Chameleon - A City of London Thriller (44 page)

“
I know you.
I saw you on the internet last week. You were on
YouTube.”

“
I don’t
think so; maybe I hit you too hard.”

“
No, it was
definitely you. You were coming to the aid of that Clara girl and
you marched Rob Donkin down the red carpet by the ear. It was a big
hit on YouTube last week, once someone had dubbed it with a series
of chimp sounds.”

Dee hadn’t
seen the footage but she smiled at the recollection. Gil spoke with
something approaching admiration.

“
In different
circumstances I might hire you to protect me.”

“
I’d need an
army, with the enemies you’ve been making,” Dee noted without any
hint of irony.

Chapter
6
5

Miles Estate,
Lynchburg, Virginia, Friday 9pm.

Gillian Davis
had eaten, and dressed her wounds, as had Dee, and both were now
sitting on the sofa, Gil with her legs tucked under her in the same
way Katie Norman had just a week ago. Dee thought she looked so
much younger than she was. It was true that she was well trained,
scheming, manipulative, and quite possibly sociopathic, but she was
like a teenager in her mannerisms and general behaviour. Perhaps if
she had stayed in Chemistry she would have been married and settled
by now, who could tell?

“
Why did you
kill the Hokobus?” Dee asked as she looked directly into the eyes
of Gillian Davis. Without flinching or even breaking eye contact,
Gil answered her question quite honestly.

“
I don’t
know.” There was no denial. There followed a long pause, which Dee
wanted to fill with a judgemental statement like ‘you must know,
you took the lives of two wonderful people’, but she didn’t. She
had learned that it was better to listen in order to
learn.

“
Every day
since the killing I’ve asked myself that same question many times.
I had never questioned my motives before. I was trained not to. If
you thought about everyone you were ordered to take out - their
families, their kids, their mothers, even – well, you would go mad.
And some of my colleagues did.

So I guess I
learned to shut it out. It was for the greater good and that made
it right. Even when Doug and I went freelance we only ever took out
bad guys. We made the customers pay through the nose but we only
did what we thought was right. We even had a code. If we thought a
hit was against the country’s interests we would make the customer,
usually national agencies of some kind, clear it through MI5. But
it was all a fraud. Our ex boss knew someone from the old team was
the Chameleon. I think he suspected Doug all along, but he wasn’t
giving us the all clear based on national interests, he was taking
a cut.

I didn’t even
know until I did the HAMAS job and the Israelis refused to pay.
Their excuse was that I had had half of the million dollars and my
contact had received one hundred thousand pounds and that was
enough. Obviously Barry Mitchinson was taking a ride on the back of
the Chameleon. I should have known then that I couldn’t trust him.
I should have known that he’d give the go ahead to shoot the Pope
if he got his cut. I was stupid.”

“
Did he give
you the go ahead to kill the Hokobus?” Dee asked. Gil
nodded.

“
But I’m not
blaming him, Dee. Is it OK for me to call you Dee? I feel as though
we’ve shared enough pain to be on first name terms.”

“
It’s my
name, Gillian.” Dee replied neutrally. Gil looked at Dee and
smiled, and suddenly Dee realised that this young woman had no-one.
No family, no friends, no colleagues. She was lonely, hence her
pilgrimage to the USA. She was trying to connect with the father
who was, in reality, little more than a sperm donor.

“
You probably
don’t want to hear this, and it won’t endear me to you in any way,
but I am not sure whether I would have turned down the money if I
had known the Hokobus were fine people. Obviously I hope I would
have done, but I just don’t know.” She looked at Dee and her eyes
were wet.

“
I think I
may be damaged goods.” She paused to gather herself. “When I was in
that car and the couple were paralysed I could see something in
their eyes and I knew they weren’t bad people, but I did it anyway.
I’ve relived that moment a thousand times and only recently did I
recognise what it was I saw in their eyes.” She paused and sobbed.
“It was forgiveness.” She sobbed some more, and Dee handed her a
tissue.

