Sure Fire (4 page)

“But there was not.”

Pavlov nodded. “All sterile glassware. Fragile, if you have to make a hurried escape.”

The video was running forward again as they spoke, at normal speed.

“There!” Vishinsky said suddenly. He leaned forward. “Go back – slowly.”

Pavlov let the images play backwards at a tenth of their normal speed. He froze the playback as soon as Vishinsky said: “Stop it there.”

Vishinsky got up from his chair and walked slowly along the length of the table. His eyes never left the screen. The image showed the dark figure as
his hand emerged from his pocket. The fingers were wrapped round whatever he was holding – the receptacle he was about to fill with liquid from the canister. In that single frozen frame, it was angled so that it caught what little light there was – perhaps a faint glow from the display of nearby equipment.

Vishinsky stood close to the screen. “Close in on his hand, on the thing he is holding.”

Pavlov moved his fingers carefully across the laptop's track pad and the image zoomed in on the container in the man's hand.

Just barely visible was a shadow or a mark. Something on the container that was catching the light. “What is that?”

“I'm not sure.” Pavlov tried to trace the mark with his pointer, but it was not distinct enough. “A maker's mark perhaps? Maybe it's just a shadow, a reflection – an artefact of the enhancement process.”

Vishinsky nodded. “Find out,” he said.

“But, sir,” Pavlov said, “we have already enhanced the image as much as we can. Any more and we risk introducing things that are not actually there.” He hesitated and licked his dry lips.

“Don't trouble me with details,” Vishinsky said.
“Just find out what that mark is. You can do that, can't you? For me?”

He raised a grey-white eyebrow as if asking a simple favour of a friend.

Pavlov swallowed. “Of course, sir. We'll do what we can. But—”

“Find out!” Vishinsky roared. He waved his hand in sudden, abrupt dismissal and Pavlov quickly disconnected his laptop and hurried after his colleagues from the room. “And tell someone to bring me my food,” Vishinsky said. “Before it gets cold.”

The sound of a telephone woke Rich in the middle of the night. Instinctively, he fumbled for his mobile, but it wasn't the same ring. He and Jade both had mobiles, though Mum had made them pay for their own top-ups. Probably he was out of credit anyway.

The phone stopped and, now that he was awake, Rich could hear the low sound of Chance speaking. Rich's mobile showed the time when it wasn't being used – it said 04:32. Who was ringing up at half past four in the morning?

He needed the toilet now he was awake, so he tiptoed to the door and opened it. Rich paused. Chance's voice was muffled and indistinct through his closed study door, but Rich couldn't help catching
a few words when he pressed his ear to the door.

“…No, not here… better not meet yet… dangerous… leave it for me… usual place… I'll collect… soon.”

The sound of Chance's voice stopped. If he had to be somewhere soon, he'd be in a hurry, Rich realised. He darted back into his bedroom and pushed the door almost closed. The study door opened and through the crack between the door and its frame, Rich saw Chance hurry into the living room. He was still dressed.

Maybe he slept in his clothes, Rich thought. Maybe he didn't sleep at all.

Rich climbed back into bed, his need for the bathroom forgotten. When he woke again it was morning, and the events of the night seemed as vague as a dream.

Jade appeared in the bedroom door. She was still in her pyjamas and carrying two mugs of tea. “He's gone,” she said.

Rich didn't need to ask who she meant.

He told her about the night-time phone call while they drank their tea. They went through to the study, where the computer was on. It showed a standard
screensaver and there was a password to get out of it and back to the main screen.

“Who needs a password when he lives alone?” Jade wondered.

“Maybe it's for our benefit,” Rich said. “Or maybe he takes the laptop to work. Maybe he's gone to work already.”

“It's not seven o'clock yet,” Jade pointed out.

“Long commute?”

“Or a long meeting. I wonder who called him.”

“Let's find out,” Rich said, lifting the phone. “1471 – gives the number of the last caller.”

“Probably withheld or unavailable,” Jade said.

