Killing for the Company

by Chris Ryan

  ‘Where are we?’

  It was the first thing Suze had said for a couple of hours. Her voice was cracked and quiet.

  ‘A B&B. We should be able to get a room here for the night. Stay under the radar.’

  A pause.

  ‘We’ll tell the owners we’re married.’

  Suze frowned. ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Because nobody remembers boring married couples. And because I want you in the same room as me, where I can see you. And where we can talk.’

  Suze swallowed hard. ‘Right,’ she said, and they drove in silence up towards the farmhouse.

  The rain was still heavy, and although it was only a short run from the car to the front door, they were half-soaked by the time they got there. They sheltered in a shallow porch where an old sign said ‘vacancies’, and they had to ring the bell twice before anyone answered. The door was opened by an elderly lady – seventy-five, perhaps older – with wispy grey hair, half-moon glasses and hearing aids on both ears. She peered at them suspiciously, as though guests were the last thing she expected at this bed and breakfast, while a floppy-eared cocker spaniel sniffed around her feet.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We need a room.’ Chet’s voice was abrupt.

  ‘A room?’ The old woman had a faint Welsh accent. She looked up at Chet’s scarred face with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

  Chet was about to reply, when Suze butted in. ‘We’ve travelled a very long way,’ she said, in much more friendly tones. ‘Might you have somewhere for us?’

  The old lady’s face softened slightly now that Suze was talking to her. ‘Ah well, you’d better come in,’ she said. She took a few paces back, and the two of them walked into the house. ‘You can leave your rucksack in the porch,’ she told Chet. ‘We don’t want it dripping all over the floor now, do we?’

  ‘It’s dry,’ Chet told her. It was also heavy on account of the alabaster figurine he’d stashed in there.

  Stepping into the farmhouse was like stepping into another century. Heavy oak beams traversed the low ceiling of what appeared to be a large reception-room-cum-kitchen, and a fire smouldered in a blackened inglenook. There was a very old gas oven along one wall, tired-looking floral worktops on either side, and a large butler’s sink, cracked and stained yellow. Heavy flagstones covered the floor and the whole place smelt of woodsmoke.

  The spaniel started investigating Suze, sniffing round her feet and nuzzling her ankles with its nose. She bent down to scratch its ears and this seemed to please the old lady, who directed her conversation only at Suze. ‘She likes you,’ she said, in the slightly too loud tones of the almost-deaf.

  Suze smiled and stood up again. ‘She’s beautiful.’

  ‘How many nights, dear?’

  Suze glanced at Chet, who covertly held up a single finger.

  ‘Just one,’ she replied, and the old lady took a leather-bound guestbook from the heavy mahogany sideboard.

  ‘I’ll be needing your names.’

  ‘Carter,’ Chet said quickly. ‘Mr and Mrs Carter.’

  The old lady ignored him. ‘I’m sorry, dear,’ she said to Suze. ‘I’m a little hard of hearing . . .’

  Suze smiled and helped write the name in the guestbook. Moments later they were being led across the flagstone floor, into an adjoining hallway and up a wide, winding, stone staircase that led to the first floor. The old lady climbed it with difficulty. ‘I can’t be doing with stairs at my age,’ she complained. ‘I only come up here for guests.’

  The landing had threadbare rugs and creaking floorboards. They passed one room on the right-hand side of the landing before the old lady showed them into a second room. Suze took one look at it and, still in buttering-up mode, said, ‘It’s perfect. We’ll . . .’

  But Chet interrupted her. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not this one.’

  ‘Why ever not?’ asked the old lady.

  He glanced up to the ceiling where there was a removable panel, presumably leading to an attic. ‘What else have you got?’

  The old lady looked offended, but she led them back along the landing towards the first door they’d passed. This room was much more basic than the other. Frayed curtains, a lumpy, iron-framed double bed. Next to the bed was an occasional table with a beige, functional telephone on it. The adjoining bathroom had mildewed grout between the tiles and an avocado-coloured suite stained white with limescale.

