Trust No One (9 page)

Occasionally, though, the reasons were more honourable. From time to time, a villain might genuinely see the light or get religion or simply realize that life didn't have to be that way. That was the hunch she'd had about Jake Morton. That, in his heart, this wasn't the life he'd chosen. That somehow, somewhere, he'd been suckered into it, drawn by the rewards it offered, and that now he was trapped because, quite simply, there was no way out. Once you'd stepped over that line, there was no easy way back. But, even on the basis of one half-flirtatious encounter, something had told her that that was what Morton had wanted. To be done with it all, to be normal, to rediscover the person he'd been before he'd sold his soul to Jeff Kerridge. Something told her that, if the time were right, if the approach were right, Morton could be persuaded to come over.

Salter had been watching her in silence for some seconds. ‘If it's true,' he said, finally, ‘he'd be one hell of a catch.' He gently placed the coffee jug back on the table and picked up a custard cream from the unappetizing bowl that had accompanied the coffee. ‘I don't know quite where he sits in Kerridge's inner cabinet, but he's not small fry. I'm willing to bet he's got his financial thumbprints on most of the big deals that Kerridge is involved in.'

‘I might be wrong,' she said.

‘Yeah, of course you might. In fact, you probably are. But there's just a chance that you're not.'

It was funny, she thought. To succeed in this job, you needed to be able to conceal your emotions, maintain that poker face. And Salter, by all accounts, had been very successful. But just at this moment she could read his thoughts as easily as if he were articulating them out loud. This might be the chance they'd been looking for. This might be a chance to spear some of the big fish – Boyle, maybe even Kerridge himself. More to the point, this might be a chance to boost Salter's career.

‘We can't rush it,' she said, suddenly nervous about what Salter might do with what she'd told him. Jump right in there with his size elevens. ‘Like you say, we only get one chance.'

He nodded, looking distracted, his mind already somewhere else. Planning his next upward move probably. ‘Did you hit it off?' he said finally. ‘With Morton, I mean.'

She blinked, surprised by the direct question. ‘I suppose so. I mean, I only talked to him for an hour or so at this bloody dinner—'

‘But you got on with him? Well enough to get a bit closer?'

‘Well . . .'

‘We need to keep on him,' he said. ‘See if your instincts are right. Work out what might be the best way to get him on board. Do you reckon you might be able to do that?'

She shook her head and swallowed the last mouthful of tepid coffee. ‘Christ, Hugh, I don't know. I've only met him once. I mean, we seemed to get on OK, but . . .'

‘Give it a go, then. Even if you're not right about this, he's likely to be one of our best routes into Kerridge and his mob.'

She gazed at him for a moment as if she were about to refuse. Then she nodded. ‘OK, Hugh. I'll give it a go.'

‘Good girl,' he said, in a tone that made her want to punch him hard in the face. ‘It could be a big one, this.'

Yes, I know, Hugh
, she'd said to herself at the time.
That was why I brought it to you
. In reality, though, she had known that this was the best she could have hoped for. Of course, Salter would be able to shift, without missing a beat, from his initial sneering scepticism to snaffling the idea as his own. He was destined for the top, scrambling his way up on the backs of more scrupulous colleagues.

It didn't matter. As always, he'd got what he wanted. But as they finished the meeting, she'd been left with a feeling that, almost without recognizing it, she'd achieved an objective of her own. She'd been given a reason to see Jake Morton again. Up to that point, she hadn't even known that she'd wanted to.

Chapter 7

After her debrief with Salter and Welsby, Marie arrived back at the print shop to find the place in a familiar mild chaos. Joe was berating Darren about some new technical faux pas. Darren was giving every sign of paying full attention short of actually listening. She thought Joe was warming to Darren. It wasn't that Darren's performance had improved to any significant – or, for that matter, insignificant – extent. It was more that Joe, recognizing that Marie wasn't planning to dismiss Darren in the immediate future, had adjusted his expectations. Probably to somewhere below ground level.

