Kindred Spirits

by Jo Bannister

  But Gorman was again fighting a rising tide of fury. He was not easily moved to anger, but once begun, the process gathered momentum like an avalanche. ‘Hazel, I don’t think I care. If that’s their priority – looking out for each other, wall-papering over one another’s cracks – I don’t want to go on working for them. I’ve always been proud of what I do. I may not be brilliant at it, but on the whole I’ve made my community safer and cleaner. I’ve made mistakes – we all make mistakes – but I’ve owned up to them, tried to put them right, and learned from them. I thought that was what we were supposed to do.

  ‘Now you’re telling me that, in order to duck the blame for Jennifer Harbinger’s death, senior officers of this Division allowed a bitter man to crucify the family of the man he held responsible. That’s not OK. That is so not OK that I have to do something about it. If it means going head-to-head with people further up the pay-scale, fine. They can sack me if they want to. But if it’s the last thing I do as a policeman, I will see Elizabeth Lim safe, and I will find out which of my superiors thought their reputations more important than her life.

  ‘And before you even ask,’ he added testily, ‘I have no idea how I will do these things, except that I will.’

  ‘I believe you,’ said Hazel softly.

  ELEVEN

  About the time Dave Gorman was working up a head of steam over at Meadowvale, Ash was closing his shop. He was replacing the last few books when a low growl warned him of a last-minute visitor. This surprised him on two counts. Patience knew better than to discourage a customer, and people didn’t usually come in at five to six. Book-buying is a leisure occupation: most of his regulars – and he was beginning to build up a small phalanx of regulars – arrived mid-morning or mid-afternoon, often armed with biscuits, and browsed the shelves while Ash put the kettle on. Rambles With Books was almost as much a social club as it was a bookshop.

  He looked round amiably. ‘We usually close at six. But if you want fifteen minutes, I can do the accounts first.’

  Philip Welbeck said, ‘Not a massive task, then, doing your accounts?’

  Welbeck had been Ash’s boss for five years, and a good friend for another five; but right now he was an unwelcome reminder of the past. ‘Philip,’ he managed after a pause too long to be taken as a compliment, ‘whatever are you doing in Norbold?’

  ‘Just passing through, dear boy,’ Welbeck said airily. ‘Nice doggy.’ He leaned down to pat Patience on the head.

  He just patted me on the head, said Patience.

  Ash ignored her. ‘On the way to where?’ Norbold was one of the few places in England where the Romans hadn’t bothered to drive a road.

  ‘Now, now.’ Welbeck smiled impishly. ‘Don’t let’s be indiscreet.’ He was a smaller man than Ash, dapper in a 1950s sort of way, the thin dark hair Brylcreemed back, the tie silk, the cufflinks gold. He told friends he was something in the City; more casual acquaintances took him for a second-hand car dealer.

  Ash knew him as a clever man, a good man, a brave man; and a dangerous man to cross.

  My head, said Patience with renewed emphasis. He patted me on my head. He called me a nice doggy!

  As time went on, Ash was making a better job of seeming normal. He almost never held conversations with his dog now unless they were alone. He cleared his throat. ‘To answer your question, no, I don’t need the services of a tax-avoidance specialist yet. But we’re doing all right. There’s more coming in than going out.’

  ‘Delighted to hear it. Seriously, Gabriel – I’m glad you’ve found something to channel your energies. This’ – he gazed around him, not exactly critically but then again, not exactly not – ‘may not be the optimum use of your talents, but it’s more than I’d have expected two years ago. You’re looking well. You’re looking better than I’ve seen you since … well, you know.’

  ‘Since my wife conspired with an arms smuggler to drive me mad,’ stated Ash.

  ‘The very words I was looking for,’ said Welbeck smoothly. ‘And the boys? Well, I trust?’ Ash nodded cautiously. ‘And your little friend Miss Best. I was half expecting to see her here.’

  ‘She’s working.’ In fact, Ash wasn’t sure what shifts she was pulling at the moment. What he did know was that he didn’t want Hazel and Philip Welbeck to get better acquainted. ‘I’ll tell her you dropped by. In passing.’

