High Pressure

by Sam Blake

  Reaching the living room window, Mar looked out of a crack in the curtains. Across the grass and the deep dip in the land that formed a hollow between the two houses, she could see a taxi had pulled up outside her father’s house.

  Was it Brioni? Marissa’s heart raced as she watched a man get out, flash the central locking closed and walk around the rear of the car. She couldn’t see much from this distance – he was just a dark shape – but it looked as if he was going to the front door. He bent down, his movement concealed behind the car, and then, straightening, put the key in the door.

  He obviously knew the key was concealed under the loose brick beside the step. It didn’t take a genius to work it out, but he’d gone straight there – how did he know? And why had she left the key in such an obvious place? They’d never been broken into – the house was so far from the village, hidden down winding lanes and overlooking a beach only accessible by the few locals willing to brave the wrath of Jim Phelan, the farmer, but still …

  Marissa bit her lip, thinking hard. Had she mentioned its location to Brioni in an email when she’d first gone travelling? Marissa’s mouth went dry. She’d suspected Steve had been reading her email, had someone else got access to it too?.

  She watched as he pushed the door open and flipped on the light in the living room. Who was it??

  It couldn’t be Reiss – Mike had to have arrested him by now. Although the man was a similar build – but then a lot of men were tall and blocky, worked out.

  Like the house she was standing in, there was no hallway; the front door opened straight into the living room that ran the full length of the single-storey building, huge windows giving an uninterrupted view of the beach and the sea. With the light on, Marissa could see right inside, but the man had disappeared. He must be looking into the bedrooms, to the left of the house, into the bathroom and kitchen at the rear.

  A moment later he reappeared at the front door – a black shape wearing a baseball cap, silhouetted against the light. He trotted back to the car.

  Marissa could hear her heart crashing in her chest as she watched him open the rear door, the one closest to the house. Leaning on the curtains, she realised she was pressing her nose to the cold glass of the window.

  There was someone in the back of the car. Was it Bri?

  Mar swallowed as a woman got out of the car. It wasn’t Brioni – it was someone taller, and with long hair. Holding her arm as if she needed support, he guided her into the house.

  Who was the woman? Why were they going into her house?

  Marissa’s hand went to massage her stomach as anxiety bit into her.

  She should never have sent the email.

  How stupid was she? And Mike had told her. She needed to get out of here and find somewhere safer to stay. She’d texted Mike when she’d got her Irish SIM card at the airport, so he had her new number, and she’d been checking her phone ever since she’d arrived this afternoon, but he hadn’t sent her a message yet. He’d been so sure that, with the information on the USB key, they’d be able to pick Reiss up immediately. Had something happened to prevent that?

  Mar closed her eyes, a wave of nausea making her sway. She didn’t have time to be sick now.

  Leaning on the windowsill, Mar looked out across the dunes. Occasional straggly gorse bushes peppered the stiff, deep grass criss-crossed with rabbit tracks. The houses here were scattered far apart, like driftwood along the beach. Two above this cove, more in the next one a few miles away, where they were clustered in a little enclave – mainly holiday houses, busy in the summer, the scents of barbecues and the sounds of children’s high jinks drifting across the fields.

  This house had been bought by an artist who lived alone with her cats and had taught Brioni the piano. She was another redhead and hated the sun. They’d always looked after the house – and the cats – when Cara went home to visit her daughter in New Zealand during the Irish summer. Now the cats were feral, living off rabbits and leverets, and Cara spent more of the year in New Zealand than she did in Ireland. The last time Mar had seen her, she’d waved across the dip in the dunes, her cases waiting by the door for another trip.

  Movement brought Mar back to the problems of the present. With the light on in the living room, the giant picture window was like a TV screen. Her father had never liked curtains; he loved looking out at the sea at all times of night, would often sit with the lights off, just looking out at the constantly changing waves.

  She started as she watched the man push the woman forcibly into an armchair. What on earth was going on? He turned to look out of the window.

