1.55pm. Tuesday, 7th November
Settling into the tan leather seat and snapping the seatbelt into place in the silver Porsche Carrera GT, Honor ran her fingertips along the shining dashboard.
North revved the engine, whistled in appreciation, and Honor groaned.
“This isn’t your car, is it? You stole it.” She pulled her hand back like the dashboard burnt her.
In the scheme of everything he did before, during, or since leaving the Army, stealing a car was the least of it. She must know that.
“And you’re an accessory,” he glanced across at her, raising his eyebrows as they swung out from the gloom of the hospital’s underground carpark, up the ramp and into the heavy traffic all without stopping or his hand leaving the ball-topped gear lever. “Plus, you are suicidal and mentally unbalanced. It was all over the news.”
The hospital wasn’t happy when she discharged herself – the panicking nurses summoned a consultant. North told them he was her brother which was the only thing stopping them from barricading the door. He was as dark as Honor was fair and twice her size – they made for an unlikely brother-sister combo, but he put his arm around her and she laid her head against his chest as if posing for a picture for the family Christmas Card. “My brother and I on suicide watch – Merry Christmas and festive greetings.”
The bow-tied consultant arrived at a trot, spluttering about psych evaluations and “systems” to put in place. Honor heard him out, asked his opinion on the new health insurance system, shook his hand and walked out anyway – North lifted his electronic key fob first. They’d passed a couple of New Army soldiers as they’d slipped out of the door the ambulances used in A&E. North couldn’t prove it, but he was willing to bet they were heading for guard duty outside Honor’s ward. There had to be some perks to being a major shareholder in the New Army. Even if he didn’t believe a word Honor said, JP wanted journalists kept out and visitors kept to a minimum till he claimed her.
With three times the horsepower of a normal car, the Porsche could do more than 200 miles per hour. North pressed his foot lightly against the accelerator and the racer responded immediately with a throaty roar. He was tempted to keep it. If he had to die, behind the wheel of a Porsche Carrera seemed as good a way as any. But an alert was probably out on it already. Even if the consultant didn’t yet know it was missing, the Board would check the CCTV in the immediate aftermath of Honor’s discharge from the ward.
No Porsche then – but he still had options. There were three cars in lock-ups around London, a turbo-charged Mini convertible in Stoke Newington, a Jaguar XJ Supersport in Notting Hill and a V8 Range Rover in Rotherhithe. The Jaguar? Too flashy. The Mini wouldn’t do. Which left the Range Rover.
Hands on the wheel, not too fast, not too slow, his eyes watching for pursuers, North did the calculations. The Board was looking for him. He was reluctant to take the job – only agreeing under pressure. They knew he didn’t kill Honor – worse yet, their other operative ended up dead in her bathroom. Honor was a good talker, but it was doubtful she talked a 15-stone goon into drowning himself and then cutting his own throat. Which meant she had help. Plus, they knew he’d found his own photograph and his own green-inked name. So the Board wasn’t just looking for her. They were looking for him.
The lock-up down the cobbled alley and just off the main drag didn’t look much on the outside – it didn’t even merit a padlock. But in this part of London a padlock proved as much an invitation to the criminally minded as a deterrent. It did however possess a state of the art nine-pin lock.
The pounding beat of gangsta rap started up somewhere close, the bass rumble loud enough to shake windows out of frames, and cursing, North leaned into the damp wood of the double-doors, bracing himself against the puddled road for purchase. Along the alley, a figure appeared, then another, the hoodied silhouettes lit by the orange flare of flames from a metal brazier. A grinding as the doors gave, frayed and splintering hems scraping against the broken-up concrete floor and splintered glass.
On Jamaica Road, the lads gathered in the rain, readying themselves for a night of trouble ahead. North didn’t know the cause. Joblessness? Anti-immigration? Islam? Anti-Islam? No one needed a reason these days.
