nineteen

Less than half a mile away, Andy Vaslik watched as Gina and Nancy walked arm-in-arm past a parade of shops, stopping occasionally—mostly at Gina’s suggestion, he figured—to study something in a window display. His opinion of the former bodyguard was improving steadily; she had Nancy fully covered and was giving Vaslik every chance to keep up with them and study their back-trail for watchers. She had clearly done this before and would be familiar with the problem of trying to run surveillance on a person of interest without blowing everyone’s cover.

The sidewalks were busy with workers on their commute and early shoppers, he noted. He had no problem keeping them in sight with Gina’s tall figure, but casing all the other people around them while remaining unseen would get tougher as time went by. He took out his cell phone and snapped a couple of covert pictures to check the quality.

Pretty much perfect.

After inspecting all the smaller stores, the two women approached a large supermarket car park situated on the left-hand side of the road. Vaslik crossed over at an angle slightly away from them and waited at a nearby bus stop, blending in with the line and nodding genially at a couple of elderly women. He checked both ways, noting everything that moved. Nothing obvious near the two women yet, mostly other shoppers, a few kids and some older people.

Then his antennae gave a twitch. Something was different. Or someone.

There. A young guy was cruising along in their wake. He’d come right out of nowhere. Tall, bulky but moving easily, eyes definitely locked on Gina and Nancy. Dark coat and pants, could be an office worker who worked out.

Vaslik tensed. A grey van was approaching slowly on the same side. Maybe a coincidence but it was moving just a little too slow. It drifted into the side of the road and stopped thirty yards behind the women, the driver flicking a hand to allow a couple of pedestrians across. Now why would he do that with a crossing just yards away? The near-side wheels were almost touching the kerb on double-yellow lines, which was bad positioning for any vehicle on a busy road. Was he stopping or not?

The two women moved out, ready to cross the road to the supermarket, unaware of the potential threat. Vaslik went to full alert. This didn’t look good.

He took covert snaps of the tall man and the van, but couldn’t get a facial of the driver or see how many others were inside. Then he turned away and pretended to take a call, in case any of the watchers picked up on his presence. When he turned back again the women were on the edge of the kerb, still checking traffic.

But wait; Gina must have sensed something. She was tugging Nancy away from the kerb, her shoulders tensed. They walked further along to the crossing. It was busier there and there was safety in numbers.

He forced himself to relax. Fraser knew what she was doing.

He moved away from the bus line and snapped away, catching faces going in the same direction as the women; another man, young and fit looking, dark skin; two women in gym clothing beneath fashionable tops; another woman hurrying along and nearly getting clipped by a taxi cutting the turn into the car park.

The van had disappeared and the tall, bulky guy was continuing on down the street, paying no attention as Gina and Nancy crossed and disappeared into the supermarket.

Vaslik followed, long strides eating up the ground until he was inside and on their tails. He felt a rush of relief as he spotted the two familiar backs down the first aisle, with Nancy pushing a trolley.

Gina turned and looked back, no doubt sensing his presence, and made a subtle A-OK sign with her thumb and forefinger. She had it covered.

He stayed around, anyway. He’d seen enough to know they were being watched. And it wasn’t by one person, either; it was a team.

Ruth was waiting when the two women returned. It was nine-thirty and Nancy was walking fast, she noted, impatient to be back in familiar surroundings, her brief taste of normal fast dying on its feet. As they walked in the front door, Ruth checked the monitor and saw movement at the back gate.

Vaslik.

When they were all gathered in the living room, Ruth addressed Nancy. “You had a visitor.”

The tone of her voice was enough. Everybody stopped moving. Gina glanced towards the windows, Vaslik looked interested and Nancy turned to stone.

“Who?” Her face was ashen, expecting the worst.

“A woman named Clarisse—from No. 38. Young, heavy specs, a bit grungy, slight American accent?”

“Clarisse? I don’t know—” Nancy walked to the window and looked through the net curtain, her mouth moving as she counted off the numbers. When she tuned back, she looked sick.

“No. 38?”

“That’s what she said. Problem?”

“It’s wrong. It’s impossible.” She wobbled and looked very pale.

“Why?” Ruth hurried across to her, offering her arm. Gina moved, too, ready to step in. “Why, Nancy?”

“Because I don’t know anyone called Clarisse. And that house has been empty since before we moved in. The owner’s in a care home.”

Gina accompanied Nancy up to her bedroom while Ruth called Cruxys with an update report on events and asked for their medical consultant to come round urgently. From almost breezy while at the supermarket, according to Gina, she’d gone to near-collapse on hearing about the woman visitor.

“So what’s going on?” Ruth demanded, as they gathered in the kitchen. She’d been tempted to dismiss Nancy’s claim about the empty house, but her instant reaction to news of the caller had been too compelling. Now with this latest turn of events the situation seemed to have accelerated.

Vaslik filled them in on what he’d observed, keeping it brief. Too much detail sometimes led to over-elaboration which could cloud the real issue. “I’m guessing there’s more than one person on this. And whoever they are, they’re good.”

“A team? Are you sure?”

“Has to be. I made at least three, maybe more if the van was involved.”

Ruth chewed it over. In spite of her earlier reservations about Vaslik, so much had happened since first being paired up with him that she realised she trusted him implicitly. If his gut feeling told him something, it was good enough for her. “Let’s go over this in order. Gina, what did you see when you were out?”

Gina described noticing the same van as Vaslik, and a tall man, well-built and heavy across the upper body, like a weightlifter. Both had seemed out of place, yet neither had appeared directly threatening towards Nancy. “You see people and vehicles that stand out all the time; it doesn’t mean they’re a danger. But we’re on the lookout for possible threats, so we’d notice anything out of the ordinary. Other than that, I have to say I didn’t see anyone. But I agree with Andy: something was going on. It had that feel, you know?”

She knew. “Anything else, either of you?”

Vaslik nodded. “Don’t forget I could see from an angle Gina couldn’t. The tall guy was focussed on them, I’m certain. But you’d have to have been in my position to see it.”

“And the van? Could it have been a snatch team?” The idea of another potential abduction was alarming, because the only target they could have had in mind was Nancy. Was that to put more pressure on Michael Hardman, picking up his wife as well as his daughter? It was a risky manoeuvre holding two hostages instead of one, especially the second being the mother. It would pile on the pressure of keeping them isolated. This group had to know what they were doing.

“I don’t know. If it wasn’t, the only thing I can think of is it might have been a local drugs intercept team and we happened to pitch across their line of travel.” As he spoke he was on his cell phone calling up the pictures of the grey van and the tall man. He passed it to Ruth and she began flicking through the images.

She stopped, her mouth open.

“Who’s this?” She pointed at the screen.

Vaslik took the phone and checked the image. It showed the van turning into the supermarket, after Gina and Nancy had walked into the car park. The tall man was in the background on the other side, walking away. “That’s the tall guy. He cut away and disappeared. I’m pretty sure it was a hand-off.” He meant that another follower had taken over, to avoid the same face coming up too often.

“Not him. Her.” She was pointing at a female figure dodging the front bumper of a taxi turning into the car park. The woman was slim, wearing a coat and jeans and a colourful beanie hat jammed down over her head. But no glasses.

“What about her?”

“It’s the woman called Clarisse—from the house that’s supposed to be empty.”