“Why’s that funny?”
He shook his head, then exhaled softly through his teeth, making a whistling sound, wincing.
“What was the fight about?” Kane asked.
“It wasn’t a fight. They just went for me.”
“That’s true. Why’d they do that?”
“Because they’re arseholes.”
Kane nodded. No more information was forthcoming, and he didn’t want to appear too curious.
“Are your parents on the base?” Kane asked.
“Yes.”
“Got any way of contacting them?”
“No.”
“They’ll be worried about you.”
“Yeah.” The boy winced again, looked at Kane. “Do you have a car?”
“No.”
The boy looked disappointed. Kane stood up, an ominous sensation in his gut, realizing what he was about to do.
“Wait there.”
He walked out to one of the cars he’d seen with keys in the ignition—a Honda Accord from the nineties, parked outside a house with no lights on. Kane knocked at the house. No answer. He eased the driver’s door open, climbed into the trapped heat, started the engine. No one came to stop him.
“You found a car,” the boy said when he pulled up.
“I forgot about this one.”
The boy got his bike into the back, then climbed in the front.
“Whose is this?”
“I don’t know. Are you able to direct me?”
“Sure.”
They drove back past the airfield.
“Those guys,” Kane said. “People don’t just beat people up for no reason.”
“Tell them.”
“They do it to other kids?”
“Probably.”
“I might be in trouble now. I could do with knowing what I’ve got myself involved in.”
“I don’t think you’re involved.”
“The one I spoke to sounded British, right?”
“I guess so. Spoke to.” The boy laughed. “How do you do that?” He turned, smiling, and Kane saw his front teeth chipped and bloodstained.
“Look, when you tell people what happened, you don’t need to tell them about my involvement. Okay? Just say you got away from them.”
“Sure.”
Back past the rippling sea of birds. The moon was high. Kane could see the terns spread across the lava flows between the airfield and the coast, black heads and white breasts, all facing into the wind, insomniac chatter echoing off the rocks. The boy stared ahead, testing his teeth with his tongue, sometimes emitting a soft groan. Near the airport, the signs changed to US specifications: “Dangerous Bends,” “Wear Seatbelts.” Some ancient construction equipment had been abandoned at the side of the road, a roller with patterns of rust like leopard skin. They arrived at the gate for the base. American and British flags hung from adjacent poles. A sign planted in the lava announced U.S. AIR FORCE. ASCENSION AUXILIARY AIR FIELD. In the distance, long barrack buildings spread out. Solar panels glinted among the cacti.
“Okay,” Kane said, as the boy climbed out. “Take care of yourself. Get your injuries checked out properly as soon as you can. I’ll see you around.”
A guard got up from a seat inside the security hut. He shined a torch in the boy’s face, then at the car. Kane began to reverse away.
“Hey. Sir?”
Kane turned and kept driving. Fuck that. He’d had enough introductions for one night.
When he’d returned the car and got back to the bungalow, the door was open a crack. Maybe it didn’t lock; maybe he’d left it open. Kane checked the individual rooms until he was sure there was no one inside, then tested the lock to see if the door could swing open by itself. It seemed unlikely. But the lock wasn’t secure, the wood of the frame having grown brittle.
Nothing had been taken. His bag looked like it might have been opened. Kane checked the contents, then the window locks, and then he tried to clean up as much of the boy’s blood from the floor as possible. Finally he plugged his laptop into the phone, typed up a report of the night’s events, and sent it through to their secure dropbox. Most disastrous beginning to an operation ever. He should never have accepted it. He checked the list of military staff currently serving on the island, but there hadn’t been time to source photographs, so it was anyone’s guess who he’d just clashed with: his notes listed twenty-three British men, at least eighteen within appropriate rank and age range. Interserve contractors numbered thirteen, so it was a smaller group, but no more revealing.
Kane closed the laptop and stood in the front doorway for a moment, watching the stars. Then he scooped up ash from the ground and sprinkled it onto the hallway floor in a pattern that would be destroyed by any overnight entry. He put the lock back on, more for show than in the hope it would protect him. If someone wanted to kill him on this island, they’d probably succeed. They had a lot stacked in their favor.
5
There were several things Taylor didn’t need crashing into her schedule as Kane departed. An invitation to New Scotland Yard was high on that list.
An hour after he set off, Taylor got a message from MI6’s police liaison team saying the Yard had been in touch. A senior detective had been looking into Petra Wade’s case. Although four thousand miles away, the Ascension Island investigation was technically under the command of the Yard’s Specialist Crime Directorate, and while the officers stationed on the island had hit a wall, someone in London had taken an interest. From the cooler climes of SW1 they had seen reports from the US base suggesting police might take a closer look at Rory Bannatyne, and followed Rory’s cover until it hit unlisted phone numbers in governmental buildings. They had approached the various branches of the intelligence service, asking to speak to whoever had been in charge of him until finally Taylor’s name came up.
“Do you have any idea who he is?” the MI6 liaison officer asked her.
“Yes.”
“Are you in a position to speak to the police? No one else seems to know anything about this.”
