by Eva Hudson
“So, this is where my stuff is.”
Ingrid turned with alarm to see the disheveled figure of James McAvenny in the doorway. She smiled at him. “Just the man I’ve been looking for.”
35
Ingrid grabbed one of the glass walled meeting rooms alongside the bullpen. She ushered in McAvenny and made him an offer. He could print whatever he liked, but not until she said so. No copy approval, no oversight. He would get his career-redeeming scoop, but in return he would let the bureau utilize Cole’s cache. McAvenny also agreed—rather enthusiastically—to contact Burridge on her behalf. The speed with which Burridge had driven away from Century Mills led Ingrid to believe he’d be on his guard for anyone who looked like secret intelligence or law enforcement. An approach from a crumpled, unshaven Australian, on the other hand, had a much higher likelihood of success. “Hell yeah,” were his exact words. “Editors go ga-ga for that first-person shit.”
Jackson Brady knocked on the glass door and opened it. Ingrid introduced the two men.
“Hi.”
“G’day.”
Brady dropped a notebook and a sheaf of printed paper onto the table.
“All right,” Ingrid said. “What have you got?”
“Okay.” Brady sat down. “Wayne John Burridge. Forty-four years old. No criminal record. Works as a locksmith. Self-employed. Banking records haven’t come through yet. Been living at 396c Uxbridge Road for seventeen months. Spoke to the letting agent, told her I was getting a reference for an employer. She told me he pays £1,350 a month in rent and has never been late. No complaints from the landlord. The other name on the tenancy is Sonia Hardcastle.” He ran a pen over his notes. “What else have I got for you? Here you go. Born in Hampshire.” Brady looked up. “No, I don’t know where that is either, in 1973. He’s not super active on social media, but Sonia is. Into the environment. Lots of placards and protests. She’s got an eight-year-old called Bay. Not sure if that’s a boy or a girl.”
“Probably non-bloody-binary,” McAvenny said. “It’s all the rage.”
Brady’s eyes popped briefly, then continued. “Couldn’t find any links to Russia, or the police.”
“Russia?” McAvenny said. “This is going to be juicy.”
Brady looked apologetic. “That’s all, folks.”
“You got contact details for Burridge?”
“Oh, yes, yes I do.” He tore off a corner of his notepad. “That’s the details of his business.”
Ingrid glanced down at it. “Thanks. Don’t suppose you live in west London, do you?”
Brady’s mouth pursed. “Um, no. Camberwell Green.”
Ingrid pushed her chair back, opened the meeting room door and, for the second time in an hour, shouted at the bullpen. “Can I have everyone’s attention please?”
The chatter lessened. The typing slowed.
“Sorry. If I could have everyone’s attention, please.”
People stopped their work and looked at her in puzzlement.
“Thank you. Anyone here live in west London?”
“Which bit of west London?” someone asked.
Ingrid wasn’t going to be fussy. “Shepherd’s Bush ideally, but anywhere west of Hyde Park, and not as far out as…” She struggled to think of somewhere. “Richmond.”
“I’m in Hammersmith.”
“Who said that?”
One of the admin assistants assigned to the CI team stood up. “Me. Hi.”
Ingrid strode purposefully toward her. “Don’t suppose I could borrow your apartment for a couple of hours, could I?”
Ingrid sat in the smallest bedroom of Berta Hoffman’s very nice Hammersmith apartment with the drapes drawn, while James McAvenny paced outside the front door. The modern building had twelve apartments, four on each level, accessed via external walkways overlooking a parking lot. It looked uninviting from the rear, but the front of the building faced the Thames at a very leafy curve in the river. Ingrid pictured Berta and—she presumed—a husband sitting on their terrace with a French press and pastries, reading the weekend papers as a family of swans sailed past. Ingrid must have run in front of the apartment a hundred times on the riverside path.