  And she realised exactly who it was.

  The shock jolted her, sent a chill across her whole body. She turned and vomited on the floor.

  Reiss Chanin.

  Why wasn’t he in custody? Marissa felt faint. He’d come here looking for her. Had he done something to Bri? Who was the woman? Thoughts flew as Marissa tried to focus. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  She needed to tell Mike that Reiss was here. Could she walk to the main road and see if she could get a taxi to come and pick her up?

  How could she contact Mike without giving away her location? Reiss had to be monitoring her and Brioni’s email; that was the only way he could have known to come here. Would he have some way of monitoring phone signals? If she texted or called Mike right now, would Reiss know? The minute he knew she was here, he’d get to her faster than the police possibly could. And she didn’t even have the USB any more; she’d given it to Mike.

  Marissa retched again and hot tears began to fall down her face. Turning her back to the window, she slid down to the floor and curled up, her head on her knees, the tears turning into sobs She thought she’d had it all planned – why had she been so stupid sending that email? Being home here in Ireland, Mike knowing where she was, had made her feel safe, as if someone else was helping, doing the worrying for her. But how could he help her now?

  Chapter 52

  In London, Mike Wesley looked at his phone in disbelief. The station had been buzzing since the raid on Reiss Chanin’s apartment, which had drawn a complete and total blank. But, conversely, too much of a blank. While there was a bowl on the living room table full of train tickets and receipts, many of which seemed to conveniently correlate date-wise with the various hoaxes that had taken place over the preceding weeks, there was little else in the way of personal detail.

  And Reiss Chanin had disappeared. He wasn’t at work, at his gym, or in his apartment. He wasn’t answering his phone and hadn’t used it in the past twenty-four hours, so they couldn’t get a location from the signal.

  And now Anna Lockharte had texted him to say that it appeared that Marissa had been in touch with her sister Brioni, no matter how cryptically, and that she’d gone to Ireland to look for her. He looked at his phone screen in disbelief.

  Mike felt his temper bubble. He’d explained how important it was that Marissa kept right below the radar – what on earth had she been thinking? He closed his eyes, the enormity and complexity of the situation pulling his brain in too many different directions for a split second. It didn’t last. This was the type of thing he was trained to deal with.

  It had just never involved the woman he was in love with before.

  He needed to track down Anna, get the local Gardai to contact Marissa and then find her sister. Which meant potentially putting three people under police protection in a foreign jurisdiction. And he couldn’t imagine the garda in Ireland were going to be thrilled that they hadn’t been notified by the Met that they might have a killer heading their way. And that was even before anyone found out about his and Mar’s affair.

  Mike pursed his lips, thinking fast. He was standing in his office, the door firmly closed. As he went through the permutations of the shit storm Anna had created, he thought of Rob. On top of everything else, she had some sort of extended diplomatic status. If anything happened to her as a result of what looked like a Met fuck-up, it wo
uldn’t be good for Anglo-American relations.

  Mike looked back at his phone. He had no idea who his opposite number was in Dublin these days, but Dawson O’Rourke knew everyone and would be able to smooth things at his end so the shit didn’t hit the fan just yet. And when he’d spoken to O’Rourke, he needed to call …Before he could finish the thought, his phone rang. Rob’s name came up on the screen.

  ‘Mike, how you doing? Have you heard from Anna?’

  Mike cleared his throat. ‘I was just about to call. Marissa Hunt’s sister got a strange message she believed indicated Marissa was in Wexford in Ireland. Anna’s apparently gone to check – I just got a text from her.’

  ‘OK.’ Rob said it slowly, as if he was thinking at the same time as he was speaking. ‘That text was actually sent last night. Anna’s definitely in Ireland, she got a flight out of London city and landed this evening. We’ve got intel that her phone was in Dublin airport, but she’s gone off-grid. Something’s messing with her phone. I think we’ve got a situation.’

