‘Sorry. It’s a work thing. Palmer told me a bit about them, their fight with the Colombian government. Are they dangerous?’
He nodded. ‘As snakes. The British and American governments are helping the Colombians wipe out the poppy fields, which is where FARC and the cartels make their money. No poppies, no money, no weapons, no fight. If they can’t have a pop at the army or the anti-drugs troops, they take it to the streets and try to knock off anyone they don’t like the look of.’
‘Successfully?’
‘When they want to. They’ve killed some DEA people — the US Drug Enforcement Administration — in the past few years, and a lot of Colombian army and police, along with some judiciary. They don’t mess about.’
‘Is it dangerous being an embassy employee down there?’
‘It can be. It’s a dangerous place.’
‘Does FARC ever target them specifically?’
‘It’s been known. Not so much the Yanks — they’re too well guarded, although they’ve lost some undercover people. But the British are less inclined to use high walls. Other than a team of Redcaps at the embassy, and a few special forces guys helping train the local army and police, embassy staff have to take care of themselves, how they travel, where they go and stuff. But nobody can be protected one hundred percent. On the other hand, FARC know if they go too far, they’ll bring down a lot of heat on themselves.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s a sensitive situation, but so far it’s been self-regulating. Why the interest? What’s Palmer got involved in?’
She brought him up to date with the events of the past couple of days, finishing with the watcher in the woods.
He listened without interruption, then said gravely, ‘You should watch your back. The emails don’t sound like FARC, but if they are behind the threats, they won’t be playing around. It’ll come to a head sooner or later.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They play the odds. If something doesn’t pay, they’ll leave well alone. And they rarely take the fight outside their own boundaries unless they really get upset.’ He paused. ‘And that’s what Frank should be asking himself.’
‘What?’
‘If it’s FARC or any of the cartels, what the hell could a British Ambassador have done to stir up that kind of hornets’ nest?’
***********
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘Good morning,’ Palmer murmured. ‘ Rats ‘R Us. We’ve come about the infestation.’
Myburghe’s butler, Rockface, was standing in the doorway to Colebrooke House. He stared down at Riley and Palmer as if hoping for an excuse to pick them both up and toss them into the fountain, and looked quite capable of doing so. His shoulders seemed to twitch in anticipation.
‘Staff are supposed to use the side door,’ he growled. The faint sneer he gave Riley clearly indicated that Palmer had explained the reason for her previous visit.
‘We’re not staff, sunshine,’ Palmer replied easily. ‘Now, do we stand out here all day?’
The other man blinked slowly before stepping aside. ‘I’ll tell Sir Kenneth you’re here.’
The foyer was large and circular, and impressively cool. The floor was marble, as were the columns liberally sprinkled around. The curved walls were covered in fine wooden panels, dotted with tiny paintings, and the effect was completed by elegant pieces of antique furniture at strategic points.
Riley saw a staircase curving upwards, its walls hung with heavy oil paintings of glum faces and owl-eyed family groups staring down in silent resentment. Somehow, she thought it was the only jarring note about the place, as if it had been assembled to create an impression of ancestry.
‘Some butler,’ she commented, as the large man disappeared.
‘Bodyguard is closer,’ Palmer replied.
‘At his age?’ In spite of his appearance, which would be easily capable of intimidating anyone who might want to do harm to Sir Kenneth Myburghe, it was clear he was in his early fifties. ‘I thought bodyguards were younger.’ She smiled at Palmer. ‘Well, young-ish.’
Before Palmer could come back with a snappy reply, Rockface returned and beckoned them across the foyer. He made barely a sound as he walked and Riley checked his feet, half expecting to see him ghosting along on a set of silent rollers.
They were ushered into a room with surprisingly modern furniture, including a plain mahogany desk bearing a PC and printer, and a scattering of nouveau club chairs made of brushed aluminium and leather. The walls were dotted with watercolours, mostly of pastoral scenes, and the whole effect was of functional comfort. It was a startling contrast to the formal austerity of the foyer.
