Authors: Hector Macdonald
The assassin’s trail, always tenuous, had become the coldest thing in the Caribbean.
The rendezvous was an underpass on the outskirts of the city. Madeleine Wraye knew it wasn’t going to be the meeting point. If it was, she’d got the wrong man.
No CCTV units. The grimy pavement was wide enough for them to pull over without obstructing the traffic. Edward Joyce activated the hazard lights and raised the bonnet in accordance with their instructions.
‘See that?’ he said, pointing to a heap of abandoned crates, a vagrant’s shelter, fifty metres off. He marched purposefully to the dilapidated encampment, peered inside. Wraye watched him with amusement. ‘What?’ he said, aggrieved, when he returned to the car.
‘Nothing.’
‘
He
wouldn’t have checked?’
‘Yes, he probably would have.’
Joyce leaned against the BMW, feigning nonchalance as he studied the water stains on the decaying concrete overhead. ‘He could have chosen somewhere less grim.’
‘He wants the cover. In case we have drone or satellite surveillance.’
‘Jesus. The man really is paranoid.’
‘He has reason to be, unfortunately.’
A car had come to a halt on the opposite carriageway. White, a Fiat. Comfortably anonymous. In it, the lone figure of a young woman. Moments later a similar model in silver pulled up behind the BMW.
‘Steady,’ murmured Wraye. ‘Hands in the open. We don’t want any misunderstandings.’
The driver of the silver Fiat stepped out. ‘Good evening,’ he said in accented English. ‘My name is Carlo. Thank you for your punctuality.’ He was short and skinny, Mediterranean, with a thin moustache and two delicate gold chains around his neck. Addressing Wraye, the man added, ‘Our friend asks that you travel a little further. Your colleague must remain here. Is this acceptable?’
‘Absolutely n–’ Joyce began, but Wraye interrupted him.
‘It’s acceptable.’
‘You will leave all weapons, phones and radios behind.’
‘I’m not armed,’ said Wraye, handing her phone to Joyce.
‘Thank you,’ Carlo smiled, as if greatly relieved. ‘Your driver is waiting for you.’ He gestured across the busy road.
‘Great,’ muttered Wraye. A steel barrier separated two flows of continuous traffic. She was going to have to perform an undignified dash and an even more undignified clamber over the barrier, all for the amusement of the young woman still sitting coolly in the white Fiat.
Joyce grabbed her arm. ‘Are you sure he’s worth it?’
‘Worth what?’
‘The risk! You said yourself TALON might have turned hostile since you knew him. You don’t have the first idea where that woman’s taking you.’
‘Yes. He’s worth it.’
‘There are other people who could do the job.’
‘Who?
You
?’ Wraye stared at him. ‘You want to hunt Yadin?’
Joyce drew himself up. ‘It’s not such a ridiculous idea.’
She laughed hollowly. ‘He’d eat you for breakfast.’
The young woman did not speak at first. She drove fast but sensibly, checking the rear-view mirror more often than was really necessary. Someone had shown her what to do, Wraye decided, but she wasn’t service-trained. Their route led into the centre of Milan, via a lot of empty backstreets and seemingly random right turns. Even if Joyce had found a gap in that steel barrier and executed a swift U-turn, he would never have caught up with them. Wraye estimated it would have taken five or six surveillance vehicles to beat that simple underpass gambit without giving themselves away.
‘Is he always this careful?’
‘No one has traced him in nine years.’ The driver wore white jeans and a citrine blouse. Her hand on the gear stick betrayed only a hint of tension. The skin was tanned but butter-soft.
‘That’s because everyone thinks he’s dead.’
A slight shrug. ‘Exactly.’
Their destination was a large and anonymous modern hotel near the Giardini Pubblici. From the underground car park, an express elevator carried them to the sixth floor. Wraye studied her escort in the elevator mirrors. A beautiful face, intently focused. High cheek bones. Perfectly straight ash blonde hair. The kind of woman one couldn’t imagine doing the washing-up. ‘Is he here?’
