STANDPOINT a gripping thriller full of suspense

by DEREK THOMPSON

  * * *

  Two days to put together a plan; afterwards, there would be no going back. That was fine — it meant he had nothing to lose. He made straight for the Victoria line and waited on the platform, fantasising about earning a crust as a freelance photographer — every snapper’s fantasy. Maybe he and Miranda . . . The soundtrack in his head stopped abruptly. She’d probably never want to lay eyes on him again. Like he said . . . nothing to lose.

  He made it to the office just after nine. Hopefully, Christine would be in and he could set the record straight, come clean about Miranda and everything. There was even an outside chance that Christine could help him, somehow. Because, now that he thought about it, there was something he needed. First though, he had to fetch something from the car, something he’d bottled out of at Whitehall.

  Christine’s office light was a lone beacon. He glanced around at the empty desks, shrouded in shadow; he’d miss this place, even the crap coffee from the machine. He thrust his hand into his jacket pocket and opened the box one-handed, positioning the bug ready for attachment. Christine’s door was closed; he knocked, tentatively. But the voice that answered was Bob Peterson’s.

  Always have a Plan B, and preferably a Plan C as well. Karl called it The Dorman Rule, after a bloke he’d met in a pub once. Plan B was to proceed as planned. There was no Plan C, short of walking away.

  He opened the door with his left hand and tried to play nicely.

  “You’re the last person I expected to see, Thomas. What do you want?”

  Count to ten. This was too important to screw up for the sake of scoring a few points. “Bob, can I sit down, please? I need to discuss something.”

  Bob Peterson gestured to a chair opposite, ever the genial host. Thomas drew close and slipped out the bug under the table, leaning forward earnestly as he applied it to the underside of the desk.

  “Christine isn’t here!” Peterson sounded triumphant.

  “When’s she back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Look, it’s really important that I speak with her.”

  Peterson laced his fingers back behind his head and breathed in deeply. “Anything you’ve got to say, you can say it to me. I run this team, remember? Christine’s been temporarily transferred.”

  Thomas gave the bug one last touch for safety’s sake and brought his hands to his face, like a poor impression of The Scream. “Bob, I need your help . . .” Now he was totally winging it, leaping from word to word at twenty thousand feet. “They’ve got Miranda and they want the documents from Harwich.”

  Pure bloody guesswork, but Peterson twitched at the ‘H’ word. Shit or bust. “On the day you were there, Bob, the day I photographed you.” Now, just rest a minute and see what happens.

  Peterson’s face turned a sickly shade; he folded like a bad poker player. “If you’ve got something they want, just give it to them — for all our sakes.”

  “I need to know Miranda’s okay — can you get a message to her?” Subtext: are you involved, you bastard?

  Peterson wiped the sweat from his lips and stared at the desk; he looked like he wanted out, in a bad way. “Why did you have to get involved? I mean, you’re not with SIS or anything. You’re a bloody civilian!”

  “Hey, I was doing my job. And then you turn up at this office . . .” And pause again to let Peterson fill in the blanks.

  “I was sent here, Thomas,” Bob Peterson raised his hands like a beggar. “You think I wanted to be at Harwich, or here? I’ve a wife and family, for God’s sake — you’re not the only one with something to lose.”

  Thomas’s immediate reaction was ‘tell that to Christine.’ But he kept his mouth shut. Peterson was just a pawn in someone else’s game. “Do you know where Christine is?”

  He shook his head; he looked like he wanted to cry. “She took a call early this morning, at the flat. They came and collected her — she looked pleased . . .”

  Well at least they were past the pretence; he almost warmed to Peterson for that.

  “. . . In a people carrier. I was told not to contact her — executive orders, you know where from.”

  And he did know, now. All roads seemed to lead back to Whitehall.

  “Thomas, you can’t fight these people. Do what they want and maybe they’ll leave us all alone.”

  He considered that for maybe half a second. “Yeah, and maybe they won’t.” It was time. “There’s something else; I want you to sign out a vest for me.”