Rich tried it anyway. The dial tone was replaced by the beep of the buttons as he pressed them. But then, instead of a voice, he heard an electronic screech. It was so loud and shrill that Rich dropped the phone.

Jade could hear it too. She picked up the handset to replace it in the cradle. But then she hesitated, pointing at the plastic box attached to the phone. Lights were flashing on the side of it. She hung up and the lights went out.

“I don't like this,” Jade said quietly.

Before Rich could reply, they heard the sound of the door to the flat slamming shut. They rushed to the living room.

Chance looked tired. He was holding a few letters which he dropped unopened into the kitchen bin. He closed up the cupboard where the bin was kept and turned the kettle on.

“Lucky we got milk,” Rich said from the doorway.

“I drink my coffee black,” Chance replied, without looking round. “You're up early.”

“We all are,” Jade said, pushing past Rich into the kitchen. “Where have you been?”

“Couldn't sleep. Went for a walk.”

The kettle was boiling and Chance made his coffee. “I've got some work to catch up on. I'll see you later. Help yourselves to breakfast.”

“I guess he means the beer,” Rich said, when Chance had gone. “Unless there's some cereal hidden away.” He opened a few cupboards, but found nothing. Having tried all the others, he opened the cupboard under the sink. This was the cupboard with the bin. As the door opened, it raised the lid of the bin inside.

“Hang on – look at this.” Rich was staring into the bin.

Jade joined him and saw what he was looking at – the letters that Chance had just dropped.

Rich lifted out the letters. “They're all the same,” he said, showing her. There were five letters – bills and junk mail. The address was the same on them all –
Second Floor Flat
– and the number and street. And they had all been sent to the same person.

But that person wasn't John Chance. It was Henry Lessiter.

“Remind me,” Jade said quietly. “How do we know that this man who says he's called John Chance but gets someone else's post, who gets phone calls in the middle of the night and goes to ‘meetings' until dawn—”

“How do we know,” Rich finished for her, “that he's actually our John Chance at all?”

Chance told them he was working from home that day. He was happy for Jade and Rich to explore the area, and they went to the shops. For lunch they got a sandwich in a little internet café, and Rich spent an hour mucking about on the web. Jade emailed her friend Charmaine in America.

They found a small supermarket within easy
walking distance and Jade bought bottled water, grapes, oranges and a spray air freshener. Rich bought crisps and coke. They thought about getting some food for the evening, but neither of them fancied cooking and they doubted Chance would offer. So they grabbed a few ready meals that would microwave.

When they got back, Chance was in the living room, talking on his mobile. He hung up as soon as Rich and Jade came in. They exchanged glances, sure it was for their benefit.

“Can I ring my friend Charmaine?” Jade asked.

“Of course you can,” Chance said. “You've got a mobile.”

“I'm almost out of credit.”

“Me too,” Rich said.

“Give me your mobile numbers and I'll get them topped up.”

“I'll write them down for you later,” Rich said.

“Just tell me. I'll remember. I'm good with numbers.” He smiled. “Really.”

Rich reeled off his mobile number. Grudgingly, Jade told him hers too. Chance recited them both back perfectly.

“Charmaine's in New York,” Jade said, as Chance offered his own mobile. “It'll cost a fortune on that.”

“There's the phone in the study,” Rich suggested.

“Maybe later,” Chance said.

“I need to call her now, before she leaves for school. You know – the time difference?”

Chance sighed. “All right, all right.”

Jade didn't wait for more, but headed straight for the study. Chance hurried after her and Rich followed.

“Hang on,” Chance said. “I need to set this up.” He fiddled with the plastic box attached to the phone wire.

“What's that for?” Rich asked.

“Oh, it's… It's a security thing. Like a phone lock.”

“There's only you here,” Jade said. “Or was.”

“The company insists. I deal with a lot of sensitive stuff in my job.”

“Like what?” Jade asked.

“Like I can't tell you.” He finished working on the box. “That should work now. I'll leave you to it.”

Rich followed him out. “Why did you throw your letters away?” he asked. “Junk mail?”

