At Risk

59

On the tarmac outside the hangar, the SAS were taking on the PO19 Tactical Firearms Unit at football, and losing. Without doubt, the players were having a considerably better time than their immediate superiors, who were sitting inside waiting for news. Phones rang at intervals, and were snatched up, but no news of any importance had come in. Helicopters and regular and Territorial Army teams were maintaining their patrol.

The area was not a densely populated one, and the locals were somewhat bemused by this activity, and by the huge resources of camouflaged manpower that had been mobilised. The county had been intensively leafleted over the course of the morning, and everyone now knew that those suspected of the murders of Ray Gunter and Elsie Hogan were an Asian man and an Englishwoman.

This time when her phone went off Liz did not dive to reach it. All morning, as the negative results came in from each sector, she had had an increasing sense of her own uselessness, and only a terrible fascination with the endgame process prevented her from slipping away and driving back to London. Leaving was what Wetherby would certainly have counselled under the circumstances; there was no advantage to the Service or to anyone else in her staying around.

But Wetherby’s advice had not been sought, and until all the intelligence had come in from Garth House, Liz was going to stay put.

At 3:30 p.m. one of the Army officers voiced the thought that no one else had dared put into words: that perhaps they were searching the wrong area. Was it possible, he ventured, that they had been sold a dummy? Led by a false process of deduction to guard the wrong institution? Could Lakenheath or Mildenhall be the real target?

The question was greeted with silence, and all present turned to Jim Dunstan, who stared expressionlessly in front of him for perhaps a full quarter of a minute. “We continue as we are,” he said eventually. “Mr. Mackay assures me that the Islamic regard for anniversaries is absolute, and we have several hours until midnight. My suspicion is that Mansoor and D’Aubigny are lying up waiting to run the cordon under cover of darkness, and darkness will be with us within the hour. We continue.”

Shortly after 4 p.m. the rain came, wavering grey sheets of it, lashing the hangar roof and dimming the outlines of the waiting Gazelle helicopters. The air smelt dangerously electric and the Army Air Corps pilots glanced anxiously at each other, mindful of their airborne colleagues.

“All we bloody well need,” winced Don Whitten, forcing his hands frustratedly into his jacket pockets. “They say rain’s the policeman’s friend, but it’s our enemy now, and no mistake.”

Liz was about to answer when her phone bleeped. The text message indicated a waiting e-mail from Investigations.

Price-Lascelles still n/a in Morocco but have identified and contacted one Maureen Cahill, formerly matron at Garth Hse. MC claims D’Aubigny’s closest friend Megan Davies, expelled from GH at age 16 after various drug-related incidents. MC says she treated D’Aubigny & MD in school infirmary after psilocybin (magic mushroom) overdose. According to school records Davies family (parents John and Dawn) lived near Gedney Hill, Lincs, but house has had several changes of occupants since, and no current record of Davies family whereabouts. Do we follow up?

Liz stared at the screen for a moment, and then printed out the message. That final sentence suggested that she was clutching at straws, but in truth it was all she had to go on. If there was any chance, however slim, of saving lives by ordering an investigation into the whereabouts of the Davies family, then she had to take it. That this investigation would be manpower-intensive did not have to be spelled out. Davies was a very common name indeed.

Go for it, Liz typed out. Use everything. Find them.

She looked outside. The rain was pounding remorselessly down. Dark was falling.