“
You, and
everyone else, will think, she’s seeing what she wants to see.
She’s placating herself. But I’m not. I believe I saw acceptance
and forgiveness in those kindly eyes.” By now her knees were up on
the sofa and she buried her head between her knees and
cried.

“
It was my
job to keep the Hokobus safe, and I failed,” Dee said. This was a
revelation to Gil.

“
What about
that tall Geordie man?”

“
He’s my
partner. Don’t ever go near him. I guarantee he’ll snap you like a
twig before you ever get to say sorry. We’d known that couple for
just a few days but you were right about their eyes. They saw
everything and they condemned nothing. We felt as though they were
long lost friends. If I hate you, and I’m not sure whether I do or
not, it should be because you killed a lovely couple, but it will
actually be because I didn’t save them.” Dee’s eyes also welled up.
“I guess we’re both conflicted.”

“
Dee, what I
did was heinous, unforgivable. I know that. But what you did, well,
it was heroic. I might have killed your clients but you wouldn’t
let their dream die with them. I watched that black actress
standing at that podium, reducing some people to tears and stirring
others to action. I saw the news of the uprising. Marat is free.
The President is going to be tried for crimes against humanity and
the Hokobus did it all, thanks to you.”

Dee turned
away quickly. She didn’t want the Chameleon to see tears flowing
freely down her cheeks.

“
I have to be
going,” she said, her voice shaky.

“
Don’t be
crazy. You can hardly walk. You’re almost as battered as I am. Stay
the night in the spare bedroom. Go when you like in the morning,
but don’t go out in this state. Please.”

“
How do I
know you won’t kill me in my sleep?” Dee asked, only half
seriously.

“
Ditto,” Gil
replied. “Should you decide to stay there is more I need to tell
you, but for now I’m just too tired.”

Dee’s weary
body made the decision for her, and she asked if she could have a
hot bath before she retired.

“
Of course,
and I’ll put some Ibuprofen by your bed. After I’ve swallowed a few
myself.”

Chapter
6
6

72b The Green,
Richmond, London, Saturday 2am.

Maureen
Lassiter was dead on her feet. She just wanted to lay her head on
her pillow and allow herself to drift off to sleep. She was so
tired that she would doze off at the computer, hallucinate and wake
up, all in the order of a few seconds. She sipped her strong tepid
coffee in the losing battle against fatigue.

The last piece
of information she had been pursuing arrived in her inbox; a voice
proclaimed “you have mail” and she opened it. Summarising its
contents, she added it to her notes for Barry. He was in her
bedroom, making yet more calls to people who were distancing
themselves from him and his spectacular plummet into oblivion but
who were afraid of what he might reveal about them on his way
down.

Maureen read
her notes:

‘
CIA, MI5 and
the law enforcement agencies either side of the Atlantic unable, or
unwilling to say where Gillian Davis is living. Scotland Yard met
with her, as did the FBI but both met her at offices in Richmond,
Virginia and her lawyer would not disclose her address, if indeed
he knew it.

Amazingly
enough the authorities could not find Davis with all of their
resources but a private security operative, Dee Hammond did find
her, and is probably the only person who does know where she is
living.

It was assumed
she was living in the Miles home, her Father’s home, but this
appears not to be the case; see Gerry’s note.’ Maureen flicked over
two pages and found the email from Gerry, MI5’s local contact in
Richmond, Virginia.

“
Mo. Good to
hear from you after such a long while. No-one at Thames House
speaks to me anymore – cutbacks? Remind them I’m cheaper than an
airfare! Anyway, here we go. All Senators have government approved
fast response security systems operated by Wells Fargo and so I
rang the control center and assuming the role of the Lynchburg
Police Department asked them if an alarm was going off as a
neighbour though they heard something as they drove by. Wells Fargo
said the house was secure, as far as they could see on their
monitors, and that the Senator was away until Tuesday and the house
was empty. They reminded me that the Lynchburg PD should be driving
by every ninety minutes anyway. So, if your girl is in the area she
isn’t staying in the Senator’s house.