  Chet checked the window. The frame was thin and rotten, but it was locked and it looked out on to the front where he’d parked. There was no attic hatch.

  ‘This will do,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t give you anything to eat, you know,’ the old woman announced. It sounded like an accusation. ‘And there’s nowhere nearby.’

  ‘Please, don’t worry,’ Suze told her. She clearly had a way with the oldies. ‘We’re glad for the room. You’re very kind to . . .’

  ‘Is there a key?’ Chet interrupted.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘A key?’

  The old woman looked at him as if he’d made a lewd suggestion. ‘Oh no . . . no, there’s no key.’

  She shook her head and left the couple, muttering to herself and leaving the door ajar. Chet closed the door, then stood with his back against it. He gave Suze a piercing look – one that she couldn’t withstand for long. She sat on the edge of the bed and put her head in her hands.

  ‘Are you sure we’re safe here?’

  He walked over, grabbed a high-backed chair that was against the wall and lodged it under the door handle. ‘As safe as we can be. But if that woman who’s chasing us is the person I think she is, we won’t stay safe for long.’

  ‘Who do you think she is?’

  But Chet didn’t answer.

  She looked up at him again. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘For helping me.’

  Chet shrugged. Suddenly his leg was very sore, and as he stepped into the room his limp was more pronounced than usual.

  ‘Your leg?’

  He frowned. Then, after a moment, he pulled his trouser leg up a few inches to reveal the sturdy black shin of his artificial leg. Suze’s eyes widened but, he noticed, she didn’t look appalled. ‘I didn’t realise . . .’ she said. ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘I had a little disagreement with a man called Ivanovic. It was some time ago.’

  ‘That looks like more than a disagreement.’

  ‘He wanted to kill me. I didn’t want him to.’

  ‘Were you in the military?’ Suze asked.

  ‘You could say that.’

  A pause.

  ‘Does it . . . does it hurt?’

  Chet didn’t want to discuss his disability. There were more urgent topics. ‘Tell me, why were you eavesdropping on that meeting?’

  Suze bit her lip and looked as though she was gathering her thoughts. ‘It’s the Grosvenor Group,’ she said at last.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Don’t you know who they are?’

  Chet walked over to the window and looked out. The rain was still sheeting. It hammered against the window. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Dickheads in suits?’

  ‘You work for them?’

  ‘I’m a freelance security consultant. They pay me to debug rooms, that’s all. It’s not like I’m sitting round the board table.’

  ‘Of course not. You’re not the kind of person they want.’ She took a few deep breaths and looked around nervously. ‘They can’t find us here, can they?’

  Chet shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  Suze closed her eyes briefly and carried on talking – slowly and in fragments, as though she was unsure of herself. ‘The Grosvenor Group . . . it’s an American . . . a multinational . . . a kind of . . .’ A look of frustration crossed her face as she searched for the right word. ‘. . . A conglomeration of venture capitalists. They invest money in other, smaller companies . . . sometimes they buy them out totally . . .’ She gave an apologetic little smile. ‘I don’t really underst
and how all that stuff works.’

  Nor did Chet. As far as he could tell, the Grosvenor Group was a bunch of money men. In his book, that meant arseholes.

  Another crash of thunder, and the rain gave a renewed burst against the windowpanes. Suze stood up and started pacing the room. Suddenly her green eyes were flashing. ‘The Grosvenor Group mostly puts its money into military enterprises – arms companies, aerospace, that kind of thing.’ She stopped pacing. ‘Basically, they invest in people killing other people.’

  Yeah, Chet thought. Welcome to the world.

  ‘The Grosvenor Group makes a lot of money,’ Suze continued. ‘I mean, like, a lot of money. Billions. You don’t make that kind of cash without influence. Their board is like a . . . a Who’s Who of Western politics. Former American senators, people with influence in Washington and Whitehall, politicians who might one day return to office. They’ve even got former US presidents advising them.’

