Cry Darkness

Thirteen

It was all Jones could do to muster the strength to climb out of the cab. She paid the driver from her stash of dollar bills, then stood still for a moment trying to be sure that she had control of her body.

The rain, thankfully, had eased, because Jones’s grey plastic raincoat, now badly torn, was likely to provide even less protection than before. She still felt extremely shaky and her left leg almost gave way when she tried to put her full weight on it. She took a step sideways and reached out to hold on to a water hydrant to steady herself.

Passers-by were glancing at her curiously, then quickly turning away. She wasn’t surprised. She was a mess. But even in her state of shock she was aware that most of the blood that had been splashed on her had landed on her torn raincoat. She shrugged herself out of it, scrunched it up, and tucked it under one arm.

Moving as quickly as her injured leg would allow, while also trying to be inconspicuous, she made her way up the station steps, past the line of pavement cafes, and into the cavernous central hall, where she stood at the top of the steps overlooking the concourse and glanced anxiously around for the nearest public convenience.

There was a pronounced police presence. Two machine-gun-toting soldiers, wearing fatigues and flak jackets, stood just to Jones’s left, fortunately facing away from her.

Involuntarily Jones took a step backwards, but reminded herself that this was, of course, normal in America. And had been since 9/11.

Nonetheless, she retreated through the imposing gateway from which she had just entered. Then, standing outside, she remembered The Campbell Apartment, an unlikely cocktail bar to which she had been introduced on her last visit to New York, and headed for the heavy wooden doors which she knew led to it. The Apartment had been leased in the 1920s and 30s by a businessman and alleged bootlegger called John W. Campbell who transformed the thirty-by sixty-foot room into a reproduction Florentine palace which he used both as an office and for entertaining. Or actually, some said, for storing and selling his illegal hooch.

Jones knew the bar would be closed that early in the day, but hoped that the exterior doors would be open. They were. She hurried across the tiled ground floor lobby, from which a short flight of steps led to The Apartment itself, and ran up them as fast as her battered legs could carry her. At the top was a ladies’ lavatory. To her relief, that was open too. And it was deserted.

Once inside, she studied her reflection in the wall mirror. No wonder people had been looking at her curiously. There were splashes of blood on her face. Her right cheek still bore the signs of the damage it had incurred the previous day, and her chin was now swollen on one side and seemed to be turning a bluish yellow colour almost as she watched. It was also seeping liquid from an unpleasant looking graze. Obliquely she wondered which of the blood splashes were her own and which might be poor Marion’s.

She shivered. Her body felt icy cold and yet her face was burning. Her heart was still racing.

She dumped her destroyed raincoat in the trash can fastened to one wall, reached for some paper towels, ran the cold tap in the washbasin, soaked the towels and dabbed them against her damaged face. The cold water felt wonderful, cooling and restorative. She realized then how thirsty she was. She dropped the paper towels on the floor, cupped her hands underneath the tap, raised them to her mouth and drank the water gratefully. She wiped her face dry with more paper towels, then paused to look in the mirror again. She still didn’t look good. Her face was clean enough now and pretty much free of blood. It was also a pale whitish grey. Her features were drawn. It was almost as if she had aged twenty years in as many minutes.

Obliquely, she wished she had her make-up with her, but that was in the bag she had left in Dom’s apartment. Hopefully it and Connie would arrive soon.

The graze on her chin continued to ooze a little, but seemed to be actually only a shallow wound. Most of the blood she had wiped away must have come from Marion. She was surprised to find that she could think about that in such a detached way. She was operating on a kind of auto pilot.

She ran her tongue over her teeth. Somewhat to her surprise they all seemed to be there and apparently undamaged, although her gums were sore.

She turned her attention to her clothes. She was wearing the same jeans and hoody she’d had laundered at the Soho House. Both were dirty and torn. The rip in the left sleeve of the hoody was so bad that the lower half had become almost detached from the upper, and was hanging from just a few threads of wool. She rolled both sleeves up, which improved things very slightly.

She rubbed ineffectually at the dirty marks and the few spots of blood which her raincoat had not protected her from. There was nothing at all she could do about the rip in the knee of her jeans. In any case, she only needed to make herself presentable enough to meet Connie at the appointed spot. Fortunately both her jeans and her tracksuit top were black. And this was New York. Hopefully nobody would even notice. She glanced at her watch again. If Connie had followed her instructions and left the loft apartment immediately, she would arrive soon.

She made her way back to the station concourse, keeping her head down, and limping as little as possible.

Remembering something from all those bad movies she’d watched, she paused at a news stand to buy a paper. At the entrance to platform one she propped herself against a conveniently positioned wall and held the newspaper up in front of her face. She didn’t really know what she was playing at, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. She still had a famous face — barely known in America, outside of scientific circles, it was true, but Britons did travel — and she had just left the scene of a terrible crime.

With one eye she peeped around the edge of the paper.

Connie arrived only a couple of minutes later, hurrying across the concourse. She had at least followed the first of Jones’s instructions and was wearing a baseball cap which she had presumably found among Dom’s belongings. Unfortunately, however, she hadn’t managed to tuck in all of her expansive red hair. And the cap was a strident yellow colour. The result was that she was probably likely to attract attention to herself even more than usual, particularly as she was wearing a green coat.

Oh my God, thought Jones. She had tried so hard to make herself inconspicuous, and now this multi-coloured vision, hair sticking out like a clown’s around the skull cap effect of the baseball cap, was tearing across the station, attracting a certain amount of attention even in this city.

A passing cop glanced first at the approaching Connie, and then at Jones. Jones buried herself deeper in her newspaper. The cop walked on by. Jones peeped around the newspaper again.

To her relief she saw that Connie had her bag over one shoulder, and the smaller cloth bag she always carried over the other. Both were being wielded almost like weapons. The station was far from crowded, nonetheless Connie scattered people in all directions as she rocketed through them like a multi-coloured windmill.

Jones would have laughed out loud at the sight of her, were it not for the tragic nature of the occasion. And as Connie approached she could see that tears were streaming down her face. Her anguish was all too apparent. She was oblivious to everything, looking but not seeing. She rushed right past Jones, who lowered her newspaper.

‘Connie,’ she called after her, sotto voce.

Connie turned, saw Jones, and threw herself at her, grabbing her shoulders, knocking the newspaper out of her hands.

‘Sandy, Sandy. Tell me everything that’s happened. I have to go to Marion. I have to!’ she shouted.

People began to stare. Jones had to stop her behaving like this. She pushed her away as gently as possible, then grabbed both her hands.

‘Connie, shush, shush,’ she said. ‘You must calm down. You are in terrible danger. And people are staring...’

‘Do you think I care?’ Connie’s green eyes blazed. ‘Do you think I care about myself? I have to find Marion. I have to go to her...’

‘Connie, for God’s sake...’

Jones looked anxiously around. Connie was behaving crazily. They could not afford the attentions of a curious police officer.

‘We can’t stay here,’ Jones continued. ‘We need to go somewhere we can talk. Please.’

Perhaps surprisingly, Connie stopped shouting and nodded her agreement. She didn’t seem able to stop crying, though.

Jones coaxed her across the concourse to the Vanderbilt entrance and the Campbell Apartment. The place was still deserted. It was the nearest to private she could come up with at the moment.

Once inside she wrapped her arms around Connie and drew her close. Connie’s body felt so tense, it was almost as if she were made of some substance much less malleable than flesh and blood.

‘It’s my fault, it’s all my fault,’ she wailed into Jones’s shoulder.

‘No, Connie, no,’ Jones soothed. ‘Of course it’s not your fault.’

‘Yes, it is. I should never have involved Marion. None of this has anything to do with her. But I did involve her. I got her into it. And now she might be dead...’

Jones didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t speak. It seemed like for ever but was probably only a minute or two before Connie’s sobs eased. Jones continued to hold on to her. The almost comical baseball hat had fallen from her head. Jones stroked her hair gently.

‘Listen, Connie, it’s not just you who is in danger, it’s me too,’ she said. ‘We have to work out what to do next. We both have to at least try to be calm and rational.’

Jones reckoned that Connie Pike was just about the most unselfish person she had ever met. She knew that if anything could get through to her it was the suggestion that somebody else dear to her might also be in danger, because, in her mind at any rate, of her actions.

After a few seconds Connie stopped sobbing and looked at Jones as if seeing her, and the state she was in, for the first time.

‘You’re hurt too,’ she said. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine,’ Jones replied, for the second time that morning. It was a considerable exaggeration.

Connie nodded. She was clearly making a huge effort to pull herself together.

‘All right, let’s talk,’ she said. ‘And first I have to know everything about Marion.’

Jones gestured towards the flight of steps leading up to the locked and bolted Campbell Apartment itself.

‘It’s not a Chesterfield, but why don’t we sit down,’ she suggested.

Connie did so at once. Jones joined her gratefully, stretching out her injured leg before her, and proceeded to tell the other woman everything, just as she had demanded, even about her fears that one of Marion’s legs had been severed. Connie reacted with only the faintest flicker of an eyelid. Jones told her about the truck reversing back at both of them, and how it was possible that its far-side wheels may have run over Marion’s head.

Connie then let out a little gasp, and her eyes filled with tears again. Almost impatiently she brushed them away with the back of one hand.

‘Possible?’ she queried.

‘Well, I really don’t know,’ Jones continued honestly. ‘Dom pushed us both out of the way. He knocked all the breath from my body. By the time I’d recovered enough to get up on my feet again, and I tried to see what had happened to Marion, she was just lying there, with a crowd gathering around her. Oh God, that sounds awful.’

Connie put a hand lightly on Jones’s right arm.

‘Did you think she was dead, Sandy?’ she asked, even more quietly. ‘Was that what you thought?’

‘I couldn’t be sure,’ Jones answered truthfully. ‘But if she is alive, then she has certainly suffered the most dreadful injuries.’

‘That I can live with,’ said Connie almost absently, adding almost conversationally, ‘but I don’t think I could live without her, not without Marion.’

‘Oh, Connie,’ Jones murmured.

‘Thing is,’ Connie continued, ‘before we do anything else, I have to find out about Marion. You must see that.’

‘I do. But I don’t see how without putting both of us at risk.’

‘That’s the sort of thing Dom would sort out...’

‘Connie. I don’t see how we can trust him. He had the information to set that incident up. And don’t you think he’d have the means? He moves in nefarious ways...’

‘But he saved your life, Sandy. And he may have saved Marion’s life. He’s probably put himself in danger...’

Jones opened her mouth to try to explain further.

She was interrupted by a loud bang and a crash as the big double doors to The Campbell Apartment foyer burst open. In strode the Dominator, his huge form filling the door frame. Jones was astonished. She could not imagine how the big man had found her, and Connie, so quickly. And Dom looked even bigger and more menacing than ever.

‘So here you are, you dumb fucking bitch,’ he yelled at Jones. ‘What the hell did you jump out of ma cab for?’

For what seemed like the umpteenth time since she’d arrived in America, Jones was overwhelmed by panic. She quite surprised herself by managing to speak. And at volume.

‘Because I don’t trust you,’ she yelled back. ‘Because everything you do makes me suspicious of you. How did you know where to find us, for a start?’

‘I didn’t. But it was the only place at Grand Central left to look. You took a cab here, didn’t you, chowderhead? And you actually stayed at the place where the driver dropped you off. There’s a brotherhood among New York cabbies, lady. I took the guy’s number when you did your damned fool suicide dash into his cab. Took me ten minutes to get his name and phone number, and another fifteen to get my ass here. I hoped you might contact Connie. I didn’t dare go back to my place. I’m just so glad you’re here, honey.’

He reached out and touched Connie on one shoulder.

‘And I’m just so goddamned sorry,’ he added.

‘I know you are, Dom,’ Connie responded quietly.

Jones slumped forwards, resting her face in her hands. She wasn’t cut out for any of this. Everything she’d attempted to do so far had gone wrong: visiting the RECAP lab and getting arrested; trying to extract information from Ed and then ending up telling him about Connie; running away from Dom. James Bond? Indiana Jones? Eve and Villanelle? Their worlds were not hers. She didn’t fit at all. She was a disaster.

‘You think any of that makes me trust you any more, Dom?’ she asked eventually. ‘You knew Connie was alive, and you’re just the sort of man who would have the contacts to set up a hit...’

‘A hit on Marion? Me? Are you out of your mind. I’d never hurt a hair on her head.’

‘No, but maybe you’d hurt Connie. She was the target. You told me that. Maybe someone got to you, bribed you, blackmailed you. How the hell do I know? But what I do know is, I can’t think of anyone else who would have been able to set up that hit. Only you.’

Dom made a low growling sound and took a step towards Jones who just froze, still sitting on the step, looking up at him. Not again, she thought. Not more violence.

Connie stood up quickly and positioned herself between the two of them.

‘That won’t help, Dom,’ she said sternly, placing her hands on his huge chest. The big man stopped in his tracks at once, lowered his clenched fists, and took a step backwards.

‘I sure am sorry, Connie, and, you know what, I’ve never beat up a woman in my whole goddamned life. But this one sure is trying my patience. I wouldn’t do nothing to hurt you, any more than I would Marion, and I cannot believe she’s dumb enough to think I would.’

