Safe House (24 page)

‘What?’ Rebecca asked.

‘Huh?’

‘You were looking at me funny.’

‘Just resting my eyes.’

She smiled. Tilted her head to one side. ‘Curious place to rest them.’

‘I like the colour of your T-shirt.’

‘The colour.’

‘It’s an interesting shade.’

‘And the fit?’

I nodded. ‘That too.’

Rebecca propped her head against her open hand. Laced her fingers through her hair. ‘How’s your shoulder?’ she asked.

I moved my arm in my sling, resisting the urge to grimace. ‘It’s OK.’

‘Slowing you up at all?’

‘I’m good at adjusting.’

‘Really.’

‘I’m adaptable.’

‘Huh.’

Rebecca drank some more of her beer. Held my eyes. She seemed to be deciding something for herself. Running through the variables.

‘Do you want to show me that key?’

‘The key.’ I nodded. ‘Right.’

‘I’m thinking now would be a good time.’

‘Now would be a great time.’

‘So . . .’

I glanced down into my beer bottle. Made a humming noise. Looked back up again and winced. ‘Here’s the thing,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t only my laptop they took.’

I watched my words register on Rebecca’s face. Saw a tension creep into her features. She lowered both hands to the kitchen counter. Spread her fingers.

‘They took the key?’ she asked.

‘Both keys.’ I nodded. ‘And the fob. They were on top of my laptop.’

‘Are you sure? Maybe they fell to the floor?’

I gestured towards the study with my lager bottle. ‘Be my guest.’

She slid off her stool. Walked slowly across the room. She had nice hips. A terrific silhouette. She was just my type. Hell, she was every guy’s type. Completely breathtaking.

But she wasn’t going to find any keys.

I watched her scan my desk. I watched her slide my chair aside and crouch down to check the carpet. I watched her straighten and turn in a careful circle and return to the far side of the living room, close to the corner sofa.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

Her arms hung heavily at her side. Long and lean. Fingers lightly curled. Tensing, then relaxing. ‘Not your fault.’

‘It could have been a useful lead.’

‘Still might be. I guess we’ll just have to see what tomorrow brings.’

‘And meanwhile?’

She was silent for a moment. Watching me. Her face was plain. Open. She gazed down at the carpet between us. Tracked it slowly until she got as far as my feet. Her eyes crawled up my body. She smiled. A lazy grin. Then she shook her head, just barely.

‘Bad idea,’ she told me.

‘No appeal?’

‘It’s not that.’

‘Then what?’

‘It would be a distraction. From what I’m here to do. From what your parents hired me for.’

‘Distractions can be good. I was thinking we could get distracted on that sofa. Then in my bedroom. One long night of distractions.’

‘And then?’

‘I guess we’ll just have to see what tomorrow brings.’

She showed me her teeth. Shook her head some more. ‘Goodnight, Rob,’ she said.

‘Goodnight, Rebecca.’

And with that, she left and she didn’t return.

Chapter Thirty-four

The voice that had offered Lena pizza belonged to the man she’d seen sitting on the boot of the car just before she was sedated. He looked typically English. Short brown hair, neatly styled. High forehead. Slim nose. Weak chin. He was holding a triangle of pizza up to his mouth. A paper napkin was tucked into the collar of his blue shirt. Three greasy takeaway boxes were stacked on the floor beside him.

The man was sitting in a wooden deckchair with a candy-striped canvas. There was a matching deckchair folded up and propped against the wall. The only other item in the room was a portable radio. It was tuned to a station playing classical music.

‘There’s lemonade,’ the man said. ‘I expect you’re thirsty.’

Lena said nothing.

‘Sit down. Relax. We’re going to be here a while. No reason it can’t be pleasant.’ He took a mouthful of pizza. Used his fingers to pluck at a string of melted cheese that stretched between his lips and the triangular slice. ‘The only rule is no screaming or shouting,’ he said, chewing. ‘You try anything funny and you go back in that room with the door locked.’

Still Lena refused to speak.

‘It’s good pizza,’ the man said. ‘Might as well eat it while it’s hot.’

