She smiled. 'I've always liked a good story, and I did English at A level, so that was the foundation. Then when I was at sixth-form college, just before our exams, they had a careers fair where representatives from different industries set up stalls in the refectory so that we could go and talk to them. The journalist who came from the local paper was only a couple of years older than me and he was quite nice-looking, so I got chatting to him, we ended up going for a drink, and he got me a job on the paper.
I was meant to go away to uni, but I ended up marrying him. God knows why. I think it was because my dad was so against it. He had all these ideas of what career path I should take. He wanted me to become a lawyer, like him.'
'So where's the husband now?'
'We were young and it didn't last, but by then I'd got a taste for the job. After the split, I moved up to town and I've been working here ever since. The money's not fantastic but it gives me independence.'
I wondered why she wasn't on a national newspaper - she certainly seemed to have enough talent - but chose not to say anything, in case I hit a raw nerve. 'And this place? Is it yours?'
She smiled proudly. 'It is. With a little bit of help from my parents.'
Which was typical. You never saw a poor lawyer. 'You need all the help you can get with the prices these days,' I said, or something equally inane.
She asked me how I ended up being a policeman, and I gave her the honest answer: because at one time I'd thought that it was a useful, socially acceptable job, and I'd genuinely believed I'd make a difference.
'How did you end up as a hitman?'
I cringed a little when she called it that. It wasn't how I saw myself, somehow. 'Is this an interview?'
She shook her head, her expression one of genuine interest. 'No, it isn't, but I would like to know.'
I thought about the answer for a long time, and as I mulled it over I lit a cigarette, as if that would somehow make answering easier. At the same time, I also thought about Malik. I pictured him up there in heaven, or whatever the Islamic equivalent was, looking down at me with a mixture of interest and disapproval as he too waited for my answer. I knew that whatever I said would never have been enough to have earned his forgiveness.
'Because I wasn't strong enough, or sensible enough, to say no,' I said eventually, and hoped that Malik would have at least half approved of that.
Emma was unconvinced. 'But why did you decide to kill people for money?'
I sighed. 'I thought when I did what I did that I was doing the world a favour. I thought I was killing people who deserved it.'
'But Dennis, you can't just be a judge, jury and executioner,' she said, with a hint of educated self-righteousness. 'You haven't got the right to decide who dies and who doesn't. No one has. And you're still doing it. Only a few weeks ago, you shot the suspect in the Malik and Khan murders.'
'Slippery Billy? He deserved it. If he hadn't been a murderer, I wouldn't have killed him.'
She paused, unsure, I think, what else to say. I'm not the best person to argue with about the ethics of murder, because I can sympathize with other points of view. In the end, I do what I do; and I've done it
because at the time my instincts have told me to. It's no justification, but at least it's a reason, and some people don't even have one of those.
Emma sat forward in the seat and watched me intensely. It was a little disconcerting, but somehow I didn't want her to stop. It felt good to be the centre of attention for once.
'Do you really consider yourself one of the good guys, Dennis?' she said softly. 'Don't you ever worry that you might be just as bad as the people you put down?'
She looked beautiful then; the perfectly rounded features of her pale face amidst the flowing auburn hair, and those big, smiling, hypnotic eyes that seemed to drag you further and further in. And I knew that whatever I replied was going to disappoint her.
In the end, I settled for what I thought was honesty.
'No,' I said simply.
We slept together that night.
It just happened. We drank some more, watched the TV, moved off the more difficult subjects (although she tried occasionally to come back to them), and as the evening progressed I'd felt that there was something growing between us. I liked her anyway, and had done since the moment we'd met, but I was also detecting a growing warmth coming back the other way, as if she'd finally
accepted me for who I was and was prepared to stop getting too uptight about it. Or maybe it was just the booze.
I'm no Valentino, and like most men I've had less practice than I would have liked over the years, but after the last of the beer had gone and we were halfway through a bottle of red wine, she'd stood up to go into the kitchen for something, and I'd followed her in there. She'd turned round, sensing my presence, and I'd taken her in my arms and kissed her. For a second she hadn't reacted and I'd thought that maybe my confidence in my own charm was misplaced, but then she'd kissed me back - hard and with passion - and a few minutes later, still entwined in each other's arms, we'd danced and stumbled our way up the stairs and into the bedroom, clothes strewn behind us. I'd wondered briefly what the hell I was doing; then, as we fell on the bed and she giggled as I kissed her neck and tugged at her underwear, I'd ceased caring.
Afterwards we lay naked on the bed and smoked, and I experienced a peculiar feeling of detachment, as if somehow I wasn't there and it hadn't really happened. I listened to the sounds of the night - the cars humming faintly past on the main road, the occasional drunken shout from somewhere in the distance - and tried to relax and enjoy the moment. I let my fingers drift down to her belly, pale and flat in the perma-glow of the city's
lights, but all the time my instincts were talking to me, trawling back through the many dark experiences of my life and predicting the winding, uncertain path of my short-term future.
And what they told me was as unnerving as it was accurate.
That a fall was definitely coming.
31
I was woken by the alarm at seven the next morning after a good night's sleep, which would have benefited from being an hour or two longer. But who was I to complain? Emma's bed was a lot more comfortable than the one in my hotel room, and there was the added bonus of having her in it. I lay where I was, eyes half closed, while she had a shower, but when she came back I could see that she wanted me gone.
'I've got to be in the office for nine,' she said, chucking me my clothes, 'but I'll be on the mobile. I'm not trying to hurry you or anything, but you understand ...'
I told her I did, and heaved myself out of bed. 'I'll leave you in peace, and I'll check in later when I've got something. OK?'
