Blood and Roses (A Beatrix Rose Thriller Book 3)

by Dawson, Mark

  Isabella knew what that meant.

  Alone, then. She would do it alone.

  She kept walking.

  She had something else she needed to do.

  Isabella had found an envelope in her mother’s bag before she dropped it in the trash at the Chesapeake hotel. The envelope had been addressed to her. Inside, there was a small key and a piece of paper with an address written on it. She had visited the address during her first week back in Marrakech. It was a garage, similar to the one where they had kept their Jeep, a single door in a terrace of identical lock-ups in a run-down part of town. She had stepped up to the metal door and inserted her key, but she hadn’t been able to turn it.

  It was too soon.

  It was still too raw.

  And she didn’t know what she might find.

  Today, though, with the fresh tattoo burning on her shoulder, it felt like the right time.

  The garage was a good distance from the centre of town, but she decided to walk. Exercise always helped her to think, and she wanted to prepare herself for what she might find.

  She reached the garages, and, by dint of her mother’s repeated exhortations, waited at the end of the road for twenty minutes and observed the comings and goings. She had no reason to suspect that there was anything to be fearful of now that Control was dead, but, from what she understood, her mother had landed a hefty blow to the financial interests of the company that he had worked for. She had set up a Google Alert for “Manage Risk” and had read a stream of articles that described how its stock price had plummeted in just a month. Contracts had been lost and important clients were shunning the business. Isabella wasn’t particularly concerned that they would come after her since it would do them no good, but it still paid to be watchful.

  She wore the key on a piece of string around her neck, next to the key for the front door. She reached down to her chest, her fingers closing around the metal that had warmed against her hot skin, and withdrew it. She checked back up and down the street again, satisfied herself that nothing was amiss and pushed the key into the rusting lock. It was stiff, and she had to twist it hard, but it turned, and she heaved the door up halfway.

  She crouched down and slipped beneath it.

  It was impossible to see anything inside. There were no windows or roof lights, and the dim lamp light that leaked in from beneath the door was devoured quickly by the darkness. She took out her cellphone, switched on the flashlight app and shone the beam around the interior.

  The wall Isabella was facing had been equipped with metal cupboards and racking. She played the beam onto the racking and saw an arsenal of weapons: semi-automatic pistols, rifles, submachine guns, shotguns. She placed her phone on the table, the flashlight pointing up, reached up to the rack and took down an AR-15 semi-automatic with a thirty-round magazine. She pushed the stock against her shoulder, balancing its weight between her hands.

  It felt good.

  She opened the cupboards and shone her torch into them. She saw boxes upon boxes of ammunition, knives, grenades and other combat equipment.

  Her mother had said once that there was a backup weapons cache should the riad ever be compromised.

  Here it was.

  Isabella swung the light around one final time, and just as she was about to leave, she saw the envelope that had been taped to one of the cupboard doors. She tore it free and stuffed it into her pocket. She ducked down beneath the door, closed it after her and made doubly sure that it was locked.

  Then, tired, she headed for home.

  Isabella walked to the new riad. It was on the Rue Kaa El Machraa, on the other side of town from the place that she had shared with her mother. It was approached through the same warren of alleyways and passages, ever-narrowing, dark and mysterious. She turned right and then left, stepped over two of the local boys flicking marbles in the light of a kerosene lamp, and finally reached the thick oak door that reminded her of before. The small sign fixed on the wall next to it announced the “Riad Farnatchi.”

  Her own place.

  Purchased with her own money.

  She took the key from the chain she wore around her neck and unlocked the door. She stepped inside, dropped her bag on the table in the vestibule, shut the door and locked it behind her. Security was important. This was Marrakech, after all, and caution was a characteristic of her mother that had proven to be particularly infectious. She never took her safety for granted.

  She collected her bag again, stepped out of the covered vestibule and into the open courtyard. This riad was smaller than the old place and much less opulent, with plenty of work still to do to fix the crumbling walls and the dated décor, but Isabella didn’t mind any of that. It was her own place. Her little sanctuary. And she liked the idea of a project.

  Renewal.

  That seemed appropriate.

  The firm of local builders that she had hired for the renovation had finished for the day. Their haphazard scaffolding was erected along the wall that was in the worst condition, the one that had almost completely collapsed. Their tools and buckets were lined up on the platform. It looked like they had made good progress today, the fresh course of bricks reaching up almost to the first floor.

  The men were good at their job, but they were not above trying to take advantage of a young client whom they must have seen as ripe for exploitation. Their early work had been substandard, but they had tried to persuade her that it was acceptable. They had stopped doing that when Isabella immediately cut off their funding. She had insisted on payment on completion of the job and would not be moved from that position. The men learned quickly that she could be stubborn, and eventually she had bent them to her will. It was a question of setting expectations. They had to be taught.

  Isabella knew what she wanted. She had a very clear vision in her mind’s eye. She would turn the airy, light-filled space into somewhere that could be her own private sanctuary. She had chosen a soothing, elephant-grey palette that she would brighten with careful splashes of colour, like the deep-pile scarlet Beni Ouarain carpet on the balcony outside her bedroom on the first floor that she had bought from a Berber market in the mountains. The décor would be a pastiche of Moroccan and European vintage finds, with tribal textiles and quirky objets d’art. The plunge pool was to be tiled in emerald and surrounded by lime-green easy chairs. Her most recent purchase had been a Berber tent which she had arranged on the roof, and she liked to sit up there beneath the canvas and watch the sun sink down into the desert.

