Look Twice (Ingrid Skyberg Book 8)

by Eva Hudson

  Ingrid checked behind her. She couldn’t see Zeke, but he would be a few hundred yards behind. Ralph hadn’t sufficiently recovered from his injuries to play the part of a fellow jogger, so he was in a boat on the water operating a drone. Ingrid didn’t know where Cath was, but she was out in the park somewhere. She was quite pleased that she had been able to come up with a list of six people she trusted. Sol had been willing to get on a plane, but accepted the damage he had done to his lungs over the years didn’t make him the best asset to deploy on this particular field of combat. Marsha’s plan assumed his first strike would come from close quarters, using a hammer or something similar. If her assumption was wrong, and Skylark did use a gun—they even speculated that he could try a crossbow—they were counting on him missing a moving target with his first shot, allowing Ingrid to take evasive action before a second.

  Ingrid had rejected a bullet-proof vest. It was simply too bulky to run in and would only attract attention. Instead she had opted for Kevlar sleeves—they looked like leg warmers for her forearms—to help her fend off a knife attack, and inside her water bottle was a mace canister. Ultimately, her best defense would be her fitness: she could outrun any attacker.

  Ingrid had a sense of what Skylark looked like from the warehouse in Tilbury. About her height, so five ten or thereabouts, and muscular. A rugby build rather than a long-distance runner. She was on alert for any man who matched that description.

  “How are you feeling?” Marsha’s voice piped into her ears.

  “All good. What are you seeing?”

  “Still a lot of people about. I think you should leave the lake and head into the woods as soon as you can.”

  “It might also be an idea to slow down.” Nick’s voice. “I realize it goes against everything you believe in, but if you’re a total Billy the Whizz, you’ll just be a blur. Ah, that’s your phone ringing.”

  “You can hear that?” Ingrid asked. The ringtone pulsed in her headphones.

  “Right now, your phone is my phone. It’s your mother, by the way.”

  Ingrid looked down at her watch. An alert with Svetlana’s name flashed up. She always did pick the worst moments to call.

  “I take it no one has seen a man who fits the bill?” Ingrid asked.

  After a short delay, Nick replied. “Negative.”

  A pale blue sky stretched behind high, light clouds and the air was still a very warm seventy-two degrees. Consequently, the park was full of runners, cross-country skiers on wheeled skis, promenading couples and groups of friends tossing balls and frisbees. It felt like a festival. Glastonbury without the music. Ingrid dutifully slowed down, in part to allow an unsteady woman on rollerblades to swerve round her.

  Ingrid joined the wide path on the north rim of the lake, where customers lined up outside a café for ice creams and soft drinks. Others crammed at the water’s edge to feed ducks and innumerable swans. Ingrid scanned as she ran, looking for the man who wanted her dead.

  This isn’t where he’ll strike.

  She passed the pontoon where row boats and paddleboats were for hire. She glanced out to the water but didn’t see Ralph. Nor could she see or hear his drone. Ingrid had a choice: take Marsha’s advice and turn into the wooded area, or continue along the lakeside where the path narrowed and passed under a road bridge. She chose the lake.

  Ingrid had run the route often enough to know the next hundred yards were among the most vulnerable. Not only did her opponent have a potential vantage point on the overhead bridge, but the path was shrouded in thick shrubbery just where the lake was at its widest. It was a rare example of a place in Central London where you could feel isolated if another runner didn’t come the other way. If I was going to kill me, this is where I’d do it.

  A man on a bench eyed her as she ran past. He looked like he might shout ‘nice tits’ or ‘speed up, love’, a crime that would unfailingly be dealt with by Ingrid’s middle finger, but he said nothing. She ducked into the arched tunnel under the bridge. Even after weeks of sun, the ground was still slightly damp and smelled faintly of piss. When she emerged into the light on the other side of the bridge, she clocked the drone over the water, thanks to a dad crouching to point it out to his delighted son.

  The next stretch of the shore was usually the quietest, which was reason enough to stay on high alert. Overhung by trees, the path was darker and cooler and less picturesque. A pair of moorhens squabbled in the reeds as a trio of mallards raced overhead in formation.

