by Eva Hudson
The next entry had been logged at 0808 hours. on November nineteen.
“Emergency, which service do you require?”
No answer.
“Emergency, can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Which service do you require?”
After a long pause, the caller said, “Ambulance.”
“Where are you calling from?”
There was some background noise before the call went dead. No location was given, only the cell tower number, as it hadn’t lasted long enough to be triangulated.
“Emergency, which service do you require?”
“Fire brigade. Quickly.”
“What’s the problem, madam?”
“I’m burning with desire.”
“I need to inform you that it is a criminal offense to make non-emergency calls to this number.”
“But I need a man with a giant hose.”
Ingrid didn’t need to hear anymore. This was not a good use of her time. It was the sort of task she would normally ask Jen to do, but Ingrid knew getting Jen to do something so tedious was no way to make amends. She kept clicking on the links, hoping someone might have called 999 to report dangerous driving or a motorcycle out of control. The chances were slim—people just honked their horns or made hand gestures—but she kept listening until she heard the call made by Harding’s distraught wife, Amita. It was logged at 0904 hours
“Emergency, which service do you require?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ma’am, which service?”
“I don’t know. He’s dead.”
“What’s your name?”
“Amita.”
“Okay, Anita, can you tell me what you know.”
“My husband is dead.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that. I am going to dispatch an ambulance. I just need to check your location. Then I can talk you through some first aid. Is that okay, Anita.” The call handler kept mispronouncing his wife’s name.
“It’s too late for first aid.” She sounded incredibly calm.
The call lasted seven minutes and, in that time, Ingrid did not hear a single car pass. There was no sound of rain or wind. Nothing to indicate bad weather was involved in the accident. She pictured Amita kneeling at the side of the road, completely alone with her husband’s body.
The paramedics’ report wasn’t linked to the recording, so Ingrid put in a request for it to be emailed over. She made a note of the cell tower the call had come through, then scrolled to find other calls from the same tower. She found a match and pressed play. It was the untriangulated call she’d already listened to, made an hour before Amita Harding’s. This time, Ingrid paid careful attention.
“Emergency, which service do you require?”
No answer.
“Emergency, can you hear me?”
“Yes.” The caller was female. She sounded young. Under fifty. Certainly not an old woman’s voice.
“Which service do you require?”
The long pause again seemed longer this time. “Ambulance.” The woman had an accent. European. It was impossible to be precise from the little she said, but the emphasis on the final syllable of ‘ambulance’ sounded eastern European. A Slavic language speaker.
“Where are you calling from?”
Ingrid strained but couldn’t make out background noise before the call ended. Her heart beat a little harder. It was just possible, wasn’t it, that the woman who’d hung up had witnessed the accident?
Ingrid listened repeatedly. Again, there was no sound that indicated rain or wind. She turned the volume up, trying to decipher the background noise at the end of the call, but sounds distorted on her computer’s speakers. She scrabbled around in her gym bag for her headphones and listened for another time. Perhaps it was a man’s voice. Could it be the last thing Matthew Harding said? Ingrid copied the recording, and sent it off to the FBI’s audio lab for analysis.
She placed another forkful in her mouth, but the curry had gone cold: she’d spent over an hour eavesdropping on the calls. She opted for a swig of warm beer instead. It wasn’t late, but she had barely slept. Her early morning cab ride out to the airport felt like it had happened weeks ago, not hours, and she struggled to keep her eyes open. Her computer emitted a dull ping telling her the open-source search had been completed.
The information was dense and she blinked hard to make sense of it. The database was an amazing resource, but it needed another iteration to be classed as user friendly. It outputted information in a way that would excite a math nerd, but the streams of poorly tabulated data made Ingrid’s tired eyes swim.
She took another swig of beer and focused.
Kingfisher Holdings, according to data extracted from the Panama Papers, had links to the royal family of the Emirate of Jihar. The next document the database offered was the minutes of the Swanbury golf club committee meeting at which Sheikh Mohammed Al-Kareem was approved for membership. Other search results included gripes on a neighborhood forum about ‘bloody Arabs’ accompanied by a photo of a young man that the Bureau’s imaging software had identified as the Sheikh’s son, Samir. Ingrid smiled: even the super-rich couldn’t hide behind their offshore trusts in the data age. She had found the owners of Uppenham Hall.
According to the Bureau’s files, Sheikh Mohammed Al-Kareem was the third son of Jihar’s elderly ruler and acted as the tiny nation’s trade envoy, a job that had become more important since Jihar had been ostracized by the other Emirates for appearing too close to Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Ingrid drained the bottle and shook her head at the screen. The chances that the Uppenham Hall’s owners had witnessed the accident were slim enough; the chances they’d accept a call from the FBI could be measured in microns. After all her research, the person most likely to tell her who had been riding her bike was still Steve from the garage.
She logged into Facebook, hoping for a little red dot telling her she had a message from Portugal. The only notifications she had were prompts from Facebook informing her it had been weeks since she’d last posted anything. She navigated her way to Steve’s profile, but instead of seeing him drinking a beer in the sunshine, an error message popped up. Steve had blocked her.
