High Pressure

by Sam Blake

  Chapter 38

  It was late evening by the time Marissa had the courage to move. She’d grappled with the options, although in truth she really didn’t have any choice. By the time it had started to get dusky, she knew she’d waited long enough. All she could do now was to try to minimise the exposure to those she loved.

  Her destination, Ealing, wasn’t unlike Highgate: leafy, with a mixture of Victorian and modern houses; affluent; nice cars. And people minded their own business. With the silk scarf wrapped over her hair and her sunglasses on, despite the hour, she’d done her best to change her appearance, felt sure she looked totally different. The black silk summer dress she’d bought right before the bus had blown up was a total contrast to her now not-so-white jeans. It matched her gold sandals, and with new hair she was reasonably confident she wouldn’t be recognised. Just to be super-safe, she’d caught a cab from close to her tiny flat, rather than taking the Tube with its CCTV and homeless population – she didn’t want to bump into anyone who might recognise her.

  The biggest question in her mind was whether he’d be at home, and if he wasn’t, if he’d even come home tonight. She’d picked up a burner phone from the newsagent, would call if there was absolutely no other choice, but she couldn’t take the risk that her action might compromise him.

  Street lights punctuated the darkness as Marissa walked purposefully along the pavement, her head down, trying to hide the anxiety churning her stomach. There was a summer house in the garden – she’d seen photos. If she could get to that, she could wait.

  A car passed and she put her hand to her face, trying to conceal it. Almost there. She couldn’t afford to falter, had to walk right in and open the gate into the garden. If she hesitated, a neighbour might see her and think she was breaking in. Not that cat burglars wore silk dresses, but this was all about confidence. She just wished she didn’t feel as if she was going to vomit at any moment.

  Marissa passed the house next door and took a deep breath. Over the hedge, she could see lights on. One upstairs, the hall light, and the living room downstairs. The curtains were open, but she knew that anyone inside wouldn’t be able to see into the garden – the soft glow from the street lights was blocked by huge trees and a high dense hedge running the width of the property. All the way up the road she’d been looking at the houses, working out which side their gates were on. She knew exactly where to go.

  She hesitated for a split second at the entrance to the drive. Then she walked swiftly across the gravel to the far side of the house. Shrouded in darkness, she pushed the side gate. It didn’t move.

  The beat of her heart echoing in her ears, Marissa closed her eyes and stood completely still for a second.

  She couldn’t panic now, not after everything that had happened.

  Opening her eyes, she ran her hand over the worn wood of the gate, her fingers finding a latch in the darkness. She lifted it and the gate swung open easily.

  Thank God.

  Her stomach was churning as she tiptoed down the crazy-paved passage beside the house.

  Thank God there was no dog.

  At the end she stopped, leaning forward so she could see around the side of the house. The kitchen light was on, flooding a neat lawn with light. In the darkness at the top of the garden, she just could make out the dark shape of the summer house, surrounded by shrubs, the windows reflecting the light from the house. She was about to take a step onto the grass when a security light blazed on, lighting this end of the garden.

  She shrank into the shadows as a fox trotted across the patio towards her, its head low to the ground. Freezing in the middle, it stopped and sniffed the air. Had it caught her scent? Suddenly it spotted movement in the house and swerved away, heading back the way it had come. The kitchen light went off. Marissa let out a sigh of relief.

  Now she’d just have to wait.

  Chapter 39

  Mike Wesley pulled up in the drive and flicked his car into Park. Switching the headlights off, he paused for a moment, his hands on the steering wheel, his heart heavy. Julian had been on his back all day; he understood why, but he hadn’t got to where he was today without a few successes. MI5 knew their stuff, but so did he.

  What the fuck was going on? It was as if everything had stepped up to the extreme, overnight as if a double-decker bus blowing up wasn’t enough.

  Mike looked up at the house, at the light on in Jake’s bedroom. It was the summer holidays, but he hadn’t been home for what felt like days. He had no real idea if Jake had actually slept at all, or eaten anything other than cereal. Em had said she was feeding him scrambled egg on toast at regular intervals, and when she’d finally seen him standing up, she thought he’d grown another foot.

