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The knock at the door was gentle, almost apologetic. She was in the kitchen when she heard it, in her towelling robe and almost dry from the shower, making herself a cup of hot chocolate to take upstairs to bed. For a moment she thought about ignoring it; she had heard nothing from Mario al day . .. not that she would have taken his cal if he had rung, but his failure even to try to contact her pained her, and made her wonder how much she had hurt him with her final withering remark.
She could guess where he had spent the night. It had been too late for him to go to Neil and Lou, and he had never in his life been one to run home to mother. So Paula's it must have been, and in the mood he had been in there was no doubting either what had happened. Stil . ..
She can't be as good a lay as everyone imagines, she found herself thinking, if he s knocking on my door tonight rather than going back for more.
The gentle knock came again, a little louder but not much. 'Oh hel ,'
she said aloud, and headed for the door.
When she saw who was standing there, her mouth fel open, and she stopped herself only a fraction short of collapse. She had forgotten, or made herself forget, many things about him over the years. How blue were his eyes, how cold, how hard and how merciless. How deep was his tan, some of it complexion, the rest the result of years in the sun. How rough were his hands. How brutal he had been, as he invaded her. And most of all, she had forgotten, until that moment, just how much he terrified her.
He stood there with a terrible smile on his face. Not only was his beard gone, but his head was shaven, and gleaming, like a brown egg in the moonlight. He looked ageless; unchanged from the day he had left.
She was frozen as he stared at her, and as he brought the massive automatic, made bigger stil by its silencer, from behind his back.
'Well then, Margaret,' he murmured in the strange accent that had brought her terror then, as it did now, 'how you've grown. I've been watching you for a while, watching and waiting for that man of yours to leave you alone. And now he has. Ditched you final y, has he, for Miss Viareggio?' He moved towards her and she staggered backwards, helpless before him. 'Come on now, lass. Invite your daddy in.
'I've waited a long time to visit you again, you with your big mouth, you that couldn't keep a secret. I've waited a long time to pay you out.'
He moved into the darkened hal and closed the door behind him. Still she backed off, into the light of the living room, where the curtains were drawn. 'Superintendent now, I believe; he murmured. 'It counts for nothing now, my girl, for nothing before me.'
He jabbed the gun at her, then laughed as she flinched. 'Let's see how you've turned out then, woman.' He reached out, fast, with his left hand and tugged at the cord of her robe, ripping it from its loops, then staring at her as the garment fell open. 'Not bad, not bad; bigger than your mother, for sure. And now, we'll see what else . . .'
She stepped away yet again as he moved towards her; her foot caught in the hem of the dressing gown. It slipped from her shoulders, and she fell backwards, full-length, on the floor. She lay there, paralysed, staring up at her monster of a father as he towered over her.
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The vestry door was open when she arrived, as Ian had said it would be.
There had been no other car in sight as she had parked the Jaguar, and so she assumed that she had made it there before him.
She was mistaken; there he sat in a wooden chair under the high vestry window, caught in the rays of the westbound sun, smiling as she entered the room, leaving the door ajar behind her. 'Thank you for coming,' he said, 'it's very important to me, much more important than you can guess.'
She looked at him, and that old feeling of lust swept over her. There had been so much she had not admitted to Bob, and never would. She could recall every one of the several lovers she had had in her life, since she and Ian Walker had deflowered each other in her freshman year at college, but none, not even Ron, her footballer, with such clarity as she remembered Terry Carter. The perfect, beautiful musculature of his body, the easy skill with which he had aroused her to frenzy, so often in their brief, energetic affair, his knack of entering her at exactly the right moment and his ability to stay there, all rock-hard velvet, holding himself back until she was absolutely ready for him to let go. Yes, she had been demanding of him. Yes, made bitter and revengeful by her husband's betrayal, for all the watered-down story she had told Bob eventual y, she had demanded plenty. Now, once more, in the vestry of a Lutheran church of all places, she could feel herself moisten at the very sight of him. She laid her capacious black leather bag on the carpeted floor, and knew that if he asked her, they would probably join it there.
