It was easy to explain. With the reception going on, there had been no security at all; any of the caterers could have put the envelope on the table, or any of the guests – or even a watchful someone who could have seen the open gates and the front door unguarded and taken his chance. And had he left, once he’d delivered it?
They had both felt something close to panic. ‘What if he’s here – right here in the house, still?’ Anna’s voice was trembling. ‘I suppose we can look at the security film, but I’m scared to go out into the hall.’
With her own voice unsteady, Marta had taken charge. ‘I’m getting Davy,’ she said and went to the phone.
Davy Armstrong was whippet-thin and wiry with dark brown hair and a long, narrow face. He had worked for Anna ever since she moved in, acting as gardener, driver or Mr Fixit as required and living with his wife in a grace-and-favour cottage two minutes away.
Anna got up to greet him, somehow managing to look calm, even faintly amused. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Davy. I thought I heard the sound of movement from upstairs but it’s probably just that I have an overactive imagination.’
‘Well now, that’s your job, isn’t it?’ He was slow-spoken, with that soft Borders accent. ‘And it’s no wonder if you’re a bit jumpy. It’s been a hard day for you, with that rubbish lot and their cameras. Me and Elspeth, we’ve been thinking about you the whole time. She says to give you her love.’
For the first time that day Anna’s eyes brimmed with tears. ‘Thank you – that’s kind,’ she said.
Davy nodded. ‘Right. I’ll just away round the house. I’ll check all the rooms, and the cupboards as well, so you can be sure.’
He disappeared, and they heard his footsteps going along the gallery and doors opening and shutting. Neither of them spoke until he put his head round the door.
‘No sign of anything. Now you just put on the security once I leave and you can go off to your bed with a quiet mind.’
‘Thanks, Davy. I’m very grateful.’
‘Och, no bother.’
As he left, Anna turned to Marta. ‘There are good, kind people, you know. In our world we don’t see too many of those.’
‘The Armstrongs like you, cara.’
‘There aren’t too many of those either.’ She sank back into the corner of the sofa with an exhausted sigh.
Marta gave her a worried look. ‘We don’t have to sit here, waiting for the next one,’ she said. ‘We could go away. It would be natural. Have a break before the launch at our hotel. When you’re stressed this always eases your mind. If we are not here, he could do nothing.’
‘It’s the Writers’ Retreat week, remember – I have to be here for that. Anyway, he’d still be here when we got back and the last thing I want is to have him to follow us there where we’d be more exposed. No, Marta. All we can do is wait for his next move.’
Then Anna had paused. ‘Payback time. Does that mean it’s coming – or that there has been payback already?’
Kneading the dough, Marta shuddered. Surely it couldn’t mean that Felix—No, no, she had told Anna, there had been no sign of violence. No one had forced Felix to take the overdose that killed him. Anna had nodded, but Marta had known she was thinking the same as she was – with Felix you wouldn’t have to force, you’d only have to offer.
There had been no more anonymous notes after his death, until now. Indeed, though she had never said so, Marta was sure Anna had wondered if the letters had come from Felix himself. As she had. But his name was cleared now, poor boy.
So who could it be? The words had rung in her head all night; even now as she took the finished bread out of the oven she couldn’t stop thinking about it. There was a monster lurking in the back of her mind, the monster that she couldn’t forget and she didn’t want Anna to remember – not that even Anna knew the full truth about that.
And despite the seductive fragrance of spice and orange peel that was flooding the house Anna, when she came down to breakfast, had no appetite for Marta’s golden loaf.
DCS Jane Borthwick was frowning over the file that was open on her desk when DCI Kelso Strang came in. She looked up and smiled.
‘Oh good! Morning, Kelso. I wasn’t sure if you’d be working in the building on a Saturday.’
She was a serious-looking woman and her appearance, well-groomed but understated, played into that. She had a reputation, well deserved, for being formidable but there was warmth there when she smiled. She’d placed a lot of trust in him and Strang liked to think he was delivering for her. He took his place in the chair opposite.