  Chet shook his head. ‘So some politicians are involved in the arms trade. That doesn’t explain why somebody’s trying to kill us.’

  Suddenly she turned. ‘For God’s sake,’ she snapped. ‘Don’t you see? If the US and the UK go to war in Iraq, it’ll be like all the Grosvenor Group’s Christmases have come at once. Arms concessions, reconstruction deals.’

  ‘People have always made money out of war, Suze.’

  She stared at him contemptuously. ‘And for some people, it’s all they care about. My father was killed by a landmine in Angola. He was out there immunising kids. You might think it’s OK to sell shit like that. I don’t. Where’s that bloody tape?’

  Chet walked over to his rucksack and rummaged around. He pulled out the Dictaphone and handed it to Suze, who sat back down on the edge of the bed and started fiddling with the controls.

  For a while there was no sound in the room other than the rain against the window and the rewinding of the cassette. When Suze pressed play, all Chet heard was the crackly static that had filled his ears when he’d listened in with the headphones the day before, which morphed every ten or fifteen seconds into the sound of distorted, indistinguishable voices. He looked at Suze. She was hunched over the machine, her face intent.

  They’d been listening for a couple of minutes when, all of a sudden, the static and distortion evolved into something recognisable.

  ‘. . . it’s extremely important that any funds payable now or in the future cannot be traced.’

  ‘Prime Minister, that’s a given. We’re very good at it . . .’

  ‘How do you propose to . . . ?’

  The voices disappeared for a few seconds, replaced with a high-pitched whine of feedback. When that faded, the American was speaking again.

  ‘. . . worldwide network of business associates. If we ask them, they’ll offer you consultancy fees, speaking arrangements – all highly lucrative, Prime Minister. Highly lucrative. And untraceable to the Grosvenor Group. Hell, you won’t even need to rely on your memoirs for a pension. You could give the advance to charity. You’ll be raking it in from all . . .’

  Static.

  Distortion.

  Chet stared at the machine as the implications of what he’d just heard sunk in.

  It continued to play for another minute, before he heard words that were more familiar to him.

  ‘Trust me, Prime Minister Stratton. This war is good to go . . . the Americans are all on board. The question is, how are you going to get it through . . . ?’

  More static.

  Suze stopped the tape and looked up at him.

  Chet had a sick sensation in his stomach. At the same time he felt as though a fog had been lifted. ‘The Grosvenor Group are paying Stratton to take us to war? Paying him personally?’

  Suze stared hopelessly at him.

  Chet thought about his Regiment mates – behind enemy lines, if his guess was right; he thought of the regular green army troops, preparing to move on Baghdad. How many of them would make it home?

  ‘Who else knows about this?’

  ‘Nobody. Only us.’

  ‘Aren’t you part of some protest group – activists?’

  Suze shook her head almost apologetically.

  ‘Where did you get the laser listening device?’ he asked. The question had been nagging him for a while.

  ‘The Internet. There’s a guy who . . .’ She gave him a hopeless look. ‘I spent everything I had . . .’ It seemed like she was telling the truth.

  Chet tried to clear his head. So many things suddenly made sense: Stratton’s meeting on the QT, away from Downing Street; the relentless assassin, tracking down first him, then Suze. The order had clearly gone out to eliminate them, and that order would stand for as long as they stayed alive.

  Unless . . .

  ‘It’s extremely important that any funds payable now or in the future cannot be traced . . .’

  Chet was trained to make the best use of the materials at his disposal, and right now that tape was their best weapon. Their only weapon. A scant resource, and they had to use it wisely.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Suze asked.

  Chet looked around the room. Hiding out here was OK for a bit, but it wasn’t a long-term solution.

  ‘We make it public,’ he said.

  Suze blinked at him. ‘Won’t that . . . ?’