McAvenny had called the locksmith saying he’d just returned from a long flight and discovered he had lost his keys. He certainly looked the part. Burridge hadn’t wanted the gig, but the Australian had laid it on thick. He’d tried everyone else. He’d been up for forty-eight hours. He’d pay double. He’d leave a review on Google. It worked. Burridge was due any minute.
Using a civilian was definitely unethical, so Ingrid had taken a couple of precautions. Sam Sherbourne was parked right outside, and she had brought a Taser in case Burridge turned violent. McAvenny’s instructions were to leave the moment Burridge got the door open.
The bedroom was next to the front door. Ingrid sat on the floor beneath the closed window—the room was stifling—to eavesdrop on McAvenny’s interview technique.
“Mate, am I glad to see you,” he said, perhaps a little too loud.
“You James, yeah?” London accent.
“Yep.”
“Got here as soon as I could. Right, okay. One Chubb, one Yale. You definitely locked both?”
“You know what, mate. It might only be the top one. I know I should always lock both, but I often forget.”
“What, while you’ve been in Oz? You must have locked both. It might be on the river, but this is still Hammersmith.”
“True. But this building has so many cameras, I always feel safe.” McAvenny’s Irish ancestry had endowed him with the power of Blarney.
Ingrid felt a vibration through the wall as someone pushed against the door.
“You might be right.” Burridge’s voice. “There’s a bit of movement there.”
Ingrid had deliberately only used the latch lock, what Burridge was calling the Yale, so as not to cause any unnecessary damage to Berta’s doorframe. Or, more accurately, her landlord’s doorframe. Ingrid had been on enough raids in her career to know that jimmying a latch lock took all of two seconds and a very simple tool. She wondered if Burridge would say as much, or if he would draw it out and charge more.
“You don’t have much stuff,” Burridge said. Ingrid heard him rummaging inside his tool bag.
“Bloody Qantas. My bag is apparently still in Singapore. Part of the reason I really need to get inside. I don’t even have a change of underpants.”
Burridge snorted something indeterminate.
“I suppose I could buy a heap of stuff. But that just seems wrong. Save the planet and all that.” McAvenny could definitely keep a conversation going. “I mean, it’s bad enough flying half way round the world.”
Burridge grunted. “You one of them, then, are you? Bit of a tree hugger?”
“I hug every tree I meet.”
“My missus is like that. Waste of time if you ask me.”
“So, can you get me in?” McAvenny asked.
“Course I can. Stand back.”
Ingrid heard Burridge get to work, both through the window and via the hallway. A scraping sound, a clunk, and then a rush of air as the door opened.
“There you go.”
“Wow, and you charge seventy pounds for that?”
“You said you’d pay double.”
“I did, didn’t I? After you. I’ve got cash somewhere in the kitchen,” McAvenny said.
Ingrid heard footsteps in the hallway and then the sound of the door closing.
“Hey,” Burridge said.
“Hey.”
He turned and saw Ingrid. His eyes bulged.
“Recognize me?”
Burridge glanced over his shoulder at the closed door.
“Don’t try it,” Ingrid said. “I’ve got a team on the other side of that door, and if you want to run the other way, it’s forty feet down into the river.”
He dropped his tool bag. It landed with a bone-shaking clatter. He stood legs hip-width apart, arms slightly away from his torso.
A defiant stance. He was five-eight, lithe, and angry. He had a rockabilly haircut and the turn-ups of his jeans revealed boxer boots with red laces. Tribal tattoos stretched down his toned biceps from under a red tee. A figure moved in the frosted glass behind him. Sherbourne.
“Why were you at Century Mills yesterday?” Ingrid asked.
He looked puzzled.
“It was only yesterday. Surely you remember?”
“I’d have thought an FBI agent would have figured that out already. Supposed to be the world’s finest, aren’t you?”
“It’s a straightforward question,” Ingrid said.
“And I don’t have to answer it, do I?”
