After a boozy dinner where her father and Itchy vied to tell the tallest army stories, Silva retired to one of the attic guest rooms. She lay on the bed and thought about her promise to Itchy that they’d go on the offensive. Quite how they were going to do so she had no idea. Their only chance of escaping from Haddad’s wrath would be to expose him and his dealings with the Hopes. If she could get the information her mother had discovered out into the media, then public pressure would force governments – UK, US and Saudi – to act.
She tried to sleep, but the problem wouldn’t go away and her mind was a maelstrom of competing ideas, none of which offered a solution. She wondered how her mother might have approached the problem. As a journalist she’d have gathered evidence and collated it, each piece adding to the case she would make in the story. But did Silva have all the evidence yet?
Hidden secrets.
It came to her then. The postcard of Chichester Harbour her mother had left for her.
She climbed out of bed. Her leather jacket lay over the back of a chair and the postcard was still inside one of the zip pockets. She pulled it out.
18 August
Dear Rebecca, remember the beach we used to go to here? West something or other wasn’t it? Those were happy times, good memories, a place with buried treasure and hidden secrets to be passed on from one generation to the next. I so enjoyed the many times we visited. I definitely Hope you did too. Love always and forever, Mum.
She realised with a start that the eighteenth of August was tomorrow. She reached for her phone and pulled up a map of Chichester Harbour. A satellite image showed a series of deep-water channels penetrating inland, vast mudflats exposed at low tide. She zoomed in. There was an odd spit of sand which curled back from the open sea. Scattered white dots of small boats moored behind the spit. On the main sea-facing beach, a regular line of something Silva reckoned were beach huts.
Nothing on the screen sprung out at her so she put the phone down and returned to bed where the problem continued to nag her until eventually she drifted off to sleep.
When she woke it was still dark. She climbed out of bed and went over to the window. In the garden a crescent moon rippled in the waters of the lake. Closer, a shadow moved across the lawn, while to the right another approached the house.
Silva eased back from the window. In thirty seconds she’d dressed and was inching down the corridor to Itchy’s room. She tapped the door gently and entered.
‘Itchy!’ she whispered.
‘Huh?’ Itchy stirred beneath the duvet. ‘Wassup?’
‘Don’t put the light on. We’ve got company. Two. Outside.’
‘Shit.’ Itchy slipped from the bed. There was a rustle as he dressed. ‘They armed?’
‘No idea, but wouldn’t you be?’
‘Yes, but we’re not.’
‘No.’ Silva considered the situation. There were two men about to break into the house. If they’d been sent by Haddad then likely they were highly trained, had weapons and were prepared to kill. ‘Go and wake Mrs Collins and tell her to stay in her room. We don’t want her wandering around.’
‘And you?’
‘I’ll see to my father. Try and get him up here. Perhaps we can barricade the stairs.’
As she spoke a tinkling of glass came from the hallway, the creak of a door.
‘They’re in,’ Silva said. ‘Go!’
She ran out into the corridor and moved towards the stairwell. A grand staircase spiralled round to the first floor and then on down to the ground floor. Moonlight shone through the front door and reflected on the polished flooring. The sheen was disturbed as two figures passed along the hallway. They disappeared out of sight, heading, Silva suspected, for the stairs.
She was about to go back and find Itchy when there was an explosion of noise. A loud bang followed by the phut phut phut of a silenced pistol. Then another bang.
‘Dad!’ Silva screamed. She reached the lower floor and ran along the corridor to her father’s room. There was a smell of cordite, and as she entered the room she tripped on someone lying prone in the doorway. She stumbled, turned and knelt. ‘Oh my God! Are you hurt?’
‘I expect he’s dead.’ Her father’s voice came from the far side of the room at the same time as Itchy bounded in and flicked on the light switch. ‘I went for a killing shot and I’d be surprised if I missed.’
Silva looked at the body. She put a hand out to feel for a pulse at the man’s neck then realised it would be a wasted effort. His jacket lay open and blood inked out in a circle across his shirt. She raised her head. Her father sat on the floor half hidden behind an armchair. There was a pistol in his lap.
‘Dad,’ Silva said.
‘Browning HP,’ her father said. ‘Nice to see it still does the job. Better than the German crap he’s using.’
Silva turned back to the man on the floor. His right hand clutched a Glock pistol. ‘Austrian, Dad, not German.’
‘Same difference.’
