Enigma Girl, page 29
‘You’re a lunatic,’ Slim says into her drink, then looks up. ‘Don’t destroy my friendship with Dougal. It’s special. You can go to bed with him, but he’s mine on the dig. Is that clear? No archaeology!’
‘You mean that?’
‘Yes, and if you’re going to get pregnant, you’ve got to tell him. He has his life well set up and he needs to know that you’re going to upend it.’
‘Agreed.’
‘Don’t mess up his life, Bridie.’
‘I won’t. Promise.’ She drinks. ‘So, what the hell’s going on, Slim? Who were those men with guns? Not the assassins but the Irregulars! What’s that mean?’
‘No more questions. Bridie, you’re going to tell me about your work.’
‘I’m in the Fabrics and Wallpaper Section,’ Bridie says. ‘In fact, it is fair to say, and boasting a little, that I am the Fabrics and Wallpaper section of SIS.’ Then, after an eye-roll from Slim, she adds, more seriously, ‘I’m the security officer for European embassies and sometimes beyond. I go in usually under cover as the clueless interior designer, swatches and a copy of House and Garden to hand, and check on things—general security, the personnel, the suppliers, the protocols of our people at the embassy, the little Russian weevils that get into the woodwork. I plug holes, look at communications breaches. With the help of your people, I catch the odd bogey like the security officer we nabbed the other day in Basel who was selling addresses and telephone numbers of embassy staff to the Russians. Right little cunt. British, too. And if you tell anyone any of this, I will have to kill you.’
‘I should have guessed. My mother said that when I was being vetted, they wanted to know about you, too.’
Bridie raises her glass. ‘Here’s to your mum and Matt.’ She drinks. ‘And to my imminent window of fertility.’
Slim drinks but says nothing.
‘I’m sorry about the joke. It was unforgivable.’
‘You’ve got off the subject. Tell me more.’
‘I literally can’t. I have ambitions. I want to go all the way and I’m not going to make silly mistakes like telling state secrets to my best pal.’ She rests her chin on her folded hands and levels her grey eyes to tranquillise Slim with her beauty. ‘So, tell me what’s going on?’
‘I literally can’t. It’s way too complicated, moreover I’d have to kill you if I did.’ Bridie nods acceptance.
Loup growls and jumps up. Slim goes to the cabin door and the dog bolts past her up the steps. She hears Tudor Mills telling him to shut it before he climbs on board and comes down into the cabin, wheezing. ‘Hello, Miss Hansen. I didn’t expect to find you here.’
Slim whips round. ‘What the heck, Bridie!’
Bridie shrugs. ‘Mr Mills came looking for you at Wye Street last year. That’s all. I gave him coffee once when we were trying to work out where on earth you were. Isn’t that right, Mr Mills?’
Tudor leans forward on the table with white knuckles. He’s still wheezing. ‘I need to talk to Slim alone. Could you give us a moment? One of my people is out there. You’ll be quite safe.’ Bridie exits with her glass, wrapping a thick cashmere scarf around her with one hand.
‘Sit, Tudor. You look beat.’ She reaches for a tumbler and pushes the bottle to him. He squints at the label and says, ‘Lynch-Bages 2018! Have you any idea how much this goes for? A hundred and fifty minimum.’
She shrugs. ‘Bridie brought it. I’m pretty sure she meant it for someone else.’
He waves the wine under his nose and drinks. ‘Excellent.’ He lowers the glass and shakes his head. ‘Smart to send the boat off like that, but risky to attack them unarmed.’
‘We had no option. The dog gave us away.’
‘But to disarm those two killers like that, well . . .’ He stops. ‘You were very, very lucky.’ He snorts a laugh. ‘And they’ll never get over it. We know who they are. Adam Gorgiev, thirty-eight, and Aleksandr Lyanox, forty-three. They’re Tbilisi-based but originally from Ingushetia.’ Slim mentally salutes Bridie’s linguistic triangulation. ‘Ex-military, no doubt. European arrest warrants out for them both under other names. Six kills we believe. Probably more.’
‘Including Matthew?’
