the gate and waited for him to join her. ‘Where have you been?’ she asked, looking up into his eyes and thinking of those dreadful moments earlier with Andraya.

  ‘I came via Portsmouth,’ he said. ‘I wanted to lead them to a channel port, so they’d think I was meeting Tom to make a dash for France.’

  ‘Is that still the proposed destination?’

  He nodded. ‘But now I’ve made it look obvious, perhaps they won’t focus on it quite so much.’

  She was about to open the gate for him to come in when he said, ‘About this morning – I know
how it looked, and what she said, but I swear I had no idea she’d be there.’

  She nodded. ‘I think I know that,’ she responded softly.

  ‘She left straight away. I didn’t let her into the flat.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I think she’s got the message now.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’ Then because he needed to hear it, she said, ‘It’s over with Nick.’

  She sensed the relief that went through him, and felt it too, for in spite of there still being a long way to go, it was just the two of them now, with no-one else to add to the complications or turmoil. However, now wasn’t the time to take it any further, so she stood aside for him to come in, saying, ‘Who tipped you off?’

  ‘Chris,’ he answered. ‘He had a call from a woman who didn’t give her name, but was American apparently and, interestingly, knew he was the right person to get hold of.’

  ‘Elliot,’ Michelle said, pulling open the door. ‘Judy just rang. She’s had a visit from the police. They’ve obviously traced the Panda to her, and now they know that my car is in her garage.’

  Not having been party to Tom’s getaway, Elliot was confused. ‘What does this mean?’ he said.

  ‘That they know Tom left in a Renault 4 with Judy’s husband.’

  His eyes closed in frustration. ‘The traffic police will already have been alerted,’ he said, quickly going through the ramifications. ‘And if we call to warn him, we’re going to lead them straight to him. Shit, they were fast!’

  The trusty blue Renault 4 was roaring along the M5 at fifty miles an hour, swaying in the slipstream of mightier cars and shuddering in the wake of high-sided lorries. There was a blinding spray on the windscreen that the wipers were diligently smearing, and the sinister grating sound coming from somewhere up front seemed to be getting worse.

  The journey so far had been uneventful, but that was about to change, for a fleet of three police cars was bearing down on the unassuming vehicle like hounds on a limping fox. Dave glanced in the rear-view mirror, and blinked at the dazzling display of blue flashing lights. Resisting the urge to stick his foot down, mainly because it might go through the floor, he carried on zipping along, whistling tonelessly and scratching his unshaven face as he pondered his predicament.