Connie sighed. ‘Look Dom, nobody but you, and poor Marion, even knows I’m alive. Sandy does have a point you know...’

‘Does she hell as like! Don’t say that, Connie. Anyway, Dr fucking Sandy Jones knows you are still alive. Maybe she set it up.’

‘You don’t believe that for a second, Dom, any more than I do.’

‘Maybe I don’t. But if it wasn’t her and it wasn’t me, who the hell could it have been? Somebody else must have known, Connie. I’m dead sure you and Marion haven’t told anyone else. And I sure haven’t. What about you, lady?’

Dom pointed a beefy finger at Jones, who shifted awkwardly on the step.

‘Sandy?’ queried Connie.

‘Well...’

‘Oh, Sandy. What have you done? Who have you told?’

‘OK. I told Ed. I sort of couldn’t help it. He was so dreadfully upset about you and Paul. He started to cry, and couldn’t stop. I just wanted to cheer him up.’

‘You just wanted to cheer him up? You put all of us at risk, to cheer Ed up?’

Connie sounded stunned and bewildered.

‘Yeah.’ Jones looked down at her feet. ‘But it didn’t occur to me that Ed wouldn’t be absolutely trustworthy...’

‘Oh, Sandy,’ said Connie again.

‘Ed would never do anything to harm you or Marion, Connie,’ Jones continued. ‘And he wouldn’t have a clue how to go about it even if he wanted to, for God’s sake.’

‘Ed mightn’t ever do anything knowingly to hurt us, but who knows what he may already have unwittingly done,’ Connie responded, her voice still low. ‘My darling Marion is at best terribly injured, at worst she could be dead. And the chances are it’s your fault, Sandy. All your fault.’

She yelled the last sentence at Jones, who knew she deserved it. If she could only put the clock back she wouldn’t have left the United Kingdom at all, that was for certain. She really had made everything worse.

‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered.

‘Well now,’ said Dom, ‘so I’m not the only one in the frame after all.’ He glowered at Jones. ‘Know what, I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t gone and saved your goddamned arse.’

Jones winced. She still didn’t entirely trust the big man though.

Dom turned to address Connie directly.

‘I intend to look after you, Con,’ he said. ‘Because that’s what Aunt M would want.’

He paused, raised one huge paw, and rubbed at his face and eyes. The Dominator was wiping away tears.

‘Goddamn it, Connie,’ he continued. ‘I should have been able to protect Marion. I was too slow. I saw that pickup truck coming at her. I saw it, but I couldn’t get to her in time...’

Connie reached with one hand and touched his tear-stained cheek.

‘I’m sure Marion knows you tried your best, Dom,’ she told him gently. ‘I know that too.’

The Dominator took a big spotted handkerchief from the pocket of his leather jacket and blew his nose loudly. The bling on his wrists and fingers jangled.

‘Well, I’m just gonna have to make sure I do a better job for you, Connie darlin’,’ he said, looking down at her with affection and concern.

Then he glanced towards Jones and his expression changed.

‘But I’m not so sure I want anything more to do with your crazy friend,’ he scowled. ‘I done my best for her already, and look how she’s repaid me?’

Connie glanced towards Jones.

‘Yep, Sandy’s not covered herself in glory these last coupla days,’ she began. ‘But we go back a long way, and she did come here to try to help as soon as she heard about the explosion...’

Dom held up a massive hand. ‘OK. For you, Connie, we’ll keep the lady on board. We need to get you both off the streets. Go somewhere safe.’

He turned toward Jones.

‘But, just you try one more of your tricks and that’s it, Dr Dim. You’re on your own. Yeah?’

Jones nodded. She felt defeated. She was certainly totally unqualified to protect either Connie or herself. She had little choice but to go along with the Dominator.

‘Right,’ said Dom aggressively, pointing a finger at Jones. ‘You do exactly what I say, lady. Yeah?’

‘Yeah,’ repeated Jones meekly.

‘Then let’s get this show on the road.’

Dom was wearing a long black scarf around his neck. He whipped it off and handed it to Connie.

‘First of all, let’s not advertise who you are, Connie darlin’,’ he said. ‘Wrap this scarf round your head and hide that damned red hair of yours. Will you?’

Connie obeyed. Her hair disappeared. She no longer looked nearly so conspicuous. Dom’s scarf worked a hell of a lot better than the unfortunate yellow baseball cap.

Then Dom turned his attention to Jones, looking her up and down.

‘That your bag?’

He gestured to the hold-all by Jones’s feet. Jones nodded.

‘Good. You gonna need to change your clothes. It will have to wait, though. I’d rather get you both away from here without wasting any more time. OK?’

‘OK,’ said Jones.

She felt anything but OK. Two days ago she had been sitting at her desk in Exeter indulging in a certain amount of self-congratulation. Since then she’d embarked on a crazy wild goose chase, been arrested, more or less kidnapped, and, finally, caught up in an attempted murder that had nearly led to her own death. Worse still, there was a possibility, although she could hardly believe it, that her own indiscretion may have precipitated that murder attempt.

And now she was a fugitive, on the run from an unknown enemy, and left with no choice but to accept the protection of a man whom she still half believed could be the enemy.

Fourteen

Dom hurried them outside, a big protective arm around Connie’s shoulders. Jones followed as best she could.

His cab was parked on the rank just around the corner in 42nd Street. He hustled them towards it.

‘Don’t you think this might be a target too now?’ Jones asked, pointing at the yellow vehicle.

Dom turned to look at her. ‘Who do you think is after you and Connie?’ he asked. ‘Every security force in America?’

Jones shrugged. Dom seemed to think she was being paranoid. Well there was a pretty good reason for it. A reason they’d left lying on a New York street.

‘No lady,’ continued Dom, once they were all in the cab. ‘Somebody’s after Connie, there’s no damned doubt about that, and somebody with resources. Of course they can get to me because of the apartment, and once they’ve traced me it’s on record that I work as a cabby. And of course my medallion number’s listed. But they gotta work their way through all of that. And I’ve kept the cab out of the way too, remember. Even when the truck hit you guys I was parked out of sight, and I’d been following you on foot.’

Jones mumbled assent. The Dominator was probably right. He was certainly capable, there was no doubt about that. He also seemed able to keep his head while all around were losing theirs.

Connie, meanwhile, was very quiet.

‘You all right?’ Jones asked, realizing as she spoke what a darned silly question that was.

‘What do you think?’ Connie snapped the words out.

‘Sorry,’ said Jones.

Connie’s face was red and blotchy from her tears, her eyes red-rimmed and full of pain.

‘And I’m so so sorry about Marion. I can’t believe it could have been Ed though—’

‘What? No. Of course it wasn’t Ed. I mean... not deliberately anyway.’

‘All the same, I shouldn’t have told him.’

‘No, but like you said, we all go back a long way.’

Connie sounded reasonable again. Understanding. It made Jones feel even worse.

‘Yes, we do.’

Jones felt her own tears pricking.

‘It’s OK, Sandy. Really it is.’

‘Thank you for not blaming me,’ said Jones. ‘Or not entirely, anyway...’

‘You are not responsible for any of this. You came to help. No other reason. And there’s so much... so much...’

Connie stopped suddenly, as if she’d been about to say something and had thought better of it.

‘Anyway, this is where we’re at,’ she continued. ‘And I have to find out about Marion. Dom, why can’t I phone from a pay phone? Will you pull over?’

‘Hey Connie, no way, girl.’

The big man’s voice sounded rather more highly pitched than usual.

‘Who you gonna phone, eh? The police? All the hospitals in New York? You gonna try it anonymous, you gonna get nowhere. You tell them who you are and you’re asking for big trouble.’

‘I’d be quick. This is the middle of Manhattan. We could be twenty blocks away before anyone could trace the call.’

‘You reckon? Connie darlin’, it takes exactly fifteen seconds to pinpoint a call in this city. No. Trust me, Con, for Christ’s sake, trust me. I know a safe place. I’m gonna take you there. And then I’ll find out about Marion for you. I promise you, darlin’.’

‘You will?’ Jones interjected. ‘If you’re not a target yet, Dom, you surely will be soon. How can it be any safer for you to start asking questions about Marion than it is for Connie?’

‘Yeah, well maybe I won’t do it personally.’

‘Please don’t talk in riddles.’

‘I’m going to introduce you guys to my girlfriend.’

‘To your girlfriend?’ If the situation hadn’t been so tragic Jones would probably have burst out laughing. ‘Are we off to the theatre and supper at Sardi’s or something? Are you serious? You really want to get your girlfriend into this? Or were you lying just now? Have you told her already about Connie? And are we just supposed to trust her...’

There were traffic lights ahead. The cab screeched to a sudden halt. Dom turned around, twisting his body so that he was able to thrust most of his head into the rear compartment. He reached a long, bling-jangling arm through the gap and grabbed Jones by the shoulder.

‘Will you shut the fuck up, you crazy Englishwoman,’ he growled. ‘We don’t have any goddamned choice. I haven’t told her yet, but I’m about to. Everything’s different now. In any case...’

He paused in mid-sentence, as if he too were about to say something but had changed his mind.

‘My girl’s special,’ he continued obliquely.

Jones was not impressed. All that indicated to her was that Dom was probably in love. And she’d had reason enough in her life to believe that love really is blind.

Dom drove them into the heart of Harlem, further north than Jones had ever been before, to an area the property speculators had yet to launch themselves on, a place where you still didn’t see a white face in the street. Jones hunkered down in the back, still in shock, her hands clasped to stop them shaking.

Eventually Dom turned off Harlem’s main drag, swung the cab into a narrow alley between two tall rundown-looking buildings and pulled to a halt in a yard at the back.

‘It’s a flop house, owned by a pal of mine who owes me big time,’ he told Jones and Connie, as he opened the driver’s door and stepped out of the cab.

‘You two just wait here.’

It was both a command and a warning.

Jones and Connie obediently muttered their assent. They were entirely in Dom’s hands now, and even Jones knew she just had to accept that.

The big man was back in less than five minutes.

‘Right, all they have is one big room, with a kitchen and a bathroom,’ he said. ‘And it’s not the Waldorf, that’s for damned sure, but I reckon we’ll be safe enough, for a while anyway. Now just follow me and keep quiet. We should be able to go in the back way without you two being seen.’

The back entrance to the flop house, through a narrow door beneath the fire escape, was damp and dark and smelt of something Jones did not particularly care to identify. The room was no better. It was more like a small dormitory. There were four iron-framed beds covered in dubious looking blankets. There was a kitchen area at one end, comprising a sink, a fridge, a microwave and an electric hob, none of which looked excessively clean. The door stood open to an uninviting shower room and toilet.

Jones wrinkled her nose in distaste, an involuntary gesture spotted at once by Dom.

‘I say, so sorry it’s not what you’re used to, Your Ladyship,’ he said, in what he presumably assumed was an impression of an upper-class English accent.

‘I don’t give a toss as long as a bunch of thugs with crowbars or worse don’t come bursting through the door,’ responded Jones, who was tempted to tell the big man what she thought of his pantomime of an impersonation, but didn’t have the energy.

‘OK. I’ll go find my girl,’ said Dom. ‘I’ll call her on her cell from a public phone. I doubt they’ve got to me yet, my cell phone could still be safe, but we shouldn’t take no more risks. Not after what’s happened to Marion.’

‘You can use my burner.’

Jones held out the phone.

Dom looked at it for a moment.

‘You didn’t tell me you had that,’ he said accusingly.

‘No, sorry,’ muttered Jones, who wasn’t actually sure she was sorry, or that she should even be giving Dom the phone now. But she and Connie had put themselves in his hands. There was no point in holding back.

Dom grunted. And reached out to take the burner. Then he stopped.

‘Was that the phone Ed called you on this morning?’ he asked.

Jones nodded.

‘That could be how they traced you to my place.’

‘I told him only to call from a call box.’

‘Yeah, well maybe he didna do what he was told. Don’t you see? Phone’s almost certainly no good any more. Too dangerous to use. And the one you gave Connie.’

Jones wondered who was getting paranoid now.

‘Whatever you say,’ she muttered. ‘I bought a third phone though.’

‘You did?’

‘Not been used. It’s in my bag. I’ll get it for you.’

‘Right. But I should go out anyway. We need some food. Anyone hungry?’

Jones never got her morning tea. She and Marion hadn’t made it to breakfast. However, food and drink were the last things on her mind. And she still felt nauseous. She shook her head.

Connie looked at Dom as if he was crazy.

‘I haven’t been able to eat properly since Paul died,’ she said. ‘I feel even less like it now.’

‘I’ll bring something back anyway. We gotta be strong, and if you don’t eat you don’t stay strong.’

‘I could do with some coffee,’ said Connie.

‘Sure,’ responded Dom. ‘Maybe there’s some here...’

He opened the fridge door, rummaged for a moment or two amongst goodness knew what, and then stood up clutching a foil pack of coffee that had been opened but was held together at the top by a clip.

‘There you are. Coffee. And there’s the thing to make it with, too.’

He pointed to a filter coffee machine standing on the worktop. Jones hadn’t seen one of those in a long time.

‘Right, I’ll get off, then. Just don’t do anything stupid?’

Again neither Jones nor Connie responded. Instead they watched in silence as the big man left.