  Guilt gnawed at him. This investigation could run for weeks … months, even. Once they were through the first week the hours would regulate a bit – assuming there were no more incidents – but he was going to have to come up with a plan to move Jake from behind his computer. He’d been talked into the Alienware console at Christmas – you had to give it to the kids, they were ace manipulators, managed to target him at his lowest every time. Christmas was a time for family, and from the moment the decorations went up in the shops they were a reminder that his family was broken.

  Mike pushed open the door and heaved himself out of the car. He trudged to the front door, but it opened before he reached the step.

  ‘Hi, Dad, glad you’re home. We’re just going out. Jake’s still up. He really stinks, needs a shower, but we ordered Domino’s so he’s been fed.’

  ‘Em, it’s late. Where are you going at this time of night?’

  ‘Clubbing. Don’t wait up.’

  His beautiful nineteen-year-old daughter kissed him on the cheek as she headed past him, followed by two of her old school friends whose names he couldn’t remember. They all looked the same. Ironed blonde hair and shedloads of make-up, tiny skirts and push-up bras.

  ‘Have you got your phone?’

  She was at the gate already, waved it in the air without turning around.

  Mike turned to the door, part of him praying the devastation of multiple unsupervised teens and pizza wasn’t too bad. He couldn’t face it today. Em was a good girl, but he knew she was sick of being stuck in at night minding Jake.

  Heading down the hall, he took a quick look in the living room. There were empty glasses and mugs everywhere, empty tubes of Pringles on the coffee table. Nothing the dishwasher couldn’t handle. So far so good.

  At the back of the house, he switched on the kitchen light. Plates were piled up on the drainer, empty pizza boxes everywhere. How many pizzas had they ordered? He vaguely remembered Em asking on Friday, too, if she could get takeaway for them both. Obviously they’d been keeping Domino’s in business.

  He could sort out the washing-up in the morning, but the pizza boxes would have to go. Looking at them, Mike realised he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. What were the chances of there being any left?

  He opened the fridge to see two more boxes resting on top of each other, and a smaller box. He lifted the lids to see inside. Two half-pizzas and a box of chicken strippers. That was him sorted. Good old Emma – although part of him doubted she’d been thinking of her dad when she’d ordered.

  Slinging his jacket around a chair, he opened the back door, breathing in the cooler night air. The kitchen seriously needed airing. Gathering an armful of boxes, he went out onto the patio, heading across the garden to the recycling boxes beside the side passage. Jake was supposed to bring them around to the kitchen door when they’d been collected, but he hadn’t managed it yet. Absorbed in his thoughts, Mike bent down to lift the lid.

  ‘Mike!’

  Startled, he dropped the boxes abruptly and, straightening up, swung around.

  ‘Mike, it’s me.’

  Marissa stepped out of the shadows of the passage.

  Chapter 40

  Brioni was grateful for the cool night air as she headed to the bu
s stop, exhausted, her feet aching almost as much as her face did from constant forced smiling. Early for the night bus to East London, she had lingered for a few minutes, looking in through the wire fence surrounding the playground that dominated the square in front of the London Irish Centre, climbing frames and swings silent in the night. She’d watched a fox trot around under the slide, his nose to the ground, looking for dropped sandwiches. Nature adapting to the city.

  When she’d left Anna at the police station, she’d shot home to Stratford to get changed into her black jeans and white shirt, and then caught the bus to Camden. The double-decker was packed and sticky, but even when she got off it hadn’t been any cooler. The paving stones and concrete seemed to have absorbed the days and days of heat, radiating it back. As Brioni walked to the bus stop now, even at close to one o’clock, it was still warm. At times like this, Brioni wondered how anyone lived in London at all – how they coped without a sea breeze, any breeze. Granted, the sea brought mist and freezing rain in winter, but the air moved. Here, it just seemed to sit without even a breath to rustle the leaves on the trees.