North risked a quick look towards the end of the alley. They needed to leave before the boys got down to the serious business of burning out corner shops and lobbing bricks at riot police. As one of the lads turned his head and shouted, North pushed Honor into the darkness of the garage and half-threw her into the Range Rover. Rounding the bonnet, his hand against the cold, smooth metal, in the lit-up interior behind the glass of the windscreen, Honor sat complaining at his rough handling – her mouth, opening and closing. Politicians – they never knew when to shut up.
The gang appeared in force, skidding to a halt, swinging themselves around the open doors as he slid the key into the ignition and pressed the accelerator to the floor, flinging Honor back into the passenger seat, her arms spread either side of her and the youths scattered. Who doesn’t like a few easy pickings? But they weren’t going to get themselves run over before the fun began. In the rearview mirror, the lads were turning their attention to the Porsche. To steal or to burn? To drive or to destroy? Everyday dilemmas for the modern delinquent. He hoped for the car’s sake, they would drive her, because if they did, surely they wouldn’t be able to stick an oily rag into her petrol tank, light it, and watch her burn?
“You nearly killed those boys.”
He fought an urge to stop the car, open the door, and push Honor out. Smiling at his irritation, she settled into her seat, angling it so that her body turned towards him, folding one bare leg under her, stretching out the other – he tried not to look. Theirs was a professional dynamic he reminded himself, unusual but professional.
“Tell me about Ned Fellowes,” he said.
“I told you.”
“Did he really give you this?” He pulled the memory key out from his pocket and she snatched it from his fingers. “I didn’t steal it. You dropped it when you took your early bath.”
She quietened, either at the reassurance or the mention of her near-death experience. He didn’t know which. He had killed a man for her. Given up his way of life, because she stood in a park and made him believe she was an innocent. Surely, he was entitled to know what this was all about.
“A woman I once met, told me trust cuts both ways.”
He gestured to the glove compartment and she opened it. Inside was a small computer
Her fear of letting go, her suspicion flooded him. His own face staring at her as he’d stared in the park, ugly, cold, ready to kill her. But that was then.
“How do I know this isn’t some long con you’re playing, North?” Her eyes were enormous in her face. “You could be using me.”
“Back at you.”
She studied the key in her hand. Ned’s earnest face. Russet hair. “Don’t trust anyone.
Apart from me.” But he was dead.
She pushed the key into the tablet. The screen went from green to black and finally to a small box, antennae waving on top of it like an old-fashioned TV, the white Play arrow obscuring the face behind it. Honor clicked on it.
The young man’s voice was scratchy. A Geordie accent. North recognised him immediately – Ned Fellowes. He slowed, turning his head to avoid a roadside camera. The rain was heavy and set to get worse. According to the forecast, winds would kick in around Yorkshire and travellers were advised to stay at home unless their journeys were strictly necessary. He counted staying alive as entirely necessary.
Honor sat without moving, but on screen, Ned couldn’t sit still – his rabbity nose twitched every few seconds, as if he scented danger. His hand went up to his beard which he stroked. Attempting to self-sooth, North judged.
“To my certain knowledge, Ms Jones, 33 people are missing.”
North grimaced and the young man twitched furiously as if sensing his scepticism.
“I say 33 because I have proof of it, and I include, of course, our mutual friend Peggy Boland. I suspect, however, there are more.” The nose twitched again. “I know for a fact Peggy is missing, because I was across her emails and, indeed, all communications.”
Ned did not appear embarrassed at this confession. As far as he was concerned, this was objective evidence in his case.
“Dr Boland had no plans to travel. Indeed, she had 51 commitments including teaching, research and social events that she failed to honour on, or after, October the 9th. Among them a doctor’s appointment and a dental check-up, four choir rehearsals and a trip to the theatre. She offered no explanation, gave no notice, sent no apologies.”
Honor’s finger pressed pause, and Ned’s rodent face stalled.
“He was stalking her.”
“I got that,” North said.
As if he heard them, Ned leaned in towards the camera.
