The Mother, page 16
He reddens slightly. ‘Suffice to say if she makes contact with anyone now, if she takes the bait we’re about to throw her, we’ll know about it.’
‘How?’
He clears his throat, indicates the MacBook on his lap.
‘An adapted Pegasus trojan using a zero-click exploit.’
I frown. ‘You lost me at “adapted”.’
‘Pegasus,’ he explains, ‘is a piece of spyware originally developed by an Israeli company that has since been pirated and adapted by hackers, for sale on the Dark Web. “Zero-click” meant the target didn’t even have to click on a malicious link in a text or email – accepting an incoming call was enough to infect the device.’
‘You just hacked her with a phone call?’
‘Listen, there’s no possible way she can detect it and—’
‘You’d better be right about that.’
‘And even if she does,’ he finishes, ‘there’s no way to trace it back to us. Back to me.’
‘You’re absolutely certain?’
‘One hundred per cent.’
I study him for a moment, this big guy crammed into the driver’s seat of his car with a laptop on his knees, who had been a stranger until twenty-four hours ago. Who had no doubt also been absolutely certain about the story that had ruined him and wrecked his career. Now, I was risking my freedom, my one chance to get the boys back, just by associating with him.
But I couldn’t walk away, not now. The only way through was to keep going forward.
‘OK,’ I say finally. ‘Let’s just hope this gives us an opening.’
‘Remember what you need to say.’
I get out of his car and cross the street, walk slowly up the path of number forty-four and ring the bell. From somewhere inside I can hear the soft strains of classical music, a violin concerto. The door swings open to reveal a high-ceilinged hallway, all smooth white lines with no clutter anywhere. No coats on hooks, no shoes lined up, no umbrellas, no bags. Minimalist perfection.
Christine stands in the doorway, pen in hand, and for a second there is no hint of recognition.
Then the expression dissolves on her face, the practised smile melting away.
‘Heather?’
‘Hello, Christine,’ I say evenly.
‘What—’
‘I’m sorry to drop in on you out of the blue like this.’
‘You’re . . . out.’
‘Yes. I am.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I was hoping you might have a few minutes to talk.’
‘What? Now?’ She seems to recover her wits, looking over my shoulder to the street behind. ‘I’m right in the middle of something.’
‘Just a few minutes, that’s all. It’s to do with Liam and why he died, who really killed him. New evidence has come to light and I wanted to—’
‘What evidence?’
‘Corruption. Bribery. Sensitive information sold to the highest bidder.’
‘You shouldn’t even be here,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
‘Just five minutes, Christine. That’s all I’m asking.’
She pushes the door half closed, her slim body filling the gap between the frame.
‘I don’t want to talk to you.’
‘We know you were talking to an organisation outside Parliament, probably receiving money from them as well. Liam found out about it, didn’t he?’
The door shuts with a solid click, the steel rattle of the chain being slid into place before her footsteps retreat towards the back of the house.
I give her my parting shot through the ornate brass letterbox.
‘We’re not going to stop until we’ve found the truth, Christine.’
Owen has reversed the car back out of sight. I climb back into the passenger seat as he pulls headphones off his ears.
‘Well?’ he says.
‘She wasn’t very pleased to see me.’
‘You gave her the line about having new evidence?’
‘I did.’
‘How did she react?’
‘She shut the door in my face.’
‘And how did she look?’ he says. ‘When you told her that?’
‘Spooked. She tried to hide it but I could see it took her by surprise.’
‘Good. That’s good.’
We had discussed a strategy, an approach, and agreed it before the short drive to this smart street in Weston Park. Now we just had to see whether she’d take the bait.
‘It seems like a long shot,’ I say. ‘She’s not going to run scared now, is she? You think she might crack, after all this time?’
‘Ten years of guilt,’ Owen says, ‘is a lot to hold inside. Ten years of thinking you’ve got away with something.’
‘So what do we do now?’
Owen shifts position in the driver’s seat and I get a hint of his aftershave, sharp like cold ocean water, chewing gum on his breath
‘Now,’ he says, without looking up from his screen. ‘We wait.’
29
Owen continues to tap at the laptop while I study the document again, eyes lingering over every word. I’ve read it a dozen times now, trying to squeeze the last drop of information from it. I’m still trying to digest the fact that this single sheet of paper has been hidden in a storage unit for so long, remaining undiscovered for a decade, and might now be the key that unlocks everything.
. . . CL to coordinate with NS Joint Endeavour team re: approval/authentication prior to forthcoming issue under the agreed terms.
Liam’s handwritten note: What is this??? Ask CL ASAP.
I’ve already googled every possible name, every acronym, trying to find a relevant connection. There are millions of search results for ‘Joint Endeavour’ but none with an obvious link. It seems to have been the name of a NATO operation in Bosnia in the 1990s. Could there be something in that? It didn’t seem likely. Or could it relate somehow to the unsent message the police had found in Liam’s email? The message intended for me, that he had composed but never sent? The police had built their theory on the assumption that his email was a confession, an admission of adultery. But I had never wanted to believe that was true, despite the mystery female caller on the night of his death and what the police had discovered afterwards. What if his email was something else instead?