  Brioni hadn’t quite known what to expect from Siobhan’s description of the centre, but she definitely hadn’t anticipated the buzz of the place, or quite how much it felt like home. Walking up the broad granite steps into what must have once been an elegant front room, now a cosy wooden-floored reception area with a bar at the rear, she’d literally felt as if she was back in Ballycastle at the Hare and Hounds, Jim Phelan and his mates discussing the cattle mart and the price of diesel. Perhaps it was the accents, but as Brioni had looked around at the photographs on the walls, she’d felt as if the building had some sort of weird feng shui. The very fabric of the place felt like a little piece of Ireland – warm and welcoming, comfortable.

  The entire building had been buzzing and crazy busy all afternoon and evening, with a band playing somewhere – it was like the Tardis; she had no idea how so many people had fitted into it. There had been some sort of board meeting upstairs, and right at the top of the building, in the sloping-ceilinged church, a guy who’d written a book was talking about Irish wakes.

  Wakes were one thing she really didn’t want to think about; the possibility that Mar could be dead, too, wasn’t something she was even letting into her head. The minute she did, she knew she’d break down.

  As the audience had filtered down from the top of the building to the bar, chatting about the event and comparing their own stories of wakes and funerals, she’d felt a real pang for home. But what was home now? An empty house overlooking the sea? Pulling pints in the tiny bar, she’d tried to smile and focus on keeping everything moving. She didn’t have time to dwell on the past and she knew, if she thought about home and Mar for too long, she’d probably burst into tears. Home was with Mar, wherever she was.

  Brioni was sure most people would take a week off work if they found their brother-in-law hanging from a tree. She knew she should probably spend some time getting her head straight, but right now, cash was her main problem and she needed all the work she could get. She didn’t have time to get maudlin. Mar wouldn’t want her to, that was for sure. The note that had come with her nose stud was still in the bottom of her backpack:

  ‘Diamonds take millions of years to form under immense pressure, they are super strong and tough enough to cut glass. And then, when they are cut and polished, they sparkle like no other stone. Be like a diamond. Always. Love, Mar xxx’

  Mar would want her to be tough now.

  Walking towards the main road and her bus stop, Brioni tried to focus on the moment – on the paving stones in front of her, the light cast by the street lamps. She needed to be strong. All her points of reference had changed in just a couple of days.

  The chief inspector, Mike, had asked her so many questions earlier. About Mar and Steve’s relationship, about his job, his family. As the questions had gone on, she’d realised how little she actually knew about him, about his background. His father had been a lawyer and then a judge, and the family were wealthy, but she didn’t know much more. He had three sisters, had aced his degree. She didn’t know anything about his current job, or what Mar did with herself from day to day. Mike had already known all about the soup kitchen, about her charity work, had mentioned that he’d visited it a couple of years ago for some community policing thing … Brioni sighed; she’d felt utterly useless.

  Earlier, as she’d gathered up the glasses abandoned in the reception area, the woman from the homeless shelter had appeared, a plastic file stuffed with papers in her arms. She was deep in conversation with someone, must have been at the board meeting, Brioni realised.

  Thelma.

  It had taken her a moment to remember her name. As she looked up from her conversation, she’d spotted Bri, her face creasing into a concerned smile. They shouldn’t have been surprised to see each other – connection was an Irish thing – but neither of them had quite known what to say for a moment.

  Excusing herself from her conversation, Thelma had come over, had gone first.

  ‘Any news?’

  Brioni had smiled, shaking her head. ‘I was about to ask you that. No – nothing new. The police are looking, but she’s still officially missing.’

  ‘Dalton said there was a lot of activity at the house today – Steve and Mar’s.’

  The gardener. Mike Wesley had asked her loads of questions about him earlier, too.

  Had Mar mentioned him before? Had he worked for them long? Did she know anything about his background?

  Brioni had just kept shaking her head.

  Brioni shrugged in reply. She wasn’t ready to talk to anyone except Anna about what had happened yesterday.