He looks down at the wine. ‘Excluding your brother, but we are near certain they were his killers. The Irish authorities are checking all the imagery from the pub and Irish ports now. We know they were filmed at Heathrow and believe they returned one week later in a container from Rotterdam to Grimsby. They were watched by the Dutch port police, who lost them, then recorded a day later in Grimsby town centre. These two dangerous men were sent to kill you and, well, here you are, Slim, very much alive and kicking, and they are going away for a long, long time. It really looks as though you apprehended your brother’s killers, but I’ll confirm that as soon as I can.’
‘Wish I’d shot them.’
‘I’m glad you didn’t. By the way, the police wanted to know if there was a second weapon.’
‘In the canal,’ she says although she can feel the handle of the silenced pistol under the cushion she’s sitting on. ‘So, where does this all leave me?’
‘The threat is clearly over for the time being.’
‘But Guest is swanning about London without a care in the world.’
‘That’s why you’ve been told to disappear, which, given your history, shouldn’t be too difficult.’ He winks at her. ‘I’ve been told a communications channel has been set up and that you’ll be contacted. That’s all I know.’
‘Come on, Tudor, something is going on. Really big. I mean this is all so abnormal and weird. For a start, who are the Mills Irregulars? Why not the police, or SAS, for Christ’s sake? Why the private army?’
‘They are Mr Halfknight’s people, but they are known as the Mills Irregulars because I put them together and Mr Halfknight would not want his name attached to that kind of outfit, although it’s entirely legal and above board.’ He finishes the drink, shoves his hands in his pockets and gives her the dead-eyed look with his lips slightly parted, which, if Tudor is considering a dating app, is the expression he should avoid. ‘But from now on, you are on your own. Even if I wanted to protect you unofficially, I can’t because I’m having an operation at the end of the week, and I’m due to retire in September. So, that’s me done.’
‘Nothing serious, I hope.’
‘Lung cancer. Small tumour. Size of a grape, they tell me.’
‘I’m so sorry, Tudor. That’s appalling.’
‘Thanks, but I expect to live to grow roses. It was caught early.’
Slim shakes her head at the idea. ‘Well, I’m very sorry.’ She waits a less than respectful beat before saying, ‘You can’t tell me anything?’
‘No, because I don’t know anything. I’m basically the help. I fix things for Mr Halfknight. However, I do know that you are in this because you’re tough and he knows you’ll go the distance. That’s why you were chosen.’
‘To infiltrate a do-gooding website?’ She feels herself doing a teenager’s mime of incredulity and stops herself.
He grins and gets up. ‘Even I can see that’s not the job. Take your dog and get lost somewhere. Don’t go ignoring your bloody phone like you did last time. And don’t tell your beautiful friend anything. She’s far too sharp for her own good.’ He pauses to think. ‘We’re keeping you out of this, although the man you clobbered—Lyanox—is in a bad way. We do not think his companion Gogiev, however, will want to admit that they were whopped by two unarmed women half their size.’ He laughs and turns to leave.
Slim jumps up and snatches at his sleeve. ‘I need to thank you for everything. That picture of Liam was hugely important for my mother.’ She gives him a peck on the cheek. ‘And good luck under the knife.’
‘No knife,’ he says. ‘They cut it out through a hole.’
She shudders.
He studies her with a smile. He has one foot on the first step and is searching for something on which to haul himself up. He says, ‘You didn’t like me at first, did you?’
‘No, but I do now.’
‘Thank you.’ He seems relieved and looks down. ‘I have one thought for you. It’s just an opinion, of course but . . .’
‘What is it?’
‘Softball equals Linesman. They’re the same operation. It stands to reason, if you think it through.’
‘What makes you say that?’
He grimaces his worry about saying as much as he has and searches her face. She thinks he may add something, so she waits in silence but then he exhales, and she hears a rattle in his chest, and he mutters that it’s just a hunch, but he’s glad he’s mentioned it because it’s been on his mind and, hell, what’s he got to lose now?
‘Cheerio,’ he says as he leaves.
‘Good luck,’ she says again.
‘Keep it for yourself, Slim Parsons. You’re going to need it.’
