The Colours: A spy thriller packed with intrigue and deception

by T. M. Parris

  They were close enough to see the explosion, like a distant fireworks display. Fairchild got the details on the phone afterwards from his friends at the police. Zoe’s hands were shaking as she watched that distant column of flame. This was who she was up against now. On the deck of the tiny motor cruiser that Fairchild had picked up for cash the previous evening, she watched her beautiful sailboat break and sink, and felt herself crying. Fairchild saw, but he didn’t say anything. She was realising now what she’d done, what her life would be like.

  Fairchild didn’t even want to go back to Ajaccio at all.

  “We don’t have to see it. There’s no benefit. We know what happened. The plan worked. They both got word that you were here. Yunayev came first with his crew, and while they were on board the Russians showed up and sank the thing with some missile. We’ll find out in time who survived and who didn’t. Going there won’t help. Either of those lot could still have people watching. Once they realise you weren’t there they’ll be all over this place. We need to be long gone by then.”

  “And we will be,” said Zoe. “But I want to see what they did to my boat. I just want to see. It won’t take long.”

  So they motored in and kept a good distance. Police everywhere. Some of Ocean Joy was still floating, blackened and ruined. Zoe cried again looking at those charred pieces. Then divers brought up a body. The emergency services had screened off an area of the sea wall, so they only got a glimpse as it was pulled close in. But it was a body, no doubt.

  “With a bit of luck,” said Fairchild, “they’ll think that’s you. For a short while at least. We need to be well out of here by the time they discover it isn’t. How does it feel to be dead?”

  “Weird,” she said. Actually she felt sick. It so easily could have been her.

  She turned the binoculars to the sea wall where a small crowd had gathered.

  “Oh,” she said. Fairchild heard, but she said nothing more. She’d seen a familiar face. Anna was there, standing very still, arms folded, looking out at the remains of the yacht. She’d have seen the body. Zoe focused on her. Anna had promised to keep Zoe safe. Now Anna thought Zoe was dead. How did that make someone feel? The woman’s face said it all.

  “Can I look?”

  She handed the binoculars to Fairchild. He took in the scene over the water, the divers, the wreck, then panned over to the spectators on the sea wall, and stopped. He stared for quite a while. Then he put the binnies down and said, voice changed:

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  They were out of the gulf before they spoke again, headed for Italy as planned. Whatever was buried deep behind Fairchild’s eyes, he pushed it down so that when he next spoke he sounded almost normal.

  “Why didn’t you want to leave the boat last night? There’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?”

  She stared out over the sea. She hardly knew this guy. He could walk off with everything she had, if he wanted to.

  “Do I have to tell you every last thing? Can’t I keep some things to myself?”

  “It’s a secret?”

  “It’s private.”

  A long pause with just the droning sound of the engine. Motoring was so boring.

  “You know what would have happened if I weren’t here,” Fairchild said. “I’m not bragging. This is my trade. It isn’t yours, or hasn’t been so far. You’ve got a way to go before you can do this on your own. I’ll help you, but you’ve got to tell me everything. What’s on this boat that you don’t want out of your sight? Is it in those boxes we hauled over? Because if you don’t think it matters now, it will.”

  She looked over at him. Truth was, if he’d wanted to steal from her or take her for a ride, he could have done it by now. He knew how much cash she had. He didn’t say it in those words, but if he weren’t here, she’d be dead. He was offering to set her up in this life, this post-Zoe life, this life after death, and that was a generous offer. She’d been confident with M. Bernard that she could safeguard the bearer shares, but after the sound-and-light show last night she wasn’t so sure. She was going to have to chance it with this guy.

  Fairchild was steering. Zoe got up from the windward deck and came to sit next to him. She told him everything.

  Chapter 62

  Things changed after Corsica. In Naples Zoe gained a new identity as an Italian national, thanks to a contact of Fairchild’s. Useful that she spoke the language fluently. She picked up a new sailboat, like Ocean Joy but better, slightly bigger, more customised. They registered it under a Cypriot flag. From Cyprus they went to Greece, Malta, Sardinia. As the shock of Corsica wore off, Fairchild could see Zoe focusing more on what she’d gained, not what she’d lost.

  Private Life, she named her new boat. “You know, like the song. Grace Jones.” Clearly it meant something to her.

  That trick with the bearer shares was genius. As the days turned into weeks, Fairchild thought a lot about how that could best be dealt with. He phoned Zack.

  “Have you traced your elusive drug baron yet?”

  “What do you think? Quesada may as well have flown to the moon. Thanks for all your help, by the way.”

  “That’s what I was calling about. I know someone who may be some use to you.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Someone with a detailed and unusual perspective on offshore money laundering. She may be able to help in – let’s say – informal ways.”

  “How disreputable are we talking?”

  “Not very, in the grand scheme of things. She has a requirement for secure storage. Maybe you could help each other out.”

  “You’re saying she. Hey, Fairchild, you finally got yourself a girlfriend? Wonders will never cease.”

  “It’s not like that. Did you hear what I said?”

