‘You look very nice tonight,’ Paul said, getting an eyeful. ‘Special occasion?’
Lydia was wearing her standard uniform of jeans, Dr Martens and a black top, although the top was thinner and silkier than usual, with a lower neckline than she wore day-to-day. It was hardly a cocktail dress. She gave him her best dead-eye stare and ignored the warm feeling that had ignited low in her stomach. It was just pheromones. Animal lust. Biology. It meant nothing.
‘Sorry to crash the party,’ Paul leaned back in his chair, not even pretending to look regretful.
‘What do you want?’
‘Straight to business, is it? No soft soap, no little dance? Not even a drink?’
Lydia waited, not speaking. She resisted the urge to look around to see if Fleet had arrived. She didn’t want to show any weakness.
‘He’s not here,’ Paul said, as irritatingly able to read her mind as ever. ‘Loverboy is late. I do hope that isn’t a bad sign. Are things cooling off between the two of you?’
‘Leave Fleet out of it,’ Lydia said. ‘Do you have news for me?’
‘As it happens, I do. People like to talk, and I’ve been doing the rounds. I heard that Alejandro Silver was in the market for a bit of credit. He needed the kind of cash you don’t get from a bank.’
‘I know about that,’ Lydia said, relieved and disappointed in equal measure, ‘but I appreciate you coming to me with it. Anything else?’
Paul smiled. ‘I take it you also know about Operation Bergamot?’
Lydia kept her features neutral.
‘I mean, I’m sure you do. Alejandro was observed having cosy chats with a high-ranking officer on three occasions. It took quite a bit of persuasion and no small cost to find out he was the focus of a police operation. You’ll know all about it, already, of course. It’s a big deal for the Met and you’ve got a direct line to the police. At least, I assume that’s the appeal of the DCI. Not that he isn’t tall and handsome.’ Paul’s gaze flicked over her shoulder. ‘Speak of the devil.’
Fleet was wearing a dark wool coat with a three-piece suit underneath. He looked like a grown-up with a proper job and a pension plan. Which Lydia found extremely hot. Next to Fleet, Paul looked even more like a thug from the wrong side of the tracks. Which Lydia also found extremely hot. Both men were sizing each other up like they wanted to get physical. Which was complicated. And, right now, she was battling the urge to throw her drink at Fleet. Also complicated.
She stood up and kissed Fleet on the cheek, refusing to give Paul Fox the satisfaction of seeing that he had her rattled. ‘Paul was just leaving. He brought us some information about Alejandro so we’re very grateful.’ To Paul she said: ‘Thank you. I owe you one.’
He didn’t take the hint to leave, watching Fleet carefully instead as he spoke. ‘I was just telling Lydia about Operation Bergamot. I was surprised she didn’t already know about it.’
Fleet visibly flinched and Lydia felt it like a blow to the stomach.
‘Yeah, I thought as much. Makes me wonder how much she can trust you.’ Paul leaned into Lydia and spoke close to her ear. ‘Watch out for him.’
‘Have a nice evening,’ Lydia said. ‘Give my regards to your brothers. I hope they’re keeping the aggravated assaults to a bare minimum.’
Paul bared his teeth. ‘We’ve paid for that.’
‘Thank you for stopping by,’ Fleet said, slinging a protective arm around Lydia’s shoulders. She moved away and took her seat. When she chanced a look at Paul, he was back in laconic mode, a smile playing on his lips. She hated to think what conclusions he was busy drawing behind that relaxed exterior.
‘Well, good night, kids. Don’t stay up too late. You’re both out of your territory, here.’
‘Is that a threat?’ Fleet was still standing and Lydia could see tension written into every muscle.
‘Of course not, DCI Fleet,’ Paul said, emphasis on the DCI. ‘But you might want to think about being more honest with your girlfriend. She’s too smart to stay with a liar for long.’ Paul didn’t look at Lydia again, just stared at Fleet for a beat. When Fleet didn’t respond, he nodded like it was exactly the response he expected and he was perfectly satisfied, then turned on his heel and left.