“Dr Boland is my friend. Friendship is a responsibility I take seriously as I know you do Ms Jones, which is why I hope you’ll understand. Why you won’t think badly of me.
“Three weeks ago, Peggy’s email password changed. Indeed, all her passwords changed. Peggy hasn’t changed her password for two years, four months and six days. Naturally, I wondered why she’d do such a thing, and it occurred to me Peggy had found out I’d taken what she might regard as too close an interest. When I attempted to make contact with her to explain, I was told she’d left the country. This struck me as – unlikely. Peggy’s absence…”. He hesitated as if reluctant to say the word. “…disturbed me. Lowered my mood. Doctors tell me in these circumstances that I have to take action to bring myself round rather than become ‘overwhelmed’. The action I decided to take was to find Dr Boland.”
“He should have gone out and got drunk,” North said.
But Honor’s attention was fixed on the screen.
“This is no longer an analogue world, Ms Jones. We’re connected. Absence is noted. Felt. But we don’t search the streets. We don’t ask God. We search the net because that’s where the answers are. The truth.
“I went into the latest social media data dump. Normally there’s a delay of years, but I hit lucky – this dump was immediately after the hack.”
It was North’s turn to press pause.
“I checked it out,” Honor said, and North remembered that she must have watched the video before. That none of this was new to her, only to him. “When hackers breach security, they can dump all the usernames and passwords out there for anyone to see. But the companies have ‘hashed them’. They’ve converted the passwords to a string of letters and numbers and symbols which the hackers have to break to get to the personal info. Sometimes the hackers can’t break them and they can’t sell them, or they’re making a point about what they can do, so they leave them out there for all-comers.”
On screen, Ned was talking again.
“Peggy was there in the dump. It was a big one – 30 million users. I identified her from her username which is her email.”
He held up a piece of paper between both hands. On it was a line of characters, numbers and symbols written in black marker.
“This is Peggy’s new password. I can’t break it, but that’s irrelevant.”
He let go of the paper and leaned into the camera so closely his breath fogged the screen.
“It is also the password for 32 other people within the dump. The chances of two people sharing the same hashed password of 23 characters is less than one in ten to the 46. That’s less than one in ten septillions. That’s less than one in a thousand million,” Ned counts them off on his fingers, “million million million million million million million. That is to say, it’s never going to happen. And this is 33 people. Not two.”
North pressed pause. “This guy was a barman?”
“He used to be Peggy’s student, but his brain blew.”
“I can see how that would happen.”
Ned was still talking: “Furthermore, 25 of them with any kind of on-going social media presence had all signed off from the real world in broadly the same ways – an extended holiday, sickness in the family, bereavement, a new job.”
Ned held up a snap of two freckled identical girls. Leaning into each other, they looked as if they were trying hard not to laugh as they pouted, their eyes huge with winged eyeliner and their hair draped over their shoulders. It reminded him of the photo of Peggy and Honor he’d seen on her fridge door.
“Emily and Gemma Dolan from North London. They’re 17-year-old twins. Studying for A-levels. Their entire lives are online. Friends expressed concern that the girls had disappeared from their social networks. One week later, a message goes out that the girls are in Bali. But no photos. No updates. Emily and Gemma Dolan – each with the same hashed password as each other and as Peggy. Or, Bunty Moss from Surrey.” The photo held close to the camera was of a smiling older woman with a strong jaw. Her bobbed hair white and perfectly cut. “A retired ward sister and Captain of Ladies Golf, she sent out a general message with apologies days from a big tournament. Sickness in the family. She’d be in touch in due time. The same hashed password. Anthony Walsh, 83, a retired union official, went missing in the Peak District. The exact same day his password was changed.”
Honor’s face was set. North took time to glance at her. Ned chose his words with consideration.
“Their closest family believe or purport to believe these explanations, and there are no ongoing police investigations into these disappearances.” He isn’t surprised, as if he doesn’t expect much of the police and has yet to be disappointed.