Yet lust was all it had been. For all of his beauty and grace as a lover, she had never felt herself falling in love with him. There was something about him that had precluded that from the start, a distance kept between her and the real man inside him. And so she had gratified herself with him, readily and frequently, in friendship and without shame. In fact she had felt no guilt over their parting, as she had pretended to Bob; she had simply wanted to see him again.
He rose and she went to him. They kissed, briefly, then again, for longer. 'Hello Terry,' she murmured as they broke off their embrace.
'This was probably a lousy idea, but I'm glad I agreed to it.'
The too,' he said. 'How are you, Sarah? Are you happy back in Scotland with your policeman?'
She nodded. 'Yes, I am. He's the foundation I've always needed in my life. Not that I didn't appreciate the time we had together. That's why I said I would meet you, I suppose ... to thank you in a way I never did before.'
'You thanked me every time we made love,' he told her. 'I'll never forget you. And much as I'd like to reprise those days, they're over, I'm afraid. You have something I need; the package Mr Oakdale gave you.'
He glanced at her bag and saw the long envelope, with its seal, sticking out of the open top. 'That's it, I guess.'
She frowned at him. 'Honey, what is this? How did you know about that?'
'Oakdale's office is bugged. I heard every word you said in there.'
Her look had become one of astonishment and confusion. 'Terry!' she exclaimed. 'What are you saying?'
'My name isn't Terry,' he told her, 'but you don't need to know what it really is. I'm afraid you have been unfortunate in your choice of father.
Your old man was one of a small group of people who have been watched for a long time, by a succession of people like me. In Senator Grace's case it wasn't so much because of what he had done, but because of who his friends were; in particular, his friend Jack Wylie, the leader of the group.
'Those men were entrusted with one of the deepest secrets of our nation. Not I, nor any of the other men who have watched them over the years, know fully what it is. They were rewarded for what they did and for many years that kept them happy, but there was always the fear that, one day, one of them might have an attack of conscience. So they were kept under constant observation, in their places of work, in their homes, and in their recreation.'
Sarah stared at him, her eyes narrowing. 'And you and me? That was part of it?'
'Yes, I'm afraid it was. After your father retired it became difficult to keep him under complete surveil ance. Then you showed up, back in Buffalo, his beloved only daughter. One of my superiors had the bright idea that you could be used as a conduit to him, so to speak. And so I was ordered to get close to you... an order which,' he added with a grin,
'if I may say so, I carried out to the best of my ability.
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'Like I say, your father was included because of his links to those men. It was al a precaution, you understand; but as it turned out a precaution that was very necessary.
For eventual y, one of them did get
flaky, and persuaded the rest to fol ow. Your father was enlisted to be their messenger, their most honest of brokers. In those circumstances, action had to be taken.'
She stared at him, incredulous. 'You are saying that you kil ed my father and mother, you bastard?'
'That is correct; them and a few others. And now, of course, since you are privy to all this, you have to go too.'
He reached into the jacket of his dark suit and took out a gun, a compact weapon that she recognised as the twin of the one in her father's car. He. levelled it at her head. 'You may prefer to turn around,' he murmured.
'And you may prefer,' a rough, breathless voice said from the doorway,
'to lay that weapon very slowly and very carefully on the ground at your feet. No, don't even think about pul ing the trigger, son. And don't get any other ideas either. I may be out of puff but you wouldn't get halfway round towards me before your brains were al over that wal .'
Very slowly, and very careful y, Isaac Brand did as he had been instructed. 'That's good,' said Skinner, 'now slip off your jacket so I can see you aren't carrying anything else.' He waited, as the special agent dropped his coat on the floor. 'Okay, that's good. Now turn, slowly, and face me.'
Brand inched round until he could see the big figure of the Scot, holding an identical Glock to the one on the floor. The barrel was a black dot and he was transfixed by it. Almost casually, Skinner took one pace forward and kicked him in the testicles, as hard as he was able. The American squealed and fell to the floor, clutching his crotch and squirming.
