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‘Yes.’
‘Can I come in?’
Jake paused. He wasn’t sure it was a good idea.
‘My sis Vibeke is with me.’
That was below the belt. Literally. Since arriving in provincial Halden six months earlier, he’d been mesmerised by Vibeke, but nothing had ever happened, too many local Vikings pursuing her. Bjorn had said she was interested, just choosing her time. Jake assumed Bjorn was winding him up.
He buzzed them in.
In fact there were a dozen people, mainly from the dive club. They had a short forspill, a light early-evening drinking session. The word translated uncomfortably as ‘foreplay’ in Norwegian, meaning the warm-up to more serious partying later. It was a nice gesture, but Jake and the other three looked like thieves trying to pretend they hadn’t just robbed a bank. Except Jan Erik; nothing fazed the guy. Jake envied him.
About eleven, they started leaving, Bjorn’s sister Vibeke had already disappeared. Bjorn was last to leave. He shook Jake’s hand and held it firm.
Jake smiled. ‘Dive safe in the Canaries. Look after the other two.’
Bjorn’s face lifted, a broad smile breaking across it. ‘Enjoy yourself.’ He winked, turned and left.
Jake was staring at the closed door, trying to work out the non-sequitur, when he heard soft footsteps behind him. He turned around, and his breath deserted him.
Vibeke.
As Jake stashed the last box from his rented flat into the Range Rover, he took a long look across the car park to the edge of the local fjord. A familiar orange Volvo estate crossed his gaze. It turned and parked right next to him, skidding to a halt. Fastasson. Jake took a deep breath.
Fastasson, head of the Halden dive club, short and stocky with strands of lank black hair trying to disguise a rampant bald patch, shot out of his car.
‘God Morgen,’ Jake said, in his best Norwegian accent.
‘Don’t fuck with me, Jake, I know all about your little night dive.’
Jake bowed his head. ‘Oh.’
Fastasson jabbed a finger. ‘Big fucking “Oh”. You should be ashamed of yourself.’
‘I –’
‘You don’t speak!’ Fastasson paced up and down a couple of times, then jabbed his finger again. ‘You broke the club rules, and you broke my trust.’ His voice quavered. ‘You leave now, and you never come back, understood?’
Jake spread his hands. ‘Mr Fastasson, look, I –’
Fastasson shouted. ‘Is that understood?’
Jake let his hands drop to his sides. ‘Yes.’
Fastasson turned his back on Jake. ‘Go back to England.’ He waved a hand in the air. ‘I could write to BSAC, get your licence revoked, you know that, don’t you?’
Jake nodded. ‘You could. Just… go easy on Bjorn and Jan Erik.’
Fastasson whirled around. ‘They’re suspended for three months.’ His voice quietened down. ‘I can’t stop them going deep in the Canaries, of course.’
Jake stood there, unsure what more to say.
Fastasson broke the uneasy silence. ‘Bjorn – he went too fast again?’
Jake nodded. He could have been angry with Bjorn, but it had been his decision to take him down when clearly – with hindsight – Bjorn hadn’t been ready.
‘Needs more training. Jan Erik was good, though.’
Fastasson nodded. ‘I’ll try to talk some sense into both of them.’ He walked over to the edge of the fjord, then turned back.
‘Do you remember the lecture you gave us on dangerous diving?’
Jake nodded.
‘You said there were three categories: adventurous diving, dangerous diving, and reckless diving. You said it was important to know the difference.’
Jake stared at him.
Fastasson walked right up to Jake. His voice was milder, but earnest. It cut deeper. ‘How many rescues have you done in the past year?’
Jake didn’t need to count. ‘Five.’
‘Rather a lot, don’t you think?’
Jake said nothing.
Fastasson laid a heavy hand on Jake’s shoulder. ‘There’s something broken inside you. Go home. Fix it. Before something tragic happens.’
Fastasson got back in his car, glanced one final time at Jake, then drove off.
Jake stood there for a long time, leaning his back against the Range Rover. Then he opened the trunk and fished around inside a holdall. He found his instructor’s licence card in its grey wallet, and stared at it. He’d been so proud gaining it. Sean would have been proud too.
Sean. There was the problem. The tragedy had already happened. And Jake was to blame.
He strode across the car park and hopped onto the jetty, and squatted down by the water. He gazed into the water, then let the card slip from his fingers, and watched it sink until he couldn’t see it any more.
Someone approached. High heels on the boardwalk. He recognised the gait – sure and confident, yet with a spring in her step. He resisted looking up. The sun was on his face, and then he was in shadow.
‘Lorne,’ he said. ‘Long time.’ And then, ‘How are you?’ Because she hated that question, and he no longer cared about the answer.
‘Hello Jake. Took a while to track you down.’