There followed a tense conversation between Taylor and the chief of the intelligence service, Sir Roland Mackenzie. Mackenzie had taken on the role of “C” four years ago, and while he was an imposing figure, Taylor got a sense that he supported her; beneath the old-school exterior he was a modernizer who had personally intervened to ensure Taylor’s professional rehabilitation after her incident. When Ventriloquist came up, he trusted her with the project—and their shared knowledge of the scheme had created a bond.
“The Yard aren’t stupid,” Mackenzie said. “They know this is intelligence related. The important thing is we manage the reach of their inquiry.”
“I agree.”
“Have a cover story ready, something else he might have been over there for. Something that, in a worst-case scenario, isn’t going to blow ongoing operations if it leaks. Don’t give them that unless you absolutely have to—use whatever tactics you can. But you tell them nothing that touches on Echelon. That is a red line.”
A couple of hours later she was sitting in a cramped office belonging to Homicide and Major Crime Command. Opposite Taylor was Detective Chief Inspector Aisha Rehman, who had taken an interest in the case. Rehman was young for a DCI, suggesting aptitude, with short dark hair and the unblinking stare that Taylor had noticed in every good detective she’d met. Beside her was another inspector with graying sideburns who rolled a pencil between his finger and thumb. From the look in their eyes it was clear that when they’d smelled MI6, they’d prepared for battle.
Rehman opened a file of photos: Petra smiling, Petra as Miss Ascension, a map of the island. She spread the images as if to say: This is real. Not spook stuff. This is why police have priority over spies. Although it was never quite that simple, which was why Taylor had received C’s warning, and why she had arrived at the Yard accompanied by a lawyer for the intelligence service and a GCHQ security officer on the lookout for potential indiscretions. Both
were rigidly suited, bristling with their assigned duties.
The working relationship between the police and intelligence service was fraught at the best of times. The intelligence service didn’t investigate or prosecute crime; only the police did. But MI6 got itself involved in it—exploiting it, investigating it, using it for concealment—and the police entered with the law’s demand for knowledge before invariably hitting a wall of silence. To the intelligence service, secrecy meant security; to the police, it indicated guilt. This created conflict. And when police were occasionally tasked with investigating MI6 itself—as it had done over torture allegations—it didn’t build any bridges.
Taylor needed to ensure that all lines of inquiry were vetted. She also needed to ensure a lid was kept on it. From bitter experience, it was impossible to suppress a spy angle once it was out. The press went wild. In short, she needed to ensure the investigation due to Petra Wade could take place while keeping the police as uninvolved with the details of Rory Bannatyne’s work as possible. Taylor having arrived with a team hadn’t impressed Rehman. Her welcome was laced with an appraisal of what she was up against.
“Petra Wade went missing in the twenty-four-hour period in which your employee took his life. That would place him as a suspect at the best of times. But there is some further corroborating material.”
Taylor felt the adrenaline start.
“We’d like to know everything you know,” she said.
“I’m sure.” Rehman set the map beside a timeline. “Your employee was seen with the victim several times over the last few months. Sometimes just with her, sometimes with other teenagers.”
Taylor peered across the paperwork, trying to discern where these facts lay among the fragments. This was what she’d been dreading. She hoped her concern looked like the right kind.
“Doing what, exactly?” Taylor asked.
“It’s a good question. Mr. Bannatyne clearly knew the girl, and he took his life in the hours following her disappearance. So you can understand that right now he’s very much of interest to us. We’d appreciate some more insight into him—who he was, what he was doing there.”
“Of course,” Taylor said. “Can I ask about the police on the island itself? To what extent are these concerns coming from them?”
“We are working closely with the Ascension Island Police Detachment. You don’t need to worry about that.”
“Okay.” Taylor felt frustration at the distance again, this island on the other side of the world that she needed to know so much about. She was glad to have sent Kane. Both she and DCI Rehman were working half blind, but she had a spy on his way. “I appreciate how this looks, and I can assure you that we want to cooperate fully.”
“We’re aware that we won’t be given access to everything Mr. Bannatyne was working on. But we need to know some details of his life on Ascension. In particular, the time leading up to the victim’s disappearance. Is that something you can throw any light on?”
“It’s difficult. We were only in intermittent contact.”
“You personally?”
“Yes.”
“When did you last speak to him?”
“Two days before he died.”
“And what did he say?”
“It was confirmation that his work had gone well. He intended to come back. We discussed arrangements for travel.”
“Are you able to tell me at least roughly what his work involved?”
“Yes. He was advising on the laying of broadband cable. With any major infrastructure project, especially overseas, there are security issues, hence some degree of sensitivity around his role.”
“Is this sensitivity something that could impede our investigation?”
“There’s no reason it would.”
“Has Mr. Bannatyne ever been in any other kind of trouble that might be relevant?”
This was the question Taylor had been dreading.
“No,” she said, then felt her response had been too quick.
“Not that you’re aware of.”
“No.”
“How long have you worked with him?”
“On and off for several years.”
“My team needs to speak to his former colleagues. We also require any computers and devices he had access to.”