Jones took the opportunity to finally remove her dirty, torn, and blood-spattered clothing, then shower and, as ever, wash her hair. The shower turned out to be much more effective than it looked, sending out a restoratively powerful stream of piping hot water. Afterwards she dressed in a clean shirt, her Stella McCartney grey trousers, the only spare pair she had brought with her, and her leather jacket, and applied her make-up rather more heavily than usual in an attempt to at least partially disguise the damage to her face.

There was a hairdryer plumbed into the wall by the basin. Jones used it to swiftly blow-dry her hair into the sharp glossy bob she was so fussy about, which immediately made her feel considerably better.

When she stepped out into the main room Connie was fiddling with the coffee maker.

‘Well, it boils the water, doesn’t it?’ she muttered unenthusiastically. ‘Don’t suppose we’ll come to much harm. Anyway... seems like there’s a lot more danger lurking for us than a few germs.’

She turned to face Jones.

‘You look better.’

Jones managed a weak smile.

Connie rinsed the coffee machine then filled it with water and added the coffee. Jones watched for a few seconds as she produced a couple of mugs which she swilled under the tap.

There was a television in one corner. Jones hadn’t seen the news since early that morning. She wanted to check if there were any further reports on the RECAP explosion, and to see if there was any mention of the incident with Marion and her. She switched on the TV just in time to catch a regional news bulletin.

The fourth item featured their hit-and-run.

‘Passers-by report that the vehicle appeared to deliberately mow down the injured woman, and that it then reversed for a second attempt.’

A shiver ran down Jones’s spine. Connie had turned away from her coffee-making activities, and was also watching.

‘Police are withholding the name of the victim, whose condition is said to be critical, until next of kin have been informed. A second pedestrian, another Caucasian woman, who left the scene of the incident, was believed to have been involved, and police are appealing for her and any other witnesses to contact them.’

Connie uttered a big, deep sigh.

‘Critical,’ she murmured. ‘That means Marion’s alive, doesn’t it, Sandy? She’s alive.’

Jones nodded her agreement. She was also hugely relieved, not least because of the sense of responsibility she felt for what had happened. But her thoughts swiftly turned to what else had been revealed in the bulletin.

Police were withholding the victim’s name until next of kin had been informed. That meant they already knew who Marion was. Of course, Marion had been carrying her handbag which had presumably been found in the road alongside her. No doubt it contained her credit cards, her ID, her phone, and all the usual paraphernalia of modern life. But did whoever had attempted to kill her in mistake for Connie now know that they had targeted the wrong woman? That was the million-dollar question.

In addition the police were appealing for the second pedestrian involved to come forwards. Did that mean they knew who Jones was too? She thought that was still unlikely, but couldn’t be sure. She so hoped her boys didn’t get to hear of any of this before she could safely speak to them.

Neither Dom, nor his intervention, were mentioned. What did that indicate? Or did it not indicate anything at all?

Jones glanced at Connie. She could tell that all she was thinking about was Marion’s welfare. Almost certainly she had yet to consider the wider significance of the report.

The aroma of coffee was beginning to fill the room. It smelt wonderful, promising somehow to be even better than the tea she had earlier yearned for, and had more or less drowned all traces of the vaguely unpleasant odour that had previously lurked. Jones hadn’t thought it possible that her body could, at this time, display any desire for food or drink, but her saliva buds had automatically kicked into action.

‘Coffee smells done,’ she said gently to Connie, who nodded absently.

Jones left her to her thoughts, made her way to the machine, and poured steaming liquid into the two mugs Connie had prepared.

She raised a mug to her lips. The coffee was very hot and very strong. Just how she liked it. There was no milk, but she always drank coffee black. She could feel herself being jolted back to some semblance of life.

She passed Connie the second mug just as Dom returned, carrying a large brown paper bag.

‘Gee, that smells good,’ he said.

Jones found another mug.

Meanwhile Dom emptied out the contents of his paper bag onto the worktop, alongside the coffee machine.

‘Hot pastrami sandwiches, and red velvet cake, a Harlem speciality, just in case you two honkies don’t know it,’ he said. ‘The best cake you ever gonna eat.’

Connie ignored him and the food.

‘Do you have any news? Have you managed to find out anything about Marion? We know she’s alive—’

‘You do?’ Dom interrupted anxiously ‘How?’

‘It was on the TV news,’ said Jones. ‘They said her condition was critical.’

‘Did they identify her?’ Dom spoke sharply.

‘No. But I guess they know who she is already. The bulletin said that her identity was being withheld until her family could be contacted.’

Dom nodded, looking grim. Connie put down her coffee and moved swiftly and suddenly towards him. She grabbed one of his arms with both hands. Jones could see that her knuckles were white, and her fingertips were digging into the sleeve of Dom’s jacket.

‘So, Marion must be in hospital somewhere, we’ve got to find her, Dom. I have to know...’

Connie’s voice had turned slightly hysterical again.

‘Hey, Con, hey,’ said Dom, raising a big fleshy hand in what Jones presumed was supposed to be a calming gesture. ‘My girl’s on the case.’

‘Well, how’s she going to find anything out? They’ll only give information to family, won’t they? It’s not going to be easy...’

‘It won’t be too hard for my girl,’ said Dom. ‘I told you, she’s special.’

Jones wondered what the hell the big man was talking about. Connie looked as if she was going to interrupt again, then turned away, beaten, and slumped onto a chair.

‘Have some more coffee, Connie,’ said Jones, holding out the other woman’s abandoned mug. ‘It’ll make you feel better.’

Connie turned a jaundiced eye on her. Jones realized she must have sounded particularly trite.

‘Nothing will make me feel better,’ she responded sharply. ‘Except knowing that Marion is going to be all right.’

Nonetheless she took the coffee and raised it to her lips.

Dom picked up two packets of pastrami sandwiches, handing one to Connie and one to Jones.

‘So will food,’ he said. ‘And anyway, even if it don’t make you feel better, you gotta eat, Connie babe. We gotta keep functioning. All of us. People ain’t no different to machines. You, with all your fancy notions, Con, you ought to know that, girl. Gotta have fuel to keep going.’

He opened a packet of sandwiches himself and took a big bite out of one.

‘Seriously goddamned good,’ he said.

The smell of hot salted meat and mustard mingled with the aroma of the coffee. Once again, to her surprise, Jones’s felt her saliva buds react.

She removed a sandwich from the packet Dom had handed her. And once she started eating she couldn’t get the food into her mouth fast enough. Her nausea had evaporated. She found that she was absolutely ravenous. When she’d finished the sandwich she started on the red velvet cake. It was the colour of new brick and melted on her tongue like butter, every bit as fine as Dom had said it would be.

She was aware of Connie’s eyes on her.

‘It’s good grub,’ said Jones by way of encouragement.

Connie narrowed her gaze.

‘If I ate a mouthful I would be sick as a hog,’ she said.

The Dominator’s girlfriend arrived about an hour later. It had seemed much longer to Jones, and she suspected that to Connie it had probably seemed like a lifetime.

She was not at all what Jones had expected. She hadn’t realized she’d been expecting any particular kind of woman to be Dom’s girl, but she must have been. This one took her totally by surprise.

She was tall, blonde and elegant, with good strong features and intelligent eyes. Her mouth was wide and generous. She wore her long hair swept loosely back in a ponytail. She was well dressed in a stylish, navy-blue, pin-striped trouser suit, and when she spoke her voice had a musical ring to it.

‘Hi, I’m Gaynor,’ she said, smiling easily. Her teeth were perfect, her manner relaxed and confident.

She was clearly a class act.

Jones realized it had been not only patronizing of her to have rather different expectations of the big brash wrestler upon whom her entire survival now seemed to depend, but also quite probably racist. It hadn’t occurred to Jones that Dom’s girl would be anything other than a woman of colour.

Dom beamed with pride as soon as Gaynor entered the room.

‘Whaddya think of my babe, then?’ he enquired.

Connie clearly took the attitude that the question was rhetorical, if she considered it at all. Before Jones had time to think of an appropriate reply, Connie Pike began firing questions at the young woman.

‘What have you found out? Do you know where they’ve taken Marion? Is she going to pull through?’

Dom’s girl was unfazed. She walked across the room to Connie and took both her hands in hers.

‘Marion is at St Vincent’s Hospital,’ she said. ‘She’s very poorly, but they say she has a good fighting chance. She’s just come out of surgery and she’s in intensive care. I’ve been told the next few hours are critical. Then we’ll know for sure if she’s going to pull through.’

‘Is she conscious?’

‘Well, she’s still under anaesthetic. She was knocked out, but apparently her head wounds are not believed to be that serious.’

Jones realized that meant the truck could not have run over Marion’s head, after all. Relief washed over her.

‘Thank God,’ said Connie. ‘But what about her other injuries?’

The younger woman did not attempt to avoid eye contact. It was almost as if she and Connie had formed an instant bond which demanded that there be no bullshit.

‘She has four broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder and severe injuries to her legs,’ said Gaynor.

‘You said she’d just come out of surgery?’

‘Yes.’ Gaynor’s voice was calm and matter of fact. ‘Her right leg was virtually severed by the truck. The surgeons had to amputate what was left, above the knee.’

The line of Connie’s mouth was very thin. Her voice sounded strange when she spoke. Almost as if it wasn’t her voice at all.

‘And the other leg?’

‘They’re trying to save it. It’s broken in several places, and the ligaments are torn.’

‘Do they think they can save it?’

‘They don’t know yet.’

‘So what exactly are her chances of pulling through, with or without her remaining leg?’

Gaynor shrugged. ‘They don’t know that either.’

‘Fifty-fifty then?’

‘Thereabouts.’

‘Only thereabouts?’

Gaynor nodded. ‘Yes. I think that’s the best prognosis. A good fighting chance, that’s all they told me.’

‘I see.’

‘I need to go to her,’ Connie said, for the umpteenth time.

‘The hospital and the police know her identity,’ Gaynor replied with quiet authority. ‘That means that the people who made the hit on her, thinking she was you, Connie, probably now know you are still alive and well. And if they don’t, they will soon. Marion’s next of kin, her son in Princeton, has been informed of the incident and her identity will be released to the media shortly. Someone has tried to kill you twice, Connie. They’ll try again. They’ll be waiting for you...’

‘That makes no difference. I’ll take my chances. My life is no damned good to me without Marion.’

‘Your life means so much in so many ways, Connie,’ Jones reminded her gently. ‘You are more likely than anyone else in the world to hold the key to whatever it is that Paul discovered. You have a duty to survive.’

‘Fuck duty,’ yelled Connie. ‘Fuck duty and fuck RECAP!’

‘Connie, there’s a good chance Marion will recover,’ Gaynor continued. ‘You haven’t lost her yet, remember? And how would she feel if she came through all this, and she’d lost you? If you’d done something foolhardy, something plain darned stupid, whether you thought you were doing it for her or not. If you’d put yourself in unnecessary danger. How would she feel about that?’

Connie sniffed loudly. She looked as if she was fighting back tears again.

‘She’d be pretty angry,’ she replied, in a normal tone of voice again.

‘Yes,’ responded Gaynor. ‘She’d be angry. Like I’d be angry if it was that great lump of meat over there.’ She gestured with one thumb at Dom. ‘I love him like you love Marion, you see. Hard to believe as it may be.’

She shot Dom a piercing look. He wriggled a bit, trying not to smile too much, Jones thought.

‘So,’ Gaynor continued, ‘I do understand, Connie. And I wonder, would you let me help?’

‘How can you help?’

‘Well, I could go to see Marion for you. It’s not the same, I know. But I will report back absolutely honestly, I promise you. And, if she’s conscious, I could give her a message.’

Connie walked to the window and appeared to be looking out. Jones guessed she was seeing nothing at all.

After a few seconds she turned around, and addressed Gaynor again.

‘Deal,’ she said.

‘Right.’

‘Just tell Marion she’s to hang on in there. She’s got to. For me. For us.’

‘I will.’

Gaynor headed for the door.

‘Thank you,’ Connie called after her.

Gaynor turned again to smile and incline her head, very slightly, in recognition.

‘There you go,’ said Dom, after she had left. ‘Told you guys she was special, didn’t I?’

Jones nodded. Dom grinned at her over his shoulder as he headed for the bathroom.

This was all very fine, thought Jones, but all they seemed to have discussed so far was Marion. Connie was in danger whether or not she attempted to see Marion. And Jones herself was probably still in danger too. Then there was the small matter of Paul’s discovery. A mighty step forwards in modern science which was apparently important enough, and presumably threatening enough, to lead people in high places to murder.

One half of Jones wanted more than anything to find out exactly what Paul had discovered. Maybe she even wanted to help Connie continue Paul’s work, though she wasn’t sure about that. The climate had changed, but RECAP and everything it stood for still hovered on the dubious fringes of the scientific world. And Jones had a pretty amazing career. She didn’t want to jeopardize it any more than she almost certainly already had.

How much of a target was she, she wondered? If she decided to go home, perhaps whoever was behind all this would just be glad to see the back of her? Or would they?

