Authors: Clare Carson
The robin was waiting for her at the bottom of the steps, perched on the spindly branch of a manky buddleia. Sam stepped into the dank courtyard and the bird hopped off, back towards the stairwell, twisting its little head around, almost as if it were checking that she was watching. What was it trying to tell her? She peered into the dark space, the red of the robin’s breast fluorescent in the gloom. She blinked. Empty space. Of course. The tramp had disappeared. She tried to recall what he looked like but all she could see in her mind was a pile of rags, the blurred outlines of a black knitted beanie and an unshaven face. She shook her head. No, that really would be just too pathetic for words.
Still, she crossed the courtyard cautiously now, under the archway, out on to Railton Road, scouting left and right. The tramp was nowhere in sight. She was being paranoid. Silly. She stood on the pavement trying to work out her next move. A warm pressure against her legs made her look down: the mangy tortoiseshell cat had abandoned its gutter meal and was rubbing round her calves, demanding attention. She squatted, tickled its chin. It nuzzled her hand. Yowled. Wandered back to the decomposing Chinese takeaway. She watched it toy with a noodle, her head elsewhere, pulling the pieces together, trying to make a coherent story.
So South African Steve was an agent provocateur. And the Watcher was his handler, contracted as a floating middleman by Intelligence. But the torn receipt in the envelope showed that South African Steve had also worked for Shaba Security in Shinkolobwe. And Shaba Security had to be another of Don Chance’s businesses. So did that mean Chance was actually running Steve – and was hooked up with Intelligence in some way? Jim must have found the torn receipt in the envelope. That was why he asked her and Tom if they knew about Shinkolobwe that day in Nethergate. Was it also the reason Jim didn’t leave the envelope at the Ring of Brodgar? He had realized that Don Chance was working with Intelligence and so Avis would destroy any evidence of that link rather than passing it on to the Commander.
She glanced at the cat with its head buried in the silver foil takeaway tray. Jim must have guessed that Chance’s business activities in Shinkolobwe were extremely dodgy. So dodgy, in fact, that he would also want to destroy any information that might reveal his connection with the mine. Cover his tracks. Whatever the cost.
She put her hand in her overcoat pocket and touched the cold metal of the Zippo, turning the pieces over and over. Her mind was beginning to feel blank, exhausted, eyelids drooping, almost dozing. Unable to see clearly. She was so lost in thought that she almost missed the soft footfall. She looked up, alarmed by the advancing tread, identified the dark coat appearing around the corner. The black beanie. The tramp.
‘Jim’s daughter,’ he shouted. ‘You’re Jim’s daughter.’
He lunged. She ducked. Picked up the tinfoil container holding the mouldering remains of the Chinese takeaway, chucked it in his face. Direct hit. He yelled. Rivulets of feculent sweet and sour sauce running down his cheeks. She stumbled over the bloody cat. Caught herself. The ground tilted and righted as she banked heavily. Gathered speed. Tore down Railton Road. Gasping for air. Lungs painful. Jesus. She reached the line of dope dealers who had now materialized and were blocking the pavement, glaring at her as she hurtled forwards, arms pumping, barging through the jostling, hostile bodies.
‘That man,’ she gasped as she pushed, ‘that man behind me, the one dressed like a tramp. He’s an undercover cop. He’s in the drugs squad.’
Her breathless claim was greeted with suspicious muttering. Hissing. But as she scrambled free, she sensed the rank closing behind her, forming a barrier, blocking her from sight. And then voices rising. Shouting. Cursing. Giving him a bit of a kicking, she hoped.
She took her chance in the brief surveillance hole, swung left sharply, swerved right, legs nearly giving way beneath her. Left again. She was out on a main road, opposite the cupola of a dirty white church. She paused, trying to find her direction. Instinctively turned right. Weaving through the flow of pedestrians – punks, pushbikes, prams – heading for the high street. She spotted a 159 bus pulling away from the nearest bus stop. Destination Westminster Bridge. The address on Avis Chance’s business card flashed through her brain. Ventura Enterprises. 196 Westminster Bridge Road. She willed herself forward. Made a final run for it. She’d had enough. She didn’t care who was on which side. Who was doing what. She just wanted to get rid of the envelope now. It wasn’t worth risking her life for it. She was going to hand it over to Avis Chance.
