Run Among Thorns (25 page)

“You think that matters?” Davids snarled. John was reminded of a stray dog, backed into a corner, discarding cowering in favour of showing its yellow teeth.

“Whose word, exactly, do you think they’ll believe? You’re in this with us, John. You’re playing with the big boys now.”

I’m not playing your game. Sir.

In times past, they’d called it the Great North Road. The A1, marching steadily up the east of England.

Kier had “found” them a fairly modest saloon, getting on in years, explaining that they were easier to take. They stopped once, at Scotch Corner, and by Kier’s stiffness and his silence, she knew he was happy to be on the road again without having been challenged. There was a section of roadworks south of Newcastle, and they were caught for a mile or more with a police car three cars behind, crawling forward at forty mph, while she sweated, and Kier talked nothings to keep her calm.

It was effortless in him, that kind of calm, that kind of care. It was almost unthinking, too. He’d be telling her the police would only check the number plate if they had reason to be suspicious while he watched the traffic ahead, or promising her everything was going to be fine while studying the aggressive manoeuvres of a white van in the wing mirror.

Jenny wrapped her arms around her middle. He was just so damn … competent. A very lukewarm word for a decidedly more than warm man.

And preoccupied by that overwhelming competence, it wasn’t until just north of Newcastle that she thought to ask, “What about Alan?”

“What about him?”

“We’ve just run off and left his house surrounded by bad guys.”

She got a turn of the head and a raised eyebrow for the “bad guys,” but that didn’t daunt her. “What if he goes home and—”

“Believe me, Jenny,” he said. “Alan can look after himself. And besides I don’t think he’s coming home any time soon. My best guess is that a postcard from … where was he last time he went travelling?”

“Norway.”

“A postcard from Norway, or somewhere round there, will land on your doormat back home in a few days’ time.”

She thought about that for a few more miles.

“Kier?”

“Hmm?”

“What do you think he’s doing?”

Kier scowled at the road. “I think that’s something you’re going to have to ask him yourself. I don’t know, anyway.”

She thought,
I didn’t ask what you knew; I asked what you thought
. But she let it go. It wasn’t as if he was going to tell her, anyway. And he wouldn’t be
able
to tell her why she’d never heard of this cottage, and what it was going to be like.

The first of the signs for Bamburgh flashed past. She’d find out soon enough.

He moved, and she felt him pluck one hand away from her body, bringing it to rest, wound about with his fingers, on his powerful thigh. He didn’t speak, didn’t look at her, but his thumb made lazy circles on her palm, drawing patterns in electric sensation that drugged and enervated her in the same charged breath. She remembered his thumbs brushing her mouth, her breast, creating almost involuntary pleasure in her. Her breath skipped, went shallow, and she chewed the inside of her cheek fiercely to keep from moaning.

She stared at his profile, still caught in frowning concentration, even while he turned her inside-out with just the stroke of his thumb. Then he turned his head, and met her eyes, and his own narrowed and pinned her with a look that made the shivery ache settle in her stomach, and her breath come faster still. He’d read what she was thinking in her eyes, she knew, and now he was thinking the same. Heat suffused her skin, and she shifted restlessly in her seat. The movement of his thumb hadn’t faltered.

The road caught his attention, and he turned away, leaving her hand abandoned on his thigh. The muscles were bunched under it though, and when she surreptitiously tried to withdraw it, he grabbed hold of it without looking, and brought it right back.

The big grain silos came into view, and Kier indicated right. Her fingers tightened involuntarily on the thick muscle, and she knew he smiled, even without looking.

Alan’s cottage was halfway down a rutted lane that led down a slope to the shore. Its slate roof was hardly visible from the road, but as they turned carefully into the lane, Kier was able to see the bay clearly for the first time. A wide-mouthed, box-shaped inlet, a mile or two across at its mouth, and not much less on the landward side, where a river mouth marked each corner.

It was mostly dry now, just a winding channel, darker and sharper than the rolling mud flats and sands, marking where water ran out to sea. The north shore was flatter than this one, the dunes lower. To the east, the sea, with Lindisfarne, Holy Island, a dark shape to the north-east.

There was a space in front of the cottage, rough grass overcoming old gravel. Kier pulled up in front of the white-painted door, under the clothesline that danced and twanged in the wind.

They got out, Jenny stood for a moment, hanging onto the door, breathing deep of the sea air, eyes half-closed and lips curving, her hair dancing around her head. He watched her, feeling absurdly lucky, considering the circumstances. He pulled the key out of his pocket.