“Probably,” Chance said. “Why do you ask?”

“Just curious.”

“They were for the previous tenant of the flat. He didn't leave a forwarding address.”

Rich nodded. “And no one writes to you?”

Chance smiled. “That's me – Johnny No-Mates.”

The phone worked fine now, but Jade just got the answer phone at Charmaine's house, so she rang Mrs Gilpin instead.

Mrs Gilpin seemed pleased to hear from her. “How is everything?” she asked.

“Oh, fine,” Jade lied. “There's some shops nearby and a little park. And… Dad is sorting out school for us. We'll be OK.”

“You must come back and visit us.”

“Thank you. We'd like that.” There was something funny with the phone – probably something to do with the plastic box. Jade could hear a clicking every now and again. But she thought nothing of it.

Three streets away from where Jade was making her phone call, an unmarked black van was parked in a side road.

Inside the van, a man wearing dark-framed glasses and a long grey raincoat was sitting in front of a sophisticated audio monitoring system. He wore headphones, listening intently to every word Jade said.

At Heathrow, Stabb was meeting a woman who had just arrived on a scheduled flight. As they walked to the short-term car park, Stabb told the woman how things were going.

“So you've achieved nothing,” the woman said with a smile. She was beautiful, with long, straight, jet black hair.

“It is difficult until we can get back the sample,” Stabb said. “We can't risk losing that, and Chance could have hidden it anywhere. The only way to be sure is to get to Chance as he hands it over. He must still have it or there would have been some fallout by now.”

“I agree. And so does Viktor.”

Stabb scowled. “Glad to hear you both approve.”

“Oh, don't misunderstand me,” she said, smiling. She brushed her hair away from her face as she got into the car. “You are in charge here.”

Stabb looked at her, then started the engine and pulled out of the parking space.

“So what do you want me to do?” she asked.

“Nothing for now. We're watching Chance, and so far he's not made contact with anyone. But the children may provide an opportunity.”

The woman smiled, watching out of the car window as a huge 747 took off into the cloudy sky. “I like children,” she said.

“Jade won't like that,” Rich warned Chance.

Chance lit the cigarette anyway. He put the packet and his silver lighter down on the coffee table beside his mobile phone. Rich could see there was a heart engraved on the lighter.

Chance blew out a long breath of smoke and Rich winced, trying not to cough. He hated the smell of cigarettes, hated the way the smoke got into your mouth and the stale smell of it lingering on your clothes.

“I've had a really long day,” Chance said.

At that moment, Jade appeared in the doorway to the living room. Rich recognised the expression on Jade's face and from experience he knew it was not good news.

She walked over to Chance and plucked the cigarette from his mouth. Then she ground it out in the ashtray.

“What are you doing?” Chance asked.

“You're not smoking that,” Jade told him.

“You can't order me about in my own flat.”

“It might be your flat,” Jade said, “but we all have to live here.”

“Sometimes I just have to have one.” He opened the cigarette packet again.

“You're killing us as well as yourself,” Jade told him. “Killing your own children.”

Chance was on his feet. He pushed the lighter into the space inside the cigarette packet, then closed the packet and tossed it down on to the table beside his mobile phone. “I'm sorry, but I can't deal with this right now. I'll phone schools and you should be somewhere more pleasant by the weekend. Things are not easy for me at the moment – not easy at all.”

He turned and walked quickly from the room.

As soon as the study door slammed shut, Jade scooped up the cigarettes from the coffee table. “Confiscated,” she said. “Since we're all treating each other like school kids. And that,” she added, picking up Chance's mobile phone. “That's confiscated too.”

“What are you going to do with them?” Rich asked. “Ciggies, fine. But you can't chuck away his phone. And he put his lighter inside the cigarette packet.”

“Then I'll put them somewhere he won't find them,” she said.

“He'll go ape,” Rich said.

Jade grinned. “I know.” She headed for the bedroom.

