The Hornbeam Tree (47 page)

‘I don’t think so,’ Michelle responded, watching Laurie as she came around the corner of the house with a camera on her shoulder. Fellowes and Wilding had their backs to her, so weren’t immediately aware of her presence, though she’d been there the whole time, Michelle knew that. It was why she’d let Fellowes rant on just now, hoping Laurie was getting it all on tape, and had then gone into so much detail herself on their version of the story. What she didn’t know was why Laurie was showing herself now.

Glancing in the direction Michelle was looking, Fellowes’s eyes suddenly bulged with shock. ‘What the fuck!’ he spat when he saw Laurie, and grabbed the camera so fast she had no time even to tighten her grip.

‘Who the fuck are you, and what the hell are you doing here?’ Fellowes raged, tearing open the camera to check for tape.

‘That’s my property,’ she said, ‘and you’ve got no right …’

‘Just get the hell out of here,’ he hissed, snatching out the cassette and pocketing it.

‘But I’m not trespassing, and this isn’t a crime scene … Is it?’

Fellowes thrust the camera back at her. ‘Disappear, or you’re going to find yourself in a whole lot more trouble than you can handle.’

Laurie’s smile remained pleasant. ‘I think you know who I am,’ she said, ‘but just in case, my name is Laurie Forbes. I’m sure you’ve heard of me, so you’ll be aware that one phone call from me is all it will take to fill this village up with press.’

Fellowes looked murderous. ‘Are you threatening me?’ he demanded.

‘It probably sounds like it,’ she conceded. ‘Though it’s really just a statement of fact.’

‘You do realize I could arrest you right now for obstruction of justice?’ he snarled.

Laurie nodded. ‘I don’t think you want the publicity though – do you?’

Fellowes looked at Wilding, as though expecting him to deal with this mess.

Wilding pulled him to one side. ‘You’ve got the tape,’ he muttered, ‘the house has been searched. We’re not going to achieve anything else here today.’

Fellowes was boiling with outrage, but Wilding was right. Chambers was long gone and what they were engaged in now was tantamount to intimidation, which wasn’t going to read well with his superiors should it ever find its way to the airwaves. So biting back his temper, he fired a blistering look at Laurie, then throwing open the kitchen door he shouted, ‘Time to go!’

Katie was still at the kitchen table, feeling slightly better now, but still tense enough to jump severely at the yell. She wondered what Michelle had been saying out there, and what damage had been done to her belongings.. She wasn’t used to just sitting there while chaos erupted all around her, but the exhaustion that had suddenly taken her had been so debilitating that even now she was finding it hard to stand. However, she was in no pain, nor was she wholly dispossessed of her senses, so she was fully aware of the exodus as it happened, and the relief of seeing Laurie come in with her camera once they’d all gone.

‘Are you OK?’ Michelle said, going straight to her.

‘Yes, I think so. It must have been all the champagne. I came over very peculiar for a while, but thank God you’re here,’ she said to Laurie. ‘Look at the place. You have to shoot it. We have to get visual evidence of what they’ve done.’

Laurie was looking around in disgust. ‘The bastards,’ she muttered.

‘So let’s get to it,’ Katie cried impatiently.

Coming to her senses, Laurie said, ‘I need the tape I left here yesterday. There’s plenty of space on it, and it’s all I’ve got to shoot on.’

‘Why on earth did you let them know you had a camera?’ Michelle demanded. ‘When I knew you were there … Did you get anything?’

‘Come with me,’ Laurie told her, and leading the way back outside, she raised the lid of the dustbin and extracted a videotape from under an empty carton of milk. ‘He’s taken a blank,’ she said, ‘which is really going to piss him off, so I can
probably
expect a bit of harassment from that direction now. The important thing is to get this to a safe place, because it’s pretty powerful stuff – short on pictures, I’m afraid, but the sound should be perfect, and if we lay it over the shots of the mess inside …’

‘They’ve taken the computers,’ Michelle was saying, as they started back into the kitchen. ‘And God knows what else. I guess we’ll find out. Did you bring the document from Nick?’

‘Three copies of it. They’re in the car, which I left behind the pub. I didn’t want to bring it any closer in case anyone saw me arrive.’

‘Where’s Katie?’ Michelle said, frowning.

‘Up here,’ Katie called from the top of the stairs. ‘Let’s get Molly’s room cleared up before she comes back. She’ll go berserk about her computer, but thank God it doesn’t look as though anything’s been broken.’