She made a dive for the platform at the back of the bus, hauled herself up the steps to the top deck, squished herself next to a thick-necked skinhead in a black Harrington, love and hate inked on his knuckles, and calculated that if she tipped back far enough she would be more or less obscured from the streets below. She fidgeted, glanced nervously over her shoulder as the bus chugged along at a grindingly slow stop-start pace. Down the High Street, past the cop shop, the Mecca bingo hall, the virid dome of the Imperial War Museum looming as the bus approached Westminster Bridge Road and the office of Ventura Enterprises. She needed the next stop. She swayed to the back of the bus and was about to descend when she heard the sudden crack of a motorbike engine. Single cylinder. She automatically bent down to peer through the window. Saw the black thorax of an off-road Yamaha. Jumped back. South African Steve – the rider. It had to be. She flattened herself against the wall of the bus and fingered the Zippo in her pocket nervously; he must have been tailing Jim that night at the Coney’s Tavern when he stopped and asked her for a light. Dutch, of course she didn’t look Dutch. She was marked as a secret policeman’s daughter. The bus pulled into the kerb. Petrified, she stood as irritated passengers pushed past. What if he took a shot at her as she crossed the pavement? She tried to stop herself from panicking. Forced herself to think rationally. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, she chanted in her head. All good children go to heaven. It didn’t help. She looked through the rear window again, but she couldn’t see the bike. Perhaps he had turned off at the traffic lights. She cautiously descended the steps to the back platform, wavered, too scared to leave the safety of the double-decker.
‘Make your mind up,’ said the conductor. ‘On or off.’
‘On,’ she said.
He twanged the bell wire. The bus pulled away and crawled under the iron bridge carrying the trains to Waterloo. The river came into view. She clung momentarily to the pole as the bus straightened to cross Westminster Bridge, then she jumped to the pavement. Hit the ground running and hurtled down the stone steps leading to the embankment path. Off the road, safe from motorbikes. She parked herself on a bench, stared across the Thames at the grimy limestone façade of the House of Lords and tried to formulate a plan. Work out her next move.
The tide was high. Very high. The inward rushing waters were pulling at the dangling branches of the sycamore trees. Nothing but a pale stone wall keeping the river back. What if the bricks gave way? She concentrated, holding the weight of the water with the force of her mind. But the fretful slapping of the Thames against the bank filled her head. Louder and louder. Until she realized the roar was outside. External. In the distance. She squinted towards Vauxhall, trying to identify the source of the noise and saw the black outline of the rider growing rapidly larger. Realized, too late, that there were no steps at the Lambeth Bridge end of the embankment path. No barriers. Nothing to prevent a motorbike using it as a racing track. The flagstones rumbled as he tore down the path. She panicked. Turned. Turned again. Bolted back to Westminster Bridge. Up the flight of steps three at a time. The bike was bearing down on her. He had almost reached the bottom. In a distant corner of her brain she remembered hearing the sound of the single-cylinder bike engine that morning at the train station. She stumbled. He must have hidden in the back of the car. She knew there had been something wrong that morning when she had stood in the station car park, staring at the Cortina. Hijack. Two bullets. Fake the crash. She found her footing. Sprang to the top of the steps. He was her father’s assassin. Behind her she heard the engine revving. Jesus wept, he was attempting to ride up the steps. She sprinted across the road. A black cab honked and swerved to avoid her. The cabbie leaned out of the window, effing and blinding as she bolted under the railway bridge, trains rumbling overhead, pigeons flapping around the shit-stained girders. She pelted down Westminster Bridge Road. The bike roared off. Heading east.
Number 196, the home of Ventura Enterprises, Avis’s office. The revolving glass door moved at her touch, propelling her into the foyer. Face to face with a thug-featured security guard glaring from behind a desk. A badge bearing a yellow stitched V was attached to his shirt just below his epaulette: Ventura must be supplying heavies to man the reception. The menacing physical presence of the company nearly made her retch. But she couldn’t afford to stop and think. There wasn’t time for qualms. She was in over her head. Couldn’t deal with it. South African Steve. Chance. Hitmen. Wet-workers. It was too much for her. She just had to dump the envelope and run. Somewhere in her head she could hear Jim’s voice, see his finger jabbing. Pathetic. What was wrong with her? What the fuck was she playing at? She knew it wasn’t the right thing to do. Handing the information back to a bunch of bloody mercenaries. Trigger-happy killers. Her own father’s assassins.