“Hey.” She looked up, and he tossed the key over to her. She caught it easily, smiling at him. “Open up.”

Not that he couldn’t open the door himself. But she seemed happy, and he’d try anything to keep her that way.

The place was pretty much as Alan had described. The door opened onto a tiny hall, a coat stand crammed into the corner, between the doors to the galley kitchen, and the little bathroom. On the right another door, open to show the living room, and another door in the far wall of the living room, that must lead to the bedroom.

“Check it out,” he said, nodding towards the kitchen. “We may need supplies.”

The living room had a collection of mismatched furniture, a worn sofa, a polished table against the far wall, a couple of chairs. Watercolour over the mantle, phone on the windowsill. And the fireplace. He stared at that for a while, but Jenny was only in the kitchen, he couldn’t guarantee she wouldn’t walk in. He moved on to the bedroom.

A double bed, already made up with duvet and blankets. A single chest of drawers and a metal frame thing for hanging clothes. And two windows, front and back The back window looked out over the bay, and the scrubby trees that rattled bare branches against each other while the wind blew hard.

“We’re pretty well supplied,” Jenny said, popping her head round the door. “There’s a little freezer with bread and meat, and a couple of cupboards full of tins. There’s even milk in the freezer, so we don’t have to suffer UHT. We’ll do for now.”

“Good.”

“Have you seen the bath?” she asked, grinning. “You might need an inshore lifeboat to get me out again. It’s huge.”

He smiled back, trying to think of Alan’s box in the chimney, but largely distracted by the thought of Jenny, warm and languorous, lounging in a capacious bath. “Why don’t you pour yourself one? I’ll get us settled.”

She didn’t have to think about it long. “Okay,” she said, ducking back into the living room. He waited till he heard the bathroom door, and then the thunder of water from the taps, before he headed for the fireplace.

The box was exactly where Alan had said it would be. He wiped soot off his bare arms with a rag he found in the log basket, and used the same rag to wipe down the metal box. He opened it.

The Browning nine milli sat on a pile of bags, and booklets, quietly competent.

Well, hell.

McAllister quickly lifted the gun out, checking it over, loading it and flicking the safety on. He laid it on the mantelpiece and sorted through the rest of the contents. As Alan had said, there were a clutch of passports in a zip lock bag—he ignored those, circumspectly trying not to register the names they were in. There was a small printed booklet, too, tatty and well-thumbed. It read “Tide Tables” on the front.

He thought about the wide, sandy bay behind the cottage, registering the rising wind with half an ear. He frowned, slipping the tide tables into the back pocket of his jeans. There was money in the box, too, also carefully bagged. Dollars and British pounds, euros and, disturbingly, Algerian and Libyan dinars.

He took some of the cash, packed up the box, and put it back, the scowl deepening. Just what was Jenny’s brother involved with? And what were the implications for Jenny? Was it possible, after all, that he was the biggest sucker ever born, and she was still lying to him?

He sat down on the sofa and thought about that one, while Jenny splashed and sighed next door. When she finally emerged, wrapped in a navy robe that Alan must have left, he was stiff and had to work to take the scowl off his face.

“I was listening to that wind—how about whiskey coffee later on?” she said, and smiled, all wide-open dark eyes and generous, mobile mouth.

She wasn’t lying. He’d stake his soul on it. He suspected he already had.

“That sounds great,” he said.

John hesitated over the weekend bag, a sweater in each hand. Thick, warm wool, or lightweight synthetic fleece? He frowned.

It had been a long time since he’d been anywhere. The last major trip had been when he’d still been travelling with Alice. Lately, he’d take a few days off and do something around the house, or just relax at home. He’d forgotten how complicated packing for a trip could be.

With an exasperated sigh, he threw both tops in the bag and went into the bathroom for his wash kit. Shaving stuff, deodorant, washcloth, soap … he hunted for what he needed, trying hard not to see the spaces where Alice’s stuff used to be. Damn it, he didn’t even have a box to put the soap in. He slammed the bathroom cabinet door closed and wrapped the offending bar in the washcloth, instead, heading back into the bedroom.

Right. Tickets to Manchester, UK; money; bag; passport… he patted his pockets down as he ran a mental check. He was ready.

He snorted at himself at the thought. He was so not ready.

He wasn’t even clear, if he was honest with himself, what he was trying to achieve. Only that he wanted out of his job, preferably out of the country. He wanted a chance to set some things right, and now, oddly, he felt the freedom to do it. After all, Alice didn’t need him. But Jenny did.

He was not a field agent.

You are now, Dawson
, he thought.