  Peterson’s eyes widened. “Body armour?” He gulped. “I can’t issue you with a weapon — there’s no way . . .”

  Thomas shook his head slowly, crediting him with enough intelligence to figure it out. “I only need the vest.”

  Peterson made the call and signed the chit for Stores. It was a shame that Bob’s voice was so off-key, for the recording. Still, Thomas could always edit it afterwards; he was good at that.

  “What . . . what are you going to do?” Peterson handed over the chit, like a signed confession.

  “I don’t know. It depends on Yorgi . . .”

  The face before him drained; it was like someone had slit Peterson’s throat. So, Bob was in deeper than he’d imagined. He knew that if he stayed any longer, he’d end up asking questions about Yorgi; things that would only weaken his resolve, the way that Petrov had crumbled every time his maniac brother had got in touch.

  “One more thing,” he stopped at the door. “If you can get a message to Miranda,” he paused, trying to think of something more meaningful than ‘I love her.’ “Her dog’s very ill; tell her that Butch will have to be put down.”

  Chapter 35

  “So,” Thomas said to himself in the car, “that went well, all things considered.” On the seat beside him was the latest, lightweight, standard-issue body armour. It had pinched a bit under the arm when he’d tried it on, but he could live with that. If things went badly — and he had a nasty feeling that things could get very bad indeed — it might make the difference between living and not living.

  All reason told him to go back to the flat and stay put, but he was past the point of reason. As the car escaped from the gridlock of Liverpool Street, instead of heading east for Walthamstow he turned north, ploughing through trendy Islington, dodging scooters and Smart cars, through to the Angel where he picked up the A1.

  One thing was nagging him, something Peterson had said about Christine. She’d looked pleased. Not coerced, not under duress: pleased. A pound to a penny then that she had to be involved. Stupid of him to have trusted her; she’d always been a career woman. Bob was probably just her stepping-shag to something better.

  He drove on to the Welcome Break and re-stocked the car with snacks and petrol. On the way out he powered up the mobile, ever the optimist. And on to Plan C. If Christine was involved, there was one person sure to know. A person so close to Christine that she even discussed her sex life with her. As he’d found out before, to his cost.

  * * *

  There are some journeys in life that a person never looks forward to — the dentist, funeral directors, and the STD clinic. Thomas had added Gerrard Hall a couple of years back, when he and Christine had been involved. In what her mother apparently still referred to as ‘the social experiment.’ Okay, so the imposing house wasn’t actually called Gerrard Hall — except by him — but it might as well have been. The class divide again, large as life.

  On the drive over, he worked through his pitch. Christine was missing and no one was talking. But if she’d gone willingly, surely she must have been expecting it? Another of Sir Peter Bastard’s little exercises, perhaps?

  The sign for the village of Ampthill triggered all kinds of memories. Meeting her parents for the first time; the great sweeping drive, Christine beside him — poised but nervous; the house staff looking at him with disdain, like she’d found Heathcliff in a ditch. He laughed at himself as he drove along, remembering his dire attempts at fitting in — the diamond-patterned sweater and the new j
acket: priceless. All he’d needed was a pair of plus-fours and a silk cravat.

  The sight of the gates sobered him. He pulled over and stared through the bars. The CCTV cameras were an innovation; they must really be serious about keeping the oiks out. This would not be easy; any inquiries would not be well received coming from him, oik that he was. He checked for voicemail and came back empty-handed.

  A Land Rover towing a horsebox passed him and the passenger swivelled round to get a good look. The sticker on the back said: ‘I slow down for horses.’ Big deal. ‘I give blood for horses,’ now that would be a sacrifice.

  He started up the car and fell in behind at a respectful distance. He breathed in the great expanse of greenery and tried to prepare himself for the inevitable welcoming committee. The horse saviours peeled right, towards the stables; he waved them off.

  The car made that wonderful sound on gravel, the one that reminded him of horse drawn carriages, and Pride and Prejudice. In the Gerrards’ case, class and prejudice. He couldn’t even cut Christine some slack on that score.