  “Secure storage? Not the usual request but we can work something out. Want to introduce us?”

  “Sure. Can you get to the Caribbean?”

  As Fairchild expected, Zack was very open to the idea of a business trip to the Caribbean. Zoe had already mentioned her ambition to cross the Atlantic. More distance from this part of the world would do her no harm. He liked the idea even more once he started thinking about going with her.

  They settled into a kind of lifestyle out at sea, moving around each other in the boat with more ease, planning routes, testing the sailability of the craft, eating, and as they relaxed and travelled further, drinking too. Zoe was at home on the water. She could live here, she said, only going in to port for supplies and repairs, constantly roving. He’d been sceptical at first but she might be safer like this. Fairchild taught her what he could of the skills he’d gone out to acquire himself, when he realised he was on his own in the world. In some ways Zoe was doing what he did, determined to make her own path, refusing to fall in line with anyone, unable to return to normality.

  She sucked up whatever he taught her like a sponge. His contact in Naples supplied them with weaponry, and she learned how to use it. They kitted out the boat for any eventuality. They covered tradecraft, ways of slipping in and out of existence. And then self-defence moves. She was athletic and liked to use her body. He wasn’t naturally at ease around women, choosing to ignore sexual attraction far more often than act upon it. But as the days went by on the water it became more natural to be physically close. At anchor, on deck, their combat sessions by necessity involved contact, but over time their hands lingered on each other’s bodies longer than was necessary.

  There was laughter, in these sessions, and optimism, and the feeling that he was finally getting something right by doing this. Their routine filled the days and sometimes even stopped him thinking about Rose. The inner paralysis that set in whenever he remembered that he’d never see her again seemed to loosen around Zoe, who was so different in every way. Zoe was warmth, sunlight, wind and tide, sensation for its own sake but behind all of that a wealth of intelligence and capability he didn’t think the world had seen yet. With Zoe he could be someon
e else, not the bitter self-serving mercenary Rose had shown him, but a friend, in some ways a mentor, in other ways a student, happily learning a more carefree and physical approach to the world. They were companions more than anything else, alone out here, and he hadn’t had too many of those in his life. In Zoe’s company his interactions with Rose came to his memory as complicated and cold, though painful still. He tried not to think at all of that last sight of Rose, guilty and horrified, standing on the sea wall at Ajaccio.

  One quiet morning at anchor, he showed Zoe a defensive move and she used it on him with greater success than he imagined, throwing him hard on his back onto the wooden deck.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Sorry, sorry!”

  Laughing, she leant over him and brushed his mouth with her lips. And it was only then that he realised how much he wanted her.

  Chapter 63

  She could have done it herself eventually, Zoe knew. She’d have figured it out somehow, but without John Fairchild she might never have got past Corsica, never had the chance. Why did he come with her? Right from the start it felt like something he needed for himself, and saw an opportunity with her flight to flee as well, but wrap it up as charity. She didn’t mind. It was an arrangement that suited both of them and he was good company.

  Her thoughts about her future were only just starting to take shape as they sailed. She’d thought of the boat as a way to get out of Monaco in a hurry. But why not keep doing this? People did. She had what she needed here on board and in port. She wouldn’t be lonely, though her heart ached every time she thought of Noah. But she’d always known she’d have to live with that.

  Fairchild was a mine of information and know-how. Yes, it was about guns and self-defence, but also shedding shadows in public places and becoming a shadow yourself. This they practised on some of their stops; it reminded her of Anna. Fairchild knew people everywhere, knew how to get what was needed and seemed happy to share some of that with her. And it was a whole new mindset to learn. She needed to change how she thought, see the world from a different angle. Scary, but exciting too.

  Monaco drifted further away as this new life took shape, fraught with risk and danger. But she sensed she could manage and thrive here, see opportunities and play the game everyone else was playing. The feeling she had at the penthouse that Fairchild was patronising her, had gone, and the longer he stayed the more she felt that she was in some ways supporting him and not the other way round. This feeling came to a head one morning when they were fooling about with defence moves on deck, and on a whim she leant over and kissed him. This unleashed something in him, but in her as well. His depth of need surprised her, but so did her own. It was easy to say she wouldn’t be lonely, but from now on there would be parts of her life that she wouldn’t be able to share with anybody. Just then, at that time, John Fairchild knew her, and the person she was becoming, more deeply and more closely than anyone.

  They sailed, they ate, they drank, they touched every time they came close to each other. They made love, they enjoyed a warmth and ease that was truly private, miles away from everything and everyone they knew. The sun, the wind, the waves became the beat of their lives. Zoe made plans to cross the Atlantic, visit some of those places that before had only been names on office paperwork. She shared it all with Fairchild. He got it, and not everyone would. He got why she’d done this and not just followed orders, why she’d willingly made an outcast of herself.

  Then one night as they lay in bed he said something about coming with her.

  “Are you surprised?” he asked, following her silence.

  “A bit. I thought you had other things going on. Your work, your business.”

  Something else as well, Zoe knew, some darkness inside that he buried, but was there on his face at Ajaccio when he turned away from the sea wall.

