Safe House (42 page)

‘That’s hindsight talking. I reacted on instinct. On adrenalin. And you’re ignoring Lukas. If I hadn’t hit Anderson the second time, he might not have flaked.’

I kept my eyes fixed on the road. A biker overtook us. He was going fast, but nowhere near racing speeds. There’d been times when I’d blitzed along this stretch of road so quick that the overhanging trees had merged into one long tunnel.

‘That’s what I told myself,’ I said to Rebecca. ‘That’s how I justified it in my own mind. And maybe, as a one-off, I could have believed it.’ I jerked my thumb over my shoulder, towards the rear of the van. ‘But then there was this guy, too.’

‘He was going to take your dad hostage. He had a gun.’

‘He did. You’re right. But your first shot punched through his shoulder. The shoulder of his gun arm. That bullet would have caused lots of damage. Look at me. I barely fractured my scapula and my arm was next to useless even before Anderson whacked me. You knew what you were doing. You picked that shot. You picked it because you knew it would disable him.’

‘So?’

‘So it did. It disabled his left arm completely. He was a right-handed guy, but I’d already done something bad to his wrist. He was holding his gun in his left hand because of it. And when you shot him, he dropped his gun.’

‘The way you tell it, I did a lot of thinking, in not very much time.’

‘You did,’ I said. ‘You’re good. Very good. I think you saw all that and more. You would have known that when he let go of his gun that was it for him. A busted right hand. A busted left shoulder. The threat was over. It was finished.’

Rebecca said nothing. She was indicating for the junction up ahead. The lights were green. She swooped left. Settled into the rhythm of the new road, climbing the gentle gradient towards Foxdale.

‘The threat was over,’ I said again, ‘but you shot him in the back of the head. You chose your aim as carefully as you did the first time around. You made a choice. A second bullet. Just like the second swing of that wrench. You wanted them dead. Both of them. And I want to know why.’

Rebecca tipped her head from side to side, as if she was weighing my words. ‘If your sister could have taken that second shot, do you think she’d have backed off?’

‘Don’t say that. Don’t pretend you did it for Laura.’

‘You’re angry now?’

‘Getting there.’ And I was. I was fed up with having to battle to discover the truth. With only knowing fragments of the story. I’d found out more than I might have expected to learn about Laura. But now I wanted to know it all. Every angle. I didn’t want there to be any dirty little secrets left lurking around.

Rebecca released a short, sharp breath. ‘Alex Tyler,’ she said, as if that was all the answer I needed.

‘Go on.’

‘He’s my client.’

I stared at her. At her bruised and disfigured face.

She didn’t look back at me. Didn’t meet my gaze.

‘
Was
my client, I suppose I should say. Had been for a couple of years.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Rebecca eased down on the brakes, slowing the van and turning on to the road that would take us up on to the hills. Past scrubland. Past woodland. Alongside the sloping expanse of spiky yellow gorse that lay ahead.

‘Alex was from a wealthy family. Not in the same league as Erik Zeeger, but comfortably rich. His father was in pharmaceuticals and he liked to indulge Alex. That’s how he could afford to be such an idealist. No time for a day job when you’re busy saving the world.’

‘And he hired you? Why?’

‘Obvious reasons.’ She shrugged. ‘He was in a vulnerable position. Making trouble for a lot of powerful companies. Criticising governments. Working to keep the more radical elements of his organisation in check. Plus, he was dating Lena Zeeger, and he was aware that her father and some of the members of his own campaign group didn’t exactly approve.’

‘But why you? Why not the police?’

‘Alex didn’t trust the police. The way he saw it, they’re a government agency. And he needed his threats monitored on a constant basis. Needed close protection every once in a while.’

Close protection
. The role my sister had performed for Lena.

I finally understood how it all linked together.

‘You were investigating his death,’ I said. ‘And you knew about my sister’s involvement. That’s why you were prepared to help my parents when Mum called you.’

Rebecca snatched a look at me. Gauging my mood. ‘Alex called me when your sister was assigned to watch over Lena. He was worried. I vouched for her. Said she was reliable. Honest.’

‘But then he was killed.’

Rebecca nodded. ‘And there was no mention of your sister being involved. Only Lena. The finger was being pointed at her. I knew there was something up with that. And then when I heard your sister was dead, too . . .’