  Ingrid soon reached the top of the lake where a formal Italianate garden hosted fountains and statues under a limestone lake house. She dodged a woman struggling with several dogs on leashes and crossed to the other side. She turned south, back toward the bridge.

  “Anyone seeing anything?” she asked.

  “Cath is reporting something,” Nick said. “Heavier than usual police presence around Kensington Palace. Their royal highnesses must be on the move. Something to be aware of.”

  Suddenly, the prospect of Skylark being armed was more real. What if he was a royal protection officer? They routinely had MK5s and handguns. He could reasonably say he feared for the life of his principal and opened fire.

  “That’s your mother again,” Nick said, two seconds before her watch vibrated and the ringtone drilled into her ears. “Persistent, isn’t she?”

  “That’s one word for her.” Ingrid ran on, a light sweat forming on her brow. She passed the Peter Pan statue where a gaggle of tourists held out food for bright green parakeets that were now a regular sight in London parks.

  “How are you feeling?” Marsha asked.

  “Good,” Ingrid said snappily. She actually felt surprisingly calm for a woman with a target on her back. Though that might change on the second loop of the lake, when Ingrid figured he was more likely to make a move. The first loop was a recce for them both. Ingrid glimpsed the palace between an avenue of trees and thought she spotted Cath’s stocky figure. When her vision swerved back to the path, she was immediately alarmed.

  “Who has eyes on me? Man, white vest, black shorts running in my direction.” She checked his hands for a weapon. He was clutching something black. “Does anyone have eyes on?”

  There was only static in her ears.

  “Anyone?”

  He was fifty yards ahead. Mid-forties, broad chest, skinny legs. Sweating profusely. Not a regular runner. He stared at Ingrid, a blank shark-like gaze. Ingrid checked left and right for backup, but didn’t see any of the team. Zeke was too far back. She slowed slightly, trying to work out what he was holding. Something square.

  “Anyone?” she said again. This time panic inflected her voice.

  “Negative,” Nick said. “Drone finding it difficult to lock on to him.”

  “Shit.” The backup team was an illusion. Worse, it was a danger. It had given her the confidence to leave the hotel room, but now—when it really came down to it—she was on her own.

  “Pervert,” she shouted as he passed, staring at her chest. “In case anyone is interested, he was holding a Walkman. A Walkman!”

  “Well, the nineties are making a comeback,” Nick quipped.

  Ingrid carried on back toward the bridge, then into the foot tunnel under the road. Out in the open again, she had the Princess Diana memorial fountain—a strange granite loop carved into an expanse of lawn—on her right and the Serpentine on her left. Up ahead was the swimming club where a rectangle of white buoys indicated the safe swimming area and another café. A quartet of well-built men wearing slightly too many clothes for the weather stood in line for coffee. “Anyone got visuals on the café?” Ingrid checked over her shoulder to see if Zeke was still with her.

  “Mind out!” A cyclist nearly clattered into her while she was looking the other way.

  “You shouldn’t even be here,” Ingrid shouted after him, uselessly. “Pedestrians only!” Her eyes homed in on the four men. “Four males, thirties. If they’re not police officers, they’re private security. Anyone see th
em?”

  No reply from Nick.

  Ingrid was close enough to spot one of them had a transparent coil leading to an earpiece. She felt a sudden need for water, but her bottle was full of something she wouldn’t even drink in a desert. Private security in the park wasn’t unheard of—the Mandarin Oriental hotel was just a few hundred yards away, and next to that was One Hyde Park, a development of the most expensive apartments in the world.

  The men didn’t seem the least bit interested in her. She ran on, past the swimming club and headed east, back toward the Hilton. This was the safest part of her run, where the path widened and families strolled, selfies were taken and couples held hands. Ingrid began to think it wasn’t going to happen. The park was too busy. Her head dropped. This was a waste of time.