  The intelligence sector is like policing, in that the people you most want to talk to are seldom keen on talking to you. Welbeck had been shown so many different doors in so many different ways that he hadn’t taken it personally for years. But nor did he take a hint, even one as unsubtle as this. His smile broadened. ‘Gabriel! Are you trying to get rid of me?’

  Ash sighed. ‘Would it do any good if I was?’

  ‘Probably not, dear boy,’ chuckled Welbeck. ‘Probably not.’

  It was becoming obvious to Ash that he wasn’t going to get away from this encounter unscathed. He finished closing the shop, drew the blinds, then plugged the kettle back in and spooned coffee into two of the half-dozen mugs he’d amassed. He proffered the one inscribed ‘Friends are God’s apology for your family’. It seemed more appropriate than ‘Etonians do it up against the wall’, the only other clean one, which he kept for himself.

  He sat down at the table. ‘Out with it, Philip. What is it you want?’

  ‘Your little friend …’ began Welbeck.

  ‘We’re not talking about her,’ Ash said firmly.

  ‘How shall I put this politely?’ mused Welbeck, blowing the steam off his coffee. ‘We’ll talk about what I want to talk about. Gabriel, you know the problems I have recruiting suitable personnel. You know the difficulties I have holding onto them. Someone like your little friend …’

  ‘Stop calling her that.’

  ‘Like Miss Hazel Best,’ continued Welbeck seamlessly, ‘might fit into our office nicely. Daughter of a career soldier, high-level computer skills, experience in the police. Oh yes, and not afraid to shoot somebody if the need arises.’

  The blood in Ash’s veins turned to ice. He knew how much he owed to Philip Welbeck. He also knew that, when Welbeck wanted something, he didn’t worry too much about whether he was owed it or not. He did a difficult and important job well, and it was necessary for the good of the nation that he enjoyed a certain amount of latitude. Ash had worked in Welbeck’s office for five years and knew that intelligence gathering was by no means as glamorous and exciting as the film industry suggested – that it was mostly done at desks and computers, studying financial records and airline schedules. That was what he had done, what he had been good at. He wasn’t a spy, he was a security analyst.

  The other thing he knew was that he would do everything in his power to keep Hazel Best from straying into that world. If she did, he was by no means convinced she would settle for working behind a desk.

  ‘You don’t need Hazel,’ he said in a low voice. ‘She’s too honest for your purposes.’

  Welbeck gave a light tenor laugh. ‘You’re becoming a cynic in your old age! I’m just saying, it’s hard not to be impressed by what she’s achieved in the time that you’ve known her. If she were to be interested …’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Perhaps we should ask her.’

  ‘No, Philip.’

  ‘You’re afraid she’d say yes.’

  ‘She’s twenty-seven years old! Of course she’d say yes.’

  ‘So what’s the problem?’

  Gabriel Ash was not a violent man. He was a big man, but he had rarely been tempted to resolve his difficulties with his fists. But once, striking out in the throes of mental anguish about his lost family, he had knocked Philip Welbeck down in Parliament Street. Welbeck had had him taken away in a white van; and he had been right to do so. Ash had been out of control. It was a tribute to both men that neither bore a grudge about the episode.

  That didn’t mean that either of them had forgotten it.

  ‘You don’t really want me to answer that?�
� said Ash quietly.

  Welbeck blinked first. He gave a negligent little shrug. ‘You keep drawing that on me like a revolver,’ he drawled. ‘Gabriel, I was not responsible for what happened to you. Your wife was responsible for what happened to you.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have happened if I’d stuck with insurance investigation.’

  ‘Perhaps not. But you wanted the job I offered. Nobody twisted your arm.’

  ‘So why are you twisting it now?’

  Welbeck looked away. ‘We weren’t talking about you.’

  One reason Gabriel Ash had succeeded as an insurance investigator, the reason he was recruited for national security work, was his ability to see things that hadn’t been written down, to hear things that hadn’t been said. This wasn’t about his old boss looking him up for old times’ sake. He didn’t think it was entirely about Hazel Best either.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  Welbeck raised a shapely eyebrow. ‘No what?’