‘Sir Kenneth will be with you shortly,’ said Rockface, before leaving them and closing the door silently behind him.
After the excitement of the previous day, Keagan had put the house and gardens on lockdown while he and his men conducted a rigorous security scan. Palmer and Riley had been advised to stay away until this morning, when they would be needed for a briefing with Sir Kenneth.
They had discussed tactics on the way, and decided that for Riley to be accepted as a security expert on a par with Palmer, she should not remain a dumb follower.
‘We need to ask him some questions,’ Palmer suggested. ‘So far, all I’ve had is what Keagan has told me. If anyone knows what’s behind the threats and the disappearance of his son, it must be Myburghe. He can’t be so naïve as to think he’s just been picked on by chance. Anyway, unless there’s been a major shift in tactics, kidnappers don’t send fake bombs.’
Riley was surprised. ‘You want me to question him?’
‘Why Not? He might open up more with you. Push him a little. It’s for his own good.’
‘What if he fires me?’
‘If he values his life, he won’t.’
Moments later, a man Riley recognised from the photos on the Internet as Sir Kenneth Myburghe, opened the door and stepped into the room.
‘Palmer. How kind.’ He shook hands warmly with Frank Palmer, then turned to Riley and gave her a more perfunctory but polite greeting, as if he didn’t quite know how to treat her. ‘Miss Gavin.’ She thought it was oddly gauche for a man in his position, but decided stress might be playing a part. He nodded towards two of the chairs. ‘Please. Sit down.’
In the flesh, Sir Kenneth was the epitome of the career diplomat: smooth and elegantly dressed in razor-creased slacks, cotton shirt and brogues, he looked comfortable in himself, with a ready smile revealing impeccably white teeth. How much of the smile was genuine, however, was impossible to tell. He wore a faint air of controlled stress and his face had a gauntness about it that Riley guessed wasn’t entirely due to age.
All she could think was that if she had received a body part in the post, purportedly belonging to her teenage son, she would never have smiled again. Diplomats were evidently made of sterner stuff.
‘I’m grateful you’ve agreed to help,’ he said. He made it sound as if they had been summoned to unclog the drains. Moving over to a small side table, he lifted the stopper off a crystal decanter and raised his eyebrows in a silent offer. Palmer and Riley shook their heads and waited as Myburghe poured himself a generous helping. Unlike his greeting of Riley, his movements now were practised and smooth, the professional host. He took a sip, lowering the level in his glass by a good third.
Riley glanced at Palmer, who was studying his hands. But she knew he would have seen it, too: beneath the smooth veneer was a man fighting a losing battle with his nerves.
Myburghe sat at the desk and looked at them both in turn. ‘I gather you’re aware of the basic situation?’
Riley nodded, drawing his attention. Barely two minutes in and she was already deciding she didn’t much like Sir Kenneth Myburghe. Losing a son was a ‘situation’? ‘I’m sorry to hear about your son.’
He frowned and studied his glass. ‘I still can’t believe it.’
She glanced at Palmer, who gave her the briefest of nods to carry on. She looked at Myburghe and s
aid, ‘I know you’ve been through this already with others, but just in case you’ve had some ideas: is there anyone you can think of who might wish you harm? Someone who might have made threats — even a while ago?’
‘It’s not something I can pretend I thought would never happen,’ Myburghe replied honestly. ‘There have been threats of one sort or another over the years — more to do with British foreign policies rather than me as an individual. When you work in the diplomatic field, you tend to expect a certain degree of fallout from one group or another. It comes with the job. But you never quite reckon on it being so…personal. A bit like a motor accident, I suppose.’
Riley decided that this ability to deal with major catastrophes as if they were minor setbacks, must be something they taught in public school, She could almost hear the stiff upper lips clamping shut set under pain of God knew what punishment. Here was this man, passing off the possible death of his son as a job-related hazard.
‘I gather your last posting was in Colombia?’ She almost regretted the choice of words, in view of his evident fall from grace, but he seemed not to notice.
