by Dan Latus
I could have bought Martha a ticket to London, and got rid of her. Once there, she would soon have been able to re-orient herself and get back to what she did best. Possibly. That is, if someone didn’t shoot her on the street where she lived first. Bobrik had proved he had a long reach, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he knew all about Martha.
This way, I could keep an eye on her for a time, and keep her out of harm’s way. Most of all, though, we had a lot in common now, namely last night’s shared experience. It didn’t feel right just to walk away from each other. Besides, she had information I needed. I wanted to talk to Leon, but I didn’t know how to do that. I was hoping, and assuming, Martha did.
So we picked up my car, an old Volvo I had acquired on a recent job, and I gritted my teeth and used a card to pay the exorbitant exit fee from the car park.
‘Nearly as much as the car is worth,’ Martha commented. ‘Sorry!’ she added hurriedly. ‘No insult intended.’
‘It’s OK. I’m not sensitive. This is the best vehicle I’ve had for a long time. Until I got it, my only transport was an old Land Rover I seem to have been restoring most of my life.’
‘Land Rovers are good. Get a new one.’
‘Yeah. When my boat comes in.’
Get a new one? The exchange left me thinking I might have done just that if the job at The Chesters had worked out. Fat chance now.
‘What do you normally do for a living, Frank?’ Martha asked, as if she was wondering why I hadn’t already taken her advice.
‘This and that. Investigations, security.’
‘Independent? Self-employed?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Then Leon came into your life,’ she said softly.
‘Very well put!’
I had to laugh at that. At the same time, I wondered if something similar had happened to her.
Once we got round the Western Bypass I left the A1 and, just south of the Nissan factory at Washington, headed across to the A19. We didn’t have much to say for the next half hour, but it was a companionable silence. As we came to the edge of the Durham plateau, and Teesside with the backdrop of the Cleveland Hills came into view, I broached a topic that had been on my mind for a while.
‘I should tell you I’m not planning on visiting Leon’s IT centre, by the way. Whatever happened there last night, there’ll be a lot of people investigating on site by now. We have nothing to add. So we’re better off keeping out of it.’
‘OK.’
I was a little surprised she didn’t argue, but she must have seen the sense of what I was saying. A small problem, and the local staff would have sorted it. A major problem, and the place would be crawling with police, and with fire and rescue personnel. Perhaps anti-terrorist teams, as well. We could have added little, if anything, even if we hadn’t both been shattered by the night’s ordeal.
‘This it?’ Martha asked a half hour later, as I pulled off the road and onto the track that led the short distance to Risky Point.
‘It is, yes. This is home.’
I stopped and we piled out of the car. It was an icy morning down there. Different weather to what we’d had in Northumberland. Ice on the track, and a sugar coating of frost across the grass sward and the roofs of my cottage and Jimmy Mack’s. I could hear the sea quietly murmuring at the foot of the cliffs. Normality, it felt like. Heaven.
‘How wonderful!’ Martha said quietly, under her breath.
I smiled, pleased, and led the way indoors.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
‘I SUGGEST A HOT bath,’ I said, ‘while I look around for something for you to wear while your stuff is in the washer. Then I’ll show you around.’
‘That’s very kind of you, Frank.’
‘My middle name, kindness,’ I said. ‘Be off with you!’
I showed her to the spare bedroom and the bathroom, gave her a robe and let her get on with it. To avoid falling asleep on my feet, I got the wood-burning stove going. Then I hunted for something for her to wear. There wasn’t much I could offer. Tracksuit bottoms, tee-shirt and sweater was about the best I could come up with. And thick woolly boot socks. At least everything was clean.
I dumped the clothes outside the bathroom door. After that, I made myself a coffee, watched the stove heat up and thought about how good it was to be home. Then I tried to do some contingency planning.
It was hard to know where to start. I concentrated on not thinking about what had happened at The Chesters. The need now was to work out what happened next, rather than to dwell on how Bobrik had managed to generate so much carnage.
I thought we ought to be safe enough here, at Risky Point. For a while, at least. Until somebody worked out who I was, and where I lived. We had to make progress before that happened.
‘Thank you!’ Martha called down the stairs as she collected the clothing I’d put out for her.
‘There’s not much in your size, unfortunately.’
‘These things are perfect until my clothes are washed and dried.’
When she came downstairs I showed her where the washer was and left her to get on with it. She didn’t need me to load it for her.
‘Go and have a bath or a shower yourself,’ she said. ‘I can manage now.’
‘Sure?’
‘Sure.’
So I did.
By the time I was done, Martha had scrambled together a meal for us from what she had found in the fridge, cupboards and freezer. I gazed at the table with astonishment. I hadn’t realized there was so much food in the house.
‘Hot soup first?’ she suggested.
‘Wonderful!’
‘Then pasta, with salami and a bunch of vegetables I grilled. And baguettes from your freezer.’
‘Amazing! I’m beginning to see you in a new light.’
She put out her tongue and grinned. Enough said. But I couldn’t believe it was the same woman.
We were both hungry, and got stuck into the meal. Afterwards, I made coffee for us both.