There were times when Marie suspected that Joe Maybury – a tall, genial, undemonstrative man in his early thirties – might have a crush on her. There were other times when she was convinced that he was gay. Both, she supposed, might possibly be true. Or neither. Joe seemed disinclined to give anything away. She got on with him well, trusted him implicitly in deputizing for her on business matters, even went for a pint with him from time to time, but she had discovered nothing of any significance about his private life. Not that she had particularly tried. She was keen to protect her own privacy, and Joe's taciturnity suited them both fine.

He glanced up as she entered, allowing Darren the opportunity to scuttle away. ‘Useful morning?'

She shrugged. ‘Bread on the waters stuff. We'll get an order eventually, but not today.'

‘Never is, though, is it?' Joe said. ‘Don't know how you do it. Keep plugging away. Works in the end, I suppose.'

‘One of my virtues,' she said. ‘Patience.'

Joe looked meaningfully across at Darren. ‘So I've noticed,' he said, ‘though I don't know if “virtue” is quite the word.'

She laughed. ‘What excitement did I miss this morning, then?'

‘Nothing much. Post on your desk. Took a few messages. Nothing urgent. Darren printed off a thousand copies when I'd asked for a hundred. Usual stuff.'

She stopped at the door to her office. ‘Anything interesting in the post?'

‘Mostly crap,' Joe said. ‘Couple of confirmation orders, but only what we knew about. There's a parcel of some sort – marked Personal and Confidential so I didn't touch it.'

She smiled at him. She had no problems with Joe handling the incoming mail. Most of it was, as he said, crap. Most of the rest was just dull. A very small proportion – bank statements, stuff about the business finances – was theoretically sensitive, but she had nothing to hide from Joe. Nothing about the business, anyway. The operation was well capitalized, because the Agency had ensured it would be. And it was doing pretty well so far. Even if the business had been struggling, Joe would have a right to know. Funny, she thought. She felt she trusted Joe more than most people – more than Salter, certainly, probably more than Liam, probably even more than she'd trusted Jake – even though she knew next to nothing about him.

She sat down behind her desk and began to flick through the stack of mail. It was mostly advertising bumf, glossy nonsense that poured in by the bucket load. Some uninformative VAT leaflet from the Revenue. And, as Joe had said, something else. A neatly sealed Jiffy bag, with her name and address handwritten in block capitals on the front.

She remained still for a moment, staring at the writing. Then she glanced up, for some reason half-expecting that Joe would be staring at her through the glass partition. But he was busy on the far side of the room, his attention fixed on one of the machines.

Jake.

It was Jake's handwriting. There was no question. She hadn't seen it often, but she'd seen it enough. Now, it was like seeing a ghost.

She picked up the envelope and peered at it, as if she might be able to discern its contents through the brown wrapping. Then, with a further glance towards Joe, she tore open the package and gazed inside.

She wasn't sure what she'd been hoping for. A letter? Some informal last will and testament? A word of goodbye? But the bag was empty, except for a small plastic data stick. She tipped it into her palm.

An insurance policy, maybe. Something that Jake had arranged to be sent if anything should happen to him. But why her? Or, more to the point, why now? If Jake had wanted her to have it, why hadn't he given it to her before?

She felt a chill run along her spine. The obvious answer was that he'd already known or guessed who she was. He hadn't given it to her before because he'd assumed, probably rightly, that she'd feel obliged to hand it over to her colleagues. And, as Welsby and Salter had intimated, Jake didn't trust her colleagues, not completely. But if anything happened to him, he might well see her as the only person he could trust.

It was all too possible. Jake was no fool. He'd been approached and recruited as an informant after meeting Marie. They'd allowed a decent interval to pass before any approach was made, and taken every precaution to ensure that there was no traceable link. But that might not have prevented Jake from having his own suspicions.

