At Risk

56

In the Swanley Heath mess hall, Liz sat in front of an untouched slice of buttered toast and a cup of black coffee. So far, Investigations had turned up nothing of interest concerning any of the names on the Garth House school list. Several of the pupils lived in Norfolk or Suffolk, or had done so at some point in the past, but while most remembered Jean D’Aubigny, none had any significant connection with her. A loner, had been the universal judgement. Someone who was happiest by herself.

And at a school like Garth House, where most of the children would have had problems of one sort or another, the desire for solitude was something you respected, Liz guessed. Children knew when to leave each other alone in a way that adults often didn’t. Mark had rung her the night before but she had left her voice mail to field the call. She would not be returning it.

Investigations had also informed her that the D’Aubigny parents were still refusing to talk, or indeed to assist the police in any way. Reading between the lines, Liz suspected that this was the lawyer’s doing, and that if any pressure was put on the parents-if they were charged with the wilful obstruction of justice, for example-Julian Ledward would use the case as an opportunity for civil rights grandstanding.

And despite an extensive search operation involving several units of the Moroccan police, MI6 had still not located Price-Lascelles. The latest theory, based on the fact that the Garth House headmaster had loaded several spare containers of diesel into his jeep before leaving Azemmour, was that he had not gone to Casablanca, as reported by the house-boy, but had driven up to the Atlas mountains. The search area, Judith Spratt had reported glumly, had expanded to approximately a thousand square miles.

Liz looked around the room. The police and firearms officers were in one group, the Army officers in another, the SAS team in a third. Bruno Mackay, she saw, was standing with the SAS team, and at that moment laughing uproariously at something that Jamie Kersley had just said.

Liz had taken a seat next to PC Wendy Clissold, who had spent much of the meal giggling on her phone. At the table’s far end, a tactful distance away, sat half a dozen excruciatingly polite young Army Air Corps helicopter pilots.

“They reckon today’s the day, then,” said Clissold, “that they’re going to have a bash at that Yank base.”

“That’s what they reckon,” said Liz.

“It’s not what I reckon,” said a familiar voice at her shoulder.

Liz looked round. It was Don Whitten, and he had clearly had a bad night. His eyes were bloodshot and the bags beneath them purplish-grey. The tips of his moustache, by contrast, were yellowed with nicotine.

“Remind me never to join the Army, Clissold. The beds don’t suit me. You’re not allowed to smoke in them, for a kick-off.”

“Isn’t that a violation of your civil rights, Guv’nor?”

“You’d have thought so, wouldn’t you?” said Whitten mournfully. He turned to Liz. “How did you do? Accommodation satisfactory?”

“Quite satisfactory, thanks. Our hut was very comfortable. Are you going to have some breakfast?”

Whitten patted his pockets for his cigarettes and peered at the serving counter. “I’m not sure whether all this fried food is appropriate for a fitness guru like myself. I may confine myself to a Filter King and a cup of tea.”

“Go on, Guv’nor. It’s free.”

“True, Clissold. Very true. Have you heard from Brian Mudie this morning?”

“What d’you mean, Guv?”

He looked at her wearily. “When he rings you, tell him I want that inventory on the forensic from the bungalow fire ASAP. Everything. Every button, every razor blade, every Kentucky fried chicken bone. And packaging. I particularly want to know about packaging.”

Clissold looked uneasily at her fingers. “As it happens, I have just been speaking to Sergeant Mudie. They’re still making up the inventory…”

“Go on.”

“There was one thing he said…”

“Tell me.”

“When you were a kid, Guv, did they have that stuff called Silly Putty? That bouncy stuff you squeeze and…”

Whitten seemed to sag in his chair. Beneath the strip lighting, his skin was the colour of a corpse’s. “Tell me,” he repeated.

“More than a dozen melted containers, Guv. All empty.”

His eyes met Liz’s. “How much would that make?” he demanded tonelessly.

“Depends on the size of the containers. Enough to flatten this building, though.”

Wendy looked from one to the other of them, mystified.

“C4 explosive,” explained Liz. “Putty’s one of the principal ingredients. The toy shop sort is best.”

“So what’s the target?” Whitten demanded.

“RAF Marwell seems to be the popular favourite right now.”

“You don’t think that, though?”

“I haven’t got a better suggestion,” said Liz. “And we’ve rather run out of time.”

Whitten shook his head. “That lot over there”-he nodded at the Army officers-“think that Mansoor and D’Aubigny are just going to walk slap-bang into one of our search teams. They’re crediting them with no intelligence whatsoever.” He shrugged. “Perhaps they’re right. Perhaps we’re overcomplicating things. Perhaps the two of them are just going to find the largest concentration of people that they can, and…” He made a starburst with his hands. From the Army officers’ table, there was more laughter.

“I told Jim Dunstan,” said Whitten. “I said we wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for you.”

Liz shook her head. “Wouldn’t be where? Inside a razor-wired enclosure trying to pretend we know what we’re doing? Waiting for a couple of trigger-happy maniacs who could be anywhere in East Anglia to do us the favour of showing themselves?”

Whitten regarded her in silence. Liz, angry at herself, took an exploratory bite of her toast, but she seemed to have lost all sense of taste. More than anything she wanted to walk out to her car, and leave. Draw a line under the case. Leave it to the police and the Army. She had done all that she could do.

Except that she knew she hadn’t, quite. There was still a single thread, tenuous but nevertheless logical, to be followed. If the D’Aubigny parents thought that their daughter had no connection of any kind with East Anglia, and had never been there, then they would unquestionably have said so. Julian Ledward could huff and puff as loud as he liked, but the fact was that the D’Aubigny parents’ silence had to mean that they knew of a connection. And if this was the case, given that they didn’t have much clue about the path their daughter’s life had taken after she left home, the chances were that it was a connection established before she left home. Which took her-and Liz-back to school, and Garth House.

Go for it, Jude. Find the key. Unlock the door.

“It’s like a bullfight,” said Wendy Clissold.

Liz and Whitten turned to her.

“I went to one once, in Barcelona,” explained Clissold hesitantly. “The bull comes in, and the matador comes in, and everyone knows that… that there’s going to be a death. You dress up, put perfume on, and buy a ticket to watch a death. Then you go home.”

Whitten tapped a cigarette on the plastic tabletop. His eyes were the colour of old beeswax. “Key difference, love. At a bullfight, you’re pretty sure who’s going to be doing the dying.”