Jones was tired. She was frightened. And she was bewildered. Nonetheless, the inquisitive, enquiring half of her, the half that had got involved with RECAP in the first place, didn’t want to even attempt to walk away quite yet.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a series of bleeps from her burner phone. She’d been sent a text. It could only really be from Ed. She thought for a second. Dom had said she shouldn’t use the phone, although she still couldn’t believe that Ed was any kind of danger to them. But this was a text. Surely that was safe enough. In any case, she reckoned the importance of knowing what Ed had to say probably outweighed any small risk that might be involved.

She’d just called up the message when Dom came back into the room.

‘What the fuck are you doing, lady?’ he yelled. ‘Haven’t I told you not to use that goddamned phone?’

‘It’s only a text, Dom,’ said Jones mildly. ‘Surely there’s no harm in picking that up.’

‘It’s the same. And you’re a doctor? What kind of brain you got? You’ve sent out a signal to the nearest mast.’

‘Oh.’

Jones was sure she’d read somewhere that text messages were not easily traced. Maybe she’d seen it on the web, that worldwide home of misinformation. People forget that you can only get out of the web what some other prat has put in it. Jones usually did not forget. However, her thought processes were still not working at one hundred per cent.

Anyway, the damage, it seemed, had been done. The message was now displayed. It was indeed from Ed.

‘Meet me at the cornfield. Ten tonight. E.’

‘Let’s have a look at that.’

Dom snatched the phone from her.

‘E?’ he queried. ‘Ed?’

Jones nodded.

‘The cornfield? What the hell does he mean by that? You know what that is?’

‘I certainly do.’

‘Sure as hell ain’t a real field of corn. Not anywhere round here.’

‘No.’

‘Anybody else know?’

‘I very much doubt it.’

‘Right. I guess you’re gonna want to meet him whatever I say ’bout it?’

‘Of course I bloody well do. Maybe he’s found something out. Maybe he knows something he didn’t tell me before.’

‘And maybe he’s setting a trap for you.’

‘No way. Ed wouldn’t do that.’

‘But what if he’s followed to this cornfield?’

‘Well that, Dom, is a chance I’m going to have to take.’

Fifteen

Jones was suddenly very determined. She felt it was up to her to get to the bottom of this mess, to make it safe for Connie to return to a semblance of normal life again, and to begin to rebuild RECAP, if she so wished. As she knew Paul would want. Although she suspected that the murderous forces responsible for the Princeton explosion would have found Connie in New York sooner or later, her own involvement had so far almost certainly done more harm than good. She resolved to at least attempt to redress that.

Ultimately the Dominator seemed to accept that Jones’s mind was made up, and that she was going to meet Ed with or without his help.

He even arranged a car for Jones to drive to the rendezvous. A big old Ford. Yet another favour called in, apparently.

Jones took the last remaining uncompromised burner with her.

‘Just take care, d’ya hear?’ instructed Dom. ‘And I’ll call you. From a pay phone. There’s no way I’m gonna be able to get another safe cell till tomorrow. So I’ll call at eleven p.m. sharp. Right?’

‘Right,’ responded Jones.

She drove slowly through Manhattan to the Bronx, to the place she’d known Ed was referring to as soon as she’d seen his text. Deliberately, she got there an hour early, and parked the Ford a couple of streets away, so she could walk — or rather limp — the last couple of hundred yards.

The earlier heavy rain had stopped, but this was a dark September evening. No moon or stars. There were few people about, and the place was so different from how it had been on her one previous visit. Somewhere inside her head Jones could still hear the noise from the last time. She could still feel the sense of anticipation, and the way the excitement had built inside her.

Now the legendary Yankee Stadium was about as quiet as it was possible for anywhere in New York to be. There was virtually no noise at all. And certainly no happy anticipation. Just a certain sense of foreboding, as far as Jones was concerned.

She would never forget going there with Ed to see a game between the Yankees and the Red Sox — her very first experience of baseball — and Ed would have known that. They had just watched a video of the movie Field of Dreams featuring Kevin Costner as an Iowa farmer who built a baseball diamond in his cornfield. In Costner’s dreams games were played by the ghosts of baseballing legends. Jones had, somewhat to her embarrassment, enjoyed this ultimate feel-good movie rather more than she’d expected, but had shocked Ed, a native New Yorker whose love of the Yankees had been instilled in him by his grandfather at an early age, with her total lack of knowledge about baseball. And by admitting that she had never watched a game. Not even on TV.

He had insisted on taking her to see his team at their famous stadium. And as they’d stood in line to enter, with the thunder of the crowd and the band and the cheerleaders inside already roaring in their ears, she had looked up at the towering 50,000-seater ballpark looming above them, its lights blazing, and remarked, ‘Some cornfield!’

From then on the two of them had always referred to the Yankee stadium as The Cornfield.

On this night, however, the mighty baseball palace was shrouded in darkness, and its sheer size seemed threatening to Jones. But then almost everything, right then, seemed threatening to Jones.

She made her way towards the main entrance, keeping close to the walls, and finally came to a halt in a particularly shadowy spot, avoiding the occasional security lights. She wanted to see him before he saw her, to make sure that he was alone and hadn’t been followed. Or indeed, that he hadn’t brought anyone with him. She knew she must keep alert. For her own preservation. And Connie’s. In any case, she wasn’t sure right then that she trusted anyone in the world.

The minutes ticked slowly by. Ten o clock came and went. She stood, pressed against the stadium’s stone facade, making the most of its protection, watching and waiting. She tried to convince herself that she was calm and in control, but in reality her nerves were standing on end.

A sound to her left caused her to almost jump out of her skin. It was a loud high-pitched howling noise, not unlike the scream of a distressed baby. She turned quickly on her heel, twisting her damaged leg in her haste, but was unable at first to see anything. Then two creatures appeared, as if from nowhere, silhouetted against the street lights, the angle of their shadows making them seem twice the size they really were. Jones breathed a big deep sigh of relief. A pair of alley cats, their backs arched, teeth bared, tails wagging furiously, were facing up to each other in a combat every bit as fierce as any which had ever taken place within the historic ballpark.

Jones relaxed, just a little. She checked the time. Ten twenty-five. Perhaps Ed wasn’t coming. Perhaps something had happened to him. Perhaps he had just changed his mind. The possibilities were endless. Perhaps the Dominator was right. Perhaps Ed was, at that very moment, in the process of arranging some sort of a trap.

She wondered how long she should wait. Indeed how long she could wait without being overwhelmed by weariness and dropping to the ground. She was bone tired again. It had been a long day. Her injured leg was hurting quite badly. Her face hurt too. And her brain was in turmoil.

Minutes later a vehicle finally pulled off the main drag and onto the paved forecourt in front of the stadium, its headlights illuminating almost the entire area. She pushed herself flat against the wall. Was it Ed? And was he alone?

The vehicle drew to a halt straight in front of the main entrance, its headlamps still full on. Jones strained her eyes but was staring directly into the lights and could make out next to nothing. Then suddenly the lights went out. Almost simultaneously she heard the sound of a car door opening and shutting.

Her eyes began to focus again. The vehicle was a small dark saloon car of some kind. There was a figure walking from it towards the gates of the baseball park. She narrowed her eyes, staring into the gloom. It was Ed all right, he’d walked straight into a shaft of light. And he seemed to be alone.

She decided to wait a while to make sure. The traffic on the road beyond continued as normal. No other vehicle had chosen to follow Ed’s onto the stadium forecourt.

Jones took a cautious step forwards, into a better lit area.

Ed appeared to hear her move, and turned quickly.

‘It’s all right, it’s me,’ Jones called softly, remembering her own nerves earlier when she’d heard the cats fighting. She limped her way closer to him.

‘My God, you really are hurt now,’ said Ed. ‘Your face. Your legs...’

‘What is it, Ed?’ Jones asked at once, ignoring his concern. ‘Why did you want to see me?’

‘Well, I was wrong, wasn’t I?’

‘What?’

‘RECAP was the target,’ Ed continued. ‘It had to have been...’

‘Well yes...’

‘And now whoever planted the bomb is after Connie. I heard about Marion...’

‘How? When?’ Jones spoke sharply. Even if Marion’s identity had by now been made public, it certainly hadn’t been earlier that day when Ed had texted her.

‘It’s the talk of Princeton. The police came to see Thomas Jessop, to tell him about his mother. He’d only just got out of hospital himself...’

‘Right. But how did you make the connection? I mean, did you know about... about...?’

‘About Marion and Connie? Yes, I knew. Paul knew too. Although not in the very beginning. You’ve worked in the RECAP lab. Hard place to keep a secret for long. But it certainly wasn’t common knowledge. Paul and I respected their privacy. We never talked about it. But we knew. So, it wasn’t difficult to put two and two together. I heard on the news that there was another woman involved, and I guessed it was you. I also guessed that Marion had probably been attacked by mistake. Am I right?’

‘Yes. Almost certainly.’

‘There are things I have to tell you, Sandy.’

‘Let’s move away from the light.’

She led him into a darker part of the forecourt, and glanced nervously around for the umpteenth time. She presumed Ed had chosen this meeting place because he could give it to her in code, confident that she would know exactly where she meant, and others wouldn’t. But Jones wasn’t sure it was necessarily a safe place to meet.

‘Are you sure you weren’t followed?’ she asked, yet again feeling like a second-rate secret agent in a very second-rate spy film.

Ed nodded and smiled slightly.

‘I borrowed my neighbour’s car, and he agreed to look after Jasper too. I told him my vehicle was off the road. I’m now as paranoid as you. What happened to Marion changed everything. We have an underground garage. My car is still at home, and I didn’t leave on foot. If anyone was watching my place they would think I was still inside. Nobody followed me, Sandy.’

‘You sent me a text.’

‘I know. I’m sorry. I had to get in touch with you. Had to see you. I copied your trick though. I bought a pre-paid phone.’

‘Perhaps too late. We think the one I was using was blown. Don’t know how else they traced us so fast.’

‘That might be my fault,’ Ed admitted. ‘I called you this morning from my home phone. I half forgot that you’d told me not to. Half didn’t see the need to do anything other. I believed, then, what the authorities said. That the explosion was directed at the animal research people. It made sense. And I certainly didn’t believe that my phone was bugged...’

‘We did wonder,’ said Jones. ‘But, oh Ed...’

Her voice was a mix of reproach and regret.

‘I know. That call probably led them to you. To you and to Connie. Until then they would have thought she was dead. It was all my fault. I can’t believe I was so stupid.’

Jones just stared at him.

‘I will regret it for the rest of my life.’

Ed’s head was bowed. His voice had a quiver in it.

‘I will never get over the guilt.’

‘We’ve all been stupid,’ Jones responded quietly. ‘Me big time. The likes of you and I are not equipped for stuff like this, Ed. We do it all wrong. I should never have told you that Connie was alive. You didn’t need to know. I put you in danger, and I put her in even more danger. We’ve seen just how much now. Marion may not pull through, and if she does she’s going to be maimed for life. You and I share responsibility. But we couldn’t believe any of it was really happening, could we? We’re not professional spooks. We didn’t know what to do. Still don’t.’

‘I should have listened.’

‘Maybe.’ Jones felt numb. ‘You didn’t want to meet me just to tell me that, did you?’

Ed shook his head.

‘Do you remember my brother?’ he asked. ‘My younger brother Mikey? He was living with our aunt in New York when you and I were at Princeton together. Used to visit at weekends sometimes.’

Jones was puzzled. ‘I remember him vaguely. I only met him once or twice, I think. He was just a boy.’

Ed smiled. ‘Only a couple of years younger than me, actually. But he took a long time growing up, did Mikey. If he ever made it, at all.’

‘Funny kid, wasn’t he? Always making up stories. Seemed to live in a fantasy world. Didn’t you used to call him Walter, after Walter Mitty?’

‘Yes. And he was a funny kid. But not so funny now. He’s in the FBI.’

‘Oh fuck.’ Jones dreaded to think what that might mean. But in spite of everything she managed a strangled laugh. ‘Mikey in the FBI? I don’t believe it.’

‘I know. I’ve never been able to take him seriously either. That’s been part of the problem...’

‘What do you mean?’ Jones prompted.

‘Well, for a long time I really didn’t believe he was in the FBI. After he left college he had a string of jobs, in real estate, working for a finance firm, in security. But there was always more to everything than there seemed, or according to Mikey there was, anyway. His stories got more and more outlandish. It was just Mikey, or so I thought. Same thing when he told me the FBI had its eye on RECAP. I never took any notice. I never told him anything. I didn’t have anything to tell anyway. Well, nothing much...’

He glanced anxiously at Jones, as if seeking her acceptance of that.

‘You knew that Paul thought he had made a breakthrough,’ she said.

‘Yes. I did. But that was all I knew.’

A thought suddenly struck Jones. The Man in Black. Her anonymous interrogator at Princeton police station. He’d seemed vaguely familiar at the time. Of course, that had to have been Mikey.

‘I think I met him,’ Jones said suddenly. ‘Was he at Princeton when I was arrested there?’

Ed nodded.

‘And does he have a penchant for shades and black suits?’

Ed nodded again.

‘My God,’ Jones blurted out. ‘The man’s a parody. He looked like some sort of a joke.’

‘I know. I certainly could never take him seriously, not until...’

His voice broke off.

‘Until what, Ed?’

