The Fall

by Robert Muchamore

  James and Dana were surprised to hear John’s name.

  ‘That’s right,’ Ewart lied. ‘Nice weather, no income tax, but it gets dull reporting on property development and horse racing. So now I’m back here doing some real journalism. Freelance to start with, but I’m looking for a job on a national paper.’

  ‘How long have you known John?’

  ‘A few years.’

  ‘He’s with the firm, you know,’ McLoud said.

  ‘MI5?’ Ewart gasped incredulously. ‘I never realised. I met John at the Dubai Arms Fair a few years back. He bought me a few beers and told me that he was a security consultant. I bumped into him a few weeks ago and mentioned that I was doing a story on Hilton Aerospace. He told me to contact you because you know more about the Hiltons than anyone.’

  ‘I’ve covered Hilton Aerospace for nigh on thirty years. You’ve got to tread carefully. The defence industry is very tight-knit and if you step on Lord Hilton’s toes, you’ll find that an awful lot of people stop answering your phone calls.’

  ‘I realise that,’ Ewart said. ‘But I want to pursue the story. I mean, if Hilton really was involved with the death of Denis Obidin, the story would be a huge boost for my career.’

  ‘True, but you’re messing with the big boys if you go up against Hilton. It’s not just within the defence industry. He bought his son’s way into politics. Son’s a junior minister already: good-looking boy, excellent speaker, could be going all the way to the top.’

  ‘Prime Minister,’ Ewart grinned.

  ‘I forget which one, but a Sunday paper did an article about a year back on the ten people under thirty-five who are most likely to become future Prime Ministers. Sebastian Hilton was ranked third.’

  ‘So when did this Sarah Thomas first contact you?’ Ewart asked.

  ‘The day after Madeline Cowell died. She called me up out of the blue and invited me to Madeline’s funeral. I couldn’t go because we were flying off to Portugal for a few days at my sister’s place.

  ‘When I got home a week later, Sarah Thomas had left me another message and said that she’d like to talk to me about a possible story on Hilton Aerospace. I meant to call her back, but I had a heap of messages on the machine and to be honest, I’m in my seventies and the old brain misfires from time to time. So I didn’t think any more about her message until I got the call from John Jones asking if I’d heard anything suspicious about the deaths of Clare Nazareth and Madeline Cowell.’

  ‘So Madeline is a person who’d have known what Lord Hilton was up to?’

  ‘Oh god yes,’ McLoud said. ‘She worked alongside him for thirty years. Every appointment, every business trip. He looked after her too. I can remember a shareholders’ meeting where someone asked Lord Hilton why his personal assistant earned more than some of the directors. Hilton stood up, pulled on his braces and boomed across the hall: Because Madeline Cowell is a bloody sight more useful than any of my directors.

  ‘She was a real tough old bird. You wouldn’t believe the number of times I had to call her over the years, grovelling for a quote, or an interview with Lord Hilton – or Freddie Hilton as he was known back then. I bought her perfume and chocolates every Christmas, but it never did me any good.’

  As Ewart laughed, James spotted a large silver Audi pulling up a few doors down the road.

  ‘Anyway,’ McLoud said, ‘I’ve dug out some old notebooks and photocopied some contact details for you. And I understand that you’ve set up a meeting with this Sarah Thomas?’

  ‘Indeed,’ Ewart replied. ‘I’ve already put together a theory on what Hilton is up to, but I haven’t got a smoking gun. To be honest, the evidence I have is pretty feeble.’

  ‘You want to get your facts straight,’ McLoud warned. ‘Little people like you and me get chewed up and spat out by the Hiltons of this world. They’ve even been known to disappear clean off the face of the earth.’

  ‘Sarah Thomas says she has some documents that Cowell told her to give only to you if anything happened to her. She sounded nervous. I told her a little white lie and said that you were retired, but that I’d taken over your old job. Thomas wouldn’t let me know where she lives and only gave me her mobile phone number. We’re meeting for lunch today and she was at pains to tell me that the restaurant would be packed out and that she didn’t have much money so I’d have to pay!’

  ‘Sounds interesting,’ McLoud said.