“One of my colleagues was killed and you’re my number one suspect. You might find life gets a little tricky if you don’t cooperate.” The heat inside the apartment—the windows had been closed to create the illusion McAvenny had been away—was intense. Ingrid was desperate for a gasp of fresh air. Her wet palm slipped over the Taser in her right hand.
“Interesting, though. The Met obviously don’t think I did it, otherwise they’d be here. Wouldn’t they?”
Ingrid took a different tack. “When I saw you in West Park, you had a photo of me in your car.”
He stuck out his bottom lip. “And?”
“How did you get hold of it?”
His eyes lit up. “Ooh. Interesting. I see where you’re going with this.” He bit the inside of his lip and looked at the taser. “A friend gave it to me.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?”
“I think someone wants me dead. Or silenced.”
He put a hand in his pocket.
“Keep your hands where I can see them.” Ingrid gestured the Taser in his direction.
“All right, love.” He returned to his gorilla stance. “Jesus, I’m not a bleeding hitman.”
“Then why did someone give you my photo?”
“I guess they must be interested in you.” He smirked. “Not romantically, obviously.”
“And why would they be interested in me?”
He jutted out a hip and adjusted his feet. “Listen, love, you don’t mind if I call you love, do you?”
He knew damn well that she did.
“You’ve got no powers of arrest here. You use that Taser on me and you’ve got yourself an assault charge and a diplomatic incident. I don’t have to tell you anything any more than I have to tell the woman at the bus stop. But,” he balled his fists, “I’ll throw you this tasty morsel. West Park, the Serpentine, Century Mills, what do those three places have in common?”
“You tell me.”
“You, you dozy mare.”
Ingrid was thrown. “Not DeWalt?”
“De what?”
“Jacob DeWalt.”
“I don’t know who the hell you’re talking about.”
She believed him. “The man who died yesterday.”
“That’s got fuck all to do with me.”
“Then why drive off? If you were there for me, why leave?”
He almost smiled. “You know who turns up when someone dies? The old bill. If it’s all right with you, I’d prefer to stay out of their way.” He grimaced. “I think I’ve said enough. We both know you’re not going to use your little toy there, so I’m going to turn around and walk out that door, and you and your brethren are going to let me.”
His self-assurance was unnerving.
“You’ll be tailed.”
“Not for long.” He turned slowly and opened the door.
Sherbourne, almost silhouetted against the bright sunshine, looked to Ingrid for instructions. “Follow him,” she said.
He nodded and turned. Ingrid closed the door and walked down the corridor toward the living room with its views over the river. She opened the sliding doors and gulped down the fresh air on the balcony. Cocky bastard. She stared into the middle distance, largely unaware of the rowing race taking place in front of her, and exhaled hard, forcing all the air from her lungs. Her head swayed from side to side.
She didn’t want to believe him, but she did. And if he hadn’t known about DeWalt, then he definitely hadn’t killed him. And the very fact that she was still alive was evidence he hadn’t intended to kill her either. So, why the hell was he following her? And on whose orders?
There was a knock at the door. “Govno.” Ingrid kicked the balcony wall petulantly, knowing who it was. She closed the door, padded down the hallway, but stopped half way. Burridge had said something, hadn’t he? West Park, the Serpentine and Century Mills. Ingrid hadn’t seen him at the Serpentine. A shiver ran up her spine as she opened the door.
“You going to tell me what the hell that was about?” McAvenny asked.
Ingrid fished Berta’s keys out of her pocket, stepped outside and locked both locks. “No, no I’m not. But you’ll get your story.” She looked over at the parking lot where Sherbourne’s BMW was following Burridge’s work van out on to the street. “The deal is, you get to observe, you can print what you like, but you can’t print until I tell you.”
“Yes boss.”
Ingrid’s phone vibrated in her pocket. An embassy number. “Skyberg.”
“Hi, um, Ingrid. This is Jackson. Jackson Brady. With the counter-intelligence team.”
“I know who you are, Jackson.” She gestured to McAvenny to take the stairs ahead of her. “What have you got for me?”