Ingrid’s vision blurred momentarily. The curry lurched in her stomach. Why on earth would Steve block her?
It made no sense. They got on well. They had eleven friends in common. Why on earth would he…?
“Jeez.” Ingrid let out a long sigh. How had it taken her all day to work it out?
Steve had been the one riding the bike. It must have been him. Ingrid thought about all the conversations they had had about her Triumph. He’d admired it from the moment it was delivered. And not only had Steve had access to her bike, he would have also had access to the security cameras in the garage.
Ingrid expelled all the air from her lungs, releasing a deep, low moan. She really had been dumb not to have made the connection straightaway. Ingrid hadn’t known Steve well, but there had been plenty of times when they’d bantered about sports or motorcycles or how the Secret Service took themselves too seriously. He wasn’t a friend, but he had always been friendly whenever she’d picked up an embassy car, or if he’d asked her to leave her keys in case he had to move the bike.
She slapped her forehead. He’d even had her bike key on countless occasions. He could have easily got a copy made. And he would have been able to repair whatever damage had been done in the accident. Now she thought about it, something had been different about her bike when she’d shown it to Thames Valley Police. She noticed it when she’d put her hand on the gas tank. He had resprayed it.
Ingrid’s lip curled. Steve hadn’t just taken her bike, he had killed someone and was trying to frame her for his crime. “Oh boy, are you going to pay.”
She opened another browser window and looked up flights to Portugal. Thames Valley Police wouldn’t know if she traveled on her Russian passport, would they?
&n
bsp; 7
The Monkeys and Peanuts bar was open from eight in the morning serving full English breakfasts for the expat community of Faro. You could order it with a mug of tea or a cold pint of lager, depending on the kind of day you had planned. Or the kind of night you’d had before. The radio was tuned to a British station, and a silenced TV screen above the counter showed BBC News with the subtitles on.
“You want another coffee?” the bartender asked.
She’d already had two, but after a fitful night on the couch in Marshall’s office and an early morning train to Gatwick, she could use the caffeine. “That’d be great, thanks. And maybe one of those little custard tarts.”
“You not been able to make contact with your friend?” he asked
“Not yet.”
“She’s probably sleeping it off.”
Ingrid wasn’t sure, but she thought his accent was from Birmingham. Apart from her taxi driver, everyone she’d spoken to since arriving in Faro had been English. Apparently, there was a considerable tax advantage for Brits basing themselves in Portugal. The streets had a surprising number of cars with UK license plates, and most of them were Audis, BMWs and Range Rovers.
The door opened, and Ingrid looked up from the newspaper they had given her on the plane. It wasn’t Steve, but it was someone who shared a lot of his characteristics. Slightly overweight, mid-forties, soccer shirt, earring and the kind of lumbering walk that proved humanity’s evolution from apes. Her British friends would call him ‘a right geezer’.
“Awwight, mate,” he said to the bartender and took up residency on a stool at the bar.
Ingrid returned to her paper. She didn’t really have a plan for tracking Steve down. The usual options were all out. Given she was in the country on a Russian passport in a fake name, she couldn’t enlist the help of the local police. If she asked around and someone told Steve an American woman was looking for him, she risked him going on the run. And, of course, there was no option of calling on the embassy for help. Until she knew for sure that Steve had been the one to switch the CCTV footage, she had to assume he had accomplices inside Grosvenor Square. For now, Ingrid’s plan was to overdose on good coffee and pastries and bide her time. If this was Steve’s local bar, she was confident she was in the right place.
Her confidence paid off a little after half-past nine. Steve pushed through the door and nodded to the guy on the stool. Ingrid’s veins flooded with adrenaline. He stared right at her.
Ingrid smiled.
Steve was back out the door before she got to her feet. She stood up quickly, knocking over the water jug on her table. She was at the door in two strides and pushed it open. Steve had darted through the tables in the beer garden and made it on the road. Ingrid gave chase and the tang of sea air stung her nostrils. “Steve!”
The road was a wide palm-lined boulevard that hugged the curve of the beach. To her left was the Atlantic Ocean, misty, milky and vast, and to her right was a succession of bars blasting pop music, tourist boutiques, cafés and rental car agencies.
Steve had the physique of a man who watched more sport than he played. He was panting hard after running forty yards. “I run five miles a day, Steve” Ingrid shouted at him. “Every day.” She pulled level. “You want to stop before you collapse?”
He glanced over his shoulder at her, but carried on running for another few steps before accepting reality. “How did you find me?” He planted his hands on his knees and got his breath back.
“I’m a federal agent, Steve.”
“Oh, yeah.” His chest heaved with exertion.
“Sounds like you were expecting me.”
He didn’t answer.
Ingrid watched an outdoor fitness class on the beach while Steve remained doubled.
“I know about the accident, Steve.”
Steve hauled himself upright. His face was pink from either sun or booze, or exertion. “What accident?” He wiped his forehead and nervously checked over both shoulders. “What accident?”
“Don’t play dumb. You wouldn’t have run if you didn’t know why I was here.”
He rolled his eyes skyward.