‘Silvi!’ Itchy tapped her on the shoulder. He made a jabbing motion into the corridor at the same time as there was a clatter from the far end. ‘The other one’s out there.’
She reached for the Glock and then spun into the corridor. At the end, on the right, a door stood open. She nodded at Itchy and then crept down towards the door, both hands holding the weapon. Itchy kept to the right and when he reached the door he looked back at Silva. Then he reached in for the light switch.
The room was her father’s study. A leather-topped desk with a high-backed chair. Bookcases. At the floor-to-ceiling window, heavy velvet curtains that rippled in the non-existent breeze.
Silva fired at the same time as something cracked into the wall beside her head. She threw herself across the corridor and fired through the opening again. After the sharp retorts came the smashing of glass, and she moved forward and into the room, covering the window. As she edged in she felt a waft of cold air from outside. She inched towards the window. The glass was gone and the window had been opened onto the small balcony. She took another step and then Itchy shoved her to one side as a shot echoed from the garden below.
‘The light,’ Itchy said. ‘You’re silhouetted like a cut-out on the range.’
He moved back across the room and turned the switch off. Silva peered through the window again. A swathe of white illuminated the lawn for a moment and then there was the sound of wheels spitting gravel and an engine revving hard before fading into the still night.
‘They’re gone,’ Silva said.
‘Whoever they are.’
‘Right.’ She handed the Glock to Itchy and walked back to her father’s room, Itchy following. She looked down at the body on the floor. The man’s face seemed familiar, and he certainly wasn’t a Saudi. She cocked her head and moved round the body to view the face from a different angle.
‘Bloody hell,’ she said.
‘You know him?’ Itchy said.
‘This is so crazy. I can’t believe it.’
‘Silvi! Who is it?’
‘I only know his first name is Frank. He was at a reception in London where Karen Hope gave a speech. He’s an agent. Sean knew him.’
‘Sean? You mean he’s…? Oh great. We’re really fucked, then.’
‘Better fucked than dead.’ Silva’s father pushed himself up from where he’d been hiding behind the chair. He walked over. ‘That little shit would have killed me if I hadn’t shot first.’
‘It’s self-defence, then,’ Silva said. She reached out and gently took the Browning from her father. She engaged the safety and uncocked the weapon. ‘But this is definitely not legal.’
‘It was perfectly legal when I was in Iraq. Defending the realm. Putting my life on the line for others.’
‘Dirty work, Dad. You don’t get the credit, only the blame.’
‘Well I’ll face the consequences when the police get here. There’ll be an outcry if they lock me up simply because I shot a burglar.’
‘I don’t think he was a burglar.’ Silva cast a glance at Itchy. ‘And I don’t think we should call the police either.’
‘Why not?’
‘I told you this man is a US agent.’ Silva moved her foot and prodded the man’s arm. Blood was pooling on the carpet. ‘He and his mate were sent here to kill me.’
‘Rebecca?’ Her father looked at her as if she was a child again and had performed badly in a school test. ‘What on earth have you got yourself into?’
‘What have…?’ Silva wondered if her grandmother’s dementia was hereditary. ‘This guy is working for the US government, Dad. Do you understand what that means?’
‘I told you this wasn’t simple. I told you the only way was to kill Karen Hope. Now it’s all gone fubar.’
Her father was right about one thing, she thought. This was fubar. Fucked up beyond all repair.
‘Folks.’ Itchy. ‘We haven’t got time for this. We’ve got to split.’
‘What about the body?’ Silva stepped back. The pool of blood had grown. ‘We can’t just leave it here.’
‘You go. Kenneth and I will deal with that.’ Mrs Collins stood in the hallway looking at the stain on the carpet with some concern. ‘After all, cleaning’s what I’m good for, right?’
‘What the hell was that all about?’ Itchy’s voice buzzed with static in Silva’s helmet as they rode into a brightening sky. ‘Did Mrs Collins just reinvent herself as some kind of fixer?’
‘I’ve no idea.’ Silva grimaced to herself. There was something going on between Mrs Collins and her father, but what it was, aside from possibly fulfilling each other’s sexual needs, she didn’t know.
They put a couple of dozen miles between themselves and her father’s place before Silva suggested they pull over and take a break. They headed down a lane and bumped the bikes through a gate and into a field. She pulled her helmet off. Talking on the bike-to-bike headsets was one thing, but she couldn’t think straight while she was riding and they needed some sort of plan.
Itchy kicked down the stand on his bike and waited for orders. As if Silva knew what the hell she was doing.
