Lethal Profit (28 page)

She was about to remove the memory stick from the computer when she noticed that it had a ‘trash' folder. She clicked on the file; inside was a single document. She opened it and began to read – it appeared to be a record of attempts that Sophie had made at passing on the information she had and the people she had tried to make contact with. Eva's own name was on the top of the list as the most recent entry, along with the address of the hotel where she had been staying in Paris. The next name down was ‘Terry Dowler' and a date next to it. The name rang a bell so Eva accessed the hotel's wireless internet and searched his name. He had been a tabloid journalist who had died suddenly on a Eurostar from Paris to London on the date that Sophie had entered into the document. The article written about him attributed his death to a heart attack. Eva looked at where Sophie had noted ‘EXECUTED' in stark capital letters. She began to get a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

She started to read the rest of the names and then suddenly she froze. There, towards the end of the short list was the name ‘Irene Hunt'.

An hour later and they were on the road. With no real option other than to try and contact the only person who looked as if he had any knowledge of the real extent of the crisis unfolding around them, Eva and Leon had decided to try their luck and schedule a meeting with Don Porter. It was nonsensical to Eva that she should be ‘scheduling meetings' when the information that she held was of such critical importance but there was a need to preserve some kind of sanity and not to behave in a way that would make their information less credible. That meant carrying on as normal; but it didn't make it any less surreal.

They had posed as journalists to try and schedule the meeting – borrowing the name of one of the biggest environmental commentators in the field to secure an hour with Porter that morning at midday. A harassed secretary had said that she was sure Porter had fifteen minutes he could spare them as long as they were there on time. Neither had any idea how they would explain that they were not the famous journalist – or convince Porter that they weren't certifiable – but without any other options they were just pressing ahead with what they had.

Eva had shown Leon Irene Hunt's name at the bottom of the contact list on Sophie's memory stick. Sophie had contacted her the week after Jackson had disappeared, which made Eva think that maybe the contact had been left by Jackson for Sophie; or that Irene Hunt had tracked Sophie down – but why? The connection between the secret servicewoman and her brother was baffling and, once her anger had died down, Eva was not yet sure whether it was as sinister as it seemed. She had told Leon about Hunt's bizarre
non sequitur
confession about being involved in Jackson's disappearance – staging the car crash. Leon had barely reacted to any of the information other than an imperceptible cooling of the air around him. As she sat in silence staring out of the window at the rain falling over the suburbs, Eva knew that Hunt was much more wrapped up in any of this than they had first realised.

When Don Porter was told that the PA of a rather famous journalist had set up a meeting with him for midday he almost bit his secretary's head off. Apart from the fact that he simply didn't have the time to deal with anything other than what was unfolding in front of him – if he wanted to keep his job – he queried what she had been thinking, inviting a journalist out here when there was so much information that they were trying to stop leaking out. The last thing he needed right now was an investigative journalist sniffing around. If he thought he was going to get the inside scoop on this algae mess he had another thing coming – Don could legitimately tell him to get lost and would do so without hesitation.

A complete media shut-down had been put in place to avoid any further scaremongering and all that was being fed to the waiting hacks was the news that the clean-up teams had been sent out to some of the affected areas that morning and had so far made good progress. They had been sent images of the dead algae which had been broadcast across the country and people had begun to go back to their lives after the panic of the day before. The phone calls the Agency had been receiving had dwindled in the morning, as everyone was given collection points for the algaecide and reassured that the situation was under control.

The reality, of course, was very different. Don knew from the research of Fred Humphries that the dead algae was in fact much more dangerous than the live plants. Due to the cannibalistic nature of the algae, it would simply grow stronger and more bountiful by feeding on the corpses of the dead plants. Plus, as each plant died it released its spores into the air which were carried on the wind, by animals, even on people's shoes to new watery homes. The more the algae died, the more it would spread. The algaecide had so far done absolutely nothing to slow the sinister progress, in fact in some areas it seemed to have speeded it up, and several of the clean-up team members had reported feeling unwell and had to leave the site which was a worrying development. Not only that but they had not been able to get hold of a single responsible person at the company occupying the premises in Sunbury, which still appeared to be at the centre of the geographical area of the algae explosion near London. If nothing else they had to get the company to take algaecide for any open water areas it had within its grounds. Discussions of their lack of licences and breaking of regulations could wait until this crisis was over. Don sighed and scratched his head as his phone began to ring once again. He thought of Fred's over-excitement when he had reported back to Don on what he had found inside the company premises they thought was at the centre of it all: Large pools. Filled with algae.

Eva was thrown violently against her seatbelt as the force of the car hit them on a quiet country road they had taken to avoid heavy traffic. Throughout the two minutes it took to unfold, the only thing she saw as the car flew forwards, spinning out of control, was Leon's hand suddenly appear on the handbrake to her right and yank the stick back. The car immediately pulled up and turned into a violent skid as the brakes slammed down, screeching and screaming and flinging Eva backwards against the leather headrest of her seat. The car eventually came to a halt facing the way it had come.

An eerie silence fell, broken only by the smell of burned rubber.

Eva looked up, her breath coming in raw, rasping bursts.

She expected Leon to spring into action but he seemed dazed and didn't move.

Suddenly there was another impact and they were moving sideways, being shunted off the empty public road and in through the open entrance of what looked like a scrap yard. Within seconds the huge powerful vehicle that had hit them had used its bull bars to push their car into the yard. A large metal gate swung closed behind them.

Eva and Leon stayed in the car as the other vehicle reversed and then came to a halt around a hundred metres away from them, between their own car and the metal gate. Nothing happened. The vehicle had blacked-out windows but inside nothing appeared to be moving.