In the few minutes she is left alone while Bridie and Tudor talk on the towpath, she considers the Mills equation, Softball equals Linesman. Something like this has been in her mind for a few weeks, but never as stark as this, never as absolute, and it does stand to reason.
She rises before Bridie in the morning and takes Loup for a run through the crescent of lakes that surround the Great Ouse to the north of the city. At the furthest point from the boat, she switches on the Ballard phone and finds nothing. No texts, no emails, nothing. ‘Two men killed my brother,’ she mutters to herself, ‘then come looking for me with silenced pistols, and Ballard can’t be arsed to get in touch.’ Again, she’ll fight silence with silence. She has the other phones with her. She uses one to text kisses to Helen Meiklejohn, switches it off and returns it to the knapsack with the others, which she’ll leave on charge on Spindle when she goes that afternoon.
On the boat, she peers into Bridie’s cabin and sees she’s still asleep. She puts the kettle on, spoons coffee grounds into the cafetière and goes on deck to loosen the lines and start the engine. By the time she’s turned Spindle round, the kettle is whistling, and Bridie is complaining about a visit from Loup. A few minutes later she appears, wrapped in a sleeping bag, with coffee for them both and lands heavily on the bench, like the wan subject of a fashion shoot.
‘Okay?’ Slim asks.
She shrugs. ‘Yep, have you got anything to eat?’
‘Ryvita, butter, apples and blackened bananas. Maybe baked beans.’
Bride sniffs and doesn’t move. ‘What’s the plan?’
‘Going to lie low and plan my mum and Matt’s funeral. Then I’ll see.’
Bridie looks along the canal. It is not yet 8 a.m. A few joggers and cyclists are about, but no boats are moving yet. Everything looks pristine. Slim thinks of her mother inhaling the beauty of spring.
‘That was really fucking frightening last night,’ Bridie says and shivers. ‘It didn’t hit me until this morning. I’m not used to men coming to kill me with silenced pistols but you, Slim, you just let it wash over you.’
Slim slows the boat to allow a mallard with ducklings to cross the canal. ‘I was as terrified as you were, believe me. I was shaking.’
‘Yes, but you bury stuff and get on with it. The thing that happened to you on the plane, you just let it go and you don’t obsess about it.’
Slim looks down at her and shrugs. She hasn’t let it go. She thinks about it all the time, but doesn’t say.
‘Can I give you some advice?’ says Bridie.
‘People say that when they are going to give an opinion. If it’s advice and not an opinion, sure.’
‘This is advice. Don’t bury the grief for your mother and Matt. Take it from me, it’s the short way to madness.’
For several minutes they are silent, then Slim says, ‘What was your boyfriend’s name? You never told me.’
Bridie lets the sleeping bag fall away and lifts her sweater and shirt. Beneath her left breast is tattooed, Gus Gustavo 1980-2019. ‘I hate tattoos, but he has no gravestone that I can visit so this is where he rests, buried in my heart.’ She tucks in the shirt and pulls the sleeping bag around her shoulders.
Slim says, ‘Gustavo, the famous war photographer. I had no idea.’
‘The photographer—he didn’t like the “war” prefix. He was a huge talent—best of his generation—and a tall glass of water, if ever there was one, and my deep, deep love. Will never love like that again because it’s impossible. But I really could love our friend Dougal and give him the rest of me.’
‘Let’s see how that goes. Dougal will have his own view. He may seem big and cuddly, but he’s no pushover. And he’ll have that tattoo to contend with.’ After an awkward silence, Slim says, ‘I knew you were grieving.’ She sees Bridie standing in her kitchen ashen-faced, frozen to the spot, a broken coffee pot on the floor. ‘I should have reached out, done something, helped you.’
‘You tried, dearest Slim. You tried.’
That same Saturday, Slim remembers them sitting in her garden, and Bridie quoting King Lear speaking over the body of Cordelia, as though she had only just understood the finality of it. ‘“No, no, no life? Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life and thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more. Never, never, never, never, never!”’