‘Until after the explosion. It was Mikey who assured me that there was no link between any government body and the explosion, and that RECAP wasn’t a target of any sort. The FBI supported RECAP. Those were his words. He came around right after the explosion to reassure me that all the speculation about RECAP having been deliberately destroyed was nonsense. He said then, straight away, that it was probably a gas explosion. A tragic accident. But he warned me not to talk to anyone about Paul. Said it might still be possible to salvage something from RECAP.’

‘He warned you not to talk about Paul? So did he know about Paul’s breakthrough? Did you tell him about it?’

‘No. Well, not exactly. But he asked so many questions. Was I privy to Paul’s work? It was nonsense, of course. I was just an occasional RECAP operator. I didn’t even have anything like the involvement I’d had when you were at Princeton.’

‘You had a special relationship with Paul, though, everybody knew that.’

‘So it seems. Anyway, Mikey came round again the night you just showed up at my place, and also after you came back and hijacked me walking Jasper. That time he was quite aggressive. He wanted to know exactly what you were after. I’d never seen him be aggressive before. He kept going on about Paul’s work. Even asked me if I had copies of it. As if I would. Like I told you.’

Suddenly the relative quiet of the night was shattered by the sound of a police siren. Both Jones and Ed jumped, quite literally. A police patrol car came into view, travelling fast, carving a path through the light traffic. Its headlights illuminated Ed’s vehicle as it approached. But it didn’t even slow, instead roaring straight past the Yankee Stadium, the wail of its siren fading into the night.

‘Nerves,’ said Jones.

Ed nodded, and continued. ‘Anyway, Mikey was very persistent. And he was on edge. Just like us now. He was obviously wound up about something, but, as usual, he wouldn’t talk to me properly. He kept checking text messages on his cell, and pacing around the place. He was sweating a lot. He took off his jacket and hung it around a chair. Then at one point he went out of the room with his cell phone, said he needed to take a private call. Well, I don’t know quite what made me do it, what gave me the idea, but, well, I knew he kept a USB data store on his key ring. I looked in his jacket pockets. I found the key ring. My laptop was on the kitchen table as usual. I plugged the USB in and downloaded everything that was on it. Then I just put the USB back in his pocket.’

Jones had a feeling she knew where this might be leading.

‘And?’ she prompted.

‘Well, after Mikey left I went through his files. There was one labelled Ruders. I went into it. It was Paul’s work. His data. His breakthrough paper. I’m sure of it.’

‘Jesus. Did you study it?’

‘I tried to. I couldn’t make any sense of it, though. But I didn’t expect to. I’m not a scientist, Sandy. I’m a mathematician.’

‘So, where is it? My God, this could be the key to everything. Have you got your laptop with you?’

‘Yes, but... but I wiped the file off. Irrevocably.’

‘You did what? Why? Just tell me you made a copy,’

‘I did.’

‘So you still have the file, Ed?’

‘No. Well, not exactly... Mikey frightened me that night. He had assured me from the start that RECAP hadn’t been the target of the explosion, but at that moment I didn’t believe it anymore. And why was he so interested in whether or not I had a copy of Paul’s theory when he already had one himself? What lengths might his people go to to silence me? I was scared. So I copied the file onto another USB, and wiped it off my computer. I didn’t want to trust email. Plus Mikey is still my brother, and I didn’t want to leave a trail that might lead to him. I put the USB in a jiffy bag, and first thing this morning I took it round to the post office and sent it off, anonymously, to you at your university in England—’

‘You did what?’ Jones interrupted.

‘I posted it to you. Express. It should only take two or three working days.’

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘I know. At least it’s safe. But that, of course, was before I saw the news this morning. The authorities officially blamed animal rights activists for the explosion, and Mikey called me, backing that up. I believed it. I phoned you and told you that. For a while I was quite sure I’d got it all wrong, that you and Connie had got it all wrong, that I’d let my imagination run away with me, and RECAP had nothing to do with—’

‘And the “pal in the police” you referred to, was actually your mad brother, the FBI agent, I presume,’ Jones interrupted again.

‘Yes.’

‘For God’s sake, Ed! Did you tell Mikey that Connie was still alive?’

‘No. I didn’t. I promise you I didn’t.’

‘Do you really expect me to believe that?’

‘I didn’t. I swear. I suppose I still had niggling doubts at the back of my mind. I’m not sure. But, well, if my phone is bugged...’

Ed didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. If the FBI, or anyone else, had been monitoring Ed’s calls they would have learned from his conversation with Jones that Connie Pike was alive and well. And it wouldn’t have taken them long to get a trace — fifteen seconds, Dom had said. Neither would it have taken them long to position someone outside Dom’s apartment. Someone murderous.

‘I can’t believe Mikey would hurt Connie, though,’ Ed continued. ‘Jesus. I can’t believe Mikey would hurt anyone.’

Jones sighed. ‘I don’t suppose he did. Not personally, that is. It really does look like Connie’s conspiracy theory is right, Ed. All sorts of persons in high places could be involved. And they would have on their payroll, and in their control, the kind of people most of us don’t even want to know exist. People whose life’s work it is to perform little jobs like mowing down an innocent woman in the street.

‘If your dumb brother has passed on his suspicions about you being privy to Paul’s work, then I don’t reckon you’re much safer than Connie. I don’t like to think about what they would do and how quickly they would do it if they suspected that you had stolen Paul’s paper from Mikey. I need to see that paper, Ed. It really could be the key. I’ll get the first flight home I can. And you should come with me. I really don’t think you’re safe here anymore.’

Jones paused.

‘But I don’t suppose you’ve even got your passport with you, have you?’

‘Well, actually, yes I have. My passport. And my laptop. Like I said, I wiped the file right off my hard drive, but I’m never sure about leaving footprints. Also I destroyed my mobile before I left, so nobody could follow me that way, and I transferred all its data to my laptop first. I’ve got various other personal papers with me too. I was afraid somebody might break into my flat — search the place...’

‘But they think you’re still there.’

‘For the moment, I suppose. But, well, to tell the truth, Sandy, I already wasn’t sure that it would be safe for me to go back, not for a bit, anyway. I can’t leave Jasper for long, though, my neighbour’s wonderful, but there is a limit.’

‘You may have to, because you’re right. It won’t be long before they find out you’ve given them the slip, and goodness knows what else. You can’t go back to Princeton, Ed. You really can’t.’

Sixteen

Dom called from a pay phone at eleven p.m. precisely, just as he had promised.

‘You alone?’ he asked.

‘No,’ replied Jones. ‘I’m still with Ed. There’s a lot to tell you. I’ll be back to you and Connie in half an hour. And I’ll have Ed with me.’

‘Now just hang on, lady. For a start, we ain’t where you left us.’

‘What?’

‘No. The place was compromised, right, by the text you took earlier from that dumb-ass. I’ve moved Connie out.’

‘So tell me where you are,’ said Jones. ‘I’ll come to you.’

‘Not with Ed MacEntee, you won’t. I don’t trust him.’

Jones sighed. This was absurd. Dom didn’t trust Ed. Jones trusted that Ed was telling the truth, but no longer trusted Ed’s judgement. She certainly didn’t trust Ed’s brother, a boyhood Walter Mitty turned Fed. And she still didn’t entirely trust Dom. She really wasn’t up to these spy games.

She moved a little away from Ed to continue the call.

‘Look, something’s happened that means I need to get back to the UK,’ she told Dom. ‘And I want to take Ed and Connie with me. Nothing you can say to me will convince me that any of us will be really safe until we get out of this damned country.’

‘You’re running away, lady, ain’t you?’ said the Dominator accusatively.

‘If that’s how you want to look at it, fine.’

‘So what’s happened exactly to make it so danged important that you get outa here?’ Dom asked. ‘It’s something MacEntee has said, ain’t it? Has to be.’

Jones sighed, gave in, and treated Dom to an edited version of Ed’s story. She particularly did not tell Dom about the copy of Paul Ruders’ work which Ed had acquired and posted to England — the real reason she wanted to return home. She’d become so paranoid about being spied upon and tailed and phones being tapped and traced that she was not about to take any more risks. She would tell Connie when she next saw her.

Instead she simply told Dom that she needed to get back to her power base, to the place where she had access to and influence over people in high places because of who she was. It didn’t sound very convincing, even to Jones, and it certainly didn’t make much of an impression on the Dominator.

‘Oh yeah, getting a fast cab to Downing Street as soon as you land, are you?’ asked the big man.

Jones ignored that.

‘Look Dom, I’m not doing any good here,’ she said. ‘I can’t cope with all this. And I’m pretty damned sure I can do one hell of a lot more back home now. It’s not just my safety we’re talking about here, it’s Ed’s and Connie’s. I told you. I want to take Connie with me. As soon as it can be arranged. I want to make sure she’s safe. Can you help with that, Dom? Can you get hold of papers? You know. A passport in another name. Stuff like that?’

‘What do you take me for, lady?’

‘Connie and Marion say you can fix almost anything.’

‘Oh yeah? When you planning to leave, anyway?’

‘As soon as possible. Tomorrow, if I can.’

‘And with a new passport for Connie already freshly minted? You gotta be kidding me. Connie won’t go with you, anyway. No chance. She won’t leave the country while Marion’s in hospital on the critical list.’

Jones feared that Dom might be right. She knew she was beaten. For the moment, at any rate.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘But look, you’ve still got my bag, I hope?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I need it.’

This time Jones had her passport and credit cards with her. But her personal cell phone, which she hadn’t dared use for two days, her laptop, her house keys, and the keys to her car waiting at Heathrow Airport, were all in the hold-all.

‘Too bad. If you’re gonna quit, then why don’t you just get your ass outta here? Leave me to look after Connie.’

‘Dom, you have to trust me on this. There are things I can do in the UK. Things that might help. But I do need my bag. Look, if you don’t want me to come to you, won’t you please bring it to me?’

There was a pause.

The Dominator appeared to be convinced that he was all that was standing between Connie Pike and death, yet only hours earlier Jones had been equally convinced that Dom was the villain of the piece and had fled at speed halfway across Manhattan in order to get away from him. Now she didn’t know what to believe. Not about anything.

‘I’m sorry, I got Connie somewhere real safe, and I don’t intend to leave her whilst I run errands for you, lady. I didn’t even like leaving her to make this phone call, to tell the truth.’

‘Look, Dom,’ Jones persisted. ‘Surely you can get my stuff to me somehow? You’re a man of initiative, aren’t you?’

Jones heard the Dominator give a derisory snort. That’s what it sounded like, anyway.

‘OK, I’ll ask Gaynor,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to call you back. Give me ten minutes.’

‘Right. And Dom, you will tell Connie I want her to come with me, won’t you? I want her to have the chance to get out of this country before she gets hurt again.’

‘OK,’ said the Dominator again. ‘Although how the hell we’d ever do that thing, only the Lord God Almighty knows.’

Jones suspected the big man was probably right about that too. She ended the call and glanced at her watch. It was nearly twenty past eleven.

After almost exactly ten minutes Dom called again.

‘Gaynor will meet you with your bag in an hour and a half,’ Dom instructed. ‘In the financial district, by the Stock Exchange, on Wall Street. Know it?’

Jones affirmed that she knew it. Dom gave a precise cross street.

Jones checked the time. ‘That’s about one o’clock then,’ she said. ‘Why Wall Street?’

‘It’s near where she works.’

‘What does she do at that time of night, for Chrissake?’

‘Just make sure you’re there,’ replied the big man. ‘She can’t hang about.’

He hadn’t answered Jones’s question. Jones didn’t really care. She just wanted to get away. With or without Connie. Maybe Dom was right. Maybe she was running.

She returned to Ed, climbing into the borrowed car alongside him. She gave him a brief version of her conversation with Dom, and the details of the planned meeting with Gaynor, suggesting he follow her Ford in his car.

‘I think we should stick together, but, if possible, not be seen together,’ she said. ‘There’s no hurry though, we’ve got a bit of time to kill.’

They passed a few minutes discussing what might be the safest way to leave the States.

‘I’ve got some cash, enough for us both to travel to the UK without using credit cards, I reckon,’ said Jones. ‘But anyway, nobody’s looking for you yet, we hope. And I’m banking on the bastards just wanting to see the back of me.’

She reached into the pocket of her leather jacket and removed a business card.

‘Just in case something happens, and we get separated, these are all my contact details at home and I’ll write the number of the burner on the back. Emergency use only.’

Jones rummaged further in her pocket.

‘You got a pen?’ she enquired.

Ed nodded, and produced a smart black and gold customized roller-ball, with his name inscribed along the side, which he handed to her. As she wrote Jones issued further instructions.

‘Just don’t let this card fall into the wrong hands. Also, I still don’t know whether I absolutely trust Gaynor and Dom. Keep a fair ways behind me and park up so as she can’t see you, yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

Gaynor was already at the appointed meeting place when Jones arrived, with Ed following at a distance as directed. Parking wasn’t difficult. The financial district was deserted. At night this part of New York, which was so busy during the day, was eerily empty. Like a ghost town. A column of steam fountained steadily from a nearby manhole. Ed drove past Jones when he pulled to a halt at the appointed spot, and, just as he’d suggested, continued slowly on, turning left into a side street at the next junction.

