Trust No One

Chapter 22

As she reached the ring road, she began to think about what to do next. It was as if she’d been operating on automatic pilot, instinct overriding any rational thought. Now she had to make some decisions.

Her first thought was just to get away, to drive as far as possible. Maybe head back down to London. Lie low somewhere near the place she used to call home.

But that wouldn’t work. Any minute now, they’d be kicking off a full-scale search for her. If she was a murder suspect – and if she wasn’t before, she would be now – they’d want to stop her getting out of town. They’d check all the main routes. It wouldn’t take them long to get her car registration. She would have only a few minutes’ head start, and that wouldn’t be enough.

The better option was to lose herself in the city. They’d track her down eventually, but she might buy herself some time. Then all she had to do was work out what to do with it.

She headed towards the city centre. It was still rush hour and the roads were busy with commuters heading into work. She glanced in her rear-view mirror, alert for any sign of pursuit, expecting at any moment to hear the wail of sirens, the pulsing of the blue lights.

She pulled off towards the main shopping area, heading for the large multi-storey car park next to the Arndale. She found a parking space in a corner of one of the lower floors. While the higher floors emptied overnight, these lower floors remained fairly full. Her hope was that the car would stay unnoticed for a day or so until someone registered that it hadn’t been moved.

Breathing deeply to steady her nerves, she turned off the engine and sat silently, contemplating her next move. After a moment, she reached into the back seat for her laptop. She booted it up and inserted her wireless mobile connection. After a tense few minutes, she was able to access the internet.

She had a narrow window in which to get things sorted. Her disappearance would trigger a chain of formal responses – not just the local police search, but also, in due course, a response from within the Agency. Whatever they might think about her motives or behaviour, their first action would be to put a lid on everything. They’d suspend her official bank accounts, stop her credit cards. They’d put a trace on her official mobile numbers and try to use them to track her movements. They might even shut down the business, though more likely they’d allow it to tick along until they found out what was going on, leaving poor old Joe to wonder what had happened to her.

That meant she had to move quickly. She logged into the business account, ran through the security procedures and transferred a substantial sum into her personal account, giving silent thanks that these days transfers were virtually instantaneous. She was breaking all the rules, but could see little alternative if she were to have enough cash to survive even for a few days.

Finally, the transfer completed, she logged out and shut down the laptop. She climbed out of the car, stuffed the computer back in its bag, threw the overnight case over her shoulder, and locked the car.

As she walked away, she felt another tremor of anxiety. It was as if, item by item, she was leaving the trappings of her life behind – first the flat, now the car – with no certainty that she’d ever reclaim them.

She made her way down through the mall into the street. She’d followed the same route the previous week before meeting Jones in the café. Involuntarily she glanced back, wondering again about the man she’d noticed then. This early in the morning, the centre was largely deserted, just as it had been before. This time, though, there were no suspicious figures, just a couple of security guards chatting with a woman opening up one of the stores.

Outside, the rain had passed, but the morning air still felt chill and damp. Nearly nine thirty; time for the banks to open.

They’d rebuilt all this area after the IRA bombing in the mid-1990s. Marie couldn’t remember the city as it had been before, but most of the locals seemed to think that the Provisionals had done the place an inadvertent favour. The old Arndale Centre had been rebuilt, and they’d opened up the heart of the city from St Anne’s Square up to the cathedral. There were new open spaces, fashionable-looking cafés and bars, striking buildings, with just a few remnants of the old city left standing as you approached Victoria Station. It was an attractive city, she thought, with its blend of modern aspiration and Victorian heritage, and it was much more approachable in scale and impact than London. She wondered now how well its optimism and vibrancy would withstand the impact of recession and cuts in public funding. Now that times were getting tough again, the money might melt away. You didn’t have to go far from the city centre to find real poverty.

The likes of Kerridge and Boyle thrived on that. They might not get their own hands dirty, but their trade was anything but clean. Their people brought in drugs, firearms, exploited labour, porn, illegal booze and cigarettes. Anything they could sell for a profit. The end users were the flotsam and jetsam of the receding economic tide, poor bastards with nothing else to live for.

That was why she’d wanted to do this job in the first place. She loved the adrenaline rush, the sense of risk. But above all she wanted to make things happen, to have a real crack at people like Kerridge. The wealthy men floating above the misery they caused, casually creaming off the money, untouched by anyone – the police, the Revenue, immigration. The small fry went down, the big fish could afford the best advice. You never caught them in the act. You needed a different kind of policing – monitoring, gathering intelligence, building a case painstakingly step by step. That was what she’d wanted to do.