She smiled but it looked forced. I felt like telling her not to worry; that it wasn't her fault. I don't suppose it was easy for someone like Emma - a
nice, well-brought-up girl with a decent job - to come to terms with the fact that she'd slept with a killer. Especially one who was on the run, and currently in her house. She gave me the number of Ann's psychotherapist, Dr Cheney, and I wrote it down, trying not to stare as she pulled on her skirt.
At the front door, there was one of those pauses where neither party's quite sure what to do or what to say. I leant forward and kissed her gently on the cheek, and she turned her face and planted one on mine. It felt good enough.
'See you later,' I said, and hurried out the door without looking back, feeling like a kid who'd stayed out late without telling his parents.
Dr Madeline Cheney was not the easiest woman to get hold of. I called her just after nine o'clock from the Italian cafe near my hotel and got her secretary. Dr Cheney was busy, I was told in very professional, patient-friendly tones. If I wanted to make an appointment, I could go through her, the secretary.
I decided to come clean (or as clean as I was going to get in this investigation) and told her that I was a private detective, and that my enquiry related to one of Dr Cheney's former patients, Ann Taylor, now deceased. It was urgent, I explained, that I speak with Dr Cheney as soon as possible. The secretary sounded suitably excited and said
she'd pass the message on. I thanked her, left my mobile number and rang off.
As I'd hoped, the secretary had taken my request seriously, and her boss returned the call half an hour later, while I was back in the hotel room.
'Good morning, this is Dr Madeline Cheney,' she said guardedly. Her accent was middle class, well-educated, and at a guess belonged to a woman in her early to mid forties. 'You called me earlier. My secretary said it was urgent.'
I introduced myself as Mick Kane and confirmed that it was urgent. 'It concerns Ann Taylor.'
There was a pause before she spoke again. 'Ann? It seems she's far more popular in death than she ever was in life. I've already had the coroner's office on to me this week. What's your connection with the case, Mr Kane?'
I told her the same story I'd originally told Emma: that I was representing Asif Malik's uncle, and that Ann's name had come up during the course of my investigation. She didn't seem surprised by the mention of Malik, so I assumed she already knew about his part in the proceedings.
'I'm very busy today,' she said.
'Is there no way you can fit me in? I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important.'
'Why is it so important? Has something happened?'
'I'm not sure,' I answered, hoping that by being
enigmatic I could secure her interest. 'I can't really talk about it over the phone.'
She thought about it for a moment, then announced that she could see me for half an hour that afternoon at three o'clock. 'But I'd like to be sure that you are who you say you are.'
I'd been half expecting suspicion, so I told her that I'd been working with Emma Neilson, the journalist who'd alerted people to the fact that Ann's death might not have been accidental.
'I tend to agree with her theory,' I added, and gave her Emma's number. 'You could also phone Mohammed Mela, my client, although he can be difficult to get hold of.' I gave her a number off the top of my head, and hoped she'd try Emma rather than him.
Dr Cheney fired off a rapid set of directions to her practice in the village of Aldermaston, a ninety-minute drive away in Berkshire, and told me she'd see me at three. We both hung up.
Now I needed transport. A quick look at the road map in a nearby bookshop showed me that Aldermaston was a fair way off the beaten track. I was going to have to hire a car.
When you live under a false identity, you have to be fully equipped. You don't just need a passport in your new name, you need a driving licence, a birth certificate and even genuine credit cards. It's a hassle, but it pays to be thorough, and I was. Much of my documentation had originated in the UK
before I left (I think I always knew that at some point my double life would unravel), but the gaps had been filled using expert forgers in the Philippines. So when I went into the Hertz rental office in Marble Arch later that morning, I knew there'd be no problem.
And there wasn't. Fifteen minutes later, I was crawling through traffic in a silver Ford Orion in the direction of the M25, and hoping that this wasn't going to turn out to be a wild goose chase.
32
Aldermaston was one of those quintessential English villages that you see in all the guidebooks. Situated on the edge of the Berkshire downs, and surrounded by green fields and pretty copses of oak and beech trees, it was little more than a collection of houses and converted barns, with the odd thatched roof thrown in, nestling on either side of a road that somehow seemed more suited to a horse and cart than the steady procession of cars that passed up and down it. There was a top-secret establishment that allegedly contained many of the country's nuclear weapons somewhere round here but I didn't see any evidence of it on the way in, and even on a grey, sullen day like this one, the village stood out like a tranquil oasis after the intensity of London.
I drove down what passed for the high street: a narrow road with terraced red-brick buildings on either side, some of which clearly dated back
hundreds of years, that contained a handful of antiques shops and estate agents. There was an Elizabethan-style pub on the corner, where the road forked at a near right-angle as it came to a mini-roundabout. A notice board outside advertised high-quality food. I was early so I stopped there for a pint and a steak and kidney pie, which was indeed high-quality but also high-priced. While I was there, I asked the barman - who had a very pink face and a drinker's nose - for directions to the Cheney practice. He obviously knew her business, because he gave me them but conspicuously avoided me after that. I don't think he liked the thought of having the mentally ill dining on his high-quality food.
Dr Cheney's practice was in a large, modern house that I assumed was a combination of home and office, situated a few hundred yards down the right-hand fork in the road. It wasn't quite an eyesore, but you could argue it came close, with a brand new tarmac driveway out the front that would have amply parked a dozen cars. Today, however, there were only two: a Range Rover and a Fiat Punto. I pulled up alongside the Range Rover and got out. It was ten to three.
There were two doors at the front of the house. A sign on the main one asked all callers to the practice to use the other, so I rang on the buzzer and was let in without preamble. I found myself in a small
wood-panelled foyer that bore more than a passing resemblance to the inside of a Scandinavian sauna. An attractive young receptionist sat at a desk in front of me, wearing a white coat and a welcoming smile that showed a lot of teeth.