‘I’m involved in a small conference here this afternoon – a consciousness-raising exercise for the rural divisions. I’ve just been checking out the speakers. I wanted to get up to speed on this county lines problem before it actually blows up in our faces.’
She nodded, tapping the file. ‘It’s at the top of my agenda. It’s the hot favourite with the press at the moment: urban drug dealers setting up distribution lines out from the wicked cities into the innocent counties. Really gives them something juicy to sink their teeth into, doesn’t it?’
Strang grimaced. ‘It’s happening, right enough. We’re starting to get trouble in areas where there’s never been a problem before. But getting a handle on it – that’s a whole other question. We can’t exactly board the country buses at the Elder Street station before they set out and frisk any suspicious-looking kids for mobile phones on speed dial to one of the known players.’
‘If only! No, we need to have at least one end of the string before we do anything. But there’s something I’ve homed in on. Did you see the media reports last week about Anna Harper’s son?’
‘Yes, poor kid. The old story – too much money, too few constraints.’
‘Hard to handle wisely, certainly. I’m a big fan of her writing, particularly Stolen Fire. The triumph of the human spirit – it’s one of the most inspiring books I’ve ever read.’
‘The film came out when I was a teenager and I got hooked after that. I can’t think of anyone else who has a genius like hers for tackling the great themes and still producing totally compulsive reading.’
‘She’s kept me up till two in the morning sometimes,’ Borthwick agreed. ‘So I had a little bit of a dig into the story about the ill-named Felix. He’d been living here in Edinburgh, on the streets much of the time. Came up on a minor drugs rap and then went back home to the sister, Cassandra, in Halliburgh – decent little town in the Borders, no major problems noted there before. I’d be interested to know whether the stuff he OD’d on came from his old contacts or from new ones. According to the report from the Family Liaison Officer, Cassandra was convinced he was clean, in which case it’s very possible he got it on the spot. I saw her name on the conference list, PC Kate Graham – it might be worth seeking her out for a chat.’
‘Kate Graham?’ he said. ‘There was a Kate Graham on my training course at Tulliallan after I left the army. Bright girl, I remember – I’d be surprised if she’s still only a PC.’
‘Common enough name. Anyway, seek her out today, will you? Halliburgh is exactly the sort of place that could be a target for a bit of private enterprise. See if you can find an excuse to go and check it out.’ She paused. ‘It’s such a filthy trade. He was brought back to the sister’s house, you know. She had to watch him die.’
‘See what I can do, boss.’ Strang went back to his desk, sickened at the thought. A fatal overdose was common enough in the cities yet the dealers in death, it seemed, were all but untouchable. If Halliburgh’s problem was of recent date it might have less firmly established lines of supply.
Anna Harper’s books had sold across the world and won every prize going because their message was that, however hideous the blows of fate, you could find a strength within that was unquenchable. Yet her own son had not managed to find it.
Strang had reread Stolen Fire during the dreadful days after Alexa died. It had helped, a little. He owed Anna for that.
Water was dripping across her forehead, which seemed an odd thing – something to do with the headache, perhaps. Cassie Trentham surfaced slowly, trying to make sense of what she saw as she opened her eyes.
She was lying on her side in a muddy ditch that was now a small running burn after the recent rain and snow. Her cheek hurt, her hip hurt, her knee hurt and her cycling helmet was pressing into her head. It was icy cold and she was shivering convulsively.
Was anything broken? She moved experimentally and everything worked, even if painfully, and she dragged herself into a sitting position, then on to her knees, giving a cry of pain as the bruised left one took the strain. Her cycling tights were ripped from knee to thigh and when she put her hand up to release the chin strap on her helmet and relieve the pressure on her head it came away bloodied from a gash on her cheek. She patted her head gingerly but though she could feel a bump the skin wasn’t broken. The helmet itself was stoved in on that side but thankfully it had done its job.