  ‘No, I’m not coming back to work for you.’

  Welbeck smiled again. The last time Ash saw a smile like that, it was preceded by ominous music and a triangular fin cutting through the waves. Ash was glad he knew that Philip Welbeck was a good man. If he hadn’t, he might have thought he was a very bad man indeed. ‘Oh good lord, Gabriel, I’m not that desperate! I know we’re a broad church, but we do tend to prefer our employees sane. At least most of the time.’

  When Ash was genuinely struggling with madness, a remark like that would have been hurtful. Now, his equilibrium largely restored, he found it oddly reassuring. ‘So I don’t want to work for you again, and you don’t want me to work for you. So … what are you doing here?’

  ‘I told you. I was in the district, and I wanted to see what you were doing with yourself.’ He looked around the shop. ‘Well, it’s not exactly Foyles, but I suppose it’s early days.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not really a full-time occupation yet.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  Again Welbeck seemed to change the subject without actually doing anything of the kind. ‘The thing is, with all this financial constraint we’re labouring under, it’s hard to get the work done sometimes. Sometimes it would be splendid to be able to pick up the phone and rope someone in for a day or two. A week at the most. A consultant. Someone with the right set of talents to deal with a particular situation.’

  ‘No,’ Ash said again.

  ‘Oh, not now,’ Welbeck assured him. ‘Not when you’re so’ – another glance around the empty shop – ‘busy. But occasionally. Once a year. Maybe twice.’

  ‘No,’ said Ash again, more forcefully.

  Welbeck did the smile again, and went to stand up. ‘Well, perhaps it’s a little too soon. We’ll keep in touch, Gabriel. I’ll let you know if anything comes up you might be interested in. In the meantime, give it a little thought. It would solve my problem, you see. If I could call you in, just occasionally, when I really needed to, I mightn’t need to look round for new staff. Oh …!’ As he’d reached to replace his mug on the table, the white lurcher at his feet had stood up, jogging his hand and spilling the remains of his tea down his trousers.

  Ash was still absorbing the implications of what he’d just heard. But after a moment he apologised, insincerely, and fetched a cloth. ‘I expect she wanted you to pat her head again.’

  Ash’s instincts had been good even when his mental processes were unreliable. Now they were warning him that telling Hazel about Welbeck’s visit would be akin to lighting a big fat cigar in a fireworks factory.

  You have to tell her, said Patience.

  ‘That Philip’s using her to blackmail me?’

  That she’s drawing attention to herself in the places where these things are discussed.

  The dog – or just possibly that part of Ash’s brain which thought clearly even when his mind was in turmoil – had cut straight to the chase. ‘You don’t think Philip was just passing, then.’

  Of course he wasn’t just passing. Someone has been talking to him. Someone who’s so anxious about what Hazel’s got involved in that it seemed necessary to organise a distraction.

  Ash stared at the lurcher in admiration. ‘You’re getting good at this.’

  Don’t mention it, said Patience modestly.

  ‘The business at the school. Elizabeth Lim’s disappearance. Hazel said she’d drop it …’

  You’ve known her as long as I have. You didn’t really expect her to decide it was none of her business?

  When it was put to him like that, Ash had to concede that he hadn’t. ‘All right. So Hazel’s rattling cages again. But who at Meadowvale, or even at Division, would know to talk to Philip Welbeck about it?’

  It’s amazing what strings people will find to pull if they’re worried enough.

  Ash nodded slowly. ‘If Elizabeth Lim was part of a witness protection programme, that will be being managed by the National Crime Agency. Where people may well be acquainted with Philip and his happy band, and would know he had the means to distract Hazel from her latest crusade.’

  By threatening you.

  Ash rocked a hand. ‘He didn’t threaten me exactly.’

  Do you want to start working for him again?

  ‘Of course not!’ He sounded appalled by the idea.

  Then it was a threat.