Fleet sat down, shooting the cuffs of his shirt and folding his hands on the table. ‘You want to tell me why Paul Fox is joining our dates, now?’
‘Really?’ Lydia dug her fingernails into her palm to stop herself from raising her voice. ‘That’s what you want to lead with?’
‘What?’ Fleet’s brows lowered.
‘Operation Bergamot.’
He had the decency to look abashed. ‘I was going to tell you about that tonight.’
‘Before or after dinner?’
‘After, ideally. This is supposed to be us having a normal evening like a normal couple.’
‘We’re not a normal couple,’ Lydia said, standing up. ‘I’m not normal.’
‘Don’t be like that.’ Fleet was frowning in earnest, now, and he wasn’t able to keep the frustration out of his voice.
‘I’m going home,’ Lydia said. ‘I’m not hungry, anyway.’
* * *
The next morning Lydia found herself wide awake before six, watching the patterns of light on her bedroom ceiling. She got up and dressed in stretchy clothes on the basis that walking wasn’t going to be enough to release the tension she felt and she was going to have to try running. The situation was truly drastic.
Outside The Fork the street was deserted. The line of parked cars were damp with dew and Lydia stretched before setting off at a brisk walk, arms swinging to warm up. She was so intent on moving that it was a second before her conscious mind caught up with an anomaly that her unconscious instincts had logged. One of the cars wasn’t covered in condensation. Which mean that it was warm.
She didn’t break stride, continuing to the corner at the end of the street without looking around. Once around the corner, she stopped and waited. A moment later a man appeared. He flicked a glance at Lydia and then continued past. He was wearing a suit and Lydia got the very slightest feeling of motion sickness as he passed. ‘Good effort,’ Lydia said. ‘But you were too hasty to follow.’
The man stopped. ‘Excuse me?’
‘You’ve been made,’ Lydia said. ‘Don’t waste my time. Call your boss and tell him I want a word.’
The man feigned confusion very convincingly and if Lydia hadn’t been able to catch the faint trace of salted sea air that meant he had been in recent contact with Mr Smith, Lydia might have started to doubt her instincts. ‘I still have his number so I can call him. Or I can go to the safe house near his office. I’m giving you the chance to take control of the situation and save a little face. If you’re very quick, I might not even tell him I spotted your follow.’
The man glowered and pulled out a phone. He thumbed a text and then walked away.
The Mercedes pulled up silently. Even if Lydia hadn’t recognised it as Mr Smith’s, she would have guessed ‘spy’ or ‘top-level arms dealer’. The back door opened and she got in.
Mr Smith looked the same. His signature was the same, too, and with mere seconds to prepare for it, Lydia was battling a wave of motion sickness as she settled into the leather seat.
‘You look well,’ Mr Smith said.
‘I thought we were done.’ Lydia felt the urge to ask after Charlie and she held her breath until she had it under control.
Mr Smith inclined his head slightly. ‘This is something new.’
‘I can’t help you,’ Lydia said. She looked him in the eye. ‘I won’t help you. So you can stop having me followed. It’s a waste of your precious resources.’
‘This isn’t about you helping me,’ Mr Smith said. ‘Very much the opposite.’
‘Is that right?’
‘I’m keeping you under surveillance for your own protection.’
‘I doubt that,’ Lydia said.
‘Wouldn’t you like people to know that you did
n’t kill Alejandro Silver?’
‘He’s not dead,’ Lydia said and enjoyed the look of surprise on Mr Smith’s face. It confirmed her suspicion that Alejandro’s body hadn’t simply been moved elsewhere. ‘Something you already knew, of course.’
He smoothed his expression quickly. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘He isn’t in the crypt. And I’m guessing the whole performance is something to do with Operation Bergamot.’
‘Ah,’ he said, his eyes widening just a small amount at her use of ‘Bergamot’. The police database spewed out random words to assign to operations and there was no way she would have been able to guess it or work it out. ‘I assume your DCI spilled the beans. Very careless of him. Very unprofessional.’