Gaynor got out of her car as soon as she saw Jones arrive, and began to walk towards her, already carrying Jones’s bag which she held out with one hand.

‘Here you are.’

‘Thanks,’ Jones said, reaching to take it.

Gaynor was wearing a tan jacket over jeans and tooled cowboy boots. She looked every bit as stylish as she had when Jones had first met her. She also looked remarkably alert for very nearly the middle of the night.

‘I have a message from Connie,’ she said. ‘She says there is no way she can go with you, but she wishes you luck.’

‘Is that all?’

‘What are you looking for? Absolution? You’re running out on her, aren’t you?’

Jones said nothing. She had no intention of trying to explain herself to Gaynor. In any case she had her own doubts about her motivation. She turned to go. Gaynor called after her.

‘Wait. She asked me to give you this.’

Jones swung round to face Gaynor again, and took from her the small flat circular object she was holding out between one thumb and forefinger. Jones laid it in the palm of her right hand. A host of half-forgotten memories returned again as she looked down at an enamelled button badge that had originally been predominantly blue. The edges were badly chipped and much of the enamel had worn off. The message was still clear enough though.

Jones re-read the familiar words. ‘Subvert the Dominant Paradigm’. It was a badge just like the one Connie had given her on her first visit to RECAP. Jones hadn’t seen her old badge for years, and had absolutely no idea where it was, or indeed if she still had it. Conversely it was just like Connie, twenty-five years later and under such extraordinary circumstances, to be able to produce one of the badges from nowhere. Or more likely from that cloth shoulder bag which was always with her.

Jones felt her eyes well up. This was not the time to be emotional. She had a journey to make which was not going to be easy. Then she had work to do. Important work. She owed that to Connie. Connie had sent her a message in the form of that badge. A message which she reckoned told her exactly what her job was now. To subvert the dominant paradigm. That had always been Connie Pike’s predominate aim in life. Jones had never quite had the courage. Not so far, anyway.

She looked up at Gaynor.

‘How’s Marion?’ she asked.

‘The same. Still critical. Still alive though. And that’s a result.’

Jones nodded. ‘I know. I saw what happened to her. Remember?’

‘I remember,’ said Gaynor.

Jones was going to say more. The sound of the radio from Gaynor’s car, the driver’s door of which stood open, stopped her in her tracks. She registered at once that this was no ordinary radio.

It sounded like a police radio.

Gaynor looked over her shoulder, took a step back towards the car, then turned to Jones again. Jones felt as if she had been punched in the face. Stark realization flooded over her.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ she asked through clenched teeth.

‘I’m Dom’s girl, Connie’s friend, and your friend too. That’s all you have to know.’

‘Oh no it’s damned well not!’ Jones took a step forwards, and rather to her own surprise, reached out and grabbed hold of Gaynor by both shoulders. Her hold-all fell to the ground with a thud. Jones ignored it. Instead she began to shake Gaynor backwards and forwards, the anger and fear pouring out of her.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ she yelled.

‘All right. Take your hands off me or, so help me God, I’ll break your fucking neck.’

Gaynor’s eyes were hard and narrow. Even in her state of near hysteria Jones believed that Gaynor was quite capable of doing what she had promised. Jones didn’t remove her hands from Gaynor’s shoulders, however. Instead she froze. Not for the first time recently.

The next thing she was aware of was searing pain as Gaynor delivered a smart karate chop, smashing the edge of her hands against Jones’s lower arms in order to bounce them away from her. In more or less one fluid movement, she freed herself from Jones’s grasp and turned her around, holding on to her left arm which she then forced upwards at a quite impossible angle behind Jones’s back.

All Sandy Jones’s remaining strength seemed to seep from her. She slumped meekly in Gaynor’s grasp, which the other woman slackened only slightly.

‘Just tell me who you are, will you?’ Jones asked hoarsely.

‘I’m Detective Gaynor Jackson of the New York Police Department, and if you don’t behave your goddamned self I’m gonna arrest you for assaulting a police officer, you over-educated sap. Whether Dom likes it or not.’

Jones felt completely beaten. Not for the first time in the last few days. What the hell did this mean? Dom’s girl was a cop? No wonder she had been able to find out about Marion’s condition with such apparent ease.

Abruptly Gaynor let go of Jones altogether. Jones had no feeling at all in her left arm, but when she found that she could move again, she began to back off towards her car. She just wanted to get away from Gaynor.

‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’

Gaynor was pointing to the hold-all, still lying on the pavement. Obscurely Jones found herself hoping her laptop hadn’t been damaged when she’d dropped it. She took a few steps back towards Gaynor, watching her all the while, bent down and picked the bag up.

Her brain was beginning to work again, albeit sluggishly, and she didn’t at all like the thoughts which were flooding it. Her fears for Connie’s safety in the care of a former World Series wrestler and his girlfriend were growing greater by the second.

‘I assume it was no accident that neither you nor Dom thought to mention before that you were a police detective,’ she said.

‘No accident at all.’

She was cool. Jones had to admit that.

‘Some people are inclined to react negatively when they find out you’re a cop,’ Gaynor remarked.

‘Yes. Particularly if those “some people” are on the run, and they’re not even sure who they’re running from, but almost certainly, at this stage any rate, it includes the police.’

Gaynor reached out and put a hand on Jones’s shoulder. Involuntarily Jones flinched away.

‘Look Sandy, Dom and I are a team. I trust him. He trusts me. That comes before my job.’

‘Does it? How can it? I’m a fugitive.’

‘Actually no. And neither is your friend Ed. Not from the law I stand for. I make my own decisions. It’s simple. I dislike people who do bad things. That’s why I became a cop. And if people doing bad things, planting bombs and mowing down innocent women in the street, if they operate from within the various forces that are actually supposed to be upholding the law, protecting innocent men and women, then I dislike them even more. OK?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe you tipped someone off about Connie. I can’t believe Dom told you about her. A cop, for heaven’s sake.’

‘Yep. A cop Dom trusts as much as Marion and Connie trust him.’

‘Well, I don’t trust either of you. I want you to take me to Connie now. I don’t want to leave her.’

‘No, Sandy. Get yourself a flight back to London. Get the hell out of here. Take your friend. And do what you can to find out what lies behind this damned awful business. That’s your strength, Sandy. You told Dom that, didn’t you? You might be running, but I guess it’s the right thing for you to do. Let’s face it, you’re not exactly action woman, are you?’

Jones looked away. She could just make out what she thought must be the tail lights of Ed’s car parked around the corner facing down town. She felt defeated. As if whatever she decided to do next was bound to turn out wrong.

A lone black sedan cruised slowly down Wall Street towards them, its headlamps dimmed. Jones was vaguely aware of it, seeing it only out of the corner of her eye, her mind elsewhere. She really didn’t want to leave Connie behind.

The black sedan coasted to a halt, just a few yards away, right behind Jones’s own borrowed vehicle. Its lights dimmed further and then went out. Jones turned around to get a proper look. Even the windows seemed to be matt black. Jones strained her eyes but still could not see inside, even though the spot where the sedan was now parked was quite brightly lit. It dawned on her that the car’s windows were tinted. Jones glanced towards Gaynor. She was looking at the sedan too. Jones followed her gaze as the driver’s door slowly opened. At first nobody emerged. Jones swung round to look at Gaynor again. She watched as Gaynor slipped her hand inside her jacket. With an increasing sense of horror, it dawned on Jones that Gaynor was probably reaching for a gun.

A noise behind her attracted Jones’s attention back to the sedan. A dark-clothed figure flew out of the car in a kind of somersault and landed flat out on the pavement. Jones thought that only happened in the movies. She hadn’t realized real people did it.

‘Freeze,’ yelled a male voice.

The dark-clothed figure was holding a pistol in both hands, in the regulation police grip, and the pistol was aimed at Jones.

Jones froze. For the second time in just a few minutes. Her gaze was locked on the man on the ground. There was quite enough light for her to be able to clearly see the man’s face. Jones recognized him at once.

She managed to swivel her eyes towards Gaynor without moving her head.

‘You bitch,’ she said, as she watched Gaynor draw her handgun and level it. ‘You’ve set me up.’

‘Don’t be a dork,’ said Gaynor.

Jones realized then that Gaynor was aiming her weapon directly at the man lying on the pavement.

‘Do not even think about it, asshole,’ Gaynor yelled. ‘Pull that trigger, and you’re dead too.’

The man swung his pistol so that it was pointing at Gaynor.

Jones retreated cautiously into a shadow. This was a stalemate, she realized. Gaynor and the man lying on the pavement were now aiming their weapons at each other. Neither of them was looking at Jones any more.

This was her chance to escape, but she couldn’t get to her own vehicle without moving directly into the line of fire. She began to shuffle slowly backwards towards the cross street where Ed was waiting in his neighbour’s car.

‘I’m NYPD,’ she heard Gaynor yell at the top of her voice. ‘Drop your weapon, asshole. Now!’

‘I’m FBI. Drop yours.’

‘Yeah? How do I know you’re FBI? And why would I trust you anyway?’

‘Oh shit,’ said the man lying on the ground.

Jones had backed away almost to the street corner. Hoping that the two adversaries were too engrossed in their battle of nerves to notice, she turned, and began to run full out.

Almost at once she heard a gunshot. Quickly followed by a second shot. Then she thought she heard a scream. She glanced back over her shoulder, but she couldn’t see what was going on. In any case she was in too big a hurry to care much.

She reached Ed and his car within seconds, wrenching open the passenger door and throwing herself and her bag in.

‘Drive,’ she shouted. ‘Just drive.’

Ed stared at her, slack jawed. He looked terrified.

‘I heard shooting,’ he said. ‘What happened back there?’

‘I’ll tell you later.’ Jones shouted even louder, ‘Drive! Now!’

The vehemence with which she delivered the instruction seemed to do the trick. Ed switched on the engine and slammed his right foot on the accelerator. The little car took off with a screech of rubber, hitting the pavement and then bouncing into the middle of the road.

‘Oh fuck, oh fuck,’ said Ed.

Jones glanced back over her shoulder.

‘It’s all right,’ she said, as calmly as she could manage. ‘Just take it steady. There’s nobody on our tail.’

Ed slowed a little.

‘Where am I going?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Anywhere for now, as long as it’s away from here,’ Jones replied, unconsciously echoing what Dom had said after she and Marion had been targeted by the Chevy truck.

‘It’s O.K. Corral back there. A gun fight’s going on.’

‘Was someone shooting at you, Sandy? You’re not hurt, are you?’

‘No. But never mind the questions. Drive, for fuck’s sake.’

‘Why don’t we go to the police? I can’t take much more of this. I can’t protect Mikey any more. And I don’t see how any of us can protect Connie. I’m frightened, Sandy. I really am...’

‘Protect Mikey? Listen Ed, one of those raving lunatics waving a gun around back there is the effing police, I’ve just discovered. Oh, and the other one is your dangerous half-wit of a brother!’

‘No. No. It can’t be.’

‘I’m afraid so. And I want to know how the hell he found us.’

‘Oh my God.’

Ed turned to look directly at Jones as she spoke, and seemed to lose concentration. The car hit the curb again.

Jones grabbed the steering wheel and straightened the vehicle up.

‘Is it safe to stop?’ asked Ed weakly.

Jones thought for a moment. They had been driving for more than ten minutes and had put a considerable distance between themselves and the Wall Street incident. They’d pulled out of the financial district into parts of New York where there was always traffic, day and night. They were no longer conspicuous.

‘I reckon so,’ she said.

Ed turned into a side road and drew the car to a halt, slumping over the steering wheel.

‘Was Mikey shot back there?’

‘How the hell do I know?’ asked Jones, who was not feeling at all sympathetic concerning Mikey MacEntee. ‘It was all I could do to save my own skin.’

‘Oh my God! What’s he doing? What’s he playing at? Was he on his own?’

‘He seemed to be. As far as I could make out. It’s how he got to be there in the first place that I want to know.’

‘That’s nothing to do with me,’ said Ed quickly. ‘I haven’t spoken to him since early this morning. I certainly didn’t tell him I was meeting you, or where. You believe me, don’t you?’

‘I don’t know what to believe.’

Jones studied Ed carefully. He looked a complete wreck. Could it really be possible that he had deliberately led his crazy brother to them?

‘I thought at first that Gaynor had set us up,’ Jones continued. ‘But she didn’t react like that.’

Jones raised her hands to her face, trying to concentrate, to apply logic to a desperate situation.

‘Let’s try and work this out, Ed. It goes without saying, I hope, that I didn’t tell Mikey anything. When he questioned me at Princeton, I didn’t even have anything to tell. You say it wasn’t you. That leaves Gaynor, Dom or Connie. It’s idiotic that it would be Connie. Apart from which Dom’s got her under guard almost. He won’t leave her for a minute. None of this makes any sense.’

Jones tried desperately to think how a professional would. How they did it in all those movies she’d watched. The idea of electronic surveillance sprung to mind. It was perhaps the only other alternative.

‘Could Mikey have bugged your car in some way, like you think he did your phone at home?’

‘Sandy, this isn’t even my car.’

‘Of course not.’ Jones was angry with herself for forgetting. ‘And, anyway, he homed in on me. We were a hundred yards or so apart when he turned up. Modern surveillance equipment is usually dead accurate. It would have led him straight to you. Not me.’