  “That’s all over,” he said. “That life. I messed up. I need to start again somewhere else. The Caribbean would do for a while. If you can put up with me.”

  She warmed to the idea. Oh, it was a plug, a stopgap for him, she knew that, but she was getting kind of used to having him around.

  At Gran Canaria they set a date to start the crossing. Ten days of preparation: a thorough rigging check, motor servicing, spare parts, careful provisioning filling every space below decks. They got as far as day six when the message came.

  Fairchild was on the bow checking his phone. When he turned to Zoe, his face was pale.

  “What is it?”

  A death, she thought. Something terrible to cause a shock like that. But it wasn’t. He never said exactly. Only that someone had asked for him and he had to go. He stayed for another day, helping with cleaning and washing, but part of him had already gone.

  When he got his things ready to leave, he said:

  “Zack will meet you in Panama. Be tough with him. Don’t do anything you’re not happy to do. But he’s a good guy. He’ll bend the rules. He hasn’t forgotten who the rules are for.”

  Then he left, with few further words and certainly without thanks. There was no need. She didn’t know where he was going and was focused anyway on the trip ahead, the gear that still needed fixing, the crew she’d want.

  It hurt more than she thought, after he’d gone. But she knew he had to go, and that he didn’t really want to. Unfinished business. It was etched into his face.

  And she knew someday she’d see him again.

  Chapter 64

  The land felt solid and unyielding compared to the constant motion of the waves. Fairchild didn’t want to go. He ached to stay with Zoe, to cross the Atlantic with her, to carry on in that sun-filled windswept rhythm. But the message was from Rose. Rose wanted to see him. Rose asked him to come back to France. And when he saw those words on his phone he realised that it didn’t matter what had gone before. If Rose wanted him, he’d be there. She was his core, the person who made everything mean something. She always would be, whether he liked it or not.

  So here he was in the town of Aix-en-Provence. They met at an outdoor cafe in a cobbled square with a fountain. The town’s refined elegance, the chink of spoons on coffee cups, the hum of polite conversation, seemed cold and colourless. Even the sun had gone; the sky was an empty grey.

  Rose was there already. She looked contained, withdrawn. He sat. She was drinking tea. He ordered an espresso. How long this would take he had no idea.

  “You’ve been having a nice time?” she asked.

  Weeks on deck had turned Fairchild’s skin brown.

  “Well, it was you who sent me away.”

  He tried to sound light, but it didn’t work.

  “I over-reacted,” said Rose. “I shouldn’t have done that.” Her voice was low. It took a lot for her to admit it. “We could have done with your help in the end.”

  “I heard about the incident at the villa.”

  He saw the story when they were out at sea, and it gnawed at him then. He should have been there too, not floating off somewhere. Even though she’d told him to go.

  “The media reported it as a fight between rival Russian mafia gangs,” she said. “During which the famous portrait was destroyed. Not great PR for the Kremlin. Nobody believes their claim that they weren’t involved. Sutherland got away, though.”

  “I know. He showed up in Corsica.”

  She stiffened. “You were in Corsica?”

  “With Zoe. She’s all right. She’s going to be okay.”

  Some heaviness lifted from her face, he thought, maybe.

  “Where is she?”

  “At sea. That’s where she’ll stay.”

  “But the boat?”

  “She’s got another one. Another boat, another identity. She’s not Zoe any more. At least not all the time.”

  Rose frowned. “How did she manage all that?”

  “She’s rich. She has resources. Contacts. She’s off the grid but she’ll be fine.”

  Was there some recognition in her face of his role in that? It was hard to say.

/>   “Thanks for letting me know.”

  A genuine thanks, or a chiding for not telling her before now?

  “No further news of Sutherland?” he asked.

  “Nothing so far. He’s penniless, though. No real influence or network.”

  “Not considered to be a present danger, then.”

  A flash of annoyance crossed her face. She must be off the job. Her team would have been disbanded, the mission over, declared a success, no doubt. Why was she here, then, in France? She hated being purposeless, he knew that about her. He let his gaze flick around the square. She didn’t like that, either.

  “Pippin was MI6,” she said. “Working undercover for the French.”

  This was news to him, but it explained a lot. There was always something reserved, something unrevealed, about Pippin.

  “You didn’t know, I take it,” he said.

  “Different teams working at cross purposes. The bane of large organisations. Especially those that have a policy of not sharing. I’d started to guess, though. After we’d been to his room. But I wasn’t sure enough to say anything.”

  She already knew Fairchild could have had no idea. But he had to make the point anyway.

  “Of course, if I’d known that in Marseille, I would have done more—”

  “Yes, yes.”

  Her cut-off was further admission she’d been wrong to blame Fairchild for his inaction. Her eyes travelled to the fountain again.

  “He put himself in danger to incriminate his handler,” she said. “She was working with the Russians. It worked. She’s out, now. But he’s still in hospital here in Aix. He was pretty damaged by what they did to him. Not just the physical injuries. He’s been changed by all of this.”