She looked up to see Joe gazing at her through the glass wall of the office. For a moment, she thought he was watching her, but then she realized that he was just standing over one of the machines, engrossed in the smooth action of the printing. His eyes were turned towards her, but his gaze was fixed blankly in the middle distance, watching nothing more than his own reflection in the glass.

Christ, she thought. She was really beginning to lose it.

‘Fancy a beer?'

Her mind was still elsewhere, her expression that of a diver surfacing back into fresh air.

‘Sorry, Joe. Miles away. What did you say?'

The company accounts were open on her computer screen, but all her thoughts had been on Jake. Jake and the data stick. Jake and those last few minutes of his life.

Joe was leaning at the open door, glancing at his watch. ‘I'm just about through. Wondered if you fancied a beer.'

It was Wednesday, she realized. In her first months in this job, that had been the dead point of the week. The furthest from her weekends back with Liam. The point in the week that she'd felt most alone, most exposed.

Looking back, her relationship with Jake had been a midweek affair, one more way of filling those lonely nights. It had made her realize that she couldn't allow herself to get too close to anyone. Even ordinary friendships were risky. It was too easy to make a slip, reveal some detail that didn't quite square with the woman she was supposed to be.

But she felt an unexpected ease in Joe's presence, a sense that neither expected anything of the other beyond companionable small talk. If Joe had a private life, he'd shown no signs of sharing it with her, and he seemed to have no interest in enquiring about hers. Their conversation remained resolutely superficial, and they had similar taste in films, undemanding crime novels, music. Marie had half-expected that Joe might eventually invite her out to a film or a concert – plenty of other men had done so on a much less secure foundation of shared interests – but the idea never seemed to occur to him.

She glanced at her watch. ‘Jesus, that the time?'

‘Seems to be,' Joe said. ‘You OK? You look a bit tired.'

Typical of Joe, she thought. He gave little away, but he didn't miss much. He'd already detected that she was distracted, and he was giving her a ready-made excuse.

‘Yeah, a bit. Didn't sleep too well last night for some reason.' She tapped aimlessly at her keyboard. ‘Do you mind if we give it a miss tonight, Joe? I ought to get the VAT sorted, and then all I'll be fit for's falling asleep.'

‘Your call, boss,' he said. ‘Long as you don't get out of the habit completely.'

‘This is alcohol we're talking about, right?'

‘You're OK, though?' This time there was a note of real concern in his voice.

Christ, did she really look that bad? ‘Why'd you ask?'

‘Dunno. Didn't seem quite yourself this afternoon. Wondered if there was some problem.'

‘No more than usual.' She gestured vaguely towards the computer screen. ‘Just the standard balls-ache. Tax. VAT. Chasing up the customers who think it's a bit abrupt of us to demand payment in less than six months.'

He smiled. ‘Definitely your territory, not mine. Even Darren's easier than that. OK, but you won't wriggle out of a beer next week.'

‘Drag me there kicking and screaming,' she said.

‘If you insist.' He pushed himself away from the doorframe and turned to walk away. Then he looked back. ‘By the way, did you find that package?'

She looked up, her throat suddenly dry. ‘Package?'

‘Thing in today's post. Jiffy bag. Personal and Confidential. Didn't want it to get lost under the other bumf.' He waved his hand towards her paper-strewn desk.

He'd stepped back from the doorway into the darkened workshop. She couldn't read his expression.

‘Thanks,' she said. ‘Yes, I found it. Nothing important.' She wondered whether to offer more explanation, but anything would sound forced. ‘But thanks anyway.'

‘No problem,' he said. ‘See you in the morning, then.'

He turned and walked away across the workshop. A moment later, she heard the slamming of the main door.

She sat for a moment, watching the doorway, acutely conscious now of the data stick sitting in her handbag beside her.

Typical Joe. Giving little away. Missing nothing.

Chapter 8

‘Guv?'

Salter paused in the doorway. Welsby was at the far end of the office, his chair close to the window. Despite the pouring rain, the window was wide open. Some of the papers from Welsby's desk – those not pinned in place by an array of empty coffee mugs – had already been scattered across the room by the icy draught.