  ‘It could be interesting,’ Ewart laughed. ‘But knowing my luck she’ll turn out to be an escaped mental patient.’

  Back outside, James and Dana watched a redhead emerge from the Audi. She was in her twenties, dressed in jeans and a baggy jumper. There was something about the way she looked around that made her seem suspicious; or at least suspicious to someone who’d undergone espionage training.

  Realising that two people sitting in a car doing nothing might seem odd, Dana unfurled a map as James turned the speaker volume down slightly.

  ‘Dodgy?’ James asked.

  ‘Certainly looks it,’ Dana said, as she tried to look without making it seem like she was looking.

  They watched as the young woman stopped at the end of McLoud’s driveway. After another furtive glance and a look towards the front of the house, she crouched down by the back end of Ewart’s car.

  ‘Holy crap,’ James mumbled, as the woman took a small black object from beneath the folds of her jumper. She reached under the Lexus and attached the device magnetically inside the wheel arch. After another glance around, she dashed back towards the Audi. The driver pulled away the instant she closed the passenger door.

  James and Dana looked away as the big car accelerated past them.

  ‘Do you think it’s a bomb?’

  James shook his head. ‘Bomb would be bigger and you’d put it under the driver’s seat, not at the back. It must be a tracking device.’

  ‘So someone’s after Ewart. Maybe someone else has got wind that he’s up to something.’

  ‘Maybe,’ James said. ‘Or, it could be that Ewart is conducting an honest investigation and Sebastian Hilton has someone keeping an eye on him. In which case we’re wrong about Ewart, we’ve stolen secret documents and a car from CHERUB campus and we’re up to our necks in the smelly brown stuff.’

  Dana grimaced. ‘I wish this wasn’t so bloody complicated.’

  ‘I guess we could drive back to campus,’ James said. ‘We’d get busted for nicking the car …’

  ‘No,’ Dana said definitively, like she’d just thought of something. ‘If Ewart is honest and someone is following him he could be in danger. If Ewart is dishonest and someone else is on to him then …’

  ‘Well that would be good news, I guess,’ James shrugged. ‘I mean, they can hardly chuck us out of CHERUB for suspecting the truth.’

  ‘But we’ve broken every rule in the book.’

  Back inside the house, Ewart was thanking Jason McLoud for taking the time to meet with him and asked if he could use the toilet before he left.

  ‘This whole thing is doing my head in,’ James moaned.

  ‘At least we’ve got each other,’ Dana said, as she stroked James’ hand.

  35. MOUSE

  By the time Ewart left Jason McLoud’s house, the morning rush was over and the roads were quiet. Following the Lexus through suburban turnings was tricky: Dana had to keep Ewart’s car in view, but couldn’t get close in case he suspected that he was being followed.

  ‘Should have brought a tracking device ourselves,’ James observed.

  Dana shook her head. ‘They work through the control room on campus, so it would have blown our cover.’

  James wondered if their disappearance from campus had been noticed yet, as Ewart pulled on to a stretch of dual carriageway and squeezed the gas, accelerating past eighty miles an hour. The road was ideal for following, with enough traffic to be inconspicuous but not so much that you risked getting boxed in. Even so, a single car pursuit is never easy and there were a few hairy moment
s when they thought they’d lost the Lexus.

  After a forty-minute cruise, they took a horn blast from a white van as they swerved into the nearside lane and followed Ewart on to a slip road. Even worse, the road ended at a set of lights, giving Dana no option but to pull up directly behind Ewart. The Golf’s side windows had a slight tint, but the front screen was clear glass. James and Dana spent a full minute staring into their laps, hoping Ewart didn’t look back in his mirror and recognise them. It felt like much longer.

  They lucked out, but Dana and James knew it was only a matter of time before Ewart rumbled them. She stayed as far back as she could, while they wound down a country lane with frosty grass and cows with steamy breath on either side of them.

  As they approached a small market town, Ewart took a sharp left turn. Dana was being tailgated by a truck and realised that she’d get crunched if she broke sharply and attempted the turn.

  ‘You’ve lost him,’ James complained.

  ‘I couldn’t brake with that thing up my arse,’ Dana said, as James looked over his shoulder and saw what she meant.