  But it had been cleverer than that. ‘If I tell Hazel what he said, it won’t sound like a threat to her. It’ll sound like an opportunity.’

  You’re afraid she might take that opportunity?

  ‘I’m afraid she’d jump at it.’

  And it’s not what you want for her.

  ‘I don’t think it would make her happy. It’s important work, but it’s also tricksy and full of compromise. It’s about tap-dancing around an open sewer. Hazel is a pretty simple person. I don’t mean that as an insult: it’s one of the things I like about her. She knows the difference between right and wrong, and she’s always ready to back her beliefs with action. By the time she’d realised Philip’s world isn’t about right and wrong so much as the lesser of multiple evils, she’d be in too deep to just walk away. Trying to do the right thing in those circumstances would break her.’

  You could talk to her – warn her of the dangers.

  Ash winced. ‘Warning Hazel about danger is like issuing her with a gilt-edged invitation.’

  You need to tell her something. She needs to know that she’s under observation.

  Ash nodded glumly. ‘I suppose you’re right. I’ll talk to her tonight.’

  What will you say?

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’

  TWELVE

  He meant to go round to her house that evening, as soon as he’d put the boys to bed. But she beat him to it, arriving at his door with fish and chips wrapped, as connoisseurs know they should be, in newsprint. ‘You haven’t eaten already?’

  ‘Er … no. Well, the boys have, but that won’t stop them eating again.’

  ‘Put some plates to warm.’

  Ash did as he was told. He could hardly do otherwise; but he would have preferred to hold the coming conversation in Hazel’s kitchen. However angry people become with what you have to say, they very rarely storm out of their own houses.

  In one way he was lucky. There was something on the television the boys wanted to watch: Gilbert nudged Guy, and Guy – too sweet-natured to realise he was being used – asked if they could take their chips up to the playroom. Usually Ash would have objected; tonight he was happy to consent.

  Sometimes Frankie ate with the boys and left Ash’s meal in the oven, sometimes she waited and ate with him, sometimes she had something on a tray in her room. Tonight she realised, from Ash’s preoccupied manner, that this would be a good time to take a tray upstairs. ‘There’s a concert on the radio I’d like to listen to.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Ash quickly. ‘Why don’t you call it a night? I’ll settle the boys down in an hour or so.’

  When they were alon
e, except for Patience watching expectantly from the kitchen sofa, Hazel said, ‘I’m glad I’ve got you to myself. I wanted to bring you up to date.’ She told him about her conversations with Martha Harris and Dave Gorman.

  But halfway through her account, she knew she didn’t have his full attention. She didn’t understand his reluctance to get involved. They’d always helped one another before: sometimes as a sounding board for ideas, sometimes in ways that were perilously practical. She was annoyed that he had lost interest in the incident at the school as soon as he realised his children were not the target.

  She broke off with a frown. ‘Stop me if I’m boring you.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Ash demurred. ‘I’m … worried.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘You, of course. You’re doing it again – dashing out onto the frozen pond to rescue somebody’s puppy without knowing how thin the ice is.’

  Hazel grinned at that. ‘Well … it’s kind of what we do, isn’t it? How much choice is there when you know the puppy’s in trouble? And maybe the ice isn’t as thin as all that.’

  ‘It’s pretty thin,’ said Ash.

  Hazel’s eyes narrowed. ‘You know that, do you?’ He nodded. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  Her frown deepened. ‘You need to find a way of telling me.’

  Ash shook his head. ‘I can’t.’

  There was a lengthy pause, during which Hazel studied his face more closely than was comfortable. Finally she said, ‘Are we talking national security here? The Official Secrets Act?’

  ‘We could be talking national security,’ said Ash carefully. It wasn’t a lie: anything that involved Philip Welbeck might have security implications.

  ‘Someone’s put the frighteners on you!’

  ‘No,’ said Ash, ‘it was more subtle than that. Elizabeth Lim’s name was never mentioned. But it was a friendly warning, and I think you should heed it before it becomes more of a warning and less friendly.’

  ‘How did they know?’ wondered Hazel. ‘That I’d found out about the Harbingers?’