  Chapter 53

  Dressed entirely in black, Brioni was almost invisible as she walked along the unlit country lane towards home. The bus had dropped her in Arklow, and then she’d got a local taxi to drop her at the top of the long single-track lane, the bohereen, that led around fields down to her father’s house and to the sea. Walking to the house was safer than being dropped off – a strange car could spook Mar into vanishing again.

  The moon was waxing, just a sliver in the sky, the high hedgerows on either side casting deep shadows. It was warm here, but not nearly as hot as London. Fluffy clouds crossed the night sky, obscuring the starlight.

  In the distance, to the north, she could see the loom of Dublin City, but here, so far from civilisation, the darkness was dense. The hedgerows rustled with life as bats swooped overhead, interested in what she was doing. Her soft hiking shoes were silent on the unmetalled lane.

  Behind her, Brioni could hear cars on the main road, the sound carried on the night air. She listened hard; was one coming closer? In her black jeans and hoodie, only her face and hands were visible in the dark. She stepped off the road into the hedge, pushing into the brambles.

  Suddenly the car turned the bend behind her and lit her up, its headlights on full beam floodlighting the whole road right up to the next turn. Leaning further into the hedge, Brioni shaded her eyes and looked at the vehicle as it slowed to a stop just short of her.

  Dazzled by the headlights, she couldn’t see who was in it or what had made it stop.

  The car door opened and a man half-stepped out, looking at her over the roof.

  ‘Bri, is that you?’

  Brioni didn’t recognise the voice, but the accent was local and it was obviously someone who knew her. She hesitated to answer as he said, ‘It’s me – Conor. Conor Walshe from Ballybride.’

  Brioni realised she’d been holding her breath, and let it out in a rush.

  ‘You fecker, Con Walshe, you scared the shit out of me! What are you doing sneaking up on people?’

  One of Conor’s older brothers had been in Marissa’s class in school. When they’d left, both boys had joined the Guards, and after time in Dublin, Conor had somehow landed himself back in Wexford town. While Brioni had been doing her Leaving Cert, he used to give her a lift in his patrol car from the bus stop when it was raining.

  ‘I’m heading to your dad’s house. Jim Phelan was walking his dog on the beach and he saw the lights on. He thought you were still away, and knew Marissa was in London. He’d been visiting your dad up at St Mary’s. He thought it might be squatters, so he gave the station a call.’

  ‘Squatters? Like more than one person?’

  ‘Man and a woman, he thought.’

  Thoughts rushed through Brioni’s mind. If Marissa was hiding out there, there was no way she’d have the lights on. The lack of curtains in that room had been an ongoing sore point between the two of them and their father for as long as she could remember. And if the woman was Marissa, there was no way she’d have a man in the house with her.

  ‘That doesn’t sound good.’

  ‘Jump in the car and we can take a look. I’m on my own tonight.’

  Brioni pulled open the passenger door of the unmarked navy Mondeo. Walshe pulled his door closed with the clank of a car well used; it had definitely seen better days.

  He smiled across at her as she buckled her seat belt.

  ‘It’s good to see you. How was the rest of the world?’

  ‘Crazy, brilliant, mad – everything you’d expect.’ Her voice became serious. ‘But there’s been some stuff happening in London. Mar’s husband, Steve, got himself murdered.’

  Walshe looked across at her, his voice suddenly serious.

  ‘How exactly did that happen?’

  ‘It’s a bit of a long story. It’s tied up with the bombs that went off – did you see the bus thing in the news? Mar was right next to it – the bus I mean. She’s disappeared.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  Walshe put the car into gear and pulled off.

  ‘She didn’t kill Steve,’ Brioni added hastily. ‘She couldn’t have done. We thought she’d been killed or injured or something, but I think she’s actually come here to hide from whatever’s going on there. I know that sounds like something out of a movie, but I can explain better when you’ve got about a week free and a stiff drink in your hand.’

  She felt Conor glance across at her in the darkened car.