  One of the staff was on him before he’d opened the door. “Excuse me, sir, but this is a private residence — can I help you?”

  “I’m here to see Mrs Gerrard — Francesca.”

  The underling scuttled away. A curtain flickered ever so slightly behind one of the drawing-room windows. He waited outside and listened for whinnying from the stables. There was the faint whiff of horseshit, which he’d always found appropriate on those few occasions in the past when he’d been allowed to cross the threshold.

  The butler, or whatever he was, returned, his back bent forward slightly as if in permanent deference. Most likely his family had come over with the Gerrards when the Normans arrived on their expansion tour of Britain. “If you’d like to come this way, sir.” The last word sounded a little like cur.

  * * *

  Francesca Gerrard was waiting for him in the doorway. Everything about her was tailored; tailored skirt, tailored cardigan, tailored smile. A string of pearls circled her neck, knotted and extended to her waist like a pendulum. “It’s been a long time, Thomas.”

  It was a cool reception, bordering on frosty. Not like when she’d come on to him, that one time, when the champers had flowed on Christine’s birthday. A polite, but firm hand extended in his general vicinity. “Why don’t you come through?” she walked off, leaving him little choice other than to stand there, gathering dust. The manservant nodded to her and retreated to the shadows.

  The room that Thomas found his way to was like an American vision of liddle-biddy ol’ England. Mahogany furniture fought for floor space with oak and ash. Displayed in one corner of the room was a suit of armour. He wanted to go over and lift up the visor, do the classic joke: anything to calm his nerves. She seemed in no rush to hear what he had to say; which made him even more nervous.

  A servant arrived, with an extra cup, placed it on the tray and glided out.

  “Please make yourself comfortable.”

  As if that would ever be possible here. He caught the look on his face in a mirror, and blushed. He was behaving like a lout and with no good reason. He was, in truth, a snob. Christine had seen that from the off. Maybe that had been part of the attraction.

  “I take it you’re here on business?”

  “Ah, yes. Mrs Gerrard — Francesca, I really need to see Christine.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

  He squinted: interesting choice of words. “Is she here?” he glanced in the direction of the stables.

  She looked worried for a moment then recovered her stone façade. “Christine is very discreet about her career, but one gets a sense of these things.”

  He sipped his Earl Grey and tried to keep a lid on his temper. “Do you know where Christine is? I have to talk to her.” The words came out like a threat.

  “After the damage you’ve done, I hardly think she’ll want to speak with you.” Francesca snorted, like one of her precious horses.

  He tried her words on for size. What damage had he done? “Look, Francesca, I don’t have time for this.”

  He launched out of the chair, and through the open French doors, round to the courtyard at the side of the house. All the while, yelling for Christine. One of the stablehands rushed up to see what the commotion was.

  “It’s alright, Stewart,” Mrs Gerrard appeared by the arch.

  The stablehand took a long hard look at Thomas, who shook his head slowly and flexed a fist. Today, he was not in the mood.

  Horse-boy retreated and Francesca sauntered towards him. “Christine isn’t here; satisfied? She’s working on something clandestine,” she paused, “but you of all people should know that.” Her hand lifted to catch her jaw.

  He couldn’t help yielding a tiny smile at her discomfort.

  “What’s going on, Thomas?”

  His mobile rang and they both jumped. “Thomas, it’s Ann Crossley. Karl asked me to look out for you. You need to get out of there now.”

  He left Francesca standing and sprinted around the side of the house, back to the car. The manservant was bending down close to one of the tyres. “Touch it and I’ll break your face!” he hollered, rising a fist to show he wasn’t pissing about.

  It bought him the precious seconds he needed, better for everyone. Given the choice he would have run him over, no question about it. The car roared into life and wheel-span, showering the hapless butler with gravel.