Rehman was pushing her luck, and she knew it. She was feeling out the limits, shaking Taylor to see what came out.
“For obvious reasons, that’s going to have to be dealt with by SO15,” Taylor said, and caught an immediate flicker of irritation. Special Operations 15 were the police’s specialist counterterrorism unit and so constituted a department considered more appropriate for MI6-related investigations. They were indoctrinated, security cleared, which meant they knew what not to ask and what not to pass on. The unit was regarded by the intelligence service as a little bit more sympathetic to the complexities of their work, which was why Rehman sighed. When previous MI6 employees had died in suspicious circumstances, it was SO15 who investigated. But there was a difference between dead staff and a missing kid.
“I would regard that as obstructive.”
“The precedent’s well established. I’m happy for SO15 officers to interview any government employees in the presence of their line managers and legal representatives. They would then produce anonymized notes, drawn up after the interview.”
“Petra Wade is not a terrorist. She doesn’t need counterterrorism.”
“It’s worked before.”
“For who?”
Rehman burned with an authority bestowed on her by civilian tragedy. By the supreme demand of justice. Around the same age as me, Taylor thought, with a similar level of seniority. She tried to imagine that career: enforcing the law. It would have its own moral compromises, of course, but also closing scenes in bright courtrooms, with fellow citizens affirming your judgment.
“I’ve had homicide detectives vetted and cleared to question members of the intelligence service in previous investigations,” Rehman pressed.
“It would take time and is not the normal procedure adopted. This touches on national security.” Taylor heard the round, simplistic sound of the phrase, its superior finality, and hated herself. The MI6 lawyer leaned in.
“We’re not so much concerned about your end as the potential for press involvement. There will be a need for watertight security surrounding the whole thing.”
“In my experience, the press tends to be concerned that killers get justice.”
“We don’t know that anyone’s been killed, do we?” he said.
“Not at this stage.”
“Right, so let’s proceed carefully.”
“I’m not intending to be careless. It’s worth being clear from the start: The law does not change. As I’m sure you’re aware, if you withhold information that might be of material assistance in securing the prosecution or conviction of an offender, you will be legally liable. I hasten to add that this includes the concealment or destruction of any records.”
“Of course,” Taylor said, before the lawyer could respond. “If I didn’t intend to assist you, I wouldn’t be here. We want answers as much as you do.”
“We’ve tried to ascertain Mr. Bannatyne’s employment and accommodation history over the last ten years. It’s proved impossible. I was told you might be able to assist with that information at least.”
Sure, Taylor thought: a guided tour of cable-tapping around the world. That wasn’t going to happen. It could well lead them to the incident in Oman that Taylor had covered up. That wasn’t going to happen either. It was time to give the impression of compromise.
“I’m going to do everything I can to establish what happened in the days and hours leading up to Rory Bannatyne’s death,” Taylor said. “Anything that remotely touches on Petra Wade, I will share with you. I have no intention of letting a child’s disappearance go uninvestigated. We will also go through Mr. Bannatyne’s professional history in case there is anything that raises alarm bells or migh
t be valuable for your investigation. As you can imagine, we have considerable means at our disposal—for assessing his behavior both online and offline. Anything remotely pertinent will be passed to you, and we will arrange clearance so that your officers can speak to those concerned. I can make sure things go a lot faster and more effectively than they would otherwise.”
“So we just trust you. And that’s that.”
“You will have to. There is no reason we would obstruct your investigation.”
The detective turned her phone on the table to check the time, then stared back at Taylor.
“What do you think happened?” she said.
“I don’t know,” Taylor said.
“Do you think he killed her?”
“That’s not my belief.”
Rehman nodded. A final look at her notepad, which remained accusingly blank.
“Anyone else on Ascension that we should know about? Before the police there stumble into more national security issues?”
Taylor paused, wondering if there was any sense in warning them about Kane.
“No,” she said. But Rehman was a homicide detective and knew how to read pauses. She let Taylor’s hesitation reverberate so that everyone present could hear it.
“We’re going to demand a new forensic analysis and autopsy of Rory Bannatyne’s corpse,” the detective concluded. “Obviously, that will mean delaying the funeral. Are you in touch with his family? I’m assuming you’d rather provide their liaison.”
Not much family, Taylor thought. But there was the blank postcard. Nicola Bannatyne.
“I’ll liaise,” she said. “And if I discover anything that could conceivably relate to the disappearance of Petra Wade, you will be the first to know.”
6
The street was orderly suburbia, on the less glamorous fringe of West London. Taylor removed the postcard that had been among Rory’s possessions, checked the address again, then the corresponding house. A neat semi-detached property, net curtains, a No Junk Mail sign on the door.
Nicola Bannatyne was Rory’s sister. They’d run a check on her: unmarried, worked at Ealing Central Library. Their parents had died when they were both young, and this seemed to have created a closeness. There were no other siblings and no partners in their respective lives. Nicola’s Facebook page was sparse, but it included a photograph of herself with Rory, the only photo of him with friends or family Taylor had seen. In his personnel file, she was named as next of kin.
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