The picture shifted, chopped off Ned’s head, as the camera filming him shifted. There was noise and movement and skinny fingers, as Ned settled it back on the laptop.
“Sorry,” he said, grinning somewhere behind the beard – young and vulnerable, not at all like he was going to be dead within a matter of hours.
What did Honor say at Portcullis House – North tried to remember – that she hadn’t believed Ned? Had she let it show? Had he gone to his grave disappointed? In her? In himself?
“One last thing, Honor. Do you mind if I call you Honor? You did once tell me it would be all right and it’s how I always think of you. On no account search these names on the net. There’ll be an alert out on them. Whoever is behind this, you don’t want them knowing you’re looking. Okay? Don’t write anything down. And if anything happens to me, if I disappear…” he shook his head in denial at the prospect, but North knew that Ned believed it might, “tell my mum and Jess I love them, and you need to run. I’m telling you that when we meet, but I mean it. Don’t trust anyone.”
He smiled, one front tooth crossing over the other.
“Apart from me.”
And this time there was shyness around the eyes. He was excited at the predicament he found himself in, North thought. Excited at the prospect of meeting Honor face to face again. Of finding Peggy and being a hero.
The video crashed to black and faces filled the screen. Men, women, children, all ages.
Names and addresses. Photos. Job descriptions. A jumble of the retired, professionals, students and babies. 63-year-old Bunty Moss, teenage twins Emily and Gemma Dolan. 83- year-old Anthony Walsh – a Methodist lay preacher. Jasmine Ramesh. Richard Patterson. Alex Hill. Angela Baxter. Marmaduke Pennington-Ward. Johnnie Cooper. Maisie Trumpton. Julia Morgan. It went on. Both sexes. All ages. All ethnicities. The names meant nothing to North.
It didn’t make sense. Whatever this was, the Board was involved. Honor was a target because she was looking for Peggy, and if Ned was right then Peggy wasn’t the only one to disappear lately. But why Peggy? And why these others – some of them children? The Board guarded the integrity of the state. North knew the Board would take action – even drastic action against individuals – if they judged it necessary, but at first sight these “disappeared” seemed downright ordinary.
Honor switched off the machine and turned her head to stare out of the window. The sound of rubber against wet tarmac.
“Is he right?” She turned back to face him. “Or crazy?”
“Both? Neither?”
He couldn’t tell her the truth. That if Ned was right, that was bad news for Peggy, because it meant this was deeper and more complex than he’d thought at first, and Peggy would be all the harder to find.
“What do we do? Do we start looking for these other people?”
“She’s still the best way into this.”
He glanced across. Honor’s body had quietened again. Holding itself ready for flight, but there was nowhere to go. They were trapped in a car travelling faster than they should be, as far away from London as they could get.
“Are your parents alive, North?”
He was silent, but she didn’t wait for an answer.
“Mine died when I was young.”
He was cold suddenly. And frightened. Staring out of Honor’s eyes into a bedroom with a locked door. The handle turning. The door rattling as whoever was on the other side threw themselves against it over and over. Yelling Honor’s name. Shouting at her to come out. Or else.
A horn blared behind him. The car was drifting over the line into the other carriageway. He swung the wheel. A lorry-driver wagging his head, mouthing obscenities as he overtook, keeping the flat of his hand pressed against the horn – spray from the wheels thundering against the glass and metal.
Did it happen? Was that true? Or was he constructing a narrative for her based on little more than guesswork and what he’d read when he researched her? She’d said she had personal experience of domestic violence when she was a child, hadn’t she? He gripped the wheel, steering himself back to the certainties of the present.
Slipping back again. Struggling to stay focussed on the fog-lights of the lorry in-front.
But it was no good.
Worse than the shouting was when the man’s voice dropped. Soft, coaxing. Telling her Daddy wasn’t angry. To come out. That her mother needed her. Couldn’t she hear her mother calling her. She was to come out like a good girl and do as her father told her.
He dragged himself back to reality. At this rate, he was going to do Tarn a favour and kill them both in a car smash.