Lena felt a hollow churning in her stomach. Her mouth was starting to water. The pizza smelled very good.

‘I need the bathroom,’ she said.

The man smiled. As if they’d reached some kind of understanding. He pointed to a plain door on the other side of the room. ‘Go ahead,’ he told her. ‘There’s no lock. But don’t worry. As long as you behave, I won’t disturb you.’

The bathroom was beyond basic. Lena closed the door behind her and took a quick inventory. She saw a toilet with no seat. A wall-mounted sink with only one tap. A compact white tub, also with one tap. The tap was dripping. It had been dripping for a long time. The tub was stained because of it. The water was running away through a drainage hole with no plug attachment. There was no shower over the bath, hence no shower curtain and no shower pole. Four drill holes were visible in the wall where a cabinet or a mirror had once been positioned. There was a roll of white toilet paper on the floor but no toilet-roll holder. There was a single bar of soap on the sink, but no towel to dry her hands with and no towel rail.

Whoever had prepared the bathroom had done a thoroughly professional job. Anything that might have been made into an improvised weapon or used to aid an escape bid had been removed. The bathroom window was a thin horizontal strip of glass, fitted into the wall way above Lena’s head. The outside of the glass was covered in the same opaque film as the window in the soundproofed room. Lena placed her foot on the rim of the toilet and stretched up, teetering there, to prod at the glass. It was solid. No give.

She stepped down and dropped her trousers and her underwear. She squatted over the toilet and tried to analyse her dilemma. Her thinking was laboured, dulled by the after-effects of the sedative. But she knew that her options were severely limited. Even if she assumed she was being guarded by only one man, without a weapon of some kind she had little chance of overpowering him. She was dizzy. She was thirsty and hungry. She was weak and her wrist was badly sprained.

But she did still have one weapon in her arsenal.

Lena found her feet and flushed the toilet. She would have liked a mirror. She would have welcomed the chance to check her appearance and brush her hair and tidy herself up.

No matter. If there was one thing life had taught Lena Zeeger, it was that she was desirable.

She stepped out of her trousers and kicked away her underwear and her socks. She unbuttoned her blouse with her good hand and struggled with her bra strap until she had it undone. She shook her hair. Threw back her shoulders and lifted her chin.

She opened the door. Raised one arm against the frame and bent one leg at the knee. She cleared her throat. Batted her eyelids.

The man gawped up from his pizza. A chunk of tomato adhered to his chin. Tendrils of cheese hung from his mouth. He ran his eyes up and down her body. Then he snorted and wiped his oily lips with the back of his hand.

‘You Europeans have a funny way of dressing for dinner.’ He chewed his food with his mouth open. ‘But just so you know, I was assigned to watch you because I don’t ride that particular bus. So you might want to think about putting some clothes back on.’

*

Menser clicked on his bedside lamp shortly after midnight. He hadn’t slept. Hadn’t really expected to. It was impossible for him to switch off when he was in the middle of an assignment. Always had been. Add to that the creeping sense that things were slipping beyond his control and you had the perfect recipe for a bout of insomnia.

He was getting old. Too old for the job.

No, that wasn’t it. He was too old to
want
the job any more. Sometimes he wondered what had happened to the ambitious twenty-two-year-old who’d been so eager to serve. He marvelled at his desire to sign up for a cause, any cause, without bothering to stop and consider what the merits of that cause might be.

He knew the answer now. The weight of his actions crushed down on him. The things he’d done. The outcomes he’d set in motion. The times he’d stepped aside when he could have intervened. Lives had been lost. Others had been taken. But it wasn’t until the past few months that the weight had finally become too much. He’d felt himself buckle. Knew he couldn’t stand much more. And then the sick twist – the sting in the tail – the realisation that the cost of leaving would bring with it the heaviest burden of all.

But then, what had he expected? A simple retirement?

He remembered the look on his superior’s face. The cool assessment of his request. The sharp nod and the collegiate pat on the shoulder and the assurance that something could be arranged. But not through the usual channels. The usual channels, his superior had assured him, were clogged with bureaucracy and budget cuts. They were overseen by pen-pushers and penny-pinchers. Not the type of people who could be relied upon. Not the right approach at all for a man who deserved to get out with ample reward for a lifetime of service.

