Ethan Justice: Origins (Ethan Justice #1) (21 page)

“I thought I explained the DNA situation quite succinctly.”

Clenching his fists, Johnson counted out five massive breaths, breathing in through his nose and releasing the air slowly from his mouth. Finally he relaxed his fists. He was okay. He could handle this.

“I have a plan, Wilson, and I need your assistance to make it work. Can you do that?”

“As long as Savannah’s life isn’t put at risk.”

It was going to be dangerous, and he could not promise anything. “You can protect her personally. That way you can be sure.”

“Let me know what you need,” he said, in the infuriating, nondescript British accent of his. It hadn’t annoyed him in five years but at that moment it seemed like grounds enough for murder. But he needed his partner’s assistance first.

He saw Wilson’s reflection in the glass out of the corner of his eye. The big lug was almost grinning at the prospect. What the hell had those two been talking about? It wasn’t recovering the gun, that was for sure.

“Johnson, do you believe in God?”

Johnson’s fists tightened once more. He began to hum
Ave Maria
to himself.

*

John drummed his fingers on the meeting table where he had been left alone. He watched the agents staring out of the window in the corner office. It looked like they were watching traffic. He wondered if their heart rates ever increased, contradicting their outward personas. How much death did a person need to witness, or inflict for that matter, to form a husk so impervious to emotion? He was one to talk. Today he had killed a man, and all he could think about was whether Savannah would ever forgive him for snubbing her. How mixed up was that?

John heard the main office door open and turned to see Savannah marching towards the meeting table. He sat upright. They were alone.
Say something, John...

“I’m sorry,” he said, as she sat down directly opposite him. She looked a picture of health but her eyes were hard and guarded as if they were part of a wall built up to protect her. She dug her hand into one of John’s coat pockets and pulled out a handful of notes and pushed them across the table towards him.

“Forget about it,” she said. “This money belongs to you. I’ll let you have the coat back when all this is over.”

John searched her eyes for traces of feelings but there was nothing, even the energy seemed purposely subdued. He pushed the mixture of various denominations and crispness back at Savannah.

“Some of this is yours. We recovered a large chunk from Amy what’s-her-face and that belongs to you.” It seemed that Savannah was hammering home the change in relationship. It was like he had thought; he had blown any chance of romantic reconciliation.

Using both hands, Savannah thrust the cash back to John once again. “Most of the money came from the sale of your watch. There’s less than two thousand left. Please take it.”

John held up his left arm. “I’ve got an even better watch now.” He neglected to mention that it had been used to listen in on their every move, even their failed intimacy. He counted up the notes. There was just less than seventeen hundred pounds as they hadn’t had the nerve to ask the hotel for a refund of their upfront room fee when they had collected Savannah’s passport.

John split the money into two equal piles. “Let’s just share it,” he said, picking up the right hand pile and placing it in the centre of the table. Savannah made no move to take it.

Johnson and Wilson appeared as if from nowhere. “Playing poker, are we?”

“More like cryptic bullshit,” said Savannah, picking up her pile and stuffing it back into the black Barbour coat.

John sighed. It was clear that she would never trust him again.

“Shall we get down to business?” suggested Johnson as the two agents took their seats. “Wilson here has some information regarding your new identities.”

John could feel his world tilting further towards the vertical. It would not be long before his feet could not grip the ground beneath him.

“New identities? I thought the object was to let Fisher find us and then you take him down, whack him or whatever term you secret agent types use. Shouldn’t we be ourselves, wearing microphones under ten inch bulletproof vests or something?”

Johnson looked unusually tense. Facially he was the same, but his neck and shoulders seemed slightly scrunched up.

“What?” he said.

“Too easy,” Savannah jumped in, perking up noticeably at the suggestion. “If we’re out in the open, then it looks like a setup, right?”

She’d certainly picked up. A snort of coke in the toilets, maybe?

“Clever girl,” Wilson said, bordering on the cheerful. “You two are the bait that will bring in Fisher. No pun intended,” he added. A joke from Wilson - John’s world tilted a little further. “I have a private detective friend who has just retired. He has a small office in Twickenham. You will take over the agency. John will be the proprietor and Savannah his employee.”