He should ask her what happened. And know for certain and all time whether the bullet had added something to his cognitive function or taken away his power of rational thought.
But if he did that – she too would know. She would know he had a skill no one would want, and that she had no privacy or hope of it. That he belonged in a laboratory where white-coated scientists would use him up like one of their pink-eyed rats. Or that he belonged in an asylum for the criminally insane.
Either which way, she would know he was less than the sane, normal, everyday assassin he tried to be.
Chose discretion.
Fact: Honor Jones had strangers chasing her wanting her dead.
If he wasn’t mad, if he was right, someone wanting her dead wasn’t a new experience for her. She’d known terror before, but she wasn’t ready to admit it.
‘JP wanted to take me in, but I refused. I moved in with a cousin of my mother’s but she was old and sick, already dying really. At 16, she paid for me to go away to school. I can’t say I made friends which was on me, not the other girls. I was a neurotic, toxic mess. When my cousin finally died, she left me enough to cover the end of school. No one knew. I didn’t tell them – I’d had enough of other people’s pity. Holidays I’d spend alone in a scummy hotel in some dying seaside resort eking out the money. I’d dress up so I was old enough to pass as a grown-up and sleep with waiters. There was no one to care who I was or what I did. And I did a lot. Until Peggy.” Her sigh was loud but she didn’t appear to notice.
“Peggy ‘fixed’ me. That’s what she does – fixes what’s broken.”
He had a lot that needed fixing. Too big a job even for Peggy Boland. “What’s she working on? Is it something that would get her dead?”
“I honestly can’t see why.” Honor frowned. “She’s an astronomer. She’s involved in setting up something called the SKA – the Square Kilometre Array, which is going to be the world’s largest telescope. It’s not literally one big telescope. There’s an “array” of antennae – hundreds and hundreds of dishes in South Africa and a million dipoles, which look like TV aerials, as well as some dishes in Australia. They’re linked by optical-fibre cabling.”
“And what will the SKA do?”
“Detect radio signals billions of light years away. Tell us how the universe was formed. Whether Einstein’s theory of relativity was correct. What dark matter is.”
“What is it?”
“I’m not Brian Cox.”
He slid a finger round his collar. Dipoles. Relativity. Dark matter. He had the growing sense that he wasn’t the best qualified person to be having this conversation.
“She wouldn’t have walked away from it.” Honor was adamant. “I don’t pretend to understand all of it, but she keeps it simple for me and it’s her life so I keep up as best I can. I know this much. The signals from space are really weak.”
North could understand that much, although his temples felt tight.
“And there’s two problems. One is handling the sheer amount of data the SKA will bring in. But Peggy was more interested in the other problem which is cutting the interference coming out from earth so that you can hear the cosmic signals better. It’s not like she’s developing biological weapons.”
Honor maintained her friend was a genius. North didn’t know much about geniuses. But he imagined they could get themselves into a mess like anyone else. Bigger maybe. The wrong decision. The wrong turn, and whosoever you were, life got shunted off course all too easily.
“The SKA operates from Jodrell Bank and the team there were the first ones I rang, in case she said anything to them about moving abroad, but she didn’t. Peggy and I talk – all the time. It doesn’t matter she’s there,” Honor gestured with her hand, to outside the car, up the road, “and I’m here. It’s like she’s in the room next door and I only have to raise my voice and she’ll reply. There’s been nothing from her for three weeks.”
“You must have been making a lot of fuss for me to have been brought in.” “Brought in” to kill you, he meant. She raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment.
“I kept calling her mobile but there was no response. Her office number rang out. The home number was dead from the get-go. I rang the university and they stonewalled. Then Ned cornered me, and I got a bad feeling about it. The next morning, when I found out he’d ‘jumped off a bridge’, I panicked and got on a train to Newcastle.”
North felt the desolation as Honor went back to staring out of the car window. A carriage window of a train – the world moving faster and faster while she sat still.