Cassie stood up shakily. There was snow clinging to the verge and she slipped twice before she managed to climb back on to the road. Her bicycle was lying further down the road, its back wheel completely buckled. She looked up and down the road but there was no sign of the vehicle that had knocked her down, or of any other, for that matter.
What to do now? Cassie looked at her watch, fortunately unscathed, and to her surprise it was only quarter past nine. How long had she been unconscious then? A couple of minutes, if that. She’d just been briefly stunned. Her head was pounding and she hurt all over, though at least she could walk. But which way to go?
Retreating to Burnside was appealing but it was a long trudge back up the hill. On the other hand, the Foundation was in sight, and downhill at that. Jess would sort her out, tend her wounds and provide paracetamol, then she could have a shower, change her clothes and be driven home if she didn’t feel up to staying.
Yes, that made sense. She limped off in that direction, feeling the stiffness easing off a little as she walked. It was only then she began to feel rage boiling up over what had happened. The bastard who clipped her bike must have known what he’d done yet he’d driven on – for all he knew she could be dead. Or worse, lying there dying from lack of attention. There wouldn’t be any point in reporting it; she hadn’t caught so much as a glimpse of what hit her. It wasn’t even the first time she’d had a near miss – motorists seemed either to be ignorant of how much space they had to leave for the hapless cyclist or couldn’t care less. The latter, probably.
She’d have to get someone to remove her poor battered bike from the road. She wouldn’t be buying another one. This had put her right off the whole idea.
Richard Sansom finished a late and leisurely breakfast and went up to his room to prepare for the day ahead. He was in a good mood. The White Hart had been a pleasant surprise, with a busy bar, and if the food wasn’t exactly fine dining, it was well cooked and pleasantly served. He could have done a lot worse, stuck here for the next couple of weeks.
He had worked out his schedule carefully. It certainly featured making his number with Anna Harper to assure her that he was hers to command, but perhaps not first. He could start with a visit to the Foundation and check out the situation this morning.
He could make it his business, too, to see how effectively they were handling this Retreat Week. With Anna being so determinedly reclusive, Harrington’s had suggested these as a way of keeping her name in the public eye. The generous support for struggling writers was excellent PR and the one week when she agreed to take a masterclass attracted a very gratifying amount of press attention. It would be interesting to check out the criteria for being offered a place – this one, in particular, was always wildly oversubscribed. The release of Jacob’s Angel a week later was no coincidence.
He set off along the Halliburgh high street. For someone living in central London, this seemed like stepping back into the past – there were still individual butchers, greengrocers and bakeries alongside the Spar supermarket. It had a slightly run-down feel, with several buildings standing empty and far too many sad-looking charity shops, but the town was busy on this Saturday morning and it was noticeable how many people greeted each other or stopped to chat. A place with a real sense of community.
The Harper Foundation building, big, white and modernistic, gave the same impression as Anna’s house: here was someone showing contemptuous indifference to the community Sansom had been observing in the high street a few minutes earlier.
It was no secret that Anna was an autocrat. Her generosity with funding for local causes was well directed and well publicised – Harrington’s saw to that – but given entirely on her own terms. It wasn’t hard to be generous when you had her sort of money. In return she expected that if she wanted something, she would get it.
From the conversation round the bar the previous night Sansom had gathered that it hadn’t made her popular. He’d got chatting with some of the locals and they were ready enough to take her money, but they’d spit on the ground afterwards with a clear resentment at Being Done Good To, suspecting they were being exploited at the same time. Anna’s aloofness was a big PR problem, but she wasn’t going to be persuaded to change her ways.
The reception area was minimalist like the house, with a streamlined desk to one side made of some dark tropical hardwood but there was no one behind it. On the other side of the room beside a seating area with cream leather sofas and glass and chrome coffee tables a small group had gathered, clustered round a woman lying on one of the sofas. He stopped dead, staring.