Anyone unfamiliar with Welsby's tastes might have assumed that he had a love of fresh air. In fact, Welsby wasn't keen on any air untainted by nicotine. He'd viewed the national ban on indoor smoking initially as a personal affront and then – when it became clear that the ban wouldn't be rescinded in his undoubtedly shortened lifetime – as a personal challenge. He'd engaged in numerous spats with pub landlords, pointing out in answer to their threats that he
was
the fucking police, even though this was no longer strictly true. In the office, after a few unproductive run-ins with his superiors, he'd established a compromise that allowed all parties to save face. The only problem was that, in the depths of winter, his office was just slightly warmer than the average fridge. But even that had its upside. It meant that people disturbed him only when they really needed to.

‘Guv?' Salter said again.

Welsby twisted awkwardly on his seat. His right hand remained dangling out of the open window. ‘Morning, Hugh. Lovely day.'

‘Glorious.' Salter perched himself on the seat opposite Welsby's desk. He moved the chair slightly to retain eye contact as Welsby ducked his head out of the window to take another drag. The impressive thing was not so much that the lit cigarette never entered the room, as that Welsby maintained his usual authority in the process.

The cigarette was only half-finished, but Welsby flicked it nonchalantly away, no doubt surprising some passer-by in the street outside.

‘How's it looking?'

‘Not good. I've been back through every possible compromise over the last couple of years. Most of them are something and nothing. Stuff that we've logged in case they suggest a pattern. Most probably just coincidence. Someone under observation who changes his plans at the last minute. Someone who stumbles across one of our surveillance devices. Shit happens. Buggers out there don't play by the rules.'

‘But?' Welsby picked up the coffee mug and stared into it, as if expecting that it would have miraculously refilled.

‘One or two incidents suggest something more.'

‘Like what?'

‘We've had one major operation screwed because the parties changed their plans at the last minute. In fact, reading that report, it looks to me like we were fed misinformation from the start. Then there were a couple of promising-looking enquiries that died on their arses because someone had got wind of our interest.'

‘Doesn't sound a lot,' Welsby said. ‘Like you say, shit happens. And the other side usually get ahead of the game with no help from us.'

‘Maybe so. Nothing that couldn't be explained by bad luck and circumstance. But there's a lot of it, right up to Morton.'

Welsby nodded unhappily. ‘Ah, yes, our friend Morton. Well, we should've been smarter with Morton. Got him into witness protection straightaway.'

‘Meaning I should have?' Salter said. ‘Don't remember anyone offering me any bright ideas at the time. All I seem to remember's a load of paperwork and endless questions about whose budget it was going against.'

‘Nobody blames you, Hugh,' Welsby said, in a tone suggesting that, now it had been raised, it might be worth giving the idea some consideration. ‘We've all learned something. I'm just suggesting that it might be as much cock-up as conspiracy.'

‘If you say so.' Salter pushed back his chair, as if preparing to leave. ‘Though there's another consideration.'

‘Which is what?' Welsby already had another cigarette between his fingers.

‘Those incidents I mentioned. They're more interesting when you look at them all together.'

‘How so?' Welsby's head was outside the window, wreathed in billows of smoke.

‘There was one link between them. Different types of job. Different people involved. But if you track up the food-chain, it's the same party in the frame every time.'

Welsby spoke around his cigarette, neck twisted to peer back into the office. ‘The suspense is fucking killing me.'

‘Kerridge,' Salter said. ‘Every time. The party was Jeff Kerridge.' He paused. ‘Now maybe that's something we ought to talk about, guv.'

There was a curse from beyond the window. It took Salter a moment to register that Welsby had fumbled his cigarette so that it had fallen back into the room. Welsby swore again and stamped his foot down on the office carpet. He stared ruefully down at the scorch mark and then back up at Salter.

‘Now look what you've done,' he said. ‘You'll get me bollocked by Health and fucking Safety as well as by fucking Facilities.'