Beside me in the driver’s seat, Owen grunts and angles his laptop’s screen towards me.
‘You should probably see this, Heather. It’s . . . you’ve been spotted.’
I look at the screen and my stomach drops. It’s a story on the Bristol Live website, a phone picture of me on a railway platform, my face caught in half-profile just as I’m turning towards the camera. Ugly red scar tissue climbing the side of my neck. Beneath it is the headline:
MP’s Killer On the Streets Again
CONVICTED murderer Heather Vernon is out of prison and planning to start a new life in Bristol, we can exclusively reveal today.
Vernon, 44, was jailed in 2014 for the brutal murder of her husband, charismatic Bath MP Liam Vernon.
She was spotted at Temple Meads railway station yesterday just DAYS after being released from prison, where she has served half of her eighteen-year sentence.
An onlooker said: ‘Her hair was longer but you could definitely tell it was her. She was just sitting there waiting for a train. When she saw me taking a picture, the look she gave me – it was cold as ice. Makes me shiver just thinking about it.’
Vernon was dubbed the ‘ice queen’ during her trial for her detached and unemotional testimony when confronted with the evidence of her husband’s death from a single stab wound . . .
I scan down further through the text, but there’s nothing else of note, nothing new. The comments from readers are all along the same lines. Should be doing the full eighteen years. Life should mean life. Sentencing is a joke in this country. Hope she rots in hell for what she did.
I hand the phone back without reading the rest. I knew it would only be a matter of time until I was recognised, but I didn’t realise it would happen quite so fast. If it kept on happening, it might become a problem. I pull on a baseball cap from my bag and tug the brim down low.
The ting of an electronic bell comes from his laptop and he returns his attention to the screen, clicking an icon on the desktop.
‘We’re in business,’ he announces after a minute.
He turns the computer to face me again. On the screen is a short message thread from Christine to an unknown number.
Need to speak to you. Urgent.
Can talk now?
Not on phone. In person.
A drink for old time’s sake? Usual place, 2 p.m.
‘The other number,’ I say, ‘the recipient. Can you find out who that is?’
‘Depends on how careful they are. I’ll see what I can do.’
I point through the windscreen. ‘Or we could find out the old-fashioned way. She’s on the move.’
Christine emerges from her house in smart jeans and a fitted tweed jacket, striding down her garden path with a handbag over her shoulder and big designer sunglasses on despite the September clouds. She gets into her car, a spotless white Lexus, and pulls quickly away.
Owen starts the car and follows her.
We tail her Lexus as she heads into the city centre, Owen staying one or two cars back so we are not spotted. He doesn’t seem fazed by it at all, keeping his distance in the traffic but staying with the Lexus through turns and junctions, pushing through a couple of orange traffic lights to make sure we keep the target in sight.
‘You’ve tailed people before?’
He gives me a lopsided grin. ‘No comment.’
After a ten-minute drive into the middle of Bath, Christine pulls into a multi-storey car park and Owen finds a spot in a lay-by a little way down the street. After a few minutes, she heads out on foot, crossing the road behind us and into a side street, against the one-way traffic.
‘Stay here,’ I say, opening my door. ‘I’m going to see where she goes.’
He gives me a reluctant nod. ‘OK. Keep your distance.’
Christine walks quickly and I have to keep my eyes on her retreating back to make sure I don’t lose her among the afternoon shoppers and tourists on St James’s Parade. She’s already thirty yards ahead of me when she ducks left into a bistro with two large windows at the front and a scarlet sign displaying its name: The Harlequin. I walk by, throwing a casual glance into the window as I pass. Christine is being led by a waitress to a booth at the back, an intimate corner of this chic little bistro.
A man is waiting for her, standing as she approaches. He’s tall, distinguished, handsome in an expensively cut dark-grey suit, heavy watch at his wrist. He’s perhaps in his mid-fifties – at least a decade older than Christine – with flecks of silver in his dark hair. They air-kiss their greetings and she sits at the table opposite him.
I carry on walking past, pulse thudding in my veins, heading up the street to another side street leading into a small park. From here, I can keep an eye on the door of the bistro.
Counting off ten minutes on my watch before making another pass, I pretend to loiter a moment to look at the eye-wateringly expensive menu in the window. From under the brim of the baseball cap I glance towards the back booth where the two of them are deep in conversation now, heads close together, coffees untouched on the table between them. Her posture is animated, uncomfortable, whereas he is grim-faced and attentive. I can’t quite work out the dynamic between them – friends? Or colleagues? Lovers?
I watch for a moment longer, wishing powerfully to be a fly on the wall listening to their conversation. But one of the waitresses catches my eye and I move away, back to the side street where I can keep my distance.
It’s another twenty minutes before Christine emerges, alone, turning smartly away from me and heading back down St James’s Parade. She seems entirely preoccupied and doesn’t look in my direction.
I take out my phone and dial Owen’s number, giving him a brief summary of what I’ve seen.