Wilson too? What had Johnson been saying? It can’t have been a dressing down, that’s for sure.

Savannah was almost trembling with excitement, unable to stay still in her seat, eyes eager and back to full disclosure mode. Her mood swings were impossible to predict. Maybe she was schizophrenic. John didn’t know whether to be happy or scared. He watched in wonder, head in his hands as questions leapt from her lips.

“So how will he find us? Will you be waiting with your high-powered rifle to blow his brains out when we give you a signal? What sort of signal will it be? Should I flick my hair back? No, I might do that accidentally. What if I open a particular drawer of my desk? I will have a desk, won’t I?”

Savannah was all but bouncing in her chair. John would not have been surprised, given the enthusiasm with which she threw out the questions, if she had asked for a gun.

The shorter agent’s mouth wavered on a smile as he threw a red European passport spinning across the table at John.

“From now on you are Ethan Justice, private detective.”

John picked up the passport and flicked straight to the photograph page. It was him all right, complete with compulsory miserable passport face. Where had they got the picture? He could not remember it being taken. The name, how long would he be stuck with that?

“Where’s mine?” complained Savannah, pouting.

“We had this blank in stock but there was no time to establish a new identity for you,” Johnson said. “Besides, you have your passport and John didn’t. We didn’t want to break into Adelaine House.”

Savannah folded her arms and looked around the room. The disappointment had sapped her nervous energy which John reckoned was a good thing. She was up and down like a yoyo and she had thought he was crazy?

“You know where my parents live?” John asked, glad that his family had not been dragged into his mess. His mum would have needed therapy for months.

“There’s not a thing we don’t know about you two,” confirmed Johnson.

“But Ethan Justice for Christ’s sake?”

“It’s the last of our batch. There were no choices. We’ll make sure we order some more before you stab anyone else with a toothbrush.” The agent paused for a breath. “Just make sure you practise the signature when you get a minute.”

“Sounds like a perfect name for a private detective,” Wilson said.

“In Toyland maybe,” John snapped. “Johnson, can I speak to you in private, please?”

Johnson looked to his left at Wilson. Wilson nodded.

“Sure, we’ll go into the corner office,” Johnson offered.

Both men got up, leaving a sulking Savannah and a smirking Wilson behind.

*

John closed the door of the corner office behind him and immediately laid into the unsuspecting agent who was peering through the telescope. “I have two questions.”

“Go on.”

“Firstly, if Earthguard has the gun, then there’s no chance Fisher can get to it.”

“That’s not a question.”

“The question is why do we all have to risk our lives to catch one man?”

“Because we have to clean up the mess or I lose my job. The gun and Fisher must be disposed of.”

“That’s your mess. Why do we have to clean it up? What if I just walk out the front door?” Another question leapt into John’s head. John tapped the agent’s shoulder and Johnson turned around. “You mean the gun isn’t destroyed yet?”

“That’s three more questions,” the agent said, putting his hand on John’s shoulder and pulling him closer. “You have to help clean up because I say so and you can’t walk out because you wouldn’t make it to the front door.”

John grabbed the agent’s hand and pulled it from his shoulder. “I thought as much. And the gun?”

“Do you know how to safely dispose of a live nuclear reactor? The gun is like a used battery, you can’t chuck it in a dustbin or a bonfire. It’s in a safe place only Wilson and I know about. Now is that it?”

John refused to let the tall man intimidate him. If he was going to risk his life then he wanted answers to his questions.

“No. What the hell is up with Wilson?”

Johnson returned his eye to the telescope. “What do you mean?”

John marched over to where Johnson stood.

The agent’s eye stayed put. “The two of you have the most unreadable, expressionless, corpse-like faces I’ve ever seen. Wilson is suddenly telling jokes and I could swear that he was smiling in there. Something’s up and I want to know what it is.”

“I reckon he’s got a soft spot for your Savannah.”

