As I came to, I feared the worst.
I was in a small windowless room, walls the colour of dried putty, strip light running down the centre of the ceiling, table anchored to the middle of the floor. The upright chair on which I sat had wrist restraints and I could not move. Drool slid down from the corner of my mouth and into the collar of my shirt. My head felt like it was full of foam rubber and my eyes had difficulty focussing. I had a thirst like a guy who has popped too many E’s at a rave.
Someone pushed a plastic beaker to my lips and told me to drink. Water, pure and clear, trickled down my throat and I was grateful. I was also glad not to be suspended from a hook in the ceiling. Things could be worse.
I shook my head to clear my brain, rolled my eyes, and narrowed them against the yellow artificial glow. One man perched on the table in front of me, close enough to intimidate, not near enough for me to raise my legs and kick him hard in the groin. As my brain processed his face, recognition dawned. He had piloted McCallen that last time I’d seen her in London. The memory of our conversation flooded back as if it were yesterday.
‘Not sure how I’m going to explain you away.’ She gave an awkward glance back towards the pilot.
I turned to go. ‘You’ll think of something.’
But she hadn’t. She’d told him, and now I was here. This was not my only problem.
‘My name is Titus,’ he said. ‘I’m an intelligence officer for MI5.’
‘I know. I remember.’
Pleasantries over, he said, ‘Where’s McCallen?’
‘Who?’
‘Don’t piss me about. Where is she?’
‘I could ask you the same question.’
‘You deny having any connection to her disappearance?’
‘I do.’
‘But you were the last to see her alive.’
‘Who said she was dead?’
Titus cleared his throat. ‘All right, if you must split hairs –’
‘It’s a pretty big hair to split.’ If they wrote her off that easily she stood no chance.
‘You were seen at a party several nights ago.’
‘So were you,’ I said.
He mostly looked unfazed. It’s difficult to mask natural physical responses. Titus was good, I’d give him that, but not that good. I pressed home my advantage. ‘Why would an intelligence officer go to a sex party?’
‘To keep my eye on scum like you.’
Inside I sneered. Outside, I remained impassive. ‘Screwing a stranger in the line of duty? What an interesting and varied job you have.’ Busy considering whether McCallen also involved herself in sex parties, I nearly missed the next question.
‘Where did you go after you left?’
‘You’re the spook. You tell me.’
The blow powered through my jaw and loosened a tooth. I spat blood onto his shoes and felt better for it. He didn’t even glance down, his piercing eyes suggesting that it was all in a day’s work. ‘Let’s try again, shall we?’
I gave him a suits me look. ‘I took a cab home.’
‘Where’s home?’
‘Cheltenham.’
‘Be more precise.’
‘St Paul’s,’ I lied.
‘Not Montpellier?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’ His eyes narrowed.
‘Positive.’
‘Funny, because McCallen was last seen going into an apartment there.’ He reeled off the address of the rental. Something crawled across my skin. Must have showed in my expression. ‘Your property, I think.’
‘And you’re bluffing.’
‘You deny she was there?’
‘I know nothing about it.’ Which was true.
‘When was the last time you saw McCallen?’
‘A year or more ago.’
This time the blow came with a double slap. ‘If you know the answer, why ask the question?’ I complained.
‘Checking to see where we are on the page.’
I could have come back with a smart remark about chapters apart, but couldn’t be bothered. ‘For what it’s worth, I admit I saw McCallen a couple of weeks ago.’
‘Why?’
‘She likes me.’ I braced myself for another blow but it didn’t happen.
‘She came to you?’
‘She did.’
‘She disclosed classified information?’
‘She did not.’
Titus leant his rear against the table, arms crossed. ‘So she looked you up for old time’s sake, is that it?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Your call.’
He waved a finger in my face. ‘You don’t seem to understand the seriousness of your situation.’
‘Neither do you. Do your superiors know you’ve got me locked down here?’
Titus tipped his head back and laughed. I thought the gesture staged. I couldn’t be at all certain that he wasn’t working a number of his own, perhaps to cover his seedy private life. If MI5 had a line on me, there would be another more senior player in the room, maybe two of them. ‘It’s all recorded and on camera,’ Titus assured me.
I glanced up, spotted the screens at each corner, all switched off. I turned my attention to the light. Was that how they did things now? He was bluffing. ‘The time spent pumping me could be more usefully employed looking for McCallen,’ I snarled. ‘Why not start with Simone Fabron.’
‘Simone Fabron is not important. The men who occasionally grace her parties, now that’s a different matter.’ My mind flicked back to Zara’s husband, the Middle Eastern guy. Okay, maybe Titus had a point. The fact he hadn’t named Fabron as a drug smuggler made me reconsider Fabron’s position and China Hayes’s order to kill her. Had China been spinning me a line?
‘What were you doing in Berlin?’ Titus said.
Either he’d been a busy boy or McCallen had confided in him. I was disappointed; I’d believed, foolishly perhaps, that I was the only one in her personal loop. Vanity, I was once told by the mentor who’d finally betrayed me, was man’s greatest enemy. ‘Visiting an old friend,’ I said.
‘Scoping your next target?’ Titus’s accompanying smile was nasty.
‘I’ve packed it in.’
Titus leant forward, his breath sour. ‘A leopard never changes its spots.’
‘While you’re dishing out clichés, McCallen could be breathing her last.’
‘You really believe she’s alive?’
‘Have you found a body?’
‘We often don’t in our line of work. Similarities abound,’ he added smartly.
‘She’s not dead until you can prove it,’ I said, stubbornly. ‘She went missing in Cheltenham, not a black hole in the Middle East. She has to be somewhere.’
He looked at me in a way I found difficult to fathom. I’m usually good at reading people, but, having been out of the game, I was out of practice.
‘She’d received threats,’ I said.
‘Who from?’
‘A dead man.’
Again, the unfathomable look. Titus had a soundtrack running through his brain quite separate to the movie action in my own. That’s spooks for you.
‘Would you like to expand?’
I shrugged. ‘That’s all she said.’
He knew that I was lying. To my surprise, he didn’t push it. ‘Think you can find her?’
I glanced down at the restraints, issued Titus a square look. ‘You want my help?’
‘From where I’m standing, you have no choice.’
‘There are always choices.’
The muscles in his face flexed and he released a catch half submerged in the wall. The restraints snapped apart. I lifted my arms clear, rubbed my wrists, ran a tentative hand over my jaw and stayed seated.
‘Does this mean you believe me?’
His lopsided face contorted into an approximation of a smile. ‘Jury’s out. I’ll be keeping an eye on you.’
‘What a chronic waste of resources. Am I free to go?’
‘You are.’
I stood up. ‘Is that it?’
‘You’ve got forty-eight hours.’
‘Until what?’
‘Until you unearth a lead, or tell us where the body is.’
My head spun. I had to warn Dwyer, interrogate Fabron and find McCallen. Titus pitched into my thoughts. ‘To make things easy, I’ll meet you on home turf.’
‘That’s very good of you.’
His insect eyes locked onto mine, ‘Two days, Hex. 10.00 hours. St Mary’s and Matthew’s – I believe you’re familiar with the place.’
Either McCallen had told him or he’d been tracking her movements, neither good from my perspective. ‘And if I don’t show?’
He looked like a gunman with the trigger cocked. ‘I have friends in Mossad who’d be most happy to make your acquaintance.’