As they joined her Laurie’s phone started to ring. ‘It’s Elliot,’ she told them, clicking on. ‘Hi. Where are you?’

‘Just coming into the village. How’s it going there?’

‘OK. They were still here when I arrived. I’ve got some excellent footage, and I’m about to get some more, because they’ve left the place in a dreadful mess.’

‘Is Katie all right?’

‘I think so. A bit shaken up.’ Her eyes went to Katie. ‘She’ll probably enjoy a visit from you.’

‘I’ll be there any second,’ he said.

‘No news from Tom, I suppose?’

‘There won’t be. He can’t risk it, and it’s best if
none
of us knows where he is. Have you got the stuff from Nick?’

‘Yes. There are lots of copies now, so it won’t do anyone any good to confiscate one.’

‘OK. I’m just turning into the lane. Can you meet me outside?’

By the time she got downstairs he was pulling in next to Katie’s car, so she walked across to the gate and waited for him to join her. ‘Where have you been?’ she asked, looking up into his eyes and thinking of those dreadful moments earlier with Andraya.

‘I came via Portsmouth,’ he said. ‘I wanted to lead them to a channel port, so they’d think I was meeting Tom to make a dash for France.’

‘Is that still the proposed destination?’

He nodded. ‘But now I’ve made it look obvious, perhaps they won’t focus on it quite so much.’

She was about to open the gate for him to come in when he said, ‘About this morning – I know how it looked, and what she said, but I swear I had no idea she’d be there.’

She nodded. ‘I think I know that,’ she responded softly.

‘She left straight away. I didn’t let her into the flat.’

‘Good.’

‘I think she’s got the message now.’

‘Let’s hope so.’ Then because he needed to hear it, she said, ‘It’s over with Nick.’

She sensed the relief that went through him, and felt it too, for in spite of there still being a long way to go, it was just the two of them now, with no-one else to add to the complications or turmoil.
However
, now wasn’t the time to take it any further, so she stood aside for him to come in, saying, ‘Who tipped you off?’

‘Chris,’ he answered. ‘He had a call from a woman who didn’t give her name, but was American apparently and, interestingly, knew he was the right person to get hold of.’

‘Elliot,’ Michelle said, pulling open the door. ‘Judy just rang. She’s had a visit from the police. They’ve obviously traced the Panda to her, and now they know that my car is in her garage.’

Not having been party to Tom’s getaway, Elliot was confused. ‘What does this mean?’ he said.

‘That they know Tom left in a Renault 4 with Judy’s husband.’

His eyes closed in frustration. ‘The traffic police will already have been alerted,’ he said, quickly going through the ramifications. ‘And if we call to warn him, we’re going to lead them straight to him. Shit, they were fast!’

The trusty blue Renault 4 was roaring along the M5 at fifty miles an hour, swaying in the slipstream of mightier cars and shuddering in the wake of high-sided lorries. There was a blinding spray on the windscreen that the wipers were diligently smearing, and the sinister grating sound coming from somewhere up front seemed to be getting worse.

The journey so far had been uneventful, but that was about to change, for a fleet of three police cars was bearing down on the unassuming vehicle like hounds on a limping fox. Dave glanced in the rear-view mirror, and blinked at the dazzling display of blue flashing lights. Resisting the urge to stick his
foot
down, mainly because it might go through the floor, he carried on zipping along, whistling tonelessly and scratching his unshaven face as he pondered his predicament.

The police cars were on him in seconds, forcing him on to the hard shoulder, and pulling up alongside, in front and behind.

‘Tom, my friend,’ he muttered as he wound the window down, ‘you’re a lucky man. And it looks as though I’m a popular one,’ he added, as he watched his rusty old heap being surrounded by fluorescent jackets and chequer-band caps.

‘David Penwright?’ an important-looking flat cap demanded.

‘That’s me,’ Dave responded. ‘Is everything all right? I wasn’t breaking the limit, was I?’

‘Step out of the car please,’ the flat cap responded, clearly not amused.

Obediently Dave struggled with the handle, then shouldered open the door and clambered out on to the tarmac. The noise was almost deafening as the traffic thundered by, though several motorists were slowing up now to catch a glimpse of what was going on. No gore and guts over here, Dave was thinking, or not yet anyway. ‘What’s the problem?’ he asked, as two officers began inspecting the inside of his Renault, whilst another opened the back. ‘I haven’t got any drugs.’