  Dana indicated left and turned into the gravel parking lot of a country pub. She swung around in a full circle and edged the nose of the car out past a hedge, attempting to turn back and catch up with Ewart.

  ‘Get a move on,’ Dana moaned, as traffic streamed by in both directions.

  Half a minute drained away before she jabbed the accelerator, causing an oncoming car to brake sharply as she threw the steering wheel around to avoid a metal gate on the opposite side of the road.

  Dana turned off the main road into a curving street more than two minutes after Ewart had done so. There was a riverbank off to one side, with willow trees overhanging the water and a sign advertising boat trips – service resumes summer 2007. The opposite side had a row of mock-Tudor tourist traps selling antiques, cream teas and Union Jack souvenirs.

  ‘Can’t stand places like this,’ James said, as he scanned the coachloads of pensioners dawdling along the narrow pavements, hoping to spot Ewart. ‘Do you reckon he got out around here?’

  Dana glanced at the map on the sat-nav screen. ‘Well it’s not on the way to anywhere else, so I guess we’d better park up somewhere and take a look.’

  ‘I just hope we see him before he sees us,’ James said warily. Then he spotted the nose of a large silver Audi, poking out of a narrow lane fifty metres ahead of them. ‘Hello, old friend,’ he grinned.

  ‘Result,’ Dana nodded. ‘We might not know where Ewart is, but they sure do.’

  The traffic was light, so Dana flashed her headlamps and let the big Audi pull out ahead of them. Dana followed it through a couple of tight turns and quickly realised that the driver was following the blue parking arrows. They ended up in a tarmac space the size of a couple of football pitches. There were barriers and ticket booths, but there were less than two dozen cars in the whole space. The gates were locked open and bright yellow signs told them that winter parking was free.

  ‘There’s Ewart’s Lexus,’ James said, relieved, as the silver Audi pulled up alongside it.

  Dana rolled on for another fifty metres and parked next to an abandoned shopping trolley.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ James asked. ‘Sit here and wait for Ewart to come back, or go walkabout?’

  ‘What are we going to find out by sitting here?’ Dana asked.

  James shrugged. ‘But we’ve got no idea where he’s gone. If we go, what’s to stop him coming back to his car and driving off without us seeing him?’

  Dana sucked air through her teeth. ‘Tell you what,’ she said after a few seconds’ thought. ‘I’ll wait here in the car, you go off looking for Ewart. Zip your jacket and pull the hood over your head. He won’t recognise you if you keep your distance.’

  As James left the car, he noticed that the redheaded young woman was getting out of the Audi, its two occupants having clearly decided on the same strategy.

  James walked slowly towards a signpost at the edge of the car park. It had arrows pointing towards various attractions: watermill, St Peter’s chapel, boat trips, picnic area, lavatories. It was a quarter past twelve, so James guessed that Ewart would probably be heading towards the restaurant for his lunch date with Sarah Thomas.

  They’d passed quite a few eateries on the ride through town. James’ first thought was to walk back and see if he could spot Ewart inside any of them. But then he realised that the woman from the Audi was moving with a sense of purpose. She’d probably spotted Ewart on the street, and James decided to go after her.

  She led him through a couple of winding back streets to a glass-fronted building built on the riverbank. One end had a queue of more than a dozen people, huddled against the cold. The front of the line brought elderly customers to a window that served hot drinks and homemade pasties. The opposite side was an Italian restaurant and James felt a shot of adrenalin as he spotted Ewart leaning against a swanky bar, clearly waiting for someone to arrive.

  The woman from the Audi passed through the large glass doors and seated herself on a leather stool, two spaces clear of Ewart. James couldn’t go inside because Ewart would recognise him if he got close, but he knew that he looked dodgy lurking in the street with his hood up and his hands stuffed inside his jacket.

  After crossing the narrow road, James felt in his pocket to make sure that he had some money, before joining the queue to buy a pasty. As the pensioners in front of him complained about the weather and the pasties costing more than last year, James peered over their heads, keeping an eye on anyone entering or leaving the restaurant.