He crossed his legs, now on familiar turf and ready to launch into a lengthy exposé of life at the top. ‘That’s correct. Beautiful country, fantastic scenery and people. But not a nice posting, socially speaking. There are lots of… complications. Too many opposing factions and too many guns. It’s a very dangerous place.’
‘You mean drug traffickers,’ she interrupted him.
‘And others. But, essentially, yes.’ He looked mildly irritated at having the flow of his talk interrupted. ‘But there’s nothing to indicate this business is anything to do with them, I hope you realise that?’ He looked at them in turn, but they didn’t react.
Riley asked, ‘Didn’t your security people have some ideas?’
‘Some. But nothing concrete.’ He shifted in his chair. ‘You have to understand, Miss Gavin, that this job marks you down. Others before me were never quite sure they or their families would be entirely safe.’ He looked past her. ‘But that’s the price, I suppose, for doing one’s duty.’ He stared off manfully into the distance, the Marlborough Man of the diplomatic corps, thought Riley, and realised that this was probably his way of dealing with what had befallen him.
‘One thing puzzles me,’ she said.
‘What’s that?’ He fixed her with a dark look, as if he hadn’t expected this level of questioning. What on earth can you be puzzled about? the expression seemed to imply. You, a mere minion. That same facial expression, Riley guessed, had probably had embassy staff running for the hills whenever it appeared.
It reminded her of an old headmistress at high school, who had ceased to hold any fear for Riley after appearing in a pair of giant shorts in the annual teachers versus students hockey match. Somehow a pair of knobbly knees never rated too high in the terror stakes after that.
‘If you and your family are such a target, why did you let your son go to the States? He’s very young.’
For a moment Sir Kenneth looked as if he was about to levitate from his chair. His face coloured a deep red, and he swung his head towards Palmer as if asking why he’d brought this impertinent young female into his house.
Palmer simply stared back at him without expression. ‘Good point,’ he conceded.
‘He’s young,’ Sir Kenneth said finally, when he saw there would be no support from Palmer. ‘He wanted to see the world… do things — like any other young man. What are you saying?’ He looked at them both this time.
‘I’m saying,’ said Riley, ‘that if he was at risk, I’m surprised he was alone. If you were being watched, they’ll have been keeping an eye on Christian, too.’ What she wanted to say, bluntly, was that Sir Kenneth was being well protected, so why wasn’t his son and heir? It was shutting the stable door after the horse had cleared off, but as an example of parental idiocy masquerading as freedom, she thought this one beat them all.
He didn’t say anything, and she let it go. It wasn’t their place to berate him for letting his son go out into the world unprepared.
‘Why us?’ She indicated herself and Palmer. ‘If you’ve been threatened, surely a man in your position should have first call on some big guns to camp out here. A unit of Redcaps at least. Failing that, there are plenty of professional companies.’
She glanced at Palmer, but he was staring at the ceiling.
‘You’re quite correct, Miss Gavin.’ Myburghe gave her a permafrost smile that indicated he was fed up with the questions and wanted to call his butler and have them ejected. Except that he was far too well mannered. ‘I could call on considerable assistance if I wanted to. I could have my home turned into a fortress and my life become a hermetically-sealed unit for the next six months.’
‘In the face of threats, it sounds good to me.’
‘Except that after a time, if there were no further threats to my life, family or well-being, I’d be on my own, or at the very most with a couple of inexperienced men posted in the kitchen and armed with radios. I still wouldn’t have my son back.’
‘Your butler looks very capable.’
‘Yes, he is. He’s been with me for many years. But he’s still just one man.’
Riley knew he was right. None but a select few at the top of the tree ever got the protection they wanted, and then not even one hundred percent. Everyone else was left out in the cold with a three-point plan security manual and a mirror on a pole for checking under their cars each morning.
‘The package,’ said Palmer. ‘Where is it?’