‘I’ll be taking you to him shortly.’ Her accent not quite English.
The room was a standard four-star offering, with only a framed print of the Gothic cathedral to hint at their location. Laid out on the bed was a long sapphire dress of elegant but conservative cut, a pair of matching heels, a set of underwear, and a small make-up kit.
‘We’re going to a party?’ asked Wraye, lifting an eyebrow. There was no telephone in the room, she noticed.
The woman produced a cotton sack. ‘All clothes, jewellery and personal items go in here. Carlo will return them to your associate.’
Wraye considered her. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Jane,’ came the reply, after a short hesitation.
‘Well, “Jane”, how about telling me what the plan is?’
‘I don’t like to talk a whole lot.’
Australian, decided Wraye, but well hidden.
‘So what are you – his girlfriend?’
‘His employee,’ said the woman, her voice neutral.
‘Like a PA?’
‘Sure. Like a PA.’ A hint of humour.
‘I’m not bugged. No tracking devices sewn into my collar, if that’s what this is about.’
‘We haven’t got much time. Please get undressed, Ms Wraye.’
‘How do I know this is genuine?’ she demanded. ‘The man I’m looking for is officially deceased.’
‘Jane’ reached into her pocket. ‘He said this would help with any doubts.’
She held out a strip of animal hide, discoloured and stiff with age. Wraye stared at the thing, took it with visible reluctance.
‘Do you recognize it?’
‘It’s from one of the devices we used to torture him.’
For the first time, the cool little assistant seemed off balance. She took refuge in repetition, holding out the sack and saying, ‘We haven’t got much time.’
‘Are you going to watch?’
‘Yes.’
Turning irritably away, Wraye stripped off her jacket, boots and trousers. She did not like this young woman seeing her naked. The age difference was too stark. Though her mind felt sharper and quicker than ever, her body – despite frequent visits to an expensive Knightsbridge health club – was too obviously past its peak. At fifty-three, Madeleine Wraye could no longer pretend that her breasts were firm or her stomach flat. Removing her underwear and dropping it along with her rings and handbag into the cotton sack, she felt unreasonably resentful of the other woman’s impassive gaze.
‘Raise your arms, please.’ The woman inspected her armpits, the small of her back, beneath each breast and between her legs. She ran her fingers across her scalp, felt behind her ears, looked in her mouth and between her toes.
‘Satisfied?’ snapped Wraye.
‘I’ll leave you to get dressed now.’
They returned to the underground car park, but not to the same car. ‘Jane’ led the way instead to a black Mercedes and opened the rear door. ‘You are Lady Celia Buxton. This is your invitation.’ The stiff white card swarmed with golden copperplate, except for the line detailing the location of the event. That had been scraped bare. ‘You’re presently summering in Monaco. You’ve known the Count since he visited London in 1996 to paint the Naval College at Greenwich. You met at Christie’s, where he outbid you on a small Renoir.’
‘I’ve never “summered” in my life,’ muttered Wraye as she got in. ‘Who dreamed up that absurd legend?’
‘The person you are looking for is known to the Count as Jeffrey Morton. Please remember that. Jeffrey Morton, a security consultant from Portsmouth, formerly an officer in British military intelligence. That’s all. We won’t be speaking again.’
‘Wait, I need to know where –’
But the door was already closed and, much to her annoyance, Wraye discovered that the partition between driver and passenger was shut. Both rear doors were locked and the windows could not be opened. A black film on the glass cut visibility almost to zero.
Madeleine Wraye was not someone who suffered such loss of control with good grace.
The journey lasted around two hours. Devoid of her watch and phone, with only the setting sun to inform her, Wraye couldn’t make a more accurate assessment of the passing time. The drive was fast and smooth, some of it flat, some hilly. At one point she caught a hint of sea air transmitted through the car’s air-conditioning system. But most of the time she could see nothing through the heavily tinted windows but the skimming headlights of autostrada traffic, and the occasional sequence of fluorescent dashes as they passed through a tunnel.