'That's for fucking my wife. I'm an unreconstructed caveman where that sort of thing's concerned. It's also out of frustration that I was so stupid, from the moment I told Joe Doherty to use you to check on Wylie, Garrett and Wilkins. I should have been suspicious from the moment you didn't tell Joe about the stolen laptop. We were al wrapped up in Kosinski, but it was you al along; you were the plant. Troy had nothing to do with it. That's right, isn't it?'
On the floor, Brand gurgled.
'It's okay,' said Skinner. 'I'l take a nod as a "yes".' Purple-faced, the man nodded.
'I wish I could kill you now,' the Scot told him, 'for Leo and Susannah and for al the others. You've no idea how badly I want to ... or maybe you do. If this was my country, you'd be well dead by now; I'd have dropped you as soon as I came through that door and saw you with a gun on Sarah. But it isn't, and I don't want to import any shit to Scotland; so I don't want to take a chance on shooting you.
'I've been in your world, and so I know how it works. So my proposal is that we're going to go now, and we're going to leave you with the thing you came after.' He glanced towards Sarah's bag, on the floor. 'Is that it in there?'
'Yes,' she replied, a catch in her throat.
'Okay; take it out and leave it there. Then pick up the gun and come over here.' She nodded and did as he said, then moved over to the door behind him.
'I want you to carry a message from me. Brand, to whoever pulls your strings. I don't want to know who was behind it, or even how you kil ed Joe. The end of the story's in that envelope; I'm going to leave it for you, and I'm going to walk away.
'You have two choices, son. You either take that package and what's in it, and give me your personal word that you wil never come near me or any of mine again, anywhere, or I'l yield to my basest instincts and put a bullet through your head, right where you lie.
'Which is it to be? Are you going to be sensible, or are you going to be dead?'
Zak Brand twisted his head to look up at him. 'Sensible,' he hissed, in an agonised voice.
'Just as well. Stay where you are until you hear us drive off. And don't think of cal ing any back-up you may have out there. If any vehicle as much as moves towards us as we leave here, or tries to tail us, I wil turn right round, come back in here and kill you. Do you believe that?'
'Yes.'
'Then just keep on believing.' He put an arm around Sarah's waist and steered her through the door.
She said nothing until they were in the Jaguar; then she turned to him.
'Is that it?' she asked, with fury written on her face. 'That man killed my parents and we're just going to leave him there?'
'Do you real y think I want to?' he snapped back at her. 'That's the way it has to be. But he hasn't got away with anything.'
'What do you mean?'
'I mean this. I can't shoot the bastard because I need him to deliver 296
his message to whoever sent him. Much as I'd like to get them all, I never could, because wherever they're from and whatever their background, be it state, organised crime, or foreign government, their resources put them beyond even my reach. If I tried to track them, which I could do by tailing Brand . . .'
'Brand?' She frowned.
In spite of himself, Babs Walker's drawing-room tour of Sarah's past flashed through his mind. 'Your lover's real name is Isaac Brand,' he told her, coolly. 'He's a Special Agent of the FBI, and he was one of the two guys Joe Doherty assigned to me ... only he had other loyalties.
'If I did tail him, I'd be putting you, al of us, at terrible risk; so I can't.'
Skinner looked at her, and a hard light flickered in his eye. 'But he's at risk himself now. Brand took his orders from someone, and even if he's only met that one link in the chain of which he himself is a part, now he's failed in his mission and been exposed.'
A look of blood-chilling satisfaction crossed his face; it might even have been taken for a smile. 'And that makes him. ..' he murmured
'... the weakest link. Goodbye.'
He switched on the engine of the big car. 'I could have made him dead, but you could say I've done worse. He isn't a pursuer any more; I've made him a target. He's got two choices. Either he takes a big risk and tries to bargain for his life with that envelope, probably not even knowing what's in it, or he takes a big risk and runs. Either way he'l never know anything but fear for as long or as short as he lives.'
She looked at him as he drove off; for the first time he noticed how pale she was. 'And us. We'll be safe, you're sure?'