‘What now?’ I asked, as we sat either side of the stove with steaming mugs.
She sighed and said, ‘I’ve been thinking about that. We need to contact Leon asap.’
‘I agree. Can you do that? Do you know where he is even?’
‘He’s in Switzerland, with his family.’
‘His sisters, you mean?’
She shook her head. ‘With his wife and two children.’
I probably looked surprised, but I was actually quite shocked.
‘What?’ she said. ‘You didn’t know Leon has a family?’
I shook my head. ‘He never mentioned them – only his sisters.’
‘Well, he does like to keep his private life private.’
It made sense, I supposed. He would hope to keep them out of the battle. Good luck with that! I doubted Bobrik would either be ignorant of the arrangement or feel inhibited.
‘You said Olga was there, as well?’
‘Yes. She went because things were becoming difficult at the IT centre even before whatever happened last night.’
‘In what way?’
‘The computers there were being hacked, slowing down a lot of processing. When that happens, which it does from time to time, Olga can keep things going from their place in Switzerland.’
‘Nice.’
I was thinking how extraordinary the Podolsky empire was. Leon hadn’t been kidding when he told me it was global.
‘So contact him?’ I suggested.
She nodded. ‘Let me finish my coffee first.’
Cool, calm and collected again, Miss Big-time Project Manager, or whatever she was. But I was glad she was here. There was a lot to do, and I couldn’t do it all myself.
Martha used my computer to make first contact, one of Leon’s email addresses being in her memory. A short time later his reply gave her a phone number to call. She did that, and launched into a version of what had happened at The Chesters. It wasn’t the full version. That would have taken far too lon
g. But she told him the gist of it. Then he wanted to talk to me.
‘Where were you, Frank, when all this was happening?’
It was a terse, potentially judgemental question. Leon was not happy with his security adviser.
‘Not at The Chesters, Leon. I had already resigned, and was off site, well away.’
‘Martha fired you, I understand?’
‘It was heading that way. I jumped before I could be pushed.’
‘I told her to reinstate you.’
‘Yeah, well. That hadn’t happened. By the time she reached me, it was too late for us to do anything but get the hell out. We were lucky, Leon. You may not think so, but we were. Others were not.’
‘So I understand. You did well. I would hate to have lost Martha as well as the others.’
I inferred that losing me would have been acceptable, but perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps indignation had got the better of me.
After a lengthy pause, he said, ‘The IT centre got hit by hackers, as well. Pretty well wiped out for the moment.’
‘Bad as that, eh?’ I grimaced. ‘This has to stop, Leon. You – we – can’t go on like this. None of us can. We’ve got to find a way out.’
‘Let me think about it.’
He hung up. That was it.
I looked at Martha and grimaced. ‘I don’t think he’s very pleased – with either of us, or with what’s happened.’
‘What did he say when you told him it has to stop?’
‘He said he wanted to think about it. Then he hung up on me.’
She nodded. She seemed to understand that. So could I, in a sense.
‘I suppose, if there were easy answers….’ I mused.
‘That’s right.’
If there were, they certainly hadn’t been found so far.
‘I’m going to sleep on it,’ I said. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’ve had it. I’m bushed.’
‘Me, too,’ Martha admitted.
So we called it a day. I went to bed, too tired even to speculate about what tomorrow might bring.
Chapter Thirty
SOMEHOW, OVERNIGHT, MARTHA ENDED up in my bed. I jumped when
I felt a foreign body slide in next to me.
‘Cold,’ she murmured, ‘and can’t sleep.’
‘Not scared, though?’
‘Not much, no.’
‘That’s all right, then.’
But it wasn’t. Not really. One thing led to another, when what I really needed was a good night’s sleep. But we did get to sleep eventually.
Next morning we were up by 8.30, which was a surprise, given recent events. Before nine, while we were still finishing breakfast, there was a knock on the door.
‘Who’s that?’ Martha demanded, jumping to her feet, alarmed.
‘It’ll be Jimmy Mack, my neighbour.’
She nodded but remained tense while I went to the door.
‘I saw you were back,’ Jimmy boomed heartily.
‘Morning, Jim! Yeah. Got back last night.’
‘Everything all right? Good holiday?’
Where to start? I took the simple approach.
‘Yes, thanks.’
‘I thought you said you would only be away a couple of days?’
‘Well….’
He laughed. ‘No need to explain! I know you’ve got company. I’ll call again later.’
‘OK, Jim. See you later.’
I returned to the kitchen.
‘He knows?’ Martha said.
‘Knows what? He knows nothing.’
‘It didn’t sound like that. Anyway, who is he?’
‘He’s an old fisherman. Lives in that cottage next door. He’s my neighbour, like I said – my only neighbour, here in Risky Point.’
I could see she was still worried Jimmy might be one of Bobrik’s agents. So I told her about him.
‘Jimmy’s lived here all his life, as did his father and grandfather before him. And, no, he’s never been anywhere near Russia!’
She grinned at last. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I get the point.’
‘Good. Now, what are we going to do today? Wait for Leon to call back? Or are you going to call him again?’