  She started the second loop with a sense of despair, passing the first café where McKittrick was now propped up against a wooden table, sipping her coffee. Ingrid made a mental note to mention the Hammersmith apartment to her. She made another mental note to concentrate on the job at hand.

  Part of the joy of running had always been that it let her mind wander. Now she needed to rein it in, to focus. She passed a group of rollerbladers setting up cones to slalom through, and a shoal of boys on Santander rental bikes rolled toward her, parting like a stream around a rock as she ran through them.

  “It is her,” she heard one of them say. At least someone had read the article in the Sun. Hopefully Skylark had too.

  “I’m going to take the woods this time.” Ingrid was getting out of breath, though this still constituted a recreational jog for her. She hung a right to veer away from the water and onto a path between the trees. In the middle of the wooded area were several buildings—gardeners’ lodges, hothouses, toilets and an education center—but at this time of day, none of them were in use. As most of the park visitors were trying to get the last of the evening’s sun, she suddenly felt very alone. The drone couldn’t follow her through the canopy of leaves overhead and a quick glance over her shoulder told her Zeke was a long way behind.

  Ingrid gasped. A man appeared from the bushes, adjusting his shorts. He’d had too many beers and way too much sun. He wasn’t a threat, but Ingrid didn’t like that she hadn’t seen him until the last moment. Concentrate.

  She spotted Marsha on a blanket at a point where the grass gave way to undergrowth. The temperature dropped further as the branches knitted together over her head. It was darker too. Some of the shadows deepened into black.

  This was the place.

  Ingrid instinctively checked for Zeke, but he was round a bend and out of sight. No drone. No Zeke. Until she emerged on the far side of the woods, she was on her own. Her eyes darted left and right. She gasped as a black and white dog careered out of the undergrowth, causing her to turn sharply. Her heart thundered as its owner shouted for it to come to heel.

  Two trees with thick trunks were up ahead. They offered Skylark a defensive hiding place, so Ingrid steered to the other side of the path, putting an extra step between her and the trees.

  Govno!

  He stepped out from between the trunks, striding out in long dark trousers. He pulled something from a pocket. Ingrid accelerated toward him. She needed all the momentum she had to push him over.

  “What the—” His eyes widened with alarm. He held up his arms to protect himself, a packet of Wet Wipes in his hand.

  Ingrid swerved away from him just in time. She breathed hard, the warm air jabbing her lungs. She had never heard of a man relieving himself in the woods and then actually cleaning his hands. She was still shaking her head with disbelief when she emerged onto a wider path where a group of skiers forced their way up an incline. Uphill skiing. Hyde Park was full of surprises. Just not the one she had planned.

  Ingrid looped her way back to the water, back to the Italianate garden, the Peter Pan statue and eventually the swimming club. Skylark wasn’t going to strike now. Too many people. Too much open space. “Well, that was a colossal waste of time,” she said when she neared the Queen Mother gates.

  “At least you’re still alive,” Marsha said. “Okay, everyone. Let’s give Ingrid a chance to shower. See you all back at the hotel in thirty.”

  Ingrid was pissed off. The last thing she wanted was a debrief. “What the fuck do you think you’re looking at?” she said to a man in the elevator as she rode back up to her floor. Inside her hotel room, Ingrid slumped against the closed door and emptied her lungs. A deep, desperate sigh turned into a wail. It was over. She had failed. Skylark would be extracted by his handlers within hours and Mulroony would rot in hell.

  Her watched buzzed. A text from Svetlana.

  Kathleen is dead. Maybe now you’ll call me back.

  42

  Ingrid splashed cold water on her face and looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. She looked away. She should have called Kathleen. She hadn’t even sent her that book. Disgust simmered through her veins, contorting her mouth into a scowl. A heavy ache radiated from her ribs as her heart reached out across the ocean to be with Kathleen.

  The apple pies. The tomato sandwiches with the crusts cut off. The racoon in the garbage pail. The lock on their downstairs bathroom with the knack to it. The hugs, the extra cookies in the picnic basket, the made-up bed in the box room just in case Svetlana was having one of her impossible days. Somehow, Kathleen—the kindest woman Ingrid had ever known, the woman who had shown her what being mothered felt like—had survived her daughter by two decades, sustained in no small part by the deep-seated need to find justice for Megan. That she had died without it, possibly just hours before a verdict that might have brought her a tiny speck of solace, was an injustice Ingrid’s body could not contain.