It was fully dark by the time the Mercedes came to a halt. The rear window slid down, and Wraye looked up into the ebullient face of a man dressed in a frock coat, embroidered waistcoat and powdered wig. ‘Buonasera, signora,’ he said. Still Italy, then. Probably.
Wraye held out the gold-scripted invitation.
The car door opened and a deep red carpet extended before her, flanked by flaming torches, rising up a marble staircase to a neoclassical portico.
Wraye gazed up at the great house. Floodlights illuminated classical statues in niches and orange trees in giant terracotta pots. Guests in evening dress crowded the ornate balconies and terraces. A string orchestra was playing Rossini. Waiters in Renaissance-patterned waistcoats and skullcaps glided amongst the guests bearing magnums of Dom Pérignon.
‘My God, Simon,’ breathed Wraye to herself as she stepped out of the car. ‘How you’ve grown up.’
He was not in the hall or drawing rooms downstairs. Nor was he part of the younger crowd that had assembled in the courtyard loggia, with loosened bow ties and wandering eyes. Wraye accepted a glass of champagne from a waiter’s tray and climbed the magnificent curving staircase. She recognized amongst the men on the upper floor a handful of Italian parliamentarians from the right of the political spectrum, as well as several high-profile media figures and business leaders. On each one, she could have recalled a substantial body of data, some in the public domain, some rather more intimate.
At the end of one corridor, she found herself in a library. It was less crowded than the other rooms: a small group by the piano; two couples not quite entwined on the couches. And over by the windows a man with his back to her, three young women clustered about him. He was the right height, still slim, hair a little darker than she remembered, back and shoulders solidly drawn beneath his modish silk dinner jacket. His words had his debutante audience captivated. A joke, a toss of the head, a wink to one of the girls, and Wraye caught a glimpse of his face.
It wasn’t him.
She turned to go – and stopped still. Positioned exactly where he ought to be – away from the windows, close to an exit, with a clear view of all doorways – was a ghost. Dead to the world, and most especially to his former colleagues, yet unquestionably real in his charcoal suit and blue striped tie, the man was engrossed in conversation with the oldest guest at the party. He had seen her, of course, long before she identified him. He would have been informed of her arrival, would have judged her progress through the palazzo, decided on the door she would come through. And still he managed to give no sign of it. His attention seemed entirely focused on the matriarch in the Rococo armchair, and only a trained observer would have noticed that he kept Wraye always within his peripheral field of vision.
The sight of him, now, after nine lost years, brought back a moment from long ago. A Georgetown drawing room. Watching her new, undeclared officer through a filter of congressmen, aides, lobbyists and the more respectful members of the DC press corps. Peripheral vision only, always careful to avoid any suggestion that she knew the young man with the dark blond hair and the playful blue eyes who didn’t quite seem at ease in his jacket and tie. And when some well-meaning Washington wife decided to introduce the two Brits – ‘He’s with the
London
Times
, Madeleine, one of your rising stars’ – she had shaken hands with a polite smile, searched valiantly for common ground, and then moved on to more important people.
‘Mr Morton.’
The head turned a fraction. Those eyes had once been full of life. Now, they were unreadable. ‘Lady Buxton.’ His voice, spellbinding to the Washington establishment, was so instantly familiar it made her catch her breath.
He held out a hand which she took, flesh and blood, for a measured two seconds. Slight creases in the warm skin. Smile lines around the mouth – a reassuring sign. His teenager’s beauty had metamorphosed into something more appropriate to his profession. There was a hardness to his jaw now, a hint of jeopardy in the magnetism that still defined his gaze.
‘
Scusate
,’ he murmured to the matriarch. Guiding Wraye with a respectful hand not quite touching her back, he led the way to an adjoining room. ‘Celia, it’s been a long time.’
‘It really has. You should have written.’
‘Well . . . here we are, anyway.’
‘At a society party, no less. Wouldn’t a bar at Milano Centrale have done?’