Lydia ignored the stab of emotion that elicited. Mr Smith wanted her to accept his help, to rely on him, and she would use that to keep him talking. ‘I assume the pathologist won’t be coming back from his holiday. Unless the trip was part of a bribe? And you must have had a spare body. Swapped in the ambulance? Were the paramedics your employees or was that some more bribery? I saw the corpse in the mortuary and it looked exactly like Alejandro. That’s impressive.’
Mr Smith smiled. ‘The perks of government work. Ample resources.’
‘And he’s in hiding now? What from?’
‘There was a SOCA operation which was focused on political corruption. Alejandro Silver got swept up in it after his astonishing rise.’
Serious and Organised Crime weren’t part of the Met, but they worked together. The fear that Fleet had been keeping information about the Alejandro case from her rose in her throat. ‘Swept up how?’
‘He had help, obviously, but where the cash came from for that help and who exactly benefited was of interest. Alejandro didn’t want a scandal. It would damage his family’s reputation, harm their firm, and, besides, he wasn’t keen on being dragged through court on the other side of the dock.’
‘Can’t say I blame him.’
‘SOCA offered immunity. Witness protection.’
Lydia snorted. She couldn’t imagine Alejandro hiding. What would they do? Set him up with a warehouse job and a little terraced house somewhere up north? Call him Nigel and give him a Ford Focus and a membership to the local leisure centre. No.
‘In exchange, he had to gather evidence against the people who had helped him. That’s where I came in.’
Lydia stopped trying to picture Alejandro out of London living a normal life and focused on Mr Smith. ‘Why?’
‘SOCA was interested in political links to arms dealers and drug barons, very bad people Interpol have been chasing around the globe, and they found Alejandro because of a suspicious death in Greece which was linked to a known assassin.’
‘The MP,’ Lydia said. ‘Nadine Gormley.’
‘Exactly so,’ Mr Smith said. ‘But that turned out to be by-the-by.’
‘How so?’
‘Alejandro Silver wasn’t being bankrolled by someone on Interpol’s list. He had been to our old friends JRB for help.’
That brought up several questions, but Lydia settled on, ‘How do you know that?’
He glanced down, picked an imaginary piece of lint off his immaculate suit, and offered something else. ‘You once said to me that you thought JRB were trying to stir up trouble between the Families.’
‘There have always been people who would like to see the Families destroy each other. Either because they fear us or because of the potential reward.’
‘A war would have casualties, but it would leave bounty strewn across London, just waiting for somebody else to step in and collect. There have always been those who live from the flotsam of wrecks. I’m interested in the ones that tinker with the lighthouse.’
Lydia followed the metaphor, but wished he would stop talking about the sea. It made her nausea worse. She thought she could hear gulls and the sound of waves crashing. Mr Smith was watching her closely, like he knew she was feeling unwell. It struck Lydia that he may have learned a great deal from Charlie by this point. That he probably knew exactly the effect he was having.
‘They don’t even need to be destroyed,’ he continued. ‘Just mistrustful of each other, killing each other one at a time. It makes them vulnerable, open to infiltration and deals from outside agencies.’
Lydia glared at him. ‘Something you have already taken advantage of.’
He smiled and Lydia felt her body lurch as if the deck she was standing on had lurched with the roll of a big wave. Not a deck. Not a boat, she reminded herself. She was in a car.
‘I am here for you,’ he said. ‘I have no wish to see you destroyed by Maria Silver.’
‘We just established that Alejandro is still alive.’
‘And who else believes that? Unless he turns up and does a little dance in Trafalgar Square, you and your Family are chief suspects in his death.’
Lydia didn’t reply.
‘I can protect you. You are vulnerable and everybody knows it, it’s only a matter of time before one of the other Families makes a move on you. Or perhaps the threat will come from within. You just don’t have Charlie’s killer instinct and everybody knows it. You’ve seen what my department can do. Let me help you. I don’t want to see you harmed.’
‘Because you’re hoping to use me as an asset in the future.’ Lydia couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice.
‘That’s part of it, of course,’ Mr Smith said. ‘My motives aren’t really important at this point, though, are they?’
