Lethal Profit (27 page)

Leon nodded grimly and turned and sat on the steps, looking the other way. Eva stepped inside the house towards the man who opened the door wide enough to let her in, before shutting it with a bang. He led her through the enormous house, past a large, elegant living room, warmly packed with thick carpets, pictures, art, a television and several small children and ushered them into what appeared to be a study.

Eva was pleased to see a computer.

‘I will find Irene. Can I get you anything?

British hospitality was an amazing thing, even in a situation such as this.

‘No, thank you, I'm fine,' said Eva before the man left the room.

When he had gone, Eva looked around her. Right behind the desk was a huge window, black and gaping out onto a moonlit garden. It was making Eva incredibly nervous so she walked over and drew the thick ruby velvet curtains across the empty space and then positioned herself in the chair nearest to the desk. The room was large, with a grand oak-wood writing desk topped with green leather positioned in the centre and bookshelves lining the walls. Photos, certificates, awards and pictures covered one wall and on the other two hung what Eva assumed must be art originals or very good copies.

The certificates and awards on the walls did not belong to Irene though – it would seem that Mr. Hunt was something of a world-renowned journalist, a strange partner for an intelligence officer, and the same profession as her father's, she noted.

After several minutes Eva heard footsteps padding across the carpeted floors she had just walked along, coming in the direction of the study. They stopped outside the room for several seconds and then Eva felt a presence behind her.

When she turned, Irene Hunt was standing there brandishing a tumbler of amber liquid, ice cubes clinking against the glass. She looked as if she was about to down the lot.

‘Eva Scott,' she said expressionlessly. She was petite but held herself with significant presence, almost filling the room without even moving. She had shoulder-length, dark brown hair cut in a no-nonsense style but the ends curled rebelliously. Even though she had apparently finished work for the day she still wore an expensive-looking, teal-coloured suit. No jewellery, no shoes. She fixed Eva with a pair of dark grey eyes, her lips drawn into a thin line.

‘Hello.' Eva stood up and the two women stiffly shook hands before Irene moved around her and sat down in the large leather swivel chair behind the desk; she took a long drink from the glass, almost draining it. Then she sat back and looked closely at Eva, who realised she must be noticing the cuts and bruises all over her face.

‘You've been in the wars,' she said almost sympathetically, ‘why are you here?'

‘I'm not here about the past,' Eva replied quickly.

A brief flicker of almost imperceptible relief crossed Irene Hunt's face but was quickly replaced by the severe look.

‘Then why have you turned up at my house so late at night?'

Eva didn't know what she had expected from Hunt, but it wasn't this unforgiving, unrepentant hardness.

‘I need your help.'

It was Irene Hunt's turn to be surprised.

‘I don't know how much you know of our family since… well, since
then
,' said Eva quickly, taking advantage of the delay in the other woman's reactions, ‘but my brother Jackson has been murdered in Paris.'

Irene Hunt's face wore no expression at all.

‘The police say he committed suicide, but I'm now 99.9 per cent certain he was killed because of something he knew. And I believe that I have the evidence here to prove it.'

She slid the memory stick out from the pocket of her jeans and pushed it across the table. Then she remembered the vaccine she had taken following the attack in the park – she had emptied it into a small perfume diffuser to prevent it being taken by customs. She pushed that towards Irene Hunt too.

‘What's this?'

‘The memory stick contains information on the algae epidemic that the UK is currently in the grip of and also demonstrates how to stop it. This,' she said, tapping the small silver diffuser, ‘is what someone who knows the information we have is genuine has been using to try and attack us. It's some kind of poison – if you test it you will see how real the threat is to our safety.'

Eva was trying very hard to make a convincing argument. She had to at least get Hunt to read what was on the stick.

‘Read it,' she said, a little too forcefully.

Hunt looked at the stick and then back at Eva. She didn't move.

‘I don't understand why you have come to me.'

‘You're intelligence.'

No response.

‘I know you are. This needs to get into the hands of someone who can do something with it – fast. You are the only person I could think of with that kind of connection.'

‘And how do I know this isn't some pathetic little revenge play.'

Eva was taken aback. ‘I guess you don't.'

‘I know how much your family hates me, Eva. Don't you think that I have known that all this time?' The intensity with which Hunt spoke took Eva by surprise. She found herself reacting, hair-trigger. ‘Well, what else did you expect after what you did?'

The two women stared at each other. Irene was rigid, sitting slightly forwards in her chair. She held Eva's gaze like a stern headmistress.

‘What kind of woman does that to another family?' Eva fought to stop her floodgates from bursting open but failed. But Irene was not cowed.

‘And what about your mother, Eva? She and your father got together when he and his ex-wife were only separated.'

‘There was no betrayal of trust,' Eva hissed back, ‘they had been separated for over a year – that's completely normal, there's nothing wrong with that. How
dare
you bring my mother into this? She was not the same as you.'

Irene put her glass down with a bang and broke Eva's gaze.

‘I don't know why you came here,' she said, turning her chair slightly to the right.

‘I told you why,' said Eva forcefully.

‘I won't help you.'

‘You won't even look at this?'

‘No.'

‘So you expect me and my family to move on, to forgive and forget, but you won't.'

‘I tried once to help your brother and look where he ended up. I won't take on any more guilt related to your family.'

Eva stopped. ‘My brother?'

‘The car crash.'

‘
What?
' Eva was out of her chair, her face rapidly turning pink.

‘He came to us; we helped him fake the crash.'

Eva was breathing hard now.

‘I thought you knew,' said Irene Hunt, although she did not look surprised at Eva's reaction.

‘No, I did not know. I don't understand. Why would he come to you?
How
did he come to you?'

‘I think it's time you left.'

‘No. Tell me what happened, I have a right to know!'