The solution was ready and waiting. It was neatly packaged and beautifully wrapped and dropped right in Menser’s lap. There would be one last job. A final assignment. And the pay-off would mean a generous retirement bonus and a speedy departure.

But of course, nobody could know the details. Nobody except Menser and his superior and a young, ambitious new recruit by the name of Clarke. A guy who was willing to serve, no questions asked, just as Menser once had.

Menser grumbled to himself. Ground the heel of his hand into his eye. The ferry sailed from Heysham docks at a quarter past two in the morning. They’d get there early. They couldn’t afford another mistake. His superior had made that very clear. And if he was lucky, the docks might distract him from the broken record of regret and bitterness that kept stuttering and repeating itself inside his brain.

He reached a hand down to the floor and groped for his phone. Checked the display and saw that he had a message from one of the men his superior had found to watch the girl. The message was two words long.
No problems
.

Menser grunted. He wasn’t so sure. He had a feeling the girl had concealed something from them. Something on the Isle of Man, maybe.

He gathered together his discarded clothes. Straightened out his trousers and fed his legs into them. It was time to get dressed and rouse Clarke. Time to shoulder more weight. To go and find out if his fears were justified.

*

I finished my lager after Rebecca had gone. Then I finished hers and washed the bottles in the sink. Ten minutes since she’d walked out my front door. Nine and a half minutes since I’d heard the noise of her car pulling away.

I listened to the silence down in my hallway. Walked through my flat one last time. I didn’t think whoever had broken in would be back – they’d already got what they’d come for – but I wanted to make sure it was hard for them if they did return. I checked the locks on my windows. Closed and locked the drawers of my filing cabinet. Then I headed downstairs and locked the internal door to my workshop and stepped outside and yanked my front door shut behind me so that the snap lock engaged.

It was raining. The water was falling fast and hard, pooling in the shallow troughs Rebecca’s tyres had carved into the gravel. It drummed off the metal roof of my van. Tumbled and spiralled in the gusting breeze.

I hunched my shoulders and ran across the yard and squelched through the lawn to the care home. I let myself into the unlit kitchen and stood among the hard stainless-steel surfaces and the smell of bleach that had been used to clean the floors. I shook myself dry and rubbed the rain from my hair. My shoes were wet and muddy. I stepped out of them and walked in my socks as far as the stairs.

Grandpa’s room was at the end of the second floor. I could hear his snoring as I approached. A loud, phlegmy rasp. The noise amplified when I eased his door open. I whispered Rocky’s name and he dropped off the end of Grandpa’s bed and slithered out to me.

I led Rocky back out through the pelting rain to my apartment, where I collapsed on to the sofa and he leapt up beside me, his coat wet and lank from the sheeting downpour. Water hammered against the skylight above us and sluiced down the blackened glass. I stayed there for a long time with Rocky’s head on my lap. I stared at the wall across from me. Listened to the rain lash against the fragile glass. I was thinking hard. About everything that had happened before and everything that might happen yet. And all the while Rocky dozed beside me, my hand on his neck, my fingers teasing his downy hairs. Every time he breathed, I could hear a small tinkle. The barest tap of metal on metal. The noise of the two keys I’d clipped to his collar clicking gently against one another.

Part Three

Chapter Thirty-five

‘I’ve found a way in at the back,’ Clarke said. ‘There was a security light, but I snipped the wires.’

He was standing outside the Vauxhall, crouching down to speak through the gap in Menser’s window. They’d parked the car alongside the beach, near a boarded-up ice-cream hut. The seafront was deserted, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long. 6.20 a.m., in a grey and sketchy light. People would be up soon. Maybe walking their dogs. Maybe jogging before work.

Menser stepped out of the car on to rain-slicked tarmac. He closed his eyes, fighting the tilting sensation inside his head. The overnight ferry crossing had been much calmer than his experience on the trawler. But the rocking of the waves had still wormed its way inside him.

He fitted his gloves over his hands. Pushed the leather down into the webbing between his fingers, then reached inside the car for his backpack.