First one head turned as he opened the door and now the others were turning too, and the woman struggled to sit up. She was wearing black lycra; it was covered in mud and the tights had a tear down the left side. There was a bloodied cut on her cheek and the battered cycling helmet at her feet told the story. She was holding a glass of what could have been brandy and there was a woman sitting beside her dabbing at her face with a cloth.
A younger woman in a pencil skirt and a silky cowl-neck top detached herself from the group and came over to greet him. ‘Sorry, sir. There’s been a bit of an accident. What can I do for you?’
‘Looks like I’ve come at a bad time,’ he said. ‘No problem. I’ll come back later.’
The injured woman swung her feet to the floor. ‘No, no,’ she called. ‘I’m fine, really. Surface damage only.’ With her creamy skin, golden brown hair and that classic profile she was very like her mother; very pale, though, probably from shock.
Sansom smiled and went over to her. ‘Looks as if you’ve been in the wars! I didn’t manage to speak to you yesterday, Cassandra, but we have spoken on the phone. I’m Richard Sansom.’
‘Oh yes, yes of course. I’m sorry – this is so stupid! Jess, leave that now. I’m going to go and clean up – this’ll all come off in the shower. And take away the brandy – I’m feeling woozy enough without it.
‘Richard, just give me time to get myself respectable and we can have a chat, if you don’t mind waiting. Someone will fetch you coffee.’
‘Of course I don’t mind,’ he assured her. ‘Though I can always come back later …’
‘I’ll be absolutely fine. See you shortly.’ She gave him a bright smile as she limped off towards the stairs.
It was an impressive performance; Anna’s daughter obviously had the steely self-discipline as well as the looks. A tough cookie.
Gil Paton, who had only come in himself five minutes before and was still wearing his parka, had been narrowly observing the new arrival. Cassie had welcomed him as if he was in some sense important, so how come he’d never heard of him? He went over with his hand outstretched. ‘Gil Paton. I’m Cassie’s deputy. Richard Sansom, you said?’
‘That’s right. I’m in charge of Anna’s PR. Normally I wouldn’t have come until the end of the week to start preparations for the launch, but having come for the funeral I can take the chance of checking over the set-up for the Retreat, making sure
we get as much good publicity as possible—’
Paton felt his hackles rise. ‘Oh, I can assure you I have everything in hand. I’ve sharpened up on a few things that – well, not to criticise Cassie or anything, but she had to keep so many balls in the air before I arrived that it’s not surprising there were some possibilities she missed. But I’ve covered all those now.’
‘I’m sure. Locally,’ Sansom said smoothly. ‘I do more wide-angle stuff, you know? Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee – I’ve appointments set up with the buyers in the bookshops to check they’ve got everything in hand.’
Patronising bastard, Paton thought. ‘Oh, I’m sure—’ he began but Sansom cut across him.
‘I’d like to have a look round. You’re probably a busy man – I can just explore. Is the Retreat accommodation through there?’
‘It’s not a problem,’ Paton said through gritted teeth. ‘I’ll take you. I can explain how it’s set up. This way.’ He stalked ahead through an arch in the further wall and down a short corridor.
In another echo of Anna’s own house, the huge room at the end of the building had a wall of windows only broken by the entrance from the street. A staircase led up to a wide, gracefully curved gallery with half a dozen doors along it and against the back wall there was a long table with mugs, a box of tea bags and vacuum jugs of coffee, hot milk and hot water along with a plate of home-made biscuits. Underneath the gallery, spaced well apart, there were half a dozen individual workstations with large, black leather office chairs. Three were occupied.
Sascha Silverton was at one of them, her desk surface bare apart from a state-of-the-art hybrid laptop. Next to her Marion Hutton was working in deep litter, loose papers and books piled up as she tapped away on her iPad while Jason Jackson had placed himself at the end nearest the windows.
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