He would never have given up peacefully, though. He’d have fought to the end, and more people might have been hurt, even killed, in trying to arrest him.
‘But that’s not the reason I’m calling,’ Wetherby was saying, jolting Liz out of these post-mortem thoughts.
‘Oh,’ she said cautiously, wondering what was up.
‘DG wants you to call in at Thames House before you go back to Belfast. He wants a full report on everything that’s happened.’
‘OK,’ she said, slightly puzzled. She’d expected to report back to Binding in Belfast.
Liz glanced at Seurat, and found his dark eyes watching her intently, appraisingly. She found herself starting to blush like a schoolgirl. How ridiculous, she thought furiously, which only made her blush more. ‘Am I needed immediately?’ she managed to say.
‘Are there things you have to do there?’ Wetherby paused. He sounded nervous, thought Liz. What about?
‘Because it would be very nice to see you over the weekend,’ he said suddenly. ‘I was thinking we could have lunch. Or dinner. You could come out to the house perhaps.’
Liz didn’t know what to say. What has happened to the everhelpful Alison? she wanted to ask. Another part of her was simply astonished. Pleased? Yes, of course: how could she not be, when for years she had hoped for just what she was getting now – a signal that he cared for her and was at last willing to show it.
But she didn’t feel as excited as she should have done. And that surprised her. She felt oddly detached. How strange, since here she was, hearing what she had wanted to hear for so long. Yet now it almost seemed unreal. Or, if not that, at least something removed from the present, something that belonged to the past. To the days before Gonzales had pointed a gun at her and she had known with certainty that she was about to die.
Was that what was making her feel so ambivalent, as Charles waited on the line for her reply? Perhaps, though, it was also a strong sense that she had to get on with life now, that there was no point in retreating yet again into the patchwork of code that had characterised her relationship with Charles for so long.
She looked up at Martin and smiled, then said to Charles, not unkindly, but in a voice that was entirely certain, ‘Actually Charles, I was thinking of staying on here for a few days. Spring is just about to start in the south.’
Present Danger Page 28