Rich stared at the empty space on the table where the cigarettes and phone had been. There was a new packet of cigarettes on a table in the hall, and he fetched it and put it on top of the telly. After a moment's thought, Rich tore the cellophane wrapper off the packet. Maybe Chance would assume he'd opened a new pack and not get too cross when he couldn't find his phone or his lighter.

Rich didn't ask where Jade was actually hiding
Chance's stuff. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. And when Jade returned and moved on to the kitchen, he decided he
really
didn't want to know and went to the bedroom. He pushed the door shut and tried to read. He couldn't concentrate, and when he heard the study door open, he cringed.

A few moments later, he heard the explosion he had anticipated.

“What do you think you're doing?” Chance asked.

Rich took a deep breath, then went to see what was happening.

Jade had been pouring beer down the kitchen sink. Empty bottles were neatly arranged on the worktop, and now she'd started on the champagne. The room reeked of alcohol.

Jade and Chance were staring at each other, and Rich would not have put money on who would blink or look away first.

“Let's just all calm down,” Rich said. His voice seemed quiet and strained and rather weedy, even to himself.

“I am calm,” Jade said. She didn't sound it.

“Maybe we should…” Rich swallowed, “…talk about this.”

“I've nothing to say,” Jade replied. She was still locked in a staring match with her father.

“Fine,” Chance said. “Then you can listen. Both of you.” He broke from the confrontation with Jade as he turned to glare at Rich. “In the living room. Now.”

“I don't—” Jade started to say.

“Now!”

She didn't finish the thought. She pushed past Chance and Rich and went and sat on the sofa. Rich hesitated a moment, then went and sat beside her.

Chance stood in front of the fireplace, facing them. He looked down at the coffee table between them.

“Where are my cigarettes?”

“I don't know,” Rich said. “Haven't seen them. On top of the telly, maybe?”

“So you're going to smoke at us again, are you?” Jade asked.

“I'm going to tell you some things that you may not want to hear,” Chance said. “And some things that you may not believe, but need to know.”

“So no slouching at the back,” Jade muttered.

Despite himself, Rich giggled.

“Absolutely,” Chance told them, deadly serious. “It's bad for your posture.” His mouth twitched, just slightly. But it was enough to defuse the tension a little. He took a deep breath, as if gathering himself for what he was going to say.

Rich waited to be shouted at. He and Jade were used to being told off, and despite her bravado, Rich knew that Jade didn't like it. He could feel how tense she was. He just hoped she'd take it and not yell back like she sometimes did at Mum. Or used to.

But Chance didn't shout. When he spoke, his voice was calm and quiet. “You've been through a lot,” he said. “I know it hasn't been easy for you, even without the upheaval of coming here and coping with me. It's difficult, losing someone you love. Especially the first time.”

“Like you'd know,” Jade said.

“I said you might not believe what I say,” Chance told her. “But I do know. I lost both my parents before I was twenty. But this isn't about me, it's about you. Right now it's you two who are important. We don't know each other yet, let's not even pretend that we do, but I hope we will. I guess there's never a good time for what's happened, but right now may be even
more awkward than it should be.”

“Why?” Rich asked.

Chance sighed. “One of the most awkward things is that I can't tell you. Not at the moment. There are things about…” He hesitated, deciding how to phrase what he wanted to say, “…things about my job that I can't tell you right now.”

“Like why you have a security thing on the phone?” Jade said.

He nodded. “It's a scrambler. For secure conversations. My work is important and it's taking up a lot of my time just now. I have some things I need to finish up – urgent things. I can't have distractions.”

“Is that what we are?” Rich said.

Chance smiled. “With the best will in the world, what do you think? I'd love for it to be possible for you to just move in here and settle down and all of us to carry on as if nothing's changed. But that isn't possible. Things
have
changed – changed radically, for you
and
for me. We need time to come to terms with that, and to make it work.” He leaned forward and looked at them both intently. “And I do want it to work. I really do. I want to get this right, for all our sakes.”

“Cruel to be kind?” Jade wondered.

“Nothing so calculated,” Chance told her. “I just need time to sort things out.”