  He saw the blue sedan approaching at speed; it wasn’t budging for anyone. At the last moment he swerved wide, churning up the carefully tended lawn like a protest vote. He heard the car screech to a stop behind him, but he’d already veered around it, gunning towards the open gates to rejoin the road, his heart thumping in his chest like war-drums.

  * * *

  Thomas opened the driver’s window; he needed some air. What the hell was going on? Nothing made any sense. If this was Sir Peter’s people, they’d already know he’d agreed to get the DSB so why the intercept? If it was Yorgi — he took a deep breath — how would he know where Thomas was? Maybe Francesca Gerrard had arranged some secret signal to bring in the heavy mob? He tried to stick to facts. How many had he seen in the car? Two, he thought. But you don’t stop to do a headcount when someone’s trying to run you off the road.

  Back on the A1, with no sign of the blue sedan following him, he turned his deductive powers to the phone call. Karl had said he was on better terms with Ann Crossley so that made sense, sort of. And Karl might have told her about the legit tracker on the car, same as Teresa. So why were all his allies keeping their distance?

  When he got back to the flat, there was a message waiting on the machine, blinking insistently. The voice was measured, under control. “It’s John; ring me with an update.” He cleared it off, poured himself a Southern Comfort and stood for a while, gazing at Miranda’s photograph. “I won’t let you down,” he whispered.

  It was early in the day for a drink, but he figured he’d earned it. The need to ring John back pressed hard upon his temples, but the sweet, sharp taste on his lips won on points. He moved the chair round to face the door; too much thinking — that was the problem.

  And what about Teresa? If Karl was an enigma, then Teresa was a sphinx under witness protection. Maybe that was the draw for Karl — a mystery deeper than himself.

  He dug out a notepad and pen and wrote down all the names, hoping it would help: Karl, Teresa, Ann Crossley, Sir Peter Carroll, Bob ‘scumbag’ Peterson and Christine Gerrard. Then he scrawled lines between them, linking some and excluding others. He stared at the page until his eyes ached, as if he could solve it like a logic puzzle. But all he noticed was that he’d extended the double ‘r’ in Gerrard, making them look like a pair of legs. His arm throbbed and his head hurt, and he was all out of ideas.

  Chapter 36

  Eighteen . . . nineteen . . . twenty . . . done. Miranda eased back on the exercise bike and glanced over at the wall-length mirror; a good w
orkout. The sweat dripped from her headband and had stained her top like heavy raindrops. She was alone, save for ‘Pumping Classics 3 — music to shape and tone to.’ They left her alone in the exercise room because there were no windows, hence no way out. At this rate she’d be super-fit again; she visited three or four times a day, for short bursts, just for something to do.

  She’d surprised herself by how quickly she’d adjusted to the regime; and maybe disappointed herself too. Three days? Four days? It all blended into one. Everywhere she went was supervised, except the bathroom, the bedroom and the gym. Though no doubt someone was always close by. This was like the worst health club in the world; talk about killing with kindness. No one had threatened or mistreated her; they just kept her under watch and interspersed the boredom with twenty questions; the same twenty questions.

  Mainly they asked about Thomas; otherwise it was the Irish bloke, national security and random stuff that made no sense whatsoever. And always there was the suggestion that Thomas was in real danger and that her information could be vital. No one seemed to know how long she would be there, or the specifics of why Thomas was in trouble. Or else they weren’t saying.

  And what did she know? Well, there was one tarmac lane to the front of the house and high fencing around the estate. A walled garden extended to the back of the house with a single arch at the far end and some trees beyond it. Not that she’d ever got close. Whenever she was outdoors, someone always stood back there, supposedly to check it was safe for her. At first, the mixture of bullshit and bureaucracy had been amusing — for a day or so. The thick glass on the sealed bedroom windows was the first wake-up call.

  The exercise bike bleeped as the last of the dials powered down, so she relaxed her grip. Alice Eyeball had promised to try and find out more about Thomas today, but that was hours ago. Face it, Miranda, she told herself, until they find whatever they’re looking for, you’re stuck here.