Bridie says, ‘It’s five years. Atomised by an RPG or something else. We don’t know. Nothing left, except in my head and here.’ She places a hand on her chest, then shakes her head violently to free herself of the emotion. ‘Sorry. Get a grip, girl.’ She takes two deep breaths and says, ‘You want more coffee?’
‘No, I’m fine.’
She gets up, slings an arm round Slim and kisses her. ‘We did pretty good, didn’t we?’
‘We did,’ she says.
Bridie leaves and, by the afternoon, Slim has cleaned and tidied the boat, returned it to its former appearance, packed the things she’ll need, and paid Bantock generously, as well as dodged all his questions about the previous night’s events, which he’s only just hearing about on the canal message group.
‘When shall I expect to see you?’ he asks.
‘I don’t know but I’ll need to check the phones. I may call you. By the way, you don’t want to keep Loup permanently, do you?’
‘No, he’s your dog, and he knows it. I’m the entertainments officer, you’re the owner.’ Loup is looking worriedly from Bantock to her.
‘Come on,’ she says to him moving towards the pickup.
‘What about the picture of your brother?’
‘I’m leaving it with some other stuff and some phones on charge.’
‘You want people to think you’re there?’
‘It’s important you don’t unplug them. They’re out of sight. Leave them be if you move the boat. I’ll call you when I have a new number.’
Hours later, having bought yet another phone, she heads north-west to the village of Fallow End and, as instructed by Delphy Buchanan, instead of parking in front of Top Farm Cottage, goes on fifty yards to a gated, overgrown track, which leads behind the barn that once served the long-defunct Top Farm. She goes to the back door with Loup and knocks loudly. Delphy has already spotted her through the window, and immediately wrenches open the door with remarkable force for someone about to enter her second century. She looks down at Loup and says, ‘He seems nervous.’
‘He has reason to be. As I explained on the phone, we’re hardly ideal guests. I just need somewhere I can keep my head down and work.’
Delphy looks up. ‘Of course, my dear. Anything for you, Slim. And what do I have to fear at my age? Nothing! Besides, Frank will soon be returned from Liverpool, and nobody in their right mind wants to upset Frank.’ Her eyes glitter. ‘He telephoned to say that everything was fine, and he wants to marry Tam.’
‘That’s wonderful.’
‘Life is extraordinary. If Frank hadn’t thought he’d killed that man, he wouldn’t have been out there in the woods when the accident happened, and he’d never have known of the existence of the love of his life. And Tam would, in all probability, be dead, and her mother and her sister would never have known what befell her. Makes you think, doesn’t it?’
Delphy accompanies her across the old farmyard, where holes in the concrete are plugged with flowering shrubs and standard roses, to one of two converted cowsheds that were let out to ramblers when Delphy’s partner, Margaret, was alive. Cow One, as the suite is called, has an unmistakable eighties imprint: floral curtains, matching skirts around the bed and dressing table, a wastebasket celebrating the Queen’s Silver Jubilee of 1977, cord-pull switches that twang. But it is light and comfortable and is in direct line of sight with the broadband router in Delphy’s kitchen. Having ensured that the gas water heater fires up, and the old Hobbs kettle is working, Delphy prepares to depart to hear the BBC six o’clock news. ‘Come in whenever you feel hungry,’ she says. ‘I’ll be glad of the company. But if you’re too busy with your top-secret work, I will understand. We Bletchley girls are used to it.’
Slim removes the material from around the dressing table to make room for her legs, puts the vanity mirror to one side and rubs the surface with her sleeve. All her writing will be done on a flash drive that she’ll take out when she is away from the laptop or connected to the Internet. She opens the laptop and runs a program to seek out and destroy spyware, which she has on another flash drive that is disguised as a lighter. The computer is clean. She downloads a VPN—a virtual private network—that will hide her IP address and web.
She sits on the side of the bed, suddenly exhausted and depressed, and listens to the silence of the countryside around her, which is broken only by a blackbird singing from the rooftop across the yard. She swings her legs on to the bed, kicks off her trainers and shuts her eyes to plan the next few days. But the only thing she’s aware of is the extraordinary beauty of the blackbird’s song and soon she is asleep.