Sir Kenneth paled and took another slug of whisky. Palmer the Tactful strikes again, thought Riley. He’d done better than her in fewer words. But it was a question she’d been straining not to ask. Where does one keep a spare finger? she wondered. In the fridge alongside the butter?
‘They took it away,’ he said at last, his voice cracking slightly. It was the first real sign of tension to show beneath the professional veneer. ‘Keagan took it.’
‘Was it your son’s?’ This time it was Riley’s turn to lead the charge of the blunt brigade.
He nodded. ‘I believe so, yes.’
‘How can you be sure? The bomb was a hoax; this might be, too.’
Myburghe pushed back from the desk and opened a drawer. He withdrew a gold signet ring and a framed photograph. He stared at them both for a moment, before sliding them across the desk to Riley.
The ring, which Palmer had mentioned, was heavy and solid and showed an indistinct crest carved into the dull metal.
Myburghe grunted, ‘It was covered in dried blood when it arrived. I cleaned it off.’
Riley passed the ring to Palmer and turned to the photograph. The frame was embossed silver. It held a snapshot of a teenager emerging into young adulthood. He was sitting on an upturned log and smiling easily into the camera, confident and relaxed, the epitome of good breeding. He wore the inevitable uniform of jeans, sweatshirt and trainers, and was the image of his father without the weight of the years behind him. A good-looking boy, thought Riley. Everything in the world to live for. His hands were clasped between his knees.
‘You can’t see it there,’ Myburghe said stiffly. ‘But Christian has a very fine two-inch scar on his thumb. He got it skinning a rabbit when he was fourteen.’ He watched as Riley passed the photo to Palmer, who glanced at it before passing it back to Myburghe with the ring. The drawer closed on the two objects with a muffled finality.
‘The significance being?’ said Palmer.
‘Practically nobody outside the family knows about the scar. It’s almost invisible. Yet they described it in detail. And the ring bears our family crest. It was designed by my great-grandfather. There’s no mistake: it belongs to Christian.’
Riley and Palmer exchanged a look. Whoever was making the threats had first-hand knowledge of the boy’s physical details, right down to little-known scars. It was about as conclusive as one could get that the kidnappers weren’t bluffing.
�
�That leaves just one thing, then,’ Palmer said, with what almost amounted to cheerfulness. ‘What do they want?’
***********
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sir Kenneth’s eyebrows shot skyward and the silence seemed to reverberate around the room. ‘Want?’ He uttered the word as if he’d never heard it before.
‘It’s the usual thing, isn’t it, with death threats? Pay up or we kill your son. Send us a lot of money or next time it’ll be a real bomb. That sort of thing.’
Myburghe took another sip of his whisky. His movements were controlled, but in the way a bomb disposal expert might be controlled while sitting on a large amount of Semtex. He was white round the eyes with the effort, and Riley wasn’t sure if he was mad at Palmer for the question or at himself for being unable to respond.
‘There have been no demands,’ he said finally, placing the glass on the desk. ‘No requests, nothing. So far I’ve absolutely no idea why they’re doing these things. Or what they want.’
‘They?’ Riley asked.
He shrugged. ‘They. He. Whoever is behind this.’
‘What about the letters. What do they say?’
‘Very little. They’re crude, aggressive and to the point. My life is in danger and so forth. But no demands.’
‘Can we see them?’ Riley wasn’t sure what they could gain from them, but they might provide clues as to the type of people they were dealing with.
‘I’m sorry. They were destroyed.’ Sir Kenneth’s eyes flickered with what might have been embarrassment.
‘Destroyed?’ Riley didn’t need to look at Palmer to know that he was as surprised as she was. Whatever evidence there might have been was gone. ‘What did you do that for?’
‘We thought they were crank letters at first, and dismissed them. It’s not unknown for a person in my position to receive letters like that.’
‘Really?’ Palmer spoke quietly, his eyes firmly on Myburghe. ‘In spite of the chance that it might be serious?’ His tone was edged with scepticism, and Myburghe picked up on it, twin spots of red flushing his cheeks.
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