Irene Hunt stood up and leaned across the desk. Her eyes had turned almost liquid. ‘You have no right to anything.'

Eva stood still, shock penetrating every pore. This was not the way she had thought this would go. Shouldn't this woman be showing some contrition? And what did she mean about Jackson?

‘I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what I want to know.'

‘You will leave.' The quiet voice came from behind her and Eva turned to see an unobtrusive man in a dark suit.

‘And who is this, your fucking
minder
?'

She realised she was out of control now. The swearing, the shouting, the red face. This was not how she wanted to be. She reached across the desk and snatched the memory stick, knocking the diffuser off the table, and then pushed past the man at the door.

As soon as they were outside Irene Hunt's gate, Eva felt the familiar sense of unease return. She was fuming about what had just happened but they needed to be inside, away from all these dark roads.

‘We need to find a hotel.'

‘Ten minutes away. I've booked a room.'

‘Fine.'

‘One room is safer than separate,' Leon said as if it needed an explanation.

They walked in silence, at speed, all the way to the hotel. Eva said nothing about her encounter with Irene Hunt and Leon didn't ask. Once they were in the room, Leon locked the door.

Eva paced the floor; her body was alive with adrenaline. Memories, emotions, thoughts and fears flew uncontrolled around her brain as if Irene had unlocked some kind of Pandora's Box. She had to calm down or she would never be able to think clearly. She needed a release.

As Leon returned from the bathroom and went to take off his boots, she grasped the front of his shirt and pulled him to her. Ignoring the shocked look on his face she kissed him hard and pushed him back underneath her onto the bed.

W
HEN
E
VA
OPENED
HER
EYES
THE
next morning Leon was lying across the other side of the bed facing her. He was staring at her, unblinking. Eva stared back for several seconds and waited for him to look away. He didn't. His look was cold, appraising and unemotional. It was not the starry-eyed look of love.

Eva pushed herself up in the bed, thankful that she had remembered to put some clothes on before she slept the night before. She felt uneasy and uncomfortable now that a line had been crossed but there was also a kind of acceptance that it had been inevitable. She had instigated what had happened and for once, Leon had been completely in her control.

Eventually, Leon too sat up and reached for his T-shirt.

‘What now,' he asked as if trying to gauge her feelings. His tone was flat.

Eva climbed out of bed, plucked a towel from the back of the chair in the soulless modern hotel room and headed for the shower in her underwear.

‘We carry on.'

When she emerged from the bathroom half an hour later the room was empty. For a split second Eva thought Leon had disappeared but then she saw a note on the bed telling her he had gone to hire a car. There was no explanation as to why he felt that they needed to hire a car, just that he would be back in an hour.

Uneasily, Eva locked the hotel room door from the inside. She debated ordering some room service and then decided against it. When she had combed out her hair and pulled on her clothes, she made the bed and then lay down on it. She flicked on the TV. The early morning news was reporting on the algae crisis, trying to make the most out of the same information that had been in circulation for several days. However, it was clear that the story was considered to be on the wane. She could almost sense the disappointment in the news anchors, who would now be reduced to covering the number of shopping days until Christmas once again.

Just before the programme ended at 9am there was a final interview with the environment agency head Don Porter. It was live from the road in front of his office. Whether it was the early start or the reporter's attempts at harassing him into saying something newsworthy, Porter did not look comfortable. Eva sat up and moved closer to the large flat screen TV attached to the wall opposite. Don Porter did not look like he had slept. Tell-tale bags hovered under his eyes and uneasy glances to his left spoke of the presence of someone else carefully controlling his responses. What he was saying sounded rehearsed, without a doubt. And when the reporter tried to engage him in unplanned speculation he simply ended the interview. Eva flicked off the TV and sat back against the soft pillows, her hands behind her head. Was he really displaying the signs of someone operating under great stress on little sleep or was she imagining it because she thought she knew what was really happening? If Don Porter was in the middle of crisis management then someone else other than her and Leon understood that the algae was much more of a threat than was being publicly reported. Again, Eva wondered to herself – cover-up or crisis management?

Her thoughts were interrupted by the door being unlocked and Leon stalking through. He threw several packages on the bed and handed her a black coffee without speaking.

Eva began to unwrap the haul. A new pair of jeans – surprisingly the right size and the same style as she had on – a new T-shirt – slightly too large – a black hooded top and even new underwear (white cotton, nothing too provocative). Quickly and unselfconsciously Eva changed into the new clothes, thankful that she could leave her much-worn outfit behind. She reached for her old pair of jeans and pulled out the memory stick as Leon produced a small, brand-new notebook computer.

‘We need to make copies of that stick,' he said and shoved it across the bed at her along with a pack of two new memory sticks. Eva nodded, unwrapped the computer and began the business of copying all the information on the stick she held onto the duplicates. As she worked, Leon produced the last of his purchases, tightly-wrapped bacon sandwiches, steaming hot and juicy with ketchup.

Whilst it was never mentioned, Eva had a sense that what had happened last night had been put into a box and shelved in Leon's mind. He may have been vulnerable enough to show how uncomfortable he felt first thing that morning but the shutters had firmly come back down now. Frankly, Eva was relieved; the last thing she wanted was to have a conversation about what it meant or how it made her feel.

Whilst Leon showered, Eva finished her coffee and began looking once again through the memory stick to see if they had missed anything. She searched the same documents and folders that she had perused before but there was nothing there that was new. She read again the obesity predictions and the projected profits Bioavancement S.a.r.l. assumed would be achieved by setting a light under such an epidemic with their algae ‘health supplement'. She found that she felt little shock that a company would sacrifice all those lives to such a horrible end for the sake of profit. Perhaps she had become entirely cynical; but then it wasn't as if it hadn't happened before.