He was right. Lydia had bigger problems and if he was offering to help with one of the biggest, she would be a fool to turn him down. She felt chased down, though. Hemmed in. And that made her cranky. Plus, she had never fancied herself as particularly clever. ‘I’ll handle Maria Silver on my own. Tell your goons to stop following me. We made a deal and now I’m out. I’m not Alejandro or Charlie and I won’t be your puppet.’
Chapter Nineteen
Lydia stood on the pavement and watched the Mercedes peel away. She had the sinking feeling that she had just rejected an offer she couldn’t afford to refuse. She turned back to The Fork, trying to stop her thoughts from spiralling downward. She hated that Mr Smith was getting under her skin. He was playing mind games, calling her weak because he wanted her to react, to put her faith in him. Somehow knowing that it was a strategy didn’t make it less effective. She was afraid that there was truth to his words. Maybe she couldn’t protect her Family, let alone the people of Camberwell?
Refusing to wallow, Lydia paused by the entrance and dialled Ash. She would check in on him. If she could prove she had truly saved Ash, maybe she wasn’t a lost cause. And if the Pearls were still watching her, she should show them that she was still keeping an eye on Ash.
It wasn’t a promising start. Lydia met Ash at one of the benches on Camberwell Green and he looked just as thin and jumpy as the last time she had seen him. He was clearly still struggling to eat and she would lay money that he was hardly sleeping, either. Jason had been making hot chocolate again, and Lydia had decanted it into two travel mugs. She passed one to Ash and wondered if this was anything close to the way Emma must feel all the time. The worry and responsibility for another human life. The gnawing sense that she should be able to fix him if only she tried harder.
‘Thank you for meeting me,’ she began, but Ash waved a hand. He was staring at a girl who was running to pick up a fallen soft toy from the path. She had a passing resemblance to the Pearl girl who had been following Lydia, but the similarity was broken when she skipped back to her mum and older brother.
‘What do you need?’ Ash said, still watching the family.
‘I just wanted to check on you. How are you doing?’
Ash twitched. ‘I’ve been in the library. Catching up on the news from the last twenty years. I thought it might distract me.’
‘Has it?’
‘I still miss them. Have you heard anything? Are you here because they have taken somebody?’ He lo
oked at Lydia and his expression was a strange mix of hope and revulsion.
‘Not as far as I know. Have you tried to contact them again?’
He shook his head. ‘Not really. Only in my dreams.’
Well that was creepy. ‘Have you remembered more about your time underground?’ She felt bad using Ash for information, but she had to protect her Family and the more she knew about the Pearls the better. Especially since they didn’t seem to have forgotten about her. ‘Is that okay? I know it might be hard…’
‘I don’t mind,’ Ash said, shrugging. ‘I want to talk about them, it feels the most real thing in my life and I can’t talk to anybody else about it. Obviously.’
His eyes had lit up and Lydia hoped he was going to manage to stay calm.
‘The king suggested they were trapped underground and I know they use kids as their eyes and ears aboveground. I wondered if that tallied with your experience? Do you remember any of them ever leaving? Did they talk about being trapped?’
Ash had wrapped his hands around the travel mug. ‘Time was weird, as you know, but they were always in the court.’ His face scrunched in concentration for a moment and then he shook his head. ‘No. They never left to my knowledge. The king, anyway, I can’t be sure about every single Pearl.’
‘That’s helpful, thank you,’ Lydia said.
Ash was staring into space. ‘I don’t think they left. They were content. Happy.’
‘That’s-’
‘They didn’t talk about mundane matters,’ Ash broke in. ‘I sort of forgot about all of this, honestly.’
‘All of what?’
‘The world. London. Normal life.’
* * *
Lydia walked with Ash, wanting to check that he really was okay after talking about the Pearls. He said that he was heading to an appointment with an acupuncturist, ‘mum and dad are getting desperate’, but that he was attending the outpatients clinic at the Maudsley every week, too. Lydia was glad he was still getting help, but her heart clenched at the size of the problem.
The Copper Heart Page 15