  ‘They wanted to check some stuff, I think.’

  Brioni could feel Thelma looking at her. It was clear she could see that Brioni knew more than she was saying. She leaned over and rubbed the top of Brioni’s arm.

  ‘Call if you need anything. Mar was part of our family, too.’

  Chapter 41

  ‘My God, Mike, I didn’t know if you were here. I didn’t know what to do.’

  Marissa took a step forward, her emotions rising like a tide, making her voice hoarse. She’d been waiting for what felt like hours, all the time questioning if this was the right thing to do.

  ‘Where on earth have you been?’ Above him the security light clicked off. ‘Christ, I’ve been so worried.’

  She stepped towards him, wanted to wrap herself up in his arms and put her head on his chest, but he took a step backwards, shaking his head. Her heart plummeted.

  ‘I know, I know, I’m sorry. I couldn’t get in touch – I was so frightened. We need to talk. There’s so much—’

  ‘Come inside.’ He said it without looking at her.

  ‘I can’t, the children—’

  ‘Emma’s out, and once I pop up to Jake, he won’t move. Come on, quickly.’

  Mike Wesley turned around abruptly and headed across the lawn, the security light coming on again. Marissa followed and, as they reached the door, he held his hand up, whispering, ‘Give me a sec.’

  He hurried into the kitchen, disappearing out again into the hall.

  A few minutes later he was back, silhouetted in the light from the kitchen.

  ‘It’s OK. He’s good, in the middle of a tournament or something, he won’t move for an hour at least. Come in. What the hell’s been going on?’

  Inside the kitchen, Marissa pushed the scarf from her head and took off her sunglasses, laying them carefully on the round pine table. It was a nice kitchen, but she could see from the mess that he hadn’t been home in ages. The black granite work surfaces were scattered with plates and discarded mugs.

  He raised his eyebrows at the sight of her hair.

  ‘Don’t say anything.’ She shook her head. ‘I had to go when it happened.’ She took a shaky breath. ‘I found something out—’

  ‘What happened with Steve?’

  There was an edge to Mike’
s voice. Marissa looked up sharply.

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Just tell me.’

  She pulled out a chair and sat down with her head in her hands.

  ‘It’s all such a mess. You need to sit down and hear me through.’

  Leaning on the counter, he crossed his arms.

  ‘Just tell me. Tell me everything.’

  Chapter 42

  ‘Sorry, honey, did I wake you up?’

  Anna had rolled over to answer her phone, her voice husky with sleep.

  ‘No … well, a bit, but you know how much I want you to wake me up.’

  Rob’s laugh was throaty.

  Anna hauled herself up the pillow. She knew she wasn’t quite awake yet. She’d been having a rather wonderful dream, and was having problems differentiating the deep voice on the phone from the one in her head. Perhaps she was still dreaming? She rubbed her eyes and reached for a glass of water.

  She cleared her throat, the water helping to wake her up.

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘I checked out Reiss Chanin and Steve Hunt.’ He paused. ‘Good call, honey.’

  ‘What did you find out?’

  ‘A lot more than I expected. And …’ He paused significantly. ‘A lot less.’ He paused again. ‘It appears Reiss Chanin’s the founder member of a white supremacist group that has tendrils reaching out right across South Carolina. It’s white-collar, very respectable – lawyers, doctors. Looks like he set it up in school.’

  ‘In school? How did that happen?’

  White supremacist?

  So she’d been right about the ‘thesis’. Although presumably he’d claim that was exactly what he’d told Brioni it was – an academic document.

  Rob continued. ‘He was a scholarship boy, went to a very exclusive private boarding school. I’d guess it was a natural step in that type of environment. His father was a lay minister. Poor white, from what I can gather, with a chip on both shoulders.’

  Anna lay back against her pillow, ‘And then he goes to a school where everyone has money – lots of it, I’d guess. Mix in religion and a feeling of resentment against a system that gives the guys with the cash an easy ride, and you’ve got the perfect recipe.’