‘Well?’ he said after a minute.
‘I don’t know, Itch.’ She looked at the dawn sunlight filtering through a nearby hedgerow. ‘I always thought Fairchild was bullshitting about a global conspiracy. It seemed straight out of a Dan Brown novel. But those two men back at Dad’s place suggest he’s not far short of the mark.’
‘If we’re up against the US government – hell, any government – we might as well turn ourselves in now.’
‘Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps Karen Hope has a few people on her dodgy payroll. If she’s happy to pay for somebody to kill my mother then bribing a few agents would be par for the course.’
‘Sean.’ Itchy fiddled with his helmet. Stared at the ground. ‘Could he…?’
Itchy didn’t finish the sentence but he didn’t need to; Silva had already played out the chilling possibility in her head that Sean could somehow be involved with Hope. He’d certainly been enamoured with her. Was it pushing the bounds of possibility to think she’d recruited Sean to her side? Silva knew it wasn’t. Sean was a patriot, and if Hope had appealed to that part of him he’d have been with her.
‘Silvi?’ Itchy had his head up now and he met gaze. ‘He wouldn’t, would he?’
‘I don’t know.’
And she didn’t. All Sean’s words, all his declarations of love, all his talk of a future together, was that a charade? She remembered when he’d called her after her mother’s death. It was the first time they’d been in contact for months. Was the call out of genuine concern or had Karen Hope initiated it? Perhaps Hope had a notion her mother might have a backup plan which involved passing the files to somebody else. The obvious person would be Silva. Get close to her, Sean. Find out what she knows. Silva could imagine Hope intense and passionate, her hand on Sean’s arm. This isn’t about me, it’s about our country’s future. God bless America.
‘Silvi?’
‘I’m going to call him,’ Silva said. ‘I’ll use Fairchild’s burner phone.’
Itchy nodded. They’d both turned their own phones off and removed the batteries so there was no chance of anybody tracking them, but the burner phone was clean. Once she’d made the call she’d ditch it.
Sean answered after a couple of rings, a tentative ‘hello’ to an unrecognised number.
‘It’s me,’ Silva said. ‘Rebecca.’
‘Rebecca!’ Sean’s voice jumped an octave. ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m out and about.’ Silva was already on the defensive. Why would his first words be a question about her location? ‘Just pottering around.’
‘I heard about Neil Milligan. I understand he worked with your mother.’
‘He was murdered, Sean.’
‘I know. Tragic. Wrong place, wrong time.’
Wrong place, wrong time. The same phrase she heard so often about her mother’s death.
There was a pause before Sean continued. ‘You sound like you’re having a hard time. Can we meet up?’
There. The bait. The hook.
‘Sure. I’d like to see you.’ Silva played along. ‘When and where?’
‘Well that depends where you are. I’m in London at the moment but I have to go to Cambridge later today for a trilateral US/UK/Saudi trade summit. After this evening I’m free for a couple of days. Perhaps we could explore Cambridge together.’
‘Cambridge?’
‘Yes. I’ll be at a British military base close by. RAF Wittering. Do you know it?’
‘RAF…?’ Silva nearly dropped the phone. She swallowed. ‘No.’
‘Well, we could meet in Cambridge tomorrow sometime. I’ll book a hotel. Do you want to text me your ETA?’
‘I’ll do that. Got to go. Bye.’ Silva hung up and then took the phone and shoved it into the hedge. ‘Fuck.’
‘Silvi?’ Itchy was standing a little way off. ‘What is it?’
She unzipped her leather jacket. The postcard was in an inner pocket. She pulled it out and passed it to Itchy.
‘This.’ Silva told Itchy what Sean had said and let him read the postcard. ‘Mum said Wittering had hidden secrets to be passed on from one generation to the next. I thought it had something to do with the beach in Chichester Harbour, but I was wrong. Sean is going to a trade summit at RAF Wittering for some Saudi trade deal.’ Silva pointed to the date at the top of the postcard. ‘My mother post-dated the card for the eighteenth of August. That’s today. It can’t be a coincidence.’
‘A military base and Saudi involvement? Sounds like a pie the Hopes might have their fingers in.’
‘It does.’
‘And Sean, do you think he’s mixed up in all this?’
‘I don’t know. Would he have told me about RAF Wittering if he was trying to keep it hush-hush?’
‘He might have.’ Itchy lowered his shoulders in a sign of resignation, as if he was apologising before he spoke. ‘If it’s a trap.’