Her words trailed off, leaving me to follow my own thoughts. So that was why Rebecca had been so willing to believe me right from the beginning. It explained why she’d bought into my story about Lena’s abduction. She must have suspected who the blonde girl was all along, and she’d have known to look for signs that the security services were involved. It also explained why she’d been so quick to question the idea that Laura had killed herself. To Rebecca’s mind, either she was alive and hiding, or she’d been killed by the same people involved in Alex Tyler’s death.

I guessed it might explain one more thing, too. Laura had approached Rebecca’s firm for a job. Rebecca had told me she thought that Laura was testing the water to see if she could ask for help. Now I realised it was more than that. She must have known that Rebecca worked for Alex. She must have been asking herself if she could tell Rebecca the truth. If, maybe, they could work together to uncover the conspiracy behind his death.

‘That’s why I didn’t charge your parents a fee,’ Rebecca said, interrupting my thoughts. ‘I was already on Alex’s retainer.’

‘And what if my sister had been Alex’s killer? What would you have done then?’

‘But that was never going to happen. She was no assassin. She was naïve, maybe. But sometimes I think that’s a good thing. Laura was like Alex. An idealist. A believer.’

‘So you killed those men for Alex? For revenge?’

‘Not Anderson.’ She shook her head. ‘You give me too much credit. I was scared. I overreacted.’

‘And the guy in the back here? This John Menser?’

She gave me a level stare. ‘I never worked alongside him, but I’ve heard of him. Long career. Distinguished record. And yes, I killed him. For Alex. And for your sister. I know how these things work, Rob. Your sister did, too. He was
inside
the system. He was part of some dirty little clique. The system would have protected him. This would have all been swept away and cleaned up. You might think that would be difficult but you’d be underestimating the people involved. They can’t permit scandal. They’ve got no use for it. So justice had to come from the
outside
. From me.’

We skirted around South Barrule hill, ascending towards the tangle of dirty rain clouds, and Rebecca turned off on to the crumbling track where I’d had my bike accident. We trundled over a cattle grid. Drove past the dirt-bike track and the ruins of the old tin mines. Picked up the boundary of the wooded plantation.

I was quiet for a moment. Thinking. Then I said, ‘You didn’t do all this just because Alex Tyler was a client, did you? He must have meant more to you than that.’

‘He did.’ Rebecca swallowed. ‘For a time. But the fact is he loved Lena. Truly, despite what her father might think. But I liked him, you’re right. I liked him because there was a goodness inside him. Because he was a believer.’ She sneaked a look at me. ‘You remind me of him in that way.’

She pulled off the road on to the beginnings of the muddy track that led up to the cottage. The van rocked and rolled over the uneven ground. The gate ahead of us was closed. We stopped. The engine idled. The van shook and trembled.

A believer? Me? I couldn’t see it. What had I ever believed in? Working hard? Doing a good job for my plumbing customers? Racing a motorbike as fast as I dared? Streaking along public roads at crazy speeds, trying to go faster than the next guy? Faster than my dad?

Rebecca saw the puzzle she’d carved into my face. She placed a hand on my knee.

‘Your sister,’ she said. ‘You believed in her right from the beginning. You believed in her all the way through.’

She popped the door on the van and dropped down on to the compacted earth, leaving her words to bounce around my head. It was a kind sentiment. A touching remark. But I wasn’t going to kid myself. I hadn’t been that good a brother. Oh, I’d tried very hard to make up for it. I’d done all I could to make amends. But I already knew it would never be enough.

Rebecca approached the gate, hips swaying in her fitted jeans. She wedged the gate open against the tall grass to the side. Then she raised a hand to Dad and Shimmin, climbed back inside the cab and started up along the track.

It began to rain. Heavy drops struck the windscreen. They impacted on the glass and beaded and formed branching rivulets. Rebecca flicked on the wipers. They smeared the water. Blurred the trees outside. The massed clouds above.