A lie. As usual coming from her. MI6 kept track of former employees, as any intelligence agency must. He glanced upwards, did a quick scan. White leather shoes, tan tights, short, form-hugging cream dress, and long, straight, sand-coloured hair coming halfway down her back. The morning sun was behind her, so he couldn’t see her face clearly. Better that way. He knew it well enough. Attractive, but something hard just underneath. Driven. Knew what she wanted, always got it in the end. Burned people up and moved on.
‘The Rose has been stolen,’ she said.
Not good. But the mere mentioning of it made everything flood back to him. How great it had been at the start, good for ten years, and then so bad at the end. He stared at the loose pebbles on the dusty concrete leading up to the sun-bleached oak planks where she stood.
‘I’m not coming back, Lorne.’
‘You can use my first name, you know.’
Sara. ‘Find someone else.’
She walked a few steps in front of him. ‘I need all my assets in place. This is too big. You of all people –’
He stood up, taller than her. The thought of shoving her into the fjord flashed through his mind. But despite everything, the chemistry was still there. He was glad of Vibeke last night.
‘I’m not coming back, Lorne. Tell them I’m damaged goods, no use any more.’
She stared at him, then turned to the fjord, and spoke on the breeze, so that he had to focus to catch her words. ‘You were the best, Jake. You see patterns in the data.’ She laughed. ‘You remember Loki? How you found him?’
Of course he remembered. That particular coup had gotten her a promotion inside MI6. That night he’d seduced her in her office. Who was he kidding? Other way round. She always knew what she wanted. But it had set him on the path to his personal Armageddon. Sean’s demise. It was why he’d quit MI6. She knew it. So why had she just played that particular card? Losing her touch? He didn’t know, didn’t care. He turned to leave. She had no hold over him any more. Others could – would – find the Rose. He walked away.
‘Anne’s not doing so well, you know.’
He slowed. Throwing her into the fjord now seemed lightweight. ‘Not my problem. Divorced, remember? You of all people…’
His ex had cited Lorne in the divorce, though Anne didn’t know her surname, so the document referred to her simply as ‘a woman named Sara.’ Not that that was the real reason for the break-up of his marriage, especially as Anne had been seeing someone else beforehand, for some time. Besides, Anne hadn’t talked to him in three years, not since… And would never talk to him again. Quite right. He took a few more steps, heard Lorne turn around.
‘She’s on a bad track, Jake. Drink, debt.’
He carried on walking, though it wasn’t easy.
She raised her voice. ‘And a boyfriend who hits her.’
He stopped. Replayed it again in his head, to hear the way she’d said it. She’d let some actual emotion slip into her voice. He knew Lorne’s history. Abusive father. This was one area she couldn’t – wouldn’t – fake. So, it was true. Jake felt his blood rise. If someone laid a finger on Anne… His fingers flexed, curled into fists. Anne was on a downward spiral. He wasn’t surprised. And it was his fault. In spades.
‘We can help her, Jake. Get her back on track. Persuade the new boyfriend –’
He stopped listening. He and Anne were over, done. But he still cared what happened to her. And she deserved so much better. If he was there, he knew what he’d do.
‘Break the boyfriend,’ he said, knowing full well what he was asking, given Lorne’s resources at MI6, both the official and the dark ones. But men who hit women… it was the one thing for which he had zero tolerance.
She didn’t miss a beat. ‘If that’s what it takes.’
He turned around. ‘The Rose, Lorne, and then I’m through. And I work wherever I want. Not the office.’
‘Deal.’
He walked right up to her, his face close to hers, into what she’d once called the kissing zone. ‘And then I never see you or hear from you again.’
Her hazel eyes, clearer now, became as hard as the pebbles at his feet.
‘Fine,’ she said. She opened her purse. Inside he glimpsed a pistol and two identical mobile phones. Nothing else. She handed him one of the phones, then walked away.
Something didn’t fit. ‘What aren’t you telling me, Lorne? Why me, in particular?’
She didn’t turn around, didn’t slow down. ‘The guy who stole it was a diver. Check your phone.’
He watched her disappear around the corner.
Back in his car, he switched on the mobile she’d given him. It asked for a code. He typed in 0-0-0-0. No good. Two more tries. He keyed in 1-2-3-4. Nope. One more try. He shook his head, swore, changed to text, and keyed in S-A-R-A. He was in. There was no option to change the password. Always got what she wanted.
He checked for photos. There were four. A helicopter at night, then at a crazy angle just above a bridge, then in the water, then… Hard to make out. A man in the water in a pilot’s uniform, with a stab jacket wrapped awkwardly around him, lit up by a powerful beam. Unconscious. Jake looked closer. Someone just beneath the pilot, underwater. The guy who stole the Rose. The photo was grainy. He played his fingers and thumbs over the smartphone to stretch the image until he could just about see the masked face.
Lorne had been right. Jake saw things in the data. Patterns, connections, but also faces. He saw things others didn’t. No idea why. But it was clear to him, maybe because he was a diver, and you learned to see behind the neoprene.
The diver was female.