  ‘You think she’s come home – that’s why you’re here?’

  ‘That’s why I’m here. But Jim would know her, even from a distance. I think it could be a friend of mine who’s in the house. She’s a professor at Trinity. But if she’s got a man with her, that’s not a good thing.’

  ‘So we approach with caution?’

  ‘For sure. Can you switch off the headlights at the edge of Jim’s field? If we walk the last bit, we’ll be able to see into the house from the upper paddock.’

  ‘Let me call it in. We don’t want to be out here on our own if there are any surprises.’

  But Walshe didn’t get a chance.

  Pulling over at the brow of the hill, he picked up the radio, about to depress the call button when it leaped into life. Between bursts of information that Brioni couldn’t quite follow, she realised Walshe’s inspector was speaking.

  ‘We need you to pull back, Con. Potential hostage situation at the O’Brien house. Dublin have just been on – the Emergency Response Unit has been mobilised. There’s a hostage negotiator and a sniper team en route – they’ve scrambled a chopper. The hostage is a professor from Trinity with American diplomatic links. The hostage taker is suspected to be some muppet called Reiss Chanin. He’s ex-American military, a highly trained cybersecurity expert, probably armed.’

  ‘Got it. Heading back now.’

  Clicking off the radio, Walshe turned to Bri.

  ‘He doesn’t sound like much of a muppet to me. That’s your friend in there with him?’

  Brioni grimaced. ‘That’s her, all right. Her name’s Anna Lockharte.’

  How had this all gone to shit so fast?

  ‘I’m going to need to take you to the station—’

  Brioni didn’t let him finish.

  ‘You go. You didn’t see me.’

  ‘Don’t be crazy, Bri.’ He put his hand on her arm. ‘If you get mixed up in this, you could get caught in the crossfire. I’m not joking. The ERU don’t mess about. They only get mobilised by a commissioner – this isn’t a dress rehearsal.’

  Brioni screwed up her face.

  ‘I’ll text you in about ten minutes. I’ll say I’ve got home and I’m really worried because the lights are on. Then you can let everyone know I’m there. I’m the only person around here who can identify Reiss Chanin and Anna for sure. What if it’s someone else, another part of his crew? And Mar could be hiding in the house. I need to see. I can scope out the whole place without being seen, and I can do it before anyone
gets here if I go across the fields.’

  Walshe’s grip relaxed momentarily while he thought about it, and Brioni flung the door open, tumbling out of the car. She was across the road and vaulting the gate into the field in a second. She caught a ‘Fuck!’ behind her as she ran, heard Walshe get out of the car, but she was already at the far side of the field, enveloped in the darkness. Her feet silent on the soft ground, she ran fast. She’d taken this route so many times as she was growing up, she knew every stone.

  In the far corner, at the top of the field, a flock of sheep stirred. She ran on, her feet hitting the long grass in time to her beating heart. Jim would be cutting the hay soon, and this field would look as if it had had a dramatic haircut, its own double undercut.

  This field sloped down to another, the far hedge of which bordered her father’s property. Only the bathroom and kitchen windows looked out in this direction.

  As she reached the second gate between the fields, Brioni slowed up to catch her breath. She didn’t want to run straight across the middle of the next field, just in case someone was looking out. It might be dark, but she’d be silhouetted against the sky. Instead, she skirted the hedge, keeping her head down, the muscles in her legs starting to burn. It was longer, but it was safer.

  As she reached the bottom gate, her heart was exploding in her chest. Now she needed to calm down and think.

  Chapter 54

  ‘Where is she? I know she’s here somewhere. I need you to call her and tell her to meet you here.’

  Anna looked across the sparsely furnished living room at Reiss Chanin. Clearly agitated, he was pacing up and down in front of the picture window, the darkness complete outside. In the back of her mind she could just imagine Rob giving a running commentary on his behaviour, peppered with sarcastic comments about the logic of making yourself a sitting target.