  ‘Jumbo traditional and a tea please,’ James said, when he finally reached the front of the queue.

  It was a cold day. The pasties were being sold as fast as they came out of the ovens and James’ stomach growled as the woman passed over a paper bag containing a huge freshly baked crescent of pastry. He sat down at a wooden picnic table as far as he could get from shivering pensioners and tore out a massive bite of shredded vegetables and beef.

  It was unbelievably hot. James spluttered as steaming potato stuck to the top of his mouth. He ended up spitting a lump of meat on to the pavement, to the obvious distaste of three oldies sitting two tables across.

  As he looked up, James saw a solidly built woman walking into the restaurant. She was middle aged, slightly odd-looking, with a chubby red face and a padded envelope under her arm. Ewart smiled and shook his guest warmly by the hand as the woman from the Audi drained her glass and stepped out into the cold. She grabbed her mobile and dialled. James guessed she was calling her companion back in the car.

  He put his pasty down and took his walkie-talkie from inside his jacket. ‘Dana,’ he whispered. ‘Ewart’s with Sarah Thomas now. It looks like the girl from the Audi is on the blower to her driver.’

  ‘I’m listening to the Audi driver speaking with her,’ Dana said.

  ‘How have you managed that?’ James asked, surprised.

  ‘There’s toilets at the back of the car park. The driver got out to go for a pee, so I dashed over and put one of our sticky pads on his side window.’

  ‘Nice move,’ James grinned.

  ‘I’ll call you back,’ Dana said. ‘I’m trying to find out what they’re up to.’

  James tucked his walkie-talkie away and took a more cautious bite out of his pasty. Inside the restaurant, a fit waitress was leading Ewart and Sarah Thomas to a table overlooking the river. James kept a discreet eye on them until his walkie-talkie spoke to him.

  ‘The woman’s name is Kate,’ Dana said hurriedly. ‘I’m not sure if they’re MI5 or private investigators but they’re definitely working for the Hiltons. Kate asked if McLoud had made any calls after Ewart left, so they must have his phone bugged.’

  James ground his palm against his forehead with frustration. ‘So Ewart’s not working for Hilton?’

  ‘Certainly doesn’t sound like it,’ Dana said. ‘They seem to think Ewart is just some freelance journalist trying t
o stick his nose in. And apparently, Sarah Thomas is Madeline Cowell’s former cleaning lady.’

  ‘So that’s where she fits in,’ James said. ‘She’s brought Ewart a big envelope. No idea what’s inside, but it must be evidence against Hilton.’

  ‘Cowell was Lord Hilton’s loyal assistant for donkey’s years …’

  James shrugged. ‘I guess her loyalty wore thin when her boss started bumping people off to protect his son. Cowell must have suspected that he was planning to top her and left a little sting behind.’

  ‘So what do you think will happen next?’ Dana asked.

  ‘They’re following Ewart. They think he’s only a journalist, so I reckon they’ll try and jump him and steal the evidence before he does anything with it.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Dana said. ‘It’ll either be when he leaves the restaurant or as he gets back in the car.’

  ‘I can warn him, but it might freak him out, so I’ll have to wait until Sarah Thomas is out of sight.’

  *

  James had been starving when he first bought the pasty, but the tension had got to him. It now lay on the slatted wooden table in front of him, half eaten and stone cold.

  Kate sat at the bar inside the restaurant with a burger, whilst Ewart and Sarah Thomas were finishing their dessert. Judging from the body language, Ewart was bored, while Sarah Thomas seemed like a lonely soul who was milking her chance of a free meal and a decent conversation.

  James had considered calling Ewart on his mobile, but he didn’t have the number programmed in to his brand new phone and the campus hotline staff wouldn’t give out that kind of information until they’d received lengthy explanations about what he and Dana were up to.

  James watched Ewart get up from the table. He shook Sarah Thomas’ hand and gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. Sarah gestured towards the ladies’ toilet as James got off the wooden bench. Ewart tapped on his watch, indicating to Sarah that he was in a rush.

  As Ewart tucked the envelope under his arm and headed for the exit, Kate wiped her lips on a napkin and settled her bill by placing a twenty-pound note inside her empty tumbler.