‘First,’ she said, ‘I’m going to see if my clothes have dried. If they have, I’ll get changed. After that, we can talk some more – if that’s all right with you?’
‘Martha, anything’s all right with me where you’re concerned.’
‘Now?’ she asked, head on one side cheekily.
‘Especially now.’
We laughed at each other. Then she got up, gave me a quick kiss and went looking for dry clothes that actually fit her.
While Martha was getting dressed, I switched on the desktop computer and took a look at the BBC news page. There was nothing on the national page about a fire in Northumberland, which wasn’t really surprising. The Chesters was about as far off the beaten track as it’s possible to get in England.
I couldn’t find very much on the local page for the North East, either. Just a one-liner about a fire at an historic house in Northumberland. An investigation into the cause was expected to start today, with suspicion resting on leaking gas bottles used by builders who were working on the site.
‘No mention of dead bodies?’ Martha said over my shoulder.
I shook my head. ‘The investigation won’t find any, either. It was a pretty intense fire.’
‘Of course they’ll find … Oh! Perhaps not?’
I shook my head. ‘Tidier to keep it as an investigation of a fire. A murder investigation might throw up all sorts of problems, and involve the Met, MI5 and God knows who else.’
Martha grimaced. She was out of her depth now things had turned nasty. Being a high-flying project manager was one thing; what had happened at The Chesters was something else altogether.
I turned, studied her and said, ‘You know, I think I prefer you in one of my tee-shirts.’
‘With or without tracksuit bottoms?’ she asked coquettishly.
I grinned. That was better. We couldn’t afford to wallow in the trough of despond.
‘So, what now?’ I asked. ‘Keep our heads down, and wait to hear from Leon?’
‘Not much else we can do, is there?’
‘Probably not, no.’
My mind flew back to The Chesters. The builder would talk to the police, and anybody else interested, about the work he had been going to do. He would deny all responsibility for the fire, of course. Not his gas bottles. No way!
Investigating that would take time.
Meanwhile, concern would grow about the people who had been living, or staying, at the property. Investigating that would take time, too. Then there would be time spent trying to identify and locate the owner. All that could rumble on while we waited to hear from Leon how he wanted to play it.
We could, of course, contact the police right now and tell them what had happened the previous night, but that wasn’t a very attractive option. Arson, Russian gang warfare, murder, and foreign excursions would then be right up there centre stage. The police would have a five year investigation on their hands, at least, and anyone involved – including me – would be dangerously exposed while that went on. Either that or we would all be locked up.
Besides, the legal process would inevitably falter once the core problem was eventually found to be well outside British jurisdiction. My feeling was that it would be in everyone’s better interests to try to bring this story to a close pragmatically and quickly, rather than legally. Enough people had been killed. It was time to draw a line.
I didn’t expect everyone to share my point of view, but it was one I was determined to put to Leon.
While we waited to hear from Leon, I took Martha down the rough track that leads to the little beach at the foot of the cliffs. It was slippery and hard going, but she managed. She even enjoyed the outing.
‘It’s beautiful here,’ she said, as we stood at the water’s edge. ‘Cold, but lovely.’
&nbs
p; I could only agree.
On the way back up the cliff, I became aware of engine noise in the sky. I glanced seawards and saw a helicopter a mile or two out from the shore.
‘Air-sea rescue?’ Martha asked, seeing what I was looking at.
‘Maybe. A training flight, perhaps.’
The chopper was heading towards us, and soon I could see it wasn’t yellow, the colour of the RAF’s Air-Sea Rescue craft. It didn’t look like a regular RAF chopper, either. Then I recalled that the maritime rescue service had recently been privatized. I had no idea of the colour preferred by the company that had picked up the contract.
My thinking changed again when we reached the top of the cliff and stepped out on to level ground. By then, the chopper was circling overhead, as if it was searching for something close to where we were standing.
‘What are they doing?’ Martha asked.
Jimmy Mack had come out of his cottage, and he, too, seemed to be asking that question as he looked towards me and shouted something.
‘Landing,’ I said with astonishment. ‘He’s coming down right here!’
Chapter Thirty-One
PERHAPS I SHOULDN’T HAVE been astonished, but I was – even more so when I saw Leon climb out of the chopper, duck his head and begin to jog towards us.
He grinned when he reached us. ‘A cup of hot coffee would be good,’ he said, being his usual irrepressible self. ‘How are you both?’
‘Better today, thank you, Leon,’ I said, shaking his hand. ‘Coffee? I’m sure we can manage that.’
He kissed Martha and gave her a hug. She seemed pleased to see him, but perhaps was not as surprised as I was by his arrival.
‘So this is where you live, Frank?’ Leon wheeled round to admire the view. ‘It’s certainly different.’
To what? I wondered.
‘Come on!’ I said. ‘Let’s see about that coffee.’
By then, the pilot had switched off the engine and the noise level had abated. I gave Jimmy Mack a wave to reassure him that all was well. He just shook his head.
‘So where the hell have you come from?’ I asked Leon, once we were sitting around the kitchen table.