Just a
thought, if she talked to the Feds in Richmond and her lawyer is in
Richmond, well maybe she is in Richmond too. Do you want me to run
a credit card check? Let me know, sweetcheeks.

Gerry”

Maureen went
back to the notes.

‘
Davis is not
using any known account or credit cards but this means nothing. She
probably has unknown accounts under several aliases, or at least
she will have if she learned anything at all in her special
services training.

Our only lead
to her whereabouts, therefore, is the unlikely Dee Hammond. A
Google search showed lots of YouTube hits for the same piece of
video, Hammond leading Rob Donkin by the ear to the police. He must
be one angry man. Also numerous press reports including the front
page of the Sun newspaper reporting that Hammond had partially
blinded Donkin when his attack on her backfired. The lunatic had
tried to squirt undiluted bleach in Hammond’s eyes. Sick
boy.

The night duty
operative at Vastrick Security helpfully gave Maureen an emergency
number for Hammond which rang through to an answer phone for her
Orange Mobile phone number.’

A hack of her
mobile phone, courtesy of Sandra in the ‘electronic interception
section’ at Thames house, proved most helpful. Maureen owed Sandra
dinner at Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen Restaurant in North London.
Maureen turned to the intercepts.

“
Outgoing
text message to Josh Hammond: Know it’s stupid. Outside Chameleon’s
place. Need to face her. Can’t settle til I do.”

“
Incoming
text message from Josh Hammond: Yes it is stupid. She is a killer.
I am flying out. Be there Weds’day. Got to finish report. U still
at Richmond Downtown Crowne Plaza?”

“
No more
traffic, D Hammond phone off or out of range.”

At least
Maureen had something. If they could persuade Dee Hammond to tell
them the whereabouts of Davis, Barry could track her down and force
her to make good their loss. After all, she’d had almost three
million pounds in her account before it had been moved. She could
afford it.

That money in
the Isle of Man had been their nest egg; they could get away
together if they had that cash. Maureen shuddered involuntarily at
the thought of Barry’s behaviour towards her earlier. He had
brutalised her - rape wouldn’t be too strong a word. But he was
under extreme pressure. When they were together, relaxing, having
retired from this madness, he would be OK. He wouldn’t hurt her
then. No, it was just the circumstances, she convinced herself. She
hadn’t seen the signs, and so it was partially her fault, anyway.
She would have to be more careful.

***

Barry sat
alone in the living room of the small garden flat which overlooked
the green. Maureen had gone to bed. This tiny space in a Victorian
building in Richmond would raise almost three hundred thousand
pounds when it was sold, and even in a depressed housing market it
would be sold within a week. Maureen had furnished it well; it was
light and airy, the furniture modern and the artwork colourful. The
pale deep pile carpet offered a soft contrast to the hard edges of
the stainless steel and glass coffee table and bookshelves. The
irony was that the flat could have been designed by his wife.
Everything in it was exactly to her taste. Barry wondered for a
moment whether the decor said anything about his taste in
women.

His mobile
phone rang; it was nearly three in the morning now.

“
Barry, I’ll
give you this and then don’t ever call me again. OK?”

“
Of course
not. I’m out of the game after this,” Barry lied.

“
Donkin is in
room 417.1 in that private hospital at London Bridge. His bills are
being paid by that celebrity publicist. The police will present him
before magistrates as soon as he gets out, and I guess he’ll go
down, but the publicist will get a few good stories out first. The
word on the ward is that he’s faking total blindness to avoid the
inevitable arrest and confinement in a place less comfortable than
the London Bridge Hospital.”

Barry had a
plan. Now he could go to bed and sleep for a few hours.