The interior of the car was cool. But Jones was sweating.

Suddenly she smashed one clenched fist into the dashboard, and with her other hand reached into her jacket pocket.

‘Your pen, Ed,’ she said. ‘Your fucking pen. I didn’t return it to you. Did Mikey give it to you by any chance?’

Ed nodded.

‘Yes. Just a few weeks ago. For my birthday.’

Jones produced the pen and began to attack it. She unscrewed its shaft and inside found a tiny battery attached to an equally tiny cylindrical object.

‘That’s a transmitter,’ she said.

At once she got out of the car and hurried around to the driver’s side, at the same time throwing both the transmitter and its battery on the ground and crunching them beneath her feet.

‘Move across, Ed,’ she commanded. ‘I’m driving, and we’re getting out of here. Mikey, or some other bastard, could still be tracking us.’

She slammed the gear shift into drive and took off at speed, only slowing down when they had put several blocks between themselves and the abandoned surveillance gadget.

‘I just can’t believe it,’ said Ed. ‘I really liked that pen. I carried it with me all the time. Mikey knew that. It never occurred to me for a moment.’

He broke off and grabbed Jones’s arm.

‘Oh my God. Is it a voice transmitter? Does that mean he’s heard all that we’ve been saying tonight?’

Jones shook her head. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘For a start he didn’t behave back there like a man who knew what he was getting into. I think he just followed the signal when he picked it up. And you know what, I also think it could have been a chance thing. We recently did an item on modern surveillance on my TV show. Even the most powerful of these particular little babies will only work within a radius of a couple of miles or so. They’re air-band, not satellite or anything like that. Now, we believe that Mikey had no idea you were in New York, right?’

‘Right.’

‘But this is where he works most of the time?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘So suddenly, I reckon, we come into range of him and his radio receiver, after we’ve taken off in our separate cars. The signal bleeps at him. He tunes in, but doesn’t get any conversation because I’m on my own with your pen. He gives chase, and tracks the signal down straight to where I’m having my confrontation with Gaynor. Does that make sense to you?’

Ed nodded. ‘I guess so. Mikey was obsessed with me knowing more than I was telling him about RECAP and Paul. And he was always into spy gadgets. Even as a boy.’

‘This is the sort of gadget anybody can buy on the net, Ed. It’s not very sophisticated. I very much doubt it’s FBI issue.’

Ed gave a little snort.

‘The FBI probably don’t trust him with any of their stuff,’ he said.

‘Well, there are restrictions, you know,’ Jones pointed out. ‘More than likely the bastards encourage their people to do this kind of thing unofficially. They’re not supposed to go round bugging people. Remember the row when it was revealed that George Bush had authorized the use of electronic surveillance equipment on private citizens after 9/11? All hell broke out in the UK too, when the boss of the Met was caught out secretly recording telephone conversations.’

‘I’ll bet Mikey’s got in way out of his depth,’ said Ed, with uncanny accuracy. But then, he was Mikey’s brother.

‘His whole life has been that way,’ Ed continued. ‘A series of games that eventually catch up with him. Some game this time.’

‘I just wonder who he’s reporting back to,’ said Jones. ‘There has to be somebody. And just how far up the chain of command in this crazy country? That’s what I’d like to know.’

‘It’s all totally unreal, Sandy, isn’t it?’ Ed commented. ‘My brother bugging me. Connie on the run. Paul dead. Marion dreadfully injured.’

Ed fell back in his seat. He looked worn out.

‘Where are we going, anyway?’ he asked.

‘Round in circles at the moment,’ Sandy replied. ‘But I’ve just had an idea. We’ve really got to get out of this town and out of this country fast, Ed. It’s even more dangerous than I realized. And our only bargaining tool, the only thing that might stop whatever is going on here, and save Connie, is the Ruders Theory. So it’s more urgent than ever that we get to the UK—’

‘But how?’ Ed interrupted. ‘Do we really dare risk trying to fly out of a New York airport after what’s just happened?’

‘No, we don’t. In fact I don’t think we can risk any US airport.’

‘So what are we going to do then?’

Ed sounded beaten.

‘We’re going to drive to Canada,’ said Sandy Jones.

Meanwhile, Mikey, still lying on the pavement just across the street from the stock exchange, was aware only of a terrible burning sensation in his left thigh. She’d shot him. The bitch had shot him.

‘Throw your weapon to one side,’ Gaynor shouted.

Mikey’s eyes opened wide. This was for real. And it was all such a shock. Mikey had actually never fired a gun in anger before. And even now all he’d done was to fire a warning shot over Sandy Jones’s head. The bitch who’d winged him had presumably done so because she’d thought he was firing at Jones. He’d never intended to do any such thing. He’d wanted to find Ed, that was all. He’d expected to find Ed. Instead he’d found that danged Dr Jones and a trigger-happy broad who said she was a police officer.

Mikey prepared to throw his gun away, just as Gaynor had commanded. Gaynor took a step forwards, her eyes and her gun levelled on him. She sure was one hell of a frightening woman, Mikey thought.

The wail of a police siren cut through the quiet of the night. A patrol car was hurtling down Wall Street towards them. Gaynor turned to look at it. The barrel of her pistol wavered slightly. A surge of adrenaline burst through Mikey. He twisted his body around and, ignoring the pain of his injured leg, more or less dived into his car, slamming the door behind him.

Gaynor focused her full attention on him again, and aimed her pistol at his head through the glass of the window.

‘Stop, or I’ll shoot!’

‘No, you won’t,’ said Mikey, surprising himself. He switched on the engine and drove off, thankful that it was his left leg which had been injured.

In his mirror he saw the patrol car pull to a halt alongside Gaynor, who was still pointing her gun after his car. She didn’t shoot. Mikey knew that New York cops rarely dared fire after fleeing suspects any more. Not unless lives were endangered. And if they got caught out breaking the rules they could end up in jail for longer than the villains.

Gaynor couldn’t believe it when the cop car arrived. Nobody would have had time to call the police yet, even if there had been anyone about to witness the shooting. The patrol car must have been just cruising around, she reckoned, until its team had been alerted by the sound of gunfire. She had no idea of the odds of one turning up like that in the middle of the financial district in the early hours of the morning, but she reckoned they were pretty damned long.

She took her shield from her pocket and held it out in her left hand, while continuing to grasp her police issue revolver in her right hand.

‘I’m NYPD, Detective Gaynor Jackson,’ she called, as soon as the front doors of the cop car opened, and two uniformed officers emerged.

‘Put your gun down,’ came the reply. ‘Throw your shield towards us. Then put your hands up.’

Gaynor obeyed at once, groaning in frustration. Sandy Jones was long gone, presumably with Ed MacEntee in tow. And now she was starkly aware of Mikey’s car disappearing into the distance. Neither of the two cops now studying her shield seemed interested in giving chase. But then, the thought occurred to her suddenly, maybe that was a good thing. She didn’t recognize either of the patrolmen. They weren’t from her precinct. Maybe that was a good thing too.

She had no idea who Mikey was, but she did know she had to think fast if she was going to keep her job. And maybe even her life. After all, she was up to her ears in a highly dangerous situation which was beginning to show every sign of being part of a major conspiracy. It was time she started to think of herself rather than Dom’s friends and a project that was at best idealistic.

She managed to fairly quickly contrive a story about apprehending a suspect in an armed robbery case she was working on, whom she’d spotted by chance. He’d pulled a gun on her. She’d managed to wing him, however the patrol car had arrived and he’d escaped.

Her story didn’t sound very plausible, even to her. And she’d shot a civilian. Or at least, that’s what she’d let the two patrolmen believe, because she chose not to mention that her adversary had claimed to be FBI. But the patrolmen didn’t show a great deal of interest. Gaynor reckoned they were probably nearing the end of their shift. She knew they’d file a report, though. And therefore, of course, so must she, albeit one which would be rather economical with the truth.

Gaynor wondered if she’d taken one risk too many. She was capable, clever and tough. But, just like Mikey, Gaynor realized that she could be getting out of her depth.

In spite of having been shot, Mikey felt vaguely pleased with himself as he hurtled down Wall Street in his big black sedan, leaving Gaynor and the police patrol car safely behind. He’d surely acted just like a proper special agent for once.

Then he remembered the mess he’d got himself into. And his brother. He wasn’t entirely sure whether he’d wanted to find Ed in order to help him, or whether he was the one who wanted Ed’s help. He hadn’t really thought at all when he’d picked up the signal from the bugged pen on his tracking receiver. He’d just taken off in hot pursuit. His receiver hadn’t picked up any speech until he’d arrived in Wall Street, and that had been too muffled to decipher.

Now he was almost certainly in bigger trouble than ever — the thought of which, coupled with the speedily increasing pain in his left leg, brought him swiftly back to cold reality.

Jones had been quite right. Mikey’s bugging equipment had not been FBI issue. He had bought it from a distinctly dubious online supplier. It was no longer picking up any sort of signal. In any case he had no intention of even attempting to keep on the tail of the tracking device. Sandy Jones seemed to have somehow or other acquired the pen he’d given Ed. Mikey didn’t even know for sure that Ed was in New York.

And he had to get himself some medical treatment. Fast. But he knew what happened when people with gunshot wounds turned up at a hospital. The police were notified at once.

Gingerly he touched his left leg with one hand. It was beginning to feel as if it were on fire, and his trouser was sodden with blood. He was sweating profusely. His vision had started to blur. There was a set of traffic lights just ahead, and Mikey didn’t notice until almost too late that they were on red. The jolt of stopping suddenly sent a searing flash of pain from his injured upper leg right through his whole body.

Mikey felt ill. He had just displayed the kind of bravado he’d always aspired to. Now he was truly terrified again. He was at the heart of an operation which was going more and more pear-shaped every minute. His brother was almost certainly in danger. Maybe he was too.

He couldn’t cope. Also, he might bleed to death, if he didn’t act soon. There was only one person in the world he could think of who could help him now, who would make sure that he got medical treatment, who would understand his motives for trying to chase after Ed the way he had. Just one person who knew what a valuable servant he had been to the American government.

He grabbed his phone and made a call from the top of his favourites’ list. After several rings a familiar voice answered.

‘It’s the middle of the night, Mikey.’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Johnson,’ replied Mikey trying desperately not to let either the pain or the panic he was experiencing show in his voice. ‘I have an emergency situation here, sir.’

Mr Johnson had been in bed with his wife, at their home in a peaceful residential district of Washington D.C., when he took the call. His mobile phone was always with him and he was prepared to answer it at any time of the day or night. He had to be. Mr Johnson was unique. A one-off. He operated in areas almost everyone he came into contact with, including his superiors, preferred not to know about.

Mr Johnson could never be off duty. He didn’t mind. He liked being in a position of almost absolute power. When even the senior echelons of government in your country prefer not to acknowledge your existence, then you can pretty much do what you like. As long as you don’t get caught out.

The power Mr Johnson was able to exert on his sole authority was actually rather shocking. And he had never been caught out yet.

Mr Johnson was used to waking up quickly. He had to be. He climbed out of bed and carried his phone into the bathroom so that he could talk freely. Mr Johnson trusted nobody. Not even his wife.

He sat on the toilet seat and reached into the cabinet beneath the washbasin for the packet of black cheroots he kept there, tucked away at the back. It was not uncommon for him to find it necessary to retreat into the bathroom in this manner in the middle of the night, and he believed that the little cigars helped him think more clearly.

Holding the phone in one hand, he removed a cheroot with the other and lit up. Acrid smoke almost immediately filled the small room. With the cheroot still between his lips Mr Johnson leaned sideways to open the window as wide as possible, otherwise, in the morning, his wife would make his life a misery. All the while he murmured soothing noises into the phone. It was vital that he calmed Mikey MacEntee down, assured him he would be taken care of, indeed told him almost everything he wanted to hear. And Mr Johnson was good at that sort of thing.

But when he ended the call Mr Johnson felt unusually ill at ease. Mikey was not going to be any use at all from now on. That was patently obvious. In any case Mikey was a lightweight, a Bureau joke, who had only ever been of use because of his connections with areas of scientific innovation the US government had always liked to keep under close observation. Which, of course, the Bureau had known about when they’d hired him. And this operation was not turning out the way Mr Johnson had planned at all. It had originally seemed so simple, in his mind a perfectly straightforward case of confronting anything or anyone that might ultimately constitute a threat to America. Of putting a stop to the enemy within. But the initial mistake, of somehow allowing that mad woman scientist Connie Pike to escape the RECAP explosion, had led to a catalogue of disasters. Not least the continued interference of the troublesome Englishwoman.

Extreme measures were called for. Radical decisions must be made. Drastic action had to be taken. And quickly.

Mr Johnson was used to working alone. But sometimes he was confronted with matters of such international import that even he knew better than to even attempt to do so.

Mr Johnson stood up, flushed the end of his cheroot down the toilet, and sprayed the bathroom with air freshener. Then he sat down again on the toilet seat and lit another cheroot.

There were several phone calls, all overseas, which he had to make before giving the orders he hoped would end this affair once and for all.