Where to start? Easy. London. Scene of the crime. Get the measure of this diver. But in a sense he already had an idea of her. She’d gone to a lot of trouble to save the pilot. And the thought came to him unbidden, that he should find this woman before Lorne did.
He started the engine, and glanced over to the fjord. ‘Later, Sean,’ he said, then tore away, scattering pebbles into the water.
Chapter Four (#ulink_ea8ca792-ae58-5617-b4ee-2543e20c1906)
Nadia nursed her backpack as she tried to forget yesterday’s killing spree. In front of her the harbour was crowded with expensive sailing yachts and sturdy fishing vessels. The sun beat down on her face. The yacht rigging rattled in the onshore breeze. A distant ambulance siren was barely audible above the cawing of seagulls fighting over rancid morsels in the fishing nets left out to dry on the quay. The image of Janssen’s bloody corpse intruded in her mind. Fish would be eating away at what was left of his face. She opened her eyes, gripped the bag hiding the Rose, held it closer.
Sammy had saved her, but she should have killed Janssen, for Katya’s, if not for her own sake. Why couldn’t she pull the trigger? She’d been living in a fantasy world, believing that she could work for Kadinsky for five years and never kill anyone. Okay, there had been the vow to her mother, and she didn’t want to become her father, but still. She should at least be able to defend herself, or protect Katya. She had to get her head in the game, especially now Sammy was gone and she was on her own. She went over it again, for the umpteenth time. Why can’t I kill?
Of course she had, once. A bear. As a kid she’d loved animals. Her father taught her to shoot, but when he took her hunting in the woods she would aim to miss, to scare away a deer or a rodent. He never reproached her, just repeated the same phrase: ‘Next time’. Then one day a bear had been terrorising the village, and the men were called out to track it down and kill it. She and her father joined the search, and after several hours, spotted it. He gave her the shot. But even though it had maimed two people already, she aimed high, and it ran off. The other men were furious when they found out, and her father had to send her home with her rifle. As she neared the house she heard Katya screaming in the back garden. Nadia raced around and found the bear on its hind legs, incisors bared, Katya and her mother pinned against the shed. Nadia didn’t hesitate, shot it through the mouth, blew out the back of its skull, and put another two bullets in its chest to make sure. Nadia would never forget the look of horror on her mother’s face.
But a bear wasn’t a person.
Her father had been a killer. She’d not known before his death, but had found out later. Her mother had made sure of it. Maybe some of those he’d murdered had deserved it. But one had been a journalist doing an anti-corruption piece on the government. Later, during a short break from Kadinsky’s training camp, Nadia had gone to see his widow, tried to give her money. It didn’t go well, once the woman realised who Nadia was.
‘I don’t want your fucking money, suka, I want my husband back!’ She’d slapped Nadia’s face hard, then attacked her. Nadia could have defended herself, had been trained to, but she didn’t, just let the blows rain down on her. After a while the widow, exhausted, tears in her eyes, held up a trembling hand in the crude shape of a pistol, her second finger the trigger. ‘Back of the head. Just a small movement’ – she made a clicking sound with her tongue – ‘and my man’s life was gone.’ She looked down at Nadia. ‘Why the fuck are you crying?’
‘I don’t know,’ Nadia answered, because she didn’t. She left the money on the table, went to a bar and got seriously drunk.
But the question remained. Could she kill?
Next time.
She got up and walked around the crumbling edge of the dock. The horn-blast of the Scillonian, the massive blue and white ferry bound for the remote Scilly Isles, made the seagulls take flight. The Scillies. Her hideaway destination. Off the mainland. Smallville. Most people on the run wouldn’t go there, because it was difficult to get away from. Like retreating into the corner of a chessboard. Limited moves remaining. But that also made it a blind spot for the authorities, and the local police there would be little more than village bobbies. No detectives, no serious military presence.
She’d considered taking the ferry, until the heightened security made her think again. The heliport was out of the question. Hopping down a few steps onto the creaking gangplanks of the floating jetty, she searched for a smaller boat, ‘Scilly Boy’. She’d met Mike, the boat’s red-haired skipper, in a bar the night before. He’d said he was heading to the Isles. Mike had shown interest in her, though he’d seemed shy. She’d noticed that his second finger had a ring-shaped patch less sunburned than the rest of his hand. Probably married. Only wore his ring when back home. Not that she was interested. Since the ordeal with Slick and Pox, she’d forged herself into the female equivalent of a eunuch. Besides, Katya more than made up for Nadia’s abstinence. Maybe when this was all over.
Maybe.
At the end of the jetty she spied him preparing to leave. ‘You headed where I think you are?’ she shouted.
Mike raised his head. On seeing her, his freckled face lit up.
‘St Mary’s, Hugh Town.’ He paused, as if gauging his luck. ‘You want a ride? It’s a long trip, won’t be there till dark. The ferry’s much faster.’ Mike appeared to be standing perfectly still, despite the rocking of the boat. ‘You get seasick?’
‘Only on large boats.’ Flashing a smile, she passed her backpack down to him.