  ‘As soon as this is in all the papers, Stratton and the Grosvenor Group will have bigger fish to fry.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Chet gave her a direct look. ‘No. Not really. But we haven’t got a choice. They will find us, Suze. Eventually. Somehow. They will find us.’

  She swallowed hard. ‘All right,’ she said, her voice timid.

  ‘Until then, we stay dark. We don’t contact anyone. We avoid populated areas where we might get picked up on CCTV. We don’t use mobile phones, bank cards or passports. And you stay close to me, you understand?’

  Suze nodded, and Chet limped over to the window again. The storm was raging, the rain hammering against the window and the night was black. That was something, at least.

  ‘I’m scared,’ Suze said.

  ‘Good,’ Chet replied. ‘Stay scared. That way you don’t mess up.’

  He turned to look at her and saw that fear was written clearly on her face. He didn’t blame her, because he felt it too.

  The sound of the rain was joined by the sound of the shower in the en-suite bathroom. Chet paced, waiting for Suze to finish. Even though she was only in the adjoining room, he felt edgy not having her in his line of sight.

  The shower stopped and the door opened. Suze appeared. Her red hair was clean and scraped back off her face, some of it sticking to the nape of her neck. She wore a towel wrapped around her torso that revealed her slim arms and her slight, sloping shoulders; and she was carrying a little bundle of her clothes in front of her. Her lips were slightly parted. She looked beautiful, but fragile. Like she could break at any minute. Suddenly she was no longer the crazy girl on the roof or the frightened target of a ruthless assassin. She was a young woman – vulnerable, certainly, but attractive and looking at Chet with an expression he understood.

  ‘I feel better now I’m clean,’ she said. There was a slight tremor in her voice, and Chet could tell she was trying to sound conversational.

  ‘I can wait in there if you want to get changed,’ he offered.

  Suze didn’t answer. Instead she put her clothes in an untidy pile on the floor, then took a tentative step towards him. Another step, and when she was close enough she rested her head against his chest.

  They stood there like that for a moment. Awkwardly. Chet could hear her nervous breathing, and feel the beat of her pulse against him. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and then another. Suze felt tiny in his embrace. Her damp hair soaked through his shirt, and its fragrance filled his senses. It smelt good.

  A boom of thunder. Suze was startled. ‘When will this bloody storm finish?’ she whispered. As if, in the grand scheme of things, a storm was important
.

  She looked up towards Chet and he felt her breath against his face. Her body was warm.

  ‘You should get some sleep,’ he said. ‘Take the bed. I’ll . . .’

  ‘I’m sorry about the things I said to you,’ she interrupted him.

  ‘No . . .’

  He didn’t finish, because suddenly – as if she might lose the courage if she didn’t act immediately – Suze had brushed her lips against his. Chet frowned. It had been a long time since anybody had given him that kind of attention; since anybody had seen past the scars on his face or his awkward gait.

  Suze stepped backwards. There was no smile on her face; just a kind of nervousness, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she had just done. Especially here. Especially now.

  ‘I need to wash,’ Chet told her. His words were stilted.

  Suze glanced at the floor. ‘Right . . .’ she said. ‘OK . . .’ She watched him as he limped self-consciously past her and into the bathroom.

  It was still steamy in there from her shower. Chet had to wipe the condensation from the mirror, and he only had a few seconds to look at his tired, scarred face before it misted over again. He unbuttoned his shirt and splashed cold water over his face and torso, hoping it would clear his mind as well as his skin. It didn’t. The words on the tape replayed themselves in his head, and the smell of Suze’s freshly washed hair lingered in his senses. She was scared. Vulnerable. That much was obvious. She was relying on him to protect her. Chet was no psychologist, but it wasn’t too hard to work out that her advances just now were a symptom of that.

  Images rose in his mind. The intruder in his room, her face full of steely purpose. Doug, his friend, dead, broken and spattered in his own gore on the railway track. Despite all his setbacks, the guy had been so full of life. And now . . .