The van bucked and pitched and yawed, the rainwater lashing the glass windows and the metal sidings like we were inside a boat on a rolling swell. We reached the familiar three-way fork in the track. Followed the middle path up over a muddy rise and deep inside the tree cover. The rain faded away, filtered out by the millions of pine needles above us. We neared the second gate. The aged slate. That name again.
Yn Dorraghys
. The murky green twilight that surrounded us was cold and damp and smothering. After today, I never wanted to come here again. I never wanted to set foot in this plantation as long as I lived.

Rebecca pulled over close to the cottage and Shimmin drew up alongside us in the dead man’s car. The blue paintwork was slick with rain. He removed his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped down the car keys. He tucked the keys away behind the sun visor. Wiped down the visor and the steering wheel and anything else he might have touched. Used his handkerchief to force open his door. Hauled himself out and flipped up the collar of his mackintosh.

I looked across Rebecca’s lap towards Dad. He was staring blankly ahead, into the gloomy depths of the woods. He seemed disengaged. Unfocused. As if he’d zoned out of his surroundings altogether. I thought maybe he was picturing Laura up here. Running errands to the cottage. Checking on Lena. Trying to find a solution to a problem that was bigger than her.

His door opened. He stepped out. He straightened and gazed at Shimmin over the wet roof of the car. Then he walked around the bonnet and rested his hand on Shimmin’s shoulder. Escorted him to the rear of the van, where Rebecca and I joined them.

Shimmin shook his head at me, his hands deep in the pockets of his mackintosh. He jutted his chin towards the cottage. ‘Just wouldn’t give it up, would you, lad?’ He smiled flatly, almost in spite of himself. ‘So I guess I was wrong. That acorn didn’t fall so far from the tree, after all.’

‘Mick filled me in,’ Dad said, his words sounding gruff and hurried. ‘About how you took control back in the hotel there. About how far you went for your sister.’ His voice became pinched and he looked down, then cursed and blinked his eyes against tears. He stepped up to me and cupped his hand behind my neck and pulled my face to his chest. ‘I’m proud of you, son,’ he whispered, his breath in my ear. ‘Laura would be, too. You didn’t let her down.’

I didn’t say anything back. I couldn’t just at that moment. Instead I clinched him tight and nodded my head against his chest, and then I stepped away towards the van and opened one cargo door while Rebecca opened the other. Shimmin climbed up inside, pausing to rest a hand on my good shoulder, and then he heaved and slid the body of the man called Menser across the plywood floor. Dad grabbed the man’s legs, together with the plastic shopping bag that contained his belongings, and shuffled backwards so that Shimmin could clamber down from the van, lifting the man by his forearms. His head swung loosely between Shimmin’s knees.

‘Wait,’ Rebecca said. She delved inside the shopping bag. Removed the man’s phone. ‘OK,’ she told them. ‘You can go ahead now.’

I unlocked the front door to the cottage and stood aside as Dad and Shimmin carried the corpse along the hallway towards the kitchen. Shimmin rested while Dad opened the door into the garage. Then they grunted and heaved and I could hear the scuff of their shoes and the rasp of the man’s body being dragged across the concrete floor to be laid out alongside Anderson.

‘We can’t just leave them here,’ I said to Rebecca. ‘Somebody will find them. They’ll see this car. They’ll poke around.’

‘They won’t be here long,’ Rebecca replied. ‘It’s like I told you, the intelligence service is good at cleaning up after itself. I still have contacts there. People I can talk to. I’ll tell them to come and tidy their mess. They won’t waste time.’

‘So this is it? This is where it ends?’ And as I said it, I realised that it was finishing back where it had all started for me.

‘No,’ Rebecca said, in a voice that was hard with conviction. ‘First, we need to be sure that Erik has secured Lena’s release. Then I’m going to track her down and talk to her. We need to know what she knows.’

‘And then?’

‘There was somebody behind this whole thing. Someone on the inside.’ She showed me the dead man’s mobile phone. ‘I’m going to find them. I’m going to trace everything back to the source and hold that person to account. For Alex. For Lena. And for your sister. Then I’m going to come back and tell you all about it. That’s how you’ll know that it’s over.’

I looked at her then. Down into her damaged face. Through the savage bruising and the bloody cuts and deep inside her eyes. And I knew that in her heart she meant it. And I knew that in my heart I believed her. Believed
in
her.

And I reached for her hand and told her so.

Five weeks later