Eva looked at Leon, who nodded over to her left, towards a small Portakabin where the door was opening.

The petite figure of Irene Hunt emerged clad in a long, dark trench coat and a large dark purple scarf. Eva inhaled sharply when she saw her.

Apparently in no hurry, Hunt slowly made her way over to the Land Rover. She tapped on the window and Eva wound it down.

‘Get out.'

Eva knew Leon had a gun, but he hadn't produced it. Perhaps he didn't feel threatened enough yet. She stepped down onto the rough earth; as her foot made contact with the floor she realised her legs were shaking. ‘What are you doing, Irene?'

The other woman looked at her.

‘I think the more pertinent question is what are you doing?'

‘I'm going to assume that you already know.'

‘You're taking part in a game that you cannot win, Eva.'

‘How are you involved in this?'

Irene looked at Leon and then took Eva by the arm and led her towards the Portakabin. Her grip was steely and utterly unbreakable. Eva glanced back to see Leon sitting in the car, his exit being impeded by two armed men who had emerged from the vehicle with blacked-out windows and were positioned on either side of him.

Once inside the Portakabin, Irene Hunt let go of her arm. It was cold and smelled damp inside the metal shell. There was a rough dark blue carpet on the floor, several desks and filing cabinets. Eva noticed a steaming cup of coffee and some kind of wrapped sandwich on one of the desks that she assumed couldn't be Irene's. She wondered how they had managed to take possession of this quiet spot and who had been removed so that they could.

‘Sit down.'

She glanced at Irene, a hard look. Eva didn't like being told what to do, particularly by this woman.

As Irene Hunt opened her mouth to begin speaking, Eva jumped straight in. ‘I don't understand how or why you were involved in Jackson's disappearance as a teenager but I know that you must have been in contact with him since.'

Irene Hunt shut her mouth as Eva carried on. ‘I don't
like
you, Irene. You broke my family apart with what you did with my father, you virtually killed my mother.'

Irene stared at Eva with her hard, grey eyes.

‘This isn't about you, Eva,' she said eventually. ‘It's never been about you.'

‘No, it seems as if it has always just been about you.'

Unexpectedly, Irene smiled. She let out a small, bitter laugh and then sat down at the chair behind the desk.

‘It's not even about me, Eva.'

Eva said nothing.

‘Sit down,' Irene repeated. Again Eva ignored her.

Irene sighed and took a seat herself. She folded her hands in front of her. ‘Your brother had been working for me – since the car accident after which he disappeared.'

Eva sat down in the chair opposite. She felt as if her legs might go from under her. ‘I…'

‘You know I work for the government. So did he. I helped him arrange that accident because he needed to disappear and start afresh. He was supposed to sever all contact with your family and he was supposed to change his name. Things didn't quite go to plan.'

Eva was utterly speechless. Apparently Irene didn't believe in breaking news gently.

‘When he found out about the affair I was having with your father, Jackson tracked me down and he confronted me. He was dangerously out of control; he had been snooping about in my life – private and professional – and he had too much information so I had him followed. When your father confessed the affair to your mother, Jackson was unable to handle the fall-out. We could see he wanted to escape. So I contacted him and I offered him a way out – maybe to make up for what I had done.'

‘So he really did just run away.'

‘Yes.'

Somehow Eva had been hoping for a more honourable motivation.

‘If it's any consolation, I think the guilt pretty much ate him up.'

‘It's not.'

Irene Hunt didn't respond.

‘What happened after that?'

‘The effect on him of leaving your family with the extra burden of his mother's death at such a difficult time, the guilt, was immediate. He clearly had not thought it through. Jackson went completely off the rails – drugs, drink, self-harm – you name it, he went there. For a year he kept trying to re-establish contact with you but each time we prevented him. It would have been too confusing for all of you.'

‘And you had other plans for Jackson.'

Irene stopped and Eva realised she had hit the nail right on the head. ‘What was it that you planned to get him to do in return for helping him “escape”?'

Irene seemed to realise there was no point in hiding the truth. She pushed her dark, glossy hair behind her ears.

‘We offered him an opportunity, that was all. Once we thought he had the emotion out of his system we sent him to one of our drying-out facilities and after several tries he got clean. He then took a year in France on his own to get strong, fit and back together. And then we placed him.'

‘You placed him?'

‘At the aid agency.'

‘What for?'

‘There's a huge op we've been working on for a decade.'

‘The algae.'

‘No. This algae business is low-level. My ex-husband is a policeman in Paris and I had him follow Jackson for several weeks and it became clear that he had become obsessed, that he had entirely lost his focus. We don't want to know whatever you know about it – we didn't want to know what Jackson or his friend Sophie knew. We didn't kill him, Eva. He got distracted by the algae. In this business you have to be able to focus only on your specific task, without taking responsibility for the rest of the world. That's what got him into trouble, he tried to be a hero – the algae story wasn't what we had trained him for, or what he was meant to be in the agency for.'

‘What was he there for?'

‘Not what, who – Joseph Smith.'

Eva sat up. ‘I've heard of him. He was mentioned in a conversation – I was held hostage briefly by a group of Sudanese men, they mentioned his name.'

Irene didn't seem in the least bit surprised that Eva had been a hostage.

‘It's likely that they would have noticed you because of your connection to Jackson.'

‘Did they kill him?'

‘We still don't know.'

‘But I think they're connected to the algae problem and this information.' Eva went to reach for the stick in her pocket.

Irene Hunt held up one hand. ‘They're not – he's not. It's something entirely different. They have only found you because of the connection with Jackson – because he never kept his identity anonymous as we assumed he had done – and you must stop pursuing them.'

‘Irene, I think you're wrong.'

The older woman's eyes flashed. ‘I'm not.'