  None of this had been cheap, but money had not been a concern for her. Beatrix had left her very well provided for indeed. Most importantly, she had established an account in Isabella’s name at a branch of the First Caribbean International Bank. Isabella had used her credit card to pay for a week in Marrakech’s best hotel as soon as she had arrived, using the time to gather herself, and then she had purchased a return flight to George Town in the Cayman Islands to visit the bank. The manager said that he was expecting her, and once the administrative necessities required to identify her had been taken care of, he had given her unrestricted access to the account.

  One and a quarter million pounds.

  Her mother had been right: it was more than she would ever need.

  Two hundred thousand purchased the dilapidated riad, and another one hundred thousand would restore it.

  She went up to the roof, lit the lanterns that she had placed around the wide space and sat down beneath the canvas awning. The top of her arm was swathed in a clear dressing, and she pulled her sleeve up to her shoulder to let it breathe. The design of the flowers was still visible beneath the slathering of Lubriderm. Johnny had done an excellent job. The two roses were just like her mother’s.

  The design had been completed.

  That was exactly what she wanted.

  A dusty sirocco blew across the rooftops and rustled the canvas. The flam
es jerked in the breeze. The call to prayer sounded, a rasping voice thrown far and wide by squawking speakers. Isabella watched and listened, absorbing the rhythm of the city. She touched the tattoo with her fingertips, little thorns of irritation prickling her flesh.

  She had done what her mother had always asked of her. Beatrix had tried to recant a year’s worth of instructions on the night before she left for her rendezvous at the drive-in, but Isabella had ignored her. It had been her mother’s illness talking. She knew that she didn’t mean it. Couldn’t have meant it. She had been sure about that. Her mother’s work had driven her.

  It needed to be finished.

  It had to be finished.

  And now it was.

  She blinked back more tears. Her childhood had bred in her an instinctive fear of stability. It had taught her not to get comfortable, that nothing was forever. There had been foster parents whom she had grown to like, some she had even loved. Other homes had been unpleasant, full of cruelty and unkindness. It had been easier to treat them all the same, remember that they were all transient, good and bad, and that something else would replace them in due time. Because it always did. Her mother had explained why that was: Control did not want her to stay in one place for too long because it would make her easier to find.

  Even the year that she had spent with her mother had been the same, in the end.

  Everything came to an end.

  She looked out at the great expanse of the city, the myriad lights that prickled the dark, the throng of people in the streets and, above it all, the climbing saucer of the moon.

  Would this come to an end, too?

  She took the envelope from her pocket and stared at it for a full fifteen minutes. She ran her finger along the long edge, felt the prick of the four sharp corners. Then, before she could change her mind, she slipped her finger inside the flap and sliced it open.

  There was a note in her mother’s neat script.

  Be prepared. XXX.

  She stood and moved to the balustrade, rested her hands on the cooling stone and looked out over the city.

  Her city.

  Would this come to an end?

  Maybe it would.

  Maybe someone would come for her, after all.

  But if it did end, if they did come, she would make sure of one thing.

  She would respect her mother’s final injunction.

  And she would be ready.

  Acknowledgements

  I am indebted to the following for their help, all above and beyond the call of duty: Lucy Dawson (for her early edits and direction), Martha Hayes (for masterful and thoughtful editing), Detective Lieutenant (Ret’d) Edward L. Dvorak, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and Joe D. Gillespie (for their advice on weapons and military matters), and Martin Fricke, U.S. Intelligence Community contractor (ret.).

  The following members of Team Milton were also invaluable: Lee Robertson, Nigel Foster, Frank Wells. Gary Pugsley, Brian Ellis, Bob, Mel Murray, Phil Powell, Charlie, Matt Ballard, Edward Short, Desiree Brown, Don Lehman, Barry Franklin, Corne van der Merwe, Dawn Taybron, Paul Quish, Carl Hinds, Chuck Harkins, Don, Bernard Carlington, Julian Annells, Charles Rolfe, Michael Conway, Grant Brown, Rick Lowe, Randall Masteller, Steve Devoir, Chris Orrick, Mike Stephens, Rick Seymour, Pat Kirk, Dale McDonald, Robert Lass, Bill Dawson, Rob Carr, Ian Clarke, Chris Goodson, Jared Gerstein, Roman Pyndiura, Cecelia Blewett, David Schensted, Caleb Burton, Louis Pascolini, Sonny de Castro, John Hall, Matt Bawden, JKP, Richard Stewart, Bev Birkin, Dave Zucker, Steve Carter, Christian Bunyan, Daniel Caupel, Debra Koltveit, George Wood, Linda French, Mark Garner, Phillip Silcox, John Olsakovsky, Melinda Doup, Janet Homes, Lynn Edey, Tim Adams, Steve Hancox, Martin Wynkoop, Kent, Mark Dibble, Jack Ott, William Longau, Dale Viljoen, James Frederick, David, Alan and Daniel Ostendorff.

  About the Author

  Photo © 2014 Tom Nicholson

  Mark Dawson has worked as a lawyer and in the London film industry.

  He has written three series: John Milton features a disgruntled government hit man trying to right wrongs in order to make amends for the things he’s done; Beatrix Rose traces the headlong fight for justice of a wronged mother and trained assassin; and Soho Noir is set in the West End of London between 1940 and 1970. Mark lives in Wiltshire, in the UK, with his family.

  You can find him at www.markjdawson.com, www.facebook.com/markdawsonauthor and on Twitter at @pbackwriter.