“You mean he’s got the hots for her?”

Johnson took his eye from the telescope and turned to John but looked past him at his partner in the main office.

“Wilson, that old son of a bitch, I don’t think so. He’s been through a lot lately. I think he just needs someone to talk to.”

“But can you trust him?”

“Let me worry about Wilson. You should worry about Miss Jones. If it wasn’t for her pupils looking normal, you’d think she’d shot something in her veins during her visit to the bathroom.”

So Johnson had suspected drugs too.

“She is kind of spaced out at the moment,” agreed John, noticing for the first time there were no pictures or mementoes on the walls or desk of the corner office. All removed as per protocol, he assumed. He looked over to the other office where Savannah and Wilson were deep in conversation. What he’d give to be a fly on that wall?

“You’re the detective, Mr Justice,” Johnson said. “You keep an eye on her and make it work. When I’m not around, keep an eye on both of them. You and I might be the only sane ones left.”

“Great,” mumbled John, feeling anything but sane. “Ethan Justice... You’ve got to be joking.”

“Do I look like the joking kind?”

John looked back at the face that observed him. It was a countenance with complete detachment. There was life in the eyes but no movement, depth or emotion. This was not the face of the man who had offered him half-decent relationship advice. Not an occasional facial muscle twitch or telling flicker that would be present in ... well ... everyone else, was to be seen.

Johnson could like, hate or be indifferent towards him and John would never know. If the need or justification arose, this man could risk his life to save John or equally put a bullet in John’s brain. In either scenario the agent’s expression would be identical, like he was watering the plants on a lazy Sunday morning. The thought was deeply disconcerting. Did he look like the joking kind?

“No. You don’t,” John said. “Not at all.”

20: Sunday 25th September, 17:05

Finally, the sun is shining but I’m stuck in this goddamn hotel room. The wind has dropped. My radiator has turned itself on. I could be in a hut in the Sahara desert. Things are not going my way. It is fast becoming evening and in two hours’ time the light will disappear along with my chances of picking up the trail of Jones or Varushkin.

My phone rings as if to challenge my negativity. ‘Simply the Best’ by Tina Turner echoes around the room. I am already bored with the new ringtone. It is my paid informant from the Ritz. He had refused to give his name in case I reported him. I had been in no position to argue.

“Talk to me,” I say.

“Two massive blokes were at reception when Jones checked out.”

“Was she alone?”

“How do I know you’re with the police?” he asks.

“Because if you don’t start talking, I’m going to nick you.”

“She was with some young bloke.”

“Did he have a limp or speak with a Russian accent?”

“No. He spoke well. No accent. Wealthy student I’d guess.”

“Where did they go?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is that all you got?”

“I’m risking my neck to give you this for a measly fifty...”

I hang up the call. Her companion must be Mr Anorak. I can’t just sit here and wait for the phone to ring. Everyone on the streets is looking for Jones and Varushkin and so far I’ve got nothing. Varushkin has a pronounced limp. How hard can it be to find a Russian with a limp for God’s sake? They must have gone to ground. I put out my cigarette. The ashtray is overflowing. I clench my fists into balls. I grab the phone and call Sasha. She picks up after three rings.

“Hello.”

“Sasha, it’s me.”

“I’m at work. I told you not to call me until after seven.”

I squeeze my fists harder. Does she really work on Sundays? The question remains unasked. I don’t need negativity right now. I need comfort. “Things aren’t going too well. I just wanted to talk.”

“Call me back after seven.” She lowers her voice. “There are people here.”

Her whispers stroke my ear and stir my lust. I can’t help myself.

“Can you put your hand in your skirt without being seen?”

The call ends.

I stand up and throw the phone onto the bed. I take two steps towards the bathroom wall. I pull my right fist back behind my head. I scream as I let my punch go with every ounce of pent up frustration in my body and mind. My knuckles crunch through two layers of plasterboard and a two by four inch piece of timber. Pieces of plasterboard explode into the air before falling to the floor, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake. I suck up the pain and hold it in. My mind clears. I will not be stopped.