The next room turned out to be less comfortable than the library, and was empty of guests. Some kind of archive, it offered only hard wooden chairs and rolling stepladders to reach the higher shelves.
‘This is safer.’
‘That answers a number of questions. You view me as a threat.’
‘A potential threat.’
‘Then despite the elaborate precautions of your charming Australian assistant, you’ve arranged an escape route out of here.’
‘She’ll be gutted you nailed her nationality.’
‘And the Count is . . . ?’
‘A client.’
‘I see. The security consultant. That’s why you’re the only guest dressed like an employee. Didn’t I teach you to blend in?’
‘Bow ties and cummerbunds?’ he smiled. ‘I haven’t changed that much.’
‘Shall we sit down? There’s a lot to talk about.’
‘Let’s stand. We don’t have long.’
‘Because you don’t trust me.’
‘It’s possible you’ve already borrowed a waiter’s phone to call in our location.’
‘Which is?’
The smile returned for a second.
‘Just how long do we have?’
‘I leave in four minutes.’
‘After nine years? No!’ She grabbed two wooden chairs and thrust one at him. ‘Sit down! You owe me that much for the funeral you put me through. Who was it, by the way, that unlucky man in the kitchen with your wife? Four minutes, my
God
. You expect to get what you want from me in four minutes?’
He remained standing. ‘What makes you think I want anything from you?’
‘You agreed to see me, at what you evidently consider to be great personal risk. There must be a reason. Is it information you’re after? About the bombing? Our investigation was inconclusive.’
‘I wanted to be able to look into your eyes. To know if you had a part in it.’
She went cold. ‘And what do you see?’
He scowled. ‘Inconclusive.’
‘You were like a son to me! I loved Emily. To suggest I could have harmed either one of you –’
Impatiently, he said, ‘I leave in two minutes. What do you want, Madeleine?’
‘Simon,
look
at me! I’m the same person you trusted with your life in Kyrgyzstan. The friend who sat with you in Almaty while you waited for news of your father’s stroke. Have you forgotten the Swat Valley, stuck all night in that freezing ditch? Does that mean
nothing
?’
For an instant his face softened involuntarily, and she recognized in his eyes a flash of the man she’d known – the adventure and life and joyful curiosity. Seizing the moment, she said, ‘I have a job for you.’
He laughed out loud.
‘At least let me tell you what it is.’
‘I have plenty of work.’ That spark of connection was gone. Coldly suppressed.
‘So I see,’ she sneered. ‘Italian Counts! What else? Korean toothbrush manufacturers? You’ve sold out.’
‘And you haven’t? They say your new house has a sauna in the basement.’
‘My clients are still the right people.’
‘Sure about that?’
‘The job is important.’
‘It was always important,’ he sighed. ‘But I’m not Simon Arkell any more. I can’t afford to be. If I step back into that world, someone might find out their bomber missed his target.’ He turned away. ‘It was good to see you, Madeleine.’
He was gone in a second, but she was as quick, catching him on the stairs. ‘Hear me out and I’ll give him to you.’
‘What?’
‘The bomber, Simon. The man who killed your wife.’
He didn’t stop moving, didn’t flinch even. ‘So you
were
involved,’ he said blackly.
‘We don’t know who ordered it. But there was a CCTV record – a private unit outside the corner shop. It caught a van leaving, with a usable frame of the driver’s face. Simon, I have the bomber’s name.’
He stopped on the threshold of the hallway. ‘Give me the name and I’ll consider the job.’
‘First we discuss the job.’
There was something there, briefly, a glimmer of the old lust for living, for the unknown. The thirst for adventure that had propelled him through some of the most inimical corners of the planet without a hint of self-doubt. But there was also something ominous which made her feel uneasy, a glaze of suspicion that swept her right back to an interrogation cell in Abuja. A British subject invading sovereign Nigerian territory under a French flag. A potential diplomatic nightmare. A prospect.
The suspicion faded – or seemed to fade. It was all she could hope for at the moment. Maintain contact at all costs. ‘Simon, I promise you –’
‘Come with me,’ he said.