‘We’ve received information that you’re assisting a suspected criminal in avoiding arrest,’ the flat cap told him. He glanced down at his notes. ‘Thomas Chambers. US citizen.’ He looked at Dave, clearly waiting for an answer.

‘If you’re talking about my mate Tom, who I was
giving
a lift to,’ he said, ‘then you’re out of luck. I just dropped him off. But he’s no criminal, not Tom …’

‘Where did you drop him?’

Dave shrugged. ‘Back there, at the services.’

Immediately another officer began speaking into his radio. ‘Suspect thought to be at Exeter services,’ he said, spreading the word.

‘Where was he going from there?’ the flat cap asked Dave.

Dave pulled a face. ‘He didn’t say. He just wanted a lift down that far, which I was happy to do, you know, give the old girl a bit of a run, she don’t get out much …’

‘Did anyone meet him? Did he hire a car? Take a taxi?’

‘I think he just went in to have a cup of tea,’ Dave answered.

‘Or to wait for someone?’

‘I don’t know. All I know is he got out of the old girl here, and gave her a friendly slap on the roof as I drove off. I didn’t want to stop the engine, see, in case I had trouble starting it again.’ That much at least was true, but he didn’t have to tell them the rest of it, that Tom’s lift was already waiting when they got there, pulled up in front of Burger King, as arranged, or that it was a top-of-the-line S class Merc that had got his juices flowing, and the old girl’s dander up, the way she’d coughed and spluttered as they’d lurched back down the slip road to start the journey home.

No, Tom was long gone by now, zooming off to only he knew where, with only he knew who, because Dave certainly didn’t. Nor did he want to.
His
part was over now. He’d just given a lift to a friend of a friend, and being the obliging fellow that he was, he hadn’t even accepted any money for gas, as his mate Tom had called it.

Chapter Twenty

TWO DAYS HAD
now passed since Tom’s escape. There had been no word since he’d left Katie’s, though Chris had confirmed he’d flown him into Brittany the next day with no mishap, so if all had gone to plan from there, Elliot was expecting to find him at Jean-Jacques’ farmhouse, deep in the heart of Burgundy.

It was a dull, wet afternoon as Elliot drove his rental car through the vaguely familiar French countryside, heading towards the secluded hamlet that nestled cosily in the bowl of the valley, seeming as forgotten as the sprawling empty fields surrounding it. It was far from the beaten track and comprised no more than five eighteenth-century dwellings, each belonging to Parisians who only used them at weekends and for holidays. It was also virtually impossible to approach without being seen, for there was only this one road through, or the mountain pathways which, at this time of year, were almost totally exposed.

As Elliot began the gentle descent, passing
sodden
, spiky hedgerows and golden trees, he was thinking about Katie and Michelle’s certainty that the efforts to silence Tom were, in themselves, confirming the existence of the P2OG. And he wasn’t arguing with that – however, it still wasn’t providing that vital link between the P2OG and Tom’s evidence of a Pakistan-based terrorist plot. Katie and Michelle were now examining both versions of the 21 Project in minute detail, while Laurie worked alongside them, making preliminary plans for a webcast in case they started running into problems about getting the story into print. Elliot foresaw several, for the reach of American power wasn’t something he ever underestimated, and there wasn’t much doubt, in this case, that they had all their guns loaded.

Slowing up to go over a cattle grid, he glanced in his rear-view mirror and saw the road stretching emptily behind. It had been like that virtually the entire way from Mâcon where he’d stopped to pick up a few supplies, so by now he was fairly confident he hadn’t been followed. However, as he approached the tiny hamlet he was starting to become uneasy, for the place appeared as still and silent as a grave. Not a person, nor a creature in sight.

As he pulled into the driveway that ran along the side of Jean-Jacques’ rambling stone farmhouse, he looked carefully over the creeper-covered frontage for any signs of life inside. Every one of the white-painted shutters was closed, and a handful of mail was jutting from the front door letter-box. This wasn’t looking good. He edged the car further forward, then noticed the front end of another car,
tucked
away around the back of the house. Hoping it was Tom’s rental, rather than a recent acquisition Jean-Jacques had forgotten to mention, he stopped the engine, and stepped out on to the drive just as the kitchen door swung open.