‘Can I help?’ the guard asked in a way that suggested the only assistance he was likely to offer was a boot in the backside to speed her through the exit. She started to speak, stammered, stopped short. He glowered. She swallowed hard, ran her eye over the companies named in gold plastic letters on the board behind his head, spotted Ventura on the seventh floor, picked out a likely sounding organization on the fifth. Playing for time.
‘I was just trying to find out about Third World Action. I applied for a job with them and I’m doing a bit of background research so I know what I’m talking about if I’m asked for an interview.’
He glared, put his hand to his hip and her throat went dry as she considered the possibility that he was carrying a gun. She tried to smile sweetly. It seemed to do the trick. He let his hand relax, gestured to a small leaflet-straggled table in a corner of the foyer. ‘They might have left something there.’
She thanked him, sidled over to the table, nervously sifted through the pamphlets advertising charities, medical suppliers, market researchers, international shippers and spotted a plain white brochure with ‘Ventura Enterprises’ printed across the front in discreet, grey Arial. Underneath, in a slightly smaller font, the words ‘security solutions’. She opened it and read:
Ventura is a private security company which specializes in problem resolution and the provision of associated consulting services. We are able to offer solutions that address a range of concerns from the most straightforward security needs to more complex situations. Ventura is a privately owned business. It maintains representative offices in London, Washington DC and Johannesburg. It is managed by a number of senior ex-military personnel from the UK and US armed forces and police services. This management team can draw on the services of a pool of consultants with extensive domestic and international expertise. Ventura personnel are highly professional, often former military, police and government employees, recruited from a number of different countries. We also have commercial, financial and legal expertise and experienced media handlers.
She flipped the leaflet, scrutinized the tiny, just legible print at the bottom of the back page. ‘Ventura Enterprises is a subsidiary company of Prosperity Asset Management. Prosperity Asset Management provides management services for a wide portfolio of companies while maintaining a strategic focus on finding security solutions for domestic and international operations engaged in energy markets. Prosperity Asset Management is registered in the British Virgin Islands.’
Prosperity Asset Management. She pictured the torn receipt for services rendered and conjured up the small print: Shaba Security is a subsidiary of – missing word – Asset Management. She slipped the leaflet into her pocket and let the disparate scraps of information in her brain churn. Shinkolobwe. Shaba. Ventura. Prosperity Asset Management, security solutions. Security solutions my arse, said Jim’s voice in her head, almost making her jump.
She looked over her shoulder to check whether he was lurking in some dark corner and, as her gaze swept the entrance door, she spotted a familiar figure on the far side of the road. Leather jacket, faded jeans, Converse high-tops, edging her way into the stream of traffic. Avis. Fuck it. She just had to hand over the envelope and get out of there.
She heard Jim’s scornful tone in her head again: Where were her principles now? Whatever happened to
tikkun olam
? Sam wiped her mouth with her sleeve. Jesus. She was having her integrity questioned by a dead sodding secret policeman with alcohol issues and a life-long addiction to deception. It wasn’t as if he’d actually provided her with any useful ideas about what she should do with the envelope. He hadn’t helped her find a way out, hadn’t left her with any way of contacting the Commander. He hadn’t even told her his fucking name. All he had done was criticize, mock, been his usual sarcastic self. Death hadn’t changed a thing. Even from beyond the grave he was still a lousy father. It was all his fault that she was in this mess anyway. She could feel herself steaming up, on the verge of storming off, handing the envelope to Avis as she left, giving the two-fingered salute to Jim.
Avis was almost across the road now, close enough for Sam to see the determination painted on her big-featured face; red lipstick, slick black eyeliner, an irritatingly attractive combination of ruthlessness and tomboyish glamour. Watch facing inward on her wrist. Her father’s daughter. Just like Sam. She was her father’s daughter too. Jim was proud of her because she did what was right. Didn’t take the easy option. She was a Coyle. She inhaled. Felt the oxygen flowing. Made a sudden dash for the lifts at the back of the foyer, kick-starting her adrenalin, jamming her finger on the up button, staring manically at the illuminated floor numbers, urging them to shift. Stuck at four. Move. Move. The lift descended slowly. Three. Two. One. Ground. Doors open. Lift empty. She jumped in. Pressed five. The doors jerked together. Through the steel barrier, she could hear Avis barking orders at the guard.