Mr Johnson checked his watch. It was two a.m., outside normal office hours in Europe as well as in the US. That didn’t matter. Mr Johnson first dialled a number in the United Kingdom of someone who could be regarded as his British equivalent, or as near as would ever be possible. A lone operator who believed the security of his nation rested squarely on his shoulders. A patriot of the old school. A man who also was never off duty.

Seventeen

Meanwhile Jones and Ed headed northwards out of New York City towards the New Jersey Turnpike and the succession of freeways which would take them virtually all the way to the border and on to Montreal.

Jones had done most of the journey before, from Princeton, when as one of a group of impoverished post-graduate students she had driven to Montreal for a weekend convention. But that had been long ago. She knew, however, that the drive should take little more than six hours, particularly as they were travelling during the early hours of the morning, however, not daring to use satnav in case they were tracked, it was not out of the question that they might take a wrong turning. They were both bone tired too.

They set off from the centre of Manhattan around two a.m., at almost exactly the same time as Mikey made his call to Mr Johnson, and three hours later had not quite travelled halfway when Jones decided that she just had to turn into a rest area to sleep for a bit.

Ed seemed even more wiped out than she was, and although he offered to take a turn at the wheel Jones declined. Ed had never been much of a driver, and, judging from his earlier spell at the wheel, the stress of the night’s events appeared to have turned him into a liability. In any case she saw no reason not to stop for a while, as she was pretty sure there wouldn’t be any flights back to the UK from Montreal’s Trudeau Airport until late afternoon or early evening.

They also needed fuel, and Jones congratulated herself on having drawn so much cash out of that Manhattan cashpoint two days earlier. It was more important than ever not to leave a credit card trail. She just hoped she had enough to also pay for their air tickets in cash.

Ultimately they arrived at Trudeau just after noon. Crossing into Canada from the United States had been as easy as Jones had remembered. Immigration and customs procedures between the two countries remained cursory. Border control on the freeway felt and looked much the same as passing through a toll road pay station. Jones and Ed had briefly shown their passports to the Canadian officials, confirmed they were not carrying illegal drugs or livestock, and been waved on their way.

Jones thought that the airport also felt much more relaxed than either US or British airports, since 9/11 certainly. There was little visible sign of armed security presence, and nobody took the slightest notice of her or Ed.

The street shoot-out involving Gaynor, and the revelation that she was a cop, had been the final straw for Jones. Her nerve had gone and she just couldn’t wait to leave North America.

Ed desperately wanted to try to contact Mikey, and also his Princeton neighbour to explain, as best he could, about the car, and to ask him to keep Jasper a little longer. But Jones talked him out of it.

‘No unnecessary risks, not at this stage, please,’ she said. ‘Let’s not contact anyone until we’re safely in the UK.’

To her relief, she did indeed have just enough cash left to buy the cheapest tickets for the next available flight to Heathrow, which she was told would arrive just after six a.m. the following morning. She waited until the last possible moment before booking, so that her and Ed’s names would be on the Air Canada passenger list for only a short period of time before departure.

Nonetheless, they were both on tenterhooks going through security and passport control, but everything passed without incident.

Only when finally aboard, and the aircraft had begun taxying for take-off, did Jones breathe a huge sigh of relief. She really was going home.

The aircraft was packed, and Jones realized that she had become somewhat spoiled. She wasn’t used to flying economy any more. In addition her entire body was still sore from the battering it had received over the last few days. Yet in spite of her discomfort, her exhaustion was such that she quickly fell asleep, and did not waken until shortly before arrival at Heathrow, when she was disturbed by the dubious antics of some of her fellow passengers who had learned that a certain Hollywood superstar and his new bride were travelling in first class. One young woman actually sank to her knees in the aisle, as she begged a flight attendant to acquire an autograph for her.

Jones couldn’t wait to disembark, and being on British soil again almost magically restored at least a degree of her usual self-confidence. Her unfortunate experiences in Princeton and New York began to acquire a veneer of unreality. Suddenly she felt ready to deal with almost anything that needed dealing with. She was Dr Sandy Jones, celebrated academic and media personality, and this was her territory.

Ed walked silently by her side through UK immigration and customs. Jones noticed how white and drawn he still was. He’d always been such a gentle man. It was no surprise, really, that he’d proved to be even less able to deal with violent mayhem than she was. She felt a rush of concern and affection for him.

Impulsively she took his hand in hers and squeezed. He glanced at her in surprise, but did manage the ghost of a smile.

And it was at that moment that the two of them were engulfed in the blinding light of a host of camera flashes. A group of photographers gathered in the arrivals hall were rattling off shot after shot.

‘Who’s the new man, Dr Jones?’ shouted one.

‘What about a kiss for the cameras, Sandy?’ called another.

‘Oh fuck,’ muttered Jones under her breath.

‘What’s happening, Sandy?’ asked Ed, leaning to whisper in her ear, thus causing the photographers to snap away all the more furiously.

‘Have the FBI put these guys onto us or something? Or MI5? Why are they photographing us?’

Ed’s mind was, perhaps understandably, still back in the place they had come from, a place occupied by spooks, special agents, and unidentified hitmen. He appeared to have no awareness at all that the two of them had stepped unwittingly into a completely different world.

‘Paparazzi,’ muttered Jones through clenched teeth. ‘Just keep walking. Fast as you can. My car should be outside by now. I called the valet service as soon as we landed.’

One snapper leapt in front of them then, thrusting his camera so aggressively close to Jones that she was nearly hit in the face by the protruding lens. Her nerves were still not in a good state. It was only with difficulty that she resisted the urge to lash out, but she knew perfectly well that a loss of control was what paparazzi photographers sought more than anything else. Jones was not only a public figure in the UK, but also a highly eligible single woman. She was used to any hint of romance in her life attracting attention. She had never before, however, faced a barrage on quite this scale — the Nikon choir, as a former Fleet Street picture editor of her acquaintance referred to it. And she’d had absolutely no reason to expect such a reception on her unannounced return to the UK. Then it dawned on her.

The assembled paparazzi were not there to meet her. They were after the Hollywood superstar and his new bride. To them Sandy Jones and a mystery male companion were merely a bonus.

But for her and Ed, this now almost certain imminent exposure in the tabloid press could spell potential disaster.

Once in the Lexus Jones explained to Ed what had been going on and why she thought it had happened.

‘I didn’t know you were such a big star,’ he remarked.

‘The power of television,’ she replied. ‘But only by default in this case. Same result though, unfortunately.’

‘Will we be in the papers here tomorrow, then?’

‘Almost certainly,’ Jones muttered. ‘And on line before that.’

‘So it will be common knowledge that we’re here. Won’t we be in just as much danger as in America?’

‘I don’t think so,’ replied Jones, hoping she was speaking the truth. ‘We’ve no reason to think anyone followed us here, or even that whoever is trying to kill Connie is set up to hit on us here. This is Britain, Ed.’

‘Yes,’ he riposted. ‘One of the world’s greatest terrorist targets. The Russians even splashed a deadly poison around one of your great cities. Or do you still believe in an England where bobbies ride bicycles and criminals say: “It’s a fair cop, guv”?’

Jones flashed a grim smile.

‘Touché. We do have a secret weapon, though.’

‘We do?’

‘That lot back there,’ she said, cocking a thumb in the direction of the terminal building they had just left. ‘We’re almost certainly going to have a press presence at my place soon. I put it to you that we might be slightly less likely to be murdered or kidnapped with Fleet Street’s finest on watch outside our front door. And dodging the press sure beats running for your life.’

Ed looked startled.

‘Is your love life of that much interest?’ he asked.

‘Apparently.’

‘And you really believe there’s no other reason for the paparazzi to mob us? And that it has nothing to do with Connie, and RECAP, and Marion, and all of that?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘I see,’ said Ed, although Jones doubted that he did.

By the time they got to Reading, Ed was asleep. Jones switched on the radio and tuned in to BBC Radio Four in order to help keep herself alert. They had a clear run and, even though Jones stopped for half an hour so that they could stretch their legs and buy coffee and sandwiches, arrived at Northdown House well before midday. So far there appeared to be no press presence.

‘Not a bad little place,’ murmured Ed as they motored through the electric security gates. ‘What views!’

Jones remembered Ed’s unprepossessing Princeton apartment, and thought there might be a little edge in his voice, but ignored it.

As she pulled the car to a halt, she used the fob on her key ring to disengage the burglar alarm.

‘I see you don’t rely entirely on press protection,’ Ed continued.

‘You can’t depend on them being around 24/7,’ replied Jones wryly. ‘And TV exposure does lead those with an inclination toward burglary to think your house must be Aladdin’s cave.’

Once inside Ed asked straight away if he could use her computer to email Mikey. Jones saw no harm in that. Not now they were out of the USA. And, after all, their whereabouts was already in the process of being made public by the great British press.

‘In spite of everything, I can’t help still wanting to know if the little bastard is all right after the shooting,’ said Ed. ‘And I also want an explanation. I want him to tell me what is going on, and exactly what part he has played in it all.’

Jones didn’t think that there was much chance of that, but none the less showed Ed to her office and switched on her desktop Mac. He said he’d better email his long-suffering neighbour too.

‘Tell him I’ll pay for a recovery service to get his car back to him,’ said Jones. ‘It’s the least we can do.’

When Ed had finished his emailing she escorted him to her best guest room.

‘You may like to have a shower and a rest,’ she said. ‘I’m going to the university to check if the package has arrived. Help yourself to anything you want from the kitchen. I’ll make sure all the alarms are on. You will be safe here.’

Everything at the university seemed almost disconcertingly normal. Clearly nobody had any idea of what Jones had been involved in on the other side of the Atlantic. But she had known they wouldn’t. Not yet. She’d tried again to camouflage the injuries to her face with make-up. Nonetheless one or two people commented on her bruised and battered appearance. She muttered something vague about being involved in a freeway pile-up. Other than that it was just like any other day. On the surface.

The package hadn’t arrived. She supposed it had been overly optimistic to have thought it might have done. She was just going to have to be patient. She tried to deal with some of the messages and other mail awaiting her, but found it virtually impossible.

She decided to check if her and Ed’s arrival at Heathrow had made it online yet. The Mail had indeed already posted a picture of the two of them, alongside a headline asking: ‘Is this Dr Jones’s new love?’

‘Shit!’ muttered Jones.

She knew that as ‘the thinking man’s crumpet’ she was very much Daily Mail fodder. All the same, it must be a really poor news day, she reflected. There was also a close up of her battered and bruised face next to a strap-line asking: ‘Whatever happened to Sandy?’

Her and Ed’s whereabouts was certainly public knowledge now. Which was only as she had expected. But, in spite of her assurances to Ed, she could not imagine that they would be totally safe anywhere in the world.

However, within the next day or so Jones would hopefully be studying Paul Ruders’ theory of the mystery of consciousness. She would have access to probably the greatest scientific work of her lifetime. Maybe, even, the greatest and most far-reaching scientific work there had ever been. In spite of everything she could not suppress a certain excitement rising within her.

But somewhere in America, Connie Pike was in hiding. Her safety, if indeed she was still safe, at least partially depended on Jones and what she did next. On how she handled the revelatory scientific discovery which might soon be in her grasp. And at that moment she had absolutely no idea what she was going to do.

She returned to Northdown not long after six. Ed was still in his room. He emerged about an hour later.

‘Did it arrive?’ he asked.

Jones shook her head. ‘I’d have called you straight away.’

She asked if he had received a reply to either of his emails.

‘Nothing from Mikey, unfortunately,’ he said. ‘Heard from my neighbour. I only told him the barest details, obviously, but I think his involvement, by default, in our dash to Canada and then back to the UK, might be the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to him. He took it all rather well, and is happy to look after Jasper for as long as it takes.’

‘Oh well, as long as Jasper’s being well looked after, we don’t have a thing to worry about, do we?’ responded Jones, with a smile.

They sat in the kitchen together, picking at fruit and crackers and cheese, chewing over yet again the events of the last few days and what it all meant. Jones had opened a bottle of wine.

Being together was beginning to feel easy and natural again. Just as it had done all those years before.

‘You know, much as I want to get my hands on your USB, I just can’t stop thinking about Connie,’ said Jones. ‘Paul’s work, whatever it proves, won’t necessarily help protect Connie. Possibly just the opposite—’

‘Nor us either, we must still be in danger, whatever you say,’ interrupted Ed.

‘Yes, to some degree at least we must all be in danger,’ Jones admitted. ‘I suppose we could go to the authorities here, but the police would just be bewildered, I reckon, and I don’t know who else to trust—’

‘I’ve had an idea,’ Ed interrupted suddenly. ‘You’re a high-profile media figure. A celebrity. I saw that at the airport. Turn it to your advantage. Call a press conference. They’ll come. If only to question you about your new love interest.’

Ed laughed briefly.

‘Look, if you put it all out there: our belief that RECAP was the target of the Princeton explosion; all that happened in New York; the hit on Marion; everything, in the public domain, then surely that could put Connie and us out of danger,’ he continued. ‘You’d create an international storm. If anything happened to any of the three of us it would look just too suspicious, wouldn’t it?’

Jones stared at him in silence for a few seconds.

‘You could be right,’ she said eventually. ‘Why the heck didn’t I think of that?’

Ed shrugged.

‘Not such a genius after all. Obviously.’

‘Obviously,’ repeated Jones.