“I just, er, I thought you’d like to know. One of my searches on Wayne Burridge just came back with something… interesting.”
Ingrid didn’t like the sound of interesting. “Go on.”
“So, I searched for all the records with the registrar. You remember, he was born in some place called Hampshire in 1973.”
“Sure.”
“Well, he also died there. I’m looking at the death certificate of Wayne John Burridge. August second, 1982.”
Ingrid came to a halt. She turned and got a glimpse of Burridge’s van as it disappeared down the road. “Say that again.”
“He died. Aged nine.”
Then who the hell had she just been talking to?
36
Ingrid handed the keys back to Berta who looked up from her screen. “Nice apartment,” she said.
“We’re enjoying it while we still can.”
“You leaving?”
“Reluctantly. Our landlord has given us notice. He’s decided to sell up.” She performed a one shoulder shrug. “We’d buy it if we could, but we just can’t afford it.”
“London property prices are crazy, that’s for sure.” Ingrid wondered how much the landlord would want for it. “Good news, no damage done, and everything’s locked up.”
“Thank you,” Berta said.
“No, thank you. It was a big help.”
Ingrid dodged her way between the bullpen desks and emerged at the other end where her office was. Penny was still at Libby’s desk. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Penny said. “Get what you need?”
“Hmm. Not sure.” Ingrid sat down so heavily that her chair rolled backward.
“Have you mislaid your journalist friend?”
“No, he’s in the process of moving hotels. Figured the least the FBI could do was to pay for his accommodation.” McAvenny had been keen not to spend all the budget Saskia Cole’s father had given him. “I don’t suppose we’ll see him again today. Were you able to scan everything?”
“Yes. It’s all on the system.”
“Is it searchable?”
“Should be.”
Ingrid logged on and saw she had two hundred and eleven unanswered emails. She couldn’t ignore them all.
“I’ve also got messages for you,” Penny said.
Ingrid didn’t want to know the answer, but she asked anyway. “How many?”
“Sixteen. You get a lot of calls, don’t you?”
“More than I did when I worked in Marshall’s office.”
Penny’s face crumpled slightly at the mention of Marshall.
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“Either I’ve been really off my game for the past month, or the work has just been manic. Feels like every field office needs something in the UK right now.” Ingrid looked away from her screen to Penny. “How many of them are urgent?”
“Probably all sixteen.”
Ingrid stretched her fingers. “Okay then, let’s run through them.”
Two hours later, Ingrid finally came up for air when Penny placed a bowl of chicken noodles from the commissary in front of her. Ingrid looked up at her and smiled. “You remembered.”
“I hadn’t seen you eat, so I figured.”
The smell of the chicken made Ingrid’s stomach grumble. “I, er, let me give you some cash.”
“Really, don’t worry about it.” Penny started packing up her bag as Ingrid scrabbled around for her wallet. “Listen, I’m really sorry, but I have to go. I can come back later but I have a doctor’s appointment and I don’t want to miss it.”
“Everything okay?” Ingrid asked, proffering a fiver.
“Hope so. Just some irregular bleeding.” Penny waved away the cash.
“Always important to get that stuff checked out,” Ingrid said, her arm still outstretched. “Take it.”
“If you’re sure.”
“You know I am.”
Penny took the cash reluctantly. “Thank you.”
“There’s no need to come back after. You got me all DeWalt’s diary stuff? His medical report? Phone records?”
“It’s all on the system. Though the medical report didn’t come through. They were waiting for his doctor to sign something.” She slung her bag over her shoulder. “It should be here by six.”
It was five-thirty.
“Listen, take it easy this evening. See some friends. You’ve had a big shock and you shouldn’t be alone.”
“Okay, mom.”
“Sorry,” Ingrid said. “Didn’t mean to patronize. And thanks again for the noodles.”
When Penny had left, Ingrid picked up the bowl and chopsticks and wandered over to the intern’s desk. Her list was still there.