  She didn’t know where to put herself. Her head shook, seemingly the wrong size for her neck. Her veins bulged with too much blood as rage detonated deep inside. Her face reddened and the tears surged. Howl after howl drained from base of her throat. Her torment wasn’t just grief, it was resentment. Resentment that Svetlana would say she hadn’t cared enough to answer the phone, resentment at the maternal mind games to come, resentment that the poisoned politics of her relationship with her own mother would shape her grief for Kathleen.

  Ingrid staggered out of the bathroom and stood at the window. She stared down at Hyde Park, the scene of her most recent failure, and smacked the glass, fantasizing that her fist smashed the window to drive pain into her flesh. The urge to break something, to inflict injustice on something else, anything else, was restless.

  Ingrid knew that every minute she delayed only gave Svetlana more ammunition. She dialed Minnesota.

  “Hi.”

  “So, now you’re calling?”

  Ingrid worked so hard to suppress her tears that she couldn’t get any words out.

  “Shame on you, Ingrid Skyberg, shame on you.”

  Ingrid wiped her wet cheek with the back of her hand.

  “You know you did this to Kathleen, don’t you? Testifying for the defense? It killed her. You realize that?”

  Ingrid’s face crumpled. She could barely stand upright. She wanted her dad. She wanted him to bend down and tell her that sometimes your mom gets like this, but she doesn’t mean to be cruel. Deep down, she loves you more than sunshine or blue skies or butterflies, remember that. It had been okay when he was alive, when he could soothe the wounds his wife inflicted. Here she was, thirty-six years old and wanting her dad to tell her she’d done nothing wrong. But she had. She hadn’t called Kathleen, and so she stood there and took Svetlana’s acidic medicine.

  “Don’t even bother coming home for the funeral. You don’t even ask me how I am.”

  And you haven’t asked me either.

  Ingrid’s sobs became uncontrollable. She couldn’t hold on to the phone any longer. It dropped to the ground, still emitting a stream of bile from Minnesota. She understood that her mother was angry. She knew that in a few days Svetlana would phone back and call her Malyshka and Ingrid would bury her con
fusion because she craved her mother’s approval so deeply. Knowing that was their twisted pattern of behavior made it so much worse. Even at the darkest of hours, they were still playing their power games. She hated her mother. There, she had said it. She despised her. And she despised her all the more because in two days’ time she knew she’d love her again.

  Ingrid ignored the knock on the door. It was probably Marsha. Her room was on the same floor and she would be asking if Ingrid wanted to walk to the debrief together. The debrief would have to wait. With the verdict so close, Kathleen’s death would make the news and they would understand why she didn’t show.

  Ingrid fell on the bed and stared at the ceiling. It felt like her heart was emptying, deflating, removing itself from her body. Her body was paralyzed with grief, but her brain churned. If she hadn’t found the photos. If she hadn’t started digging. If she had listened to Sol… then maybe DeWalt would still be alive, Mulroony wouldn’t be in hell and she would have had the grace to call Kathleen.

  When Ingrid woke up, it was just after ten thirty. She wasn’t actually sure if she had slept or had merely been suspended in a catatonic state. There was something dreamlike about her room, as if she wasn’t fully present. She checked the date as well as the time, suddenly wondering if she had been asleep for more than twenty-four hours.

  Still wearing her running gear, Ingrid sat up and slung her heavy legs over the side of the bed. She remembered about Kathleen, and her head fell into her hands. A surge of loathing for Svetlana curled her lip and pushed her to her feet. She had to get out. She had to burn away her anger. She swiped her swimsuit from the towel rail in the bathroom, threw a hair brush, tee shirt and sweat pants in her gym bag and picked up her phone. No messages from her mom. There wouldn’t be for a few days. And then the deluge would arrive.