Jenny had been to “proper” Africa twice. In Nigeria she had bribed an informant in the Islamist group Boko Haram, and she had been briefly deployed to Somalia on account of the Al-Shabab insurgency. Ethiopia was an altogether more peaceful undertaking, and Jenny smiled as she took in the pace of the life from her hotel balcony. Dawn had brought a blanket of cloud to Axum; the rains were supposed to be months away and there was palpable excitement at a drink for the crops. For the first time in days she began to relax.
There was a knock on her door. Frank Davis was the replacement for Medcalf, whose body had just been released to her family in Belfast. Davis’s face was handsome and hard with a suggestion of acne scarring, his hair steely-black but for a white pebble. Jenny could tell he was seasoned. That morning a hessian sack blowing down the street had briefly caught her attention. Davis had his back turned to the bag, but he’d noticed her eye-movement. He was facing the sack at once, one hand already in his jacket. Yet it was more of a drift than a jerk, a natural motion. The reflex had been entirely subconscious and he’d resumed conversation without missing a beat.
“I thought you should know they’re up to something,” Davis said. “Wolsey just told Chung they’ll wait until 2 a.m. before going back to that chapel they were in earlier.”
“Not your standard sightseeing hour, is it?”
Davis looked away, unsmiling. “Will you tell Charlie or shall I?”
There was something familiar in the way he pronounced her handler’s name that troubled Jenny.
“Leave it to me,” she said, reaching for her phone.
Waits clucked as he considered the development. “Are you sure they don’t mean 2 a.m. by the Ethiopian clock? That would be a perfectly normal time to visit.”
Trust him to be informed about the detail on the ground. Ethiopians count the hours from sunrise rather than midnight – so 2 a.m. by the Abyssinian reading of the hands was 8 a.m. to everyone else.
“They’ve been working by the European clock,” said Jenny. “Don’t worry, we’ll be there. I’ll let you know what happens right away.”
Waits cleared his throat. “No, you won’t, actually.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I said, no, you won’t. You’re coming back to London.”
Jenny’s lips parted. “But I’ve only just got here.”
“Unfortunately Angela wants you back on the Nottingham AQ case. Terrible nuisance, but it can’t be helped.”
He was lying, she was certain of it. Angela would be informed of her need for Jennifer Frobisher within the hour.
“You’re in demand, my dear,” Waits was cooing. “You should be flattered …”
*
Waits hung up and inspected his telephone, as if the device itself displeased him.
“More problems?” said Evelyn Parr.
“Frobisher was the wrong choice,” he said. “We misjudged her, I’m afraid. She’s proved to have a few too many scruples. And she’s thinking too much.”
Parr ran a hand through silvery hair. “It’s going to be tough for Frank and Alexander with her gone,” she said. “And we’re not getting anyone else involved. In all the years SIS have been across this there have never been more than three of us on the case. Now it’s me, you, Frank of course – plus Jenny, Edwin and Alexander.” She ticked the names off on her fingers; Medcalf was not enumerated. “I know they’re all discreet, but really, Charlie, I’m getting jumpy.”
“In all these years we’ve never had such a fluid situation,” he said. “The moment Britton blabbed to Wolsey we had an unprecedented scenario on our hands. There was no choice but to widen the cabal.” He sighed. “Anyway, tonight we put a stop to this charade. It’s time to do what we should’ve done a long time ago.”
“What we should’ve done a long time ago was bring Wolsey into the fold,” said Parr. “Sign him up or pay him off. As it is we’ve got one agent dead, another so worked up she’s unsafe and a stinking mess left behind in Istanbul. Plus there’s an entirely new inscription out there in God-knows-who’s hands. Because it’s certainly not in ours.”
“Frank will extract the Istanbul inscription tonight,” said Waits in a reasonable voice. “By hook or by crook. And Alexander Guilherme’s a good boy. I should think he’s got the ruthless streak too, when it comes to it.”
“I worry about Frobisher. She’s not stable. Latest reports from the hospital are that her mother’s on the way out too. What if she does something rash?”
“Oh, don’t be so silly,” said Waits. “She’s proved a bit more, ah, passionate than we’d hoped. But she’s a professional. Her record’s intact, officially. She’s got a whole career to lose.”
*
Jenny’s mind churned over the phone call. Her bag remained unpacked. Something she had just told Waits had precipitated this.
“You all right there?” Guilherme had returned from watching duties, one shoulder enlarged by the bandages under his jacket.
“They’re sending me back to London.”
“No!” His outrage was convincing. “Why?”
“Apparently I’m needed on another case.”
Guilherme looked appropriately shocked. “I just want you to know, I think you’ve played a blinder on this operation, Jenny. I’ll say as much to Charlie.”
“Thanks.” She hesitated. “Alexander?”
“Yes?”
“Is there anything you’re not telling me?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is Charlie planning something tonight?”
There was a jolt. A widening of the eyes, though he recovered in a second.
“Not that I know about,” he said, looking her straight in the eye.
“Right. Well … I’d better get packing.”
Jenny felt nauseous as she piled her possessions into a suitcase. Something evil was happening, she could sense it. Two faces came to her then. First Jess Medcalf, grinning through the streaked make-up.
When this job’s over let’s go on the lash. Just me and you.
The second was that of her mother.
Jenny remembered their last conversation. “Do you remember when I was a little girl?” she’d asked. “How you were always trying to get me interested in painting and art? But all I wanted to do was play cops and robbers.”
Mum had smiled.
You only wanted to be one of the goodies …
A third face came to her then: Wolsey. No, not ‘Wolsey’: Jake. Call him by his first name, for Christ’s sake. She recalled him in the Agya Sophia. Taking the photos, rushing to return that mitten. At the time she’d thought the journalist gormless, but thinking back it was a kind gesture. Having followed him for three weeks she was sure of it. Jake was a good man.
The sports bag they’d collected from the Addis embassy was under the bed. From inside she selected three objects: a pair of night-vision goggles, an automatic pistol and a pinhead bug which could be subtly attached to a man’s coat. After a moment’s thought she replaced the gun. That was going too far. Then she went to say her goodbyes.