“So you dump us at boarding school so you can get your work done.”

Chance sighed. “I suppose that's what it comes down to. I know you don't like the idea – I don't like the idea either – but I'm afraid that's how it has to be.”

“But why?” Rich demanded.

“I'll tell you why as soon as I can,” he promised. “Really I will. You don't know me, but I'm asking you to trust me. This is the best way. Till the end of term – a few weeks. Then we'll discuss it properly.” He nodded to Rich. “And I mean
discuss
it. And we'll decide together what to do next, what's best. As a family. Deal?”

Neither Jade nor Rich said anything.

“Like I said,” Chance went on. “I don't expect you to like it. But I hope you'll trust me enough to take my word.”

“That's not fair,” Jade said.

“I'll tell you what's not fair,” Chance said quietly. “I could have ignored the call from Mrs Gilpin. I could have told her that I never even saw my
children, or that I don't think they're mine at all, or that I'm just not interested in my own kids. They don't want to know me, so why should I want to know them – look after them? Put myself out for them? Change my entire life for them? Just because they lost their mum and there's no one else. But I didn't. Because
that
wouldn't be fair. It really wouldn't.”

Both Rich and Jade were looking down at the floor. By the time they looked up again, Chance had gone.

“Maybe we should give him a break,” Rich said to Jade. “Give him back his phone and cigarettes.” Rich could sense Jade tense. “You can't keep blaming him for what happened to Mum.”

“Just because he suddenly goes all slushy and says he cares doesn't mean it's true.”

“He said we'd talk,” Rich pointed out.

“Yeah, after he's packed us off to school. Then what? A live-in nanny for the holidays so he can get on with this important job of his? So he can build his career without being
distracted
. Well, Mary Poppins we don't need.”

“I'm going to tell him you took his mobile and his
ciggies,” Rich decided. “And the lighter.”

“Creep!” Jade made to grab Rich, but he was already on his way to the study.

They heard the phone ring and both stopped, close to the study door.

The door was open a fraction and they could hear Chance's voice from inside.

“No, not at the flat,” he was saying. “Too many… distractions right now.”

“He means us,” Jade mouthed at Rich.

“I know,” he mouthed back. “We shouldn't be listening,” he whispered. But neither of them moved away from the door.

“I have it safe,” Chance was saying. “I'll bring it with me. Be happy to get it to someone who knows what to do with the stuff. I can't risk them finding it.”

“Does he mean us again?” Rich murmured.

Jade shrugged.

“Half an hour then,” Chance was saying. “Somewhere safe where we can talk and I can hand it over to you. Don't come here, though, whatever you do… Because I'm telling you.” He sounded angry now. “Put them in danger, and it'll be the last time I work for you. Ever.” There was a pause. “That old
scrapyard? Yes, I know it. Totters Lane, isn't it? Yes. Half an hour.”

Jade grabbed Rich's arm and pulled him into the bedroom.

“What?” Rich said.

“What do you mean, ‘what?'? If this job of his is so important and if it's on the level, and if he really does work in the oil industry…”

“If?” Rich countered.

“Yes,
if
. If that's all true, then why is he going to a meeting to hand over something he shouldn't have, in a scrapyard?”

Rich sighed. “All right. Look, he said there were things he couldn't tell us right now. But maybe we should find out.”

“Yeah? Like how?”

“By following him and seeing who he meets.”

“We can't do that,” Jade said. “Can we?”

Rich shrugged. “You can nick his mobile – I don't see why we can't follow him to a meeting.”

The bedroom door opened and Chance was standing there. “Look, sorry,” he said. “I have to go out. We'll talk again when I get back, all right?”

“All right,” Jade said.

They watched him cross the living room. He paused to pick up his cigarettes from on top of the television. He seemed about to open the packet, but he caught sight of Jade and Rich still watching him, and instead stuffed the cigarettes into his jacket pocket.

“See you in an hour or so then,” Chance said. He didn't wait for a reply.

They heard the hall door slam shut behind him.

“We'll see you a lot sooner than that,” Rich said.