“And if I found you, the British police will too.”
He kept peering down the street as if he was expecting someone.
She laid a hand on his shoulder. “Steve, why did you run if you don’t know about an accident?”
A rickshaw driver pedaled up behind them, and Steve spun around. He was jumpy. Nervous.
“I know you killed a man.”
His eyes widened.
“And I’m pretty sure it was an accident. But framing me? That was deliberate.”
Steve blinked and swallowed repeatedly.
“I’m an FBI agent, Steve. Did you really think I wouldn’t investigate?”
He shook his head slowly and closed his eyes. “I don’t know anything about an accident, but I know I haven’t killed anyone.”
“They’ll extradite you,” Ingrid said.
He took a step back. “Nah.”
“You’ll be arrested.”
His head swayed from side to side. His mouth twisted into a snarl. “Nah. You’re wrong. There’s no extradition treaty with Portugal.”
“True. But that only means extradition takes a little longer.”
His palm slapped onto his bald head. His chest bellowed under his Tottenham Hotspur shirt. “Nah, you’re wrong.”
“Steve. I tracked you down. The police will come for you too. Going on the run only means you’re going to get a longer sentence.”
The muscles tightened in his neck. “Nah. This is all wrong. You got it all wrong.” He looked at the traffic like he was going to throw himself under the next bus that came along.
“Steve, listen to me. I am not going to go to prison for killing someone when I know you did it.”
He stared at the sidewalk and swore under his breath. “Shit. Fuck. Shitfuckfuck.”
“But I can help you, Steve. You can come back with me and I can make it easier for—”
He looked at her, his desperate eyes blinking rapidly. “I never killed no one.” Anxiety made his voice tremble. “And you are really fucking scaring me.”
Ingrid tightened her grip on his shoulder. He was a big man, tall and broad, and he was desperate. Terrified. She genuinely thought he might run in front of a car. “Steve, come with me. Let’s go back to the bar. Come on, come with me.”
He didn’t move.
She took a step backward, hoping to pull him with her, but he windmilled his arm and threw off her grasp.
“I’ve got to get out of here. This ain’t happening.” He turned sharply, but in two strides Ingrid was standing in front of him.
“If you didn’t kill him, Steve, who did? You obviously know something.”
His head shook rhythmically. “I don’t know nothing. I promise you.”
“A man was by killed by someone riding my bike, Steve. If it wasn’t you, who was it?”
His eyes widened as if this was the first time he’d heard the news. Seagulls screeched overhead. Christmas music drained into the street from a nearby shopping mall.
He looked at his sneakers. “It could have been anyone,” he said.
“Then why are you the one who suddenly quit his job and fled the country?”
He kept looking at the ground. “It wasn’t me. I don’t know who it was, but it weren’t me.” He was crumpling in front of her eyes. He had become oddly boyish, so much so she thought he might cry.
He wheeled back and couldn’t stop shaking his head.
“Why could it be anyone? Steve, why?”
“Ah, my brain is spinning, man. This is not cool. This isn’t what they promised.” He looked up and down the street.
Ingrid needed to stay patient. “Why, Steve? I need to understand.”
His head shaking morphed into tiny, repetitive nods. He sniffed. “There was a second key, weren’t there?” He looked at her, expecting censure. When none came, he continued. �
�I mean, that was my fault, I admit that. I should have told you. You remember when your bike was delivered? Nah, you wouldn’t cos you wasn’t there. But I was. It was that actor, that one from the telly. He rode it in. Said it was a gift cos you’d helped him out. You remember?”
Of course, she did. Truman Cooper was a friend of the ambassador and Ingrid had done him a favor. The bike was a token of his thanks.
“I only ever gave you one key. Thought I could ride myself, see?” Steve blinked slowly. “But I was scared. It was a big bike, and it’s worth thousands, innit, and I’m not insured so I only ever did it once or twice. But—” His voice snagged in his throat “—other people knew about the key.”
Jeez, how many people had been riding her bike?
“Steve, I believe you. I do. But this is really, really important, okay?” She stared at him till he made eye contact. “I’m going to ask you one more question and you’ve got to tell me the truth. Understand?”
He couldn’t hold her gaze. He kept looking over her shoulder. She turned to see what he was looking at. Just a few shoppers and a couple of guys chatting in the street.
“Do you understand?”
Steve was now staring at something behind her. She turned back and looked again. There was a man behind the wheel of a parked Audi TT, a phone clamped to his ear. Muscular, sun-darkened skinned, intense. His gold chain and signet ring glinted in the sun. He was either military or intelligence.
“Who is he, Steve?”
The man maintained eye contact with her as he buzzed up his window. The tinted glass shaded him from view.
“Steve?” Ingrid asked. “Who is that man?” She strode over to the Audi TT, breaking into a run when she heard its engine switch on. “Hey!”
The car was completely black––handles, hub caps, windows––making it more pretentious than sinister.
“Hey!” She leaned in to tap on the window just as it drove off, speeding down the boulevard. She threw her hands in the air and turned back towards Steve.
“Steve?”
He was nowhere to be seen.