‘Can you stay on Christine? She’s on her way back to you now.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’m going to follow the guy in the bistro.’
‘Let’s divide and conquer, then.’ At his end of the line I hear the old VW’s engine grumbling into life. ‘Stay in touch. And be careful, Heather.’
Phone still in my hand, I snap a couple of pictures of the man in the grey suit as he walks out of the bistro a few minutes later. A chauffeur in a peaked cap is already waiting next to a long black Mercedes Maybach parked on the double yellows outside. But Grey Suit waves the chauffeur away, saying something to him as he strides off down the pavement away from the city centre. The sun has emerged from behind wispy autumn clouds; it seems he prefers to walk.
On the other side of the street, I follow him. He talks on the phone all the way to an anonymous office building on New King Street. It bears no company name or logo, just a large number ‘125’ over the entrance, six storeys of dark mirrored glass that show nothing of what lies behind it, discreet cameras covering every approach.
The man in the grey suit steps into a revolving door at the front and disappears inside.
30
It’s been four days since I was released and my boys seem further away than ever. When I was locked up I could pretend they were somewhere in my future, but now I’m back in the world there are reminders at every turn of how distant they have become. We occupy two separate worlds now, and I’m starting to wonder whether I will ever see them again.
I leave New King Street behind and take an indirect route to Bathwick. I knew enough to know where I needed to be and by 3.30 p.m. I’m in position, leaning on a bus shelter on the other side of North Road with a good view of the entrance, the brim of my baseball cap pulled low. I see Amy as she arrives, walking up from the bus stop with Jet trotting along beside her. She strolls up onto the main drive of King Edward’s School, towards an imposing Victorian building of honey-coloured stone common to so much of the city.
I shift my position, taking in the smart cars pulling into the kerb. BMWs, Mercedes, Teslas, Audis. Women and men of about my age, talking listlessly on phones or drumming steering wheels, not a single one of them aware of how lucky they are to be here. How lucky they are to be doing something as mundane and everyday and wonderful as the school pick-up on a warm Tuesday afternoon. There is a churn of nerves in my stomach again, the reminder that I’m an outsider looking in – I have forgotten how to do this, how to be this person.
Pupils start to wander out through the gate and I study each face in turn. Is it you? Or you? You?
Amy emerges with two boys in smart navy blazers, backpacks on their shoulders, the three of them chatting easily as they walk down the drive. Much closer than they had been at Dormers a few days ago.
Hot tears brim behind my eyes.
I feel my throat closing, a pressure in my chest as if my lungs are being squeezed tightly together in a vice. Willing myself not to cry, not to make a sound, not to give myself away. Fists curled tight in my pockets, nails digging into the palm of each hand.
My boys.
Theo and Finn.
So much time has been lost. It has been almost ten years since I was this close to them. Three thousand, five hundred and twenty-two days: we’ve been apart far longer than we were ever together. I’ve been a mother for fourteen years but have never done the school run. Not even once.
Finn is in front with Jet’s lead in his hand, Theo behind, talking easily to Amy. Theo is a teenager now, brushing a long dark fringe out of his eyes, the resemblance to his dad so strong in his face, the line of his jaw, the confidence of his stride. He’s already taller than Amy and even from across the street I can tell his voice has broken. It seems impossible. My little boy’s voice has broken. Finn’s blond toddler hair has darkened to a sandy light brown, cut short at the sides and a mass of curls at the front. He has my eyes, the same dimple in his chin. My baby, always the one who took after my side of the family, who looked more like me. Born Thursday the fifth of August at 6.41 in the morning, six pounds and eleven ounces, after seventeen hours of labour and lots of gas and air, lots of swearing on my part. Fifty-three centimetres long from the crown of his head to the wrinkled tips of his tiny toes, soulful blue eyes that have never changed colour since the day he was born.
A good feeder right from the beginning, not such a good sleeper to start with but we got there in the end. Back then I knew everything there was to know about him, I knew him better than the doctors and the nurses, the midwives, the grandparents, better than Liam, even. Better than anyone.
I wonder how I would appear to him now: a stranger, just hanging around at the end of a school day. A woman on her own, watching from a distance.
The only picture I had of them in prison was from seven years ago and they look completely different to how I remember them, but also the same. They are strangers who have taken the place of my children – and yet, I know them better than I know my own face.
Finn turns to his brother and gives him the same lopsided smile he’s had since he was a toddler, the same mischievous grin as when he would bump down the stairs on his bottom, when he would splash water out of the bath, when he would run laughing circles with Jet in the back garden.
They turn left out of the gate and walk up the hill, then left again towards the fields above the school.
OK. I wanted to see them close-up, and I’ve done that. I’ve seen them. Now it’s time to go. I shouldn’t push my luck. And there is work to do.
I know all this.
But I follow them anyway.
By the time I’ve turned the corner they are already disappearing through a wooden gate and into the field, a rough stretch of grassland bordered by a screen of trees, with a golf course on the far side. I follow at a distance, taking my time, walking behind a group of sixth-formers as they make their way slowly up the hill.