Now the rug had been pulled from under her. They’d finally got Boyle into custody, and what had happened? Their key witness was dead. The only loose cannon who’d been involved in that killing had been murdered himself. Her own position looked to be fatally compromised. Even if she somehow managed to talk her way out of the worst of this, it was difficult to see how she’d rebuild her position or credibility. She’d be out of the field, back behind a desk.

It was nine thirty-five now, and the first shoppers were beginning to appear. She pushed open the door of the bank and stepped into the warm interior.

This early, the place was empty. The sales desks were deserted – they were probably all out back receiving a pre-work pep talk from the sales manager. Even the cashiers were looking bored. Marie walked up to one of the cash desks and explained that she wanted to make a withdrawal.

She had half-expected some objection when she named the amount, but the cashier merely noted down the sum and said, without looking up, ‘I’ll need two ID. One photo.’

Marie pulled out her passport and driving licence, and slid them through to the cashier. The young woman glanced at them briefly and then looked up at Marie’s face. Her eyes flicked back down to the two photographs on the documents, but there was no sign of suspicion.

‘That’s fine.’ She pushed the documents back across to Marie, and began to tap on the keyboard in front of her.

Marie momentarily tensed again. Maybe they’d imposed some blockage on her account already. Maybe there’d be some warning on there: If you see this woman, press the panic button.

But it was unlikely. Even if the relevant wheels were already in motion – and experience told her that, for once, bureaucracy was likely to be her ally here – it would take them a little time to track down her personal account. But not long. A few phone calls would give them everything they needed. But then they’d need the relevant authorization. It would take a little while. Maybe an hour or two.

‘How do you want it?’ the cashier said. ‘Fifties OK, or do you need something smaller?’

Marie almost laughed in relief. ‘I could do with some twenties and tens. If you can do a couple of hundred in those, and the rest in fifties, that’d be great.’

The cashier noted down the request. ‘I’ll need to get it from the back. Just bear with me.’

It was an anxious few minutes for Marie. She was still half-expecting that this wouldn’t work. They’d have insufficient cash. They’d want to know why she needed all this money. The manager would appear and murmur quietly, ‘If you could just step this way, Ms Donovan . . .?’

But none of that happened. After a few moments, the cashier reappeared and carefully counted out the money.

‘Is there anything else I can do for you today?’ she asked finally. It was a routine question, part of the spiel they were trained to deliver. Marie was tempted to ask whether she had any tips on avoiding police manhunts.

Her relief lasted little longer than the few minutes it took to return to the open street. She’d overcome one hurdle. She was solvent, with enough cash to last her till – well, when exactly? Till all this was resolved, one way or another, she supposed. If things weren’t sorted within a few days, they’d catch up with her anyway.

But almost immediately, she felt vulnerable again. As if everyone who passed was staring at her, as if they’d seen her picture or read her description. As if they knew exactly who she was and what she was supposed to have done. Down at the far end of the road, at the junction with Market Street, two police officers, a man and a woman, were standing chatting with a street-cleaner. It took all her willpower not to run. Instead, she forced herself to walk casually towards them, heading back towards the centre of town.

By the time she reached the corner, the police officers were already disappearing into St Anne’s Square. She walked further along Corporation Street and then paused for a moment outside an upmarket-looking hairdressing salon, before pushing open the door. The receptionist looked up as she entered.

‘Can I help you, madam?’

Marie looked past the receptionist into the interior of the salon. There was one customer having her hair washed. Two stylists were sitting drinking coffee and chatting about last night’s television.

‘I know it’s short notice,’ Marie said. ‘I’m just in town on business for a couple of days. Wondered if there was any chance of fitting in an appointment today at all?’

The receptionist gave her a look that suggested the chances were somewhere between slim and zero, and pulled the appointments book towards her.

‘We’ve just had a cancellation,’ she said. ‘Was supposed to be ten fifteen.’ She glanced up at the clock over the desk. ‘Might be able to fit you in now.’ She called over her shoulder. ‘Jo, can you fit this lady in now instead of Mrs Tremlett?’

Jo – one of the two chatting stylists – put down her coffee with a look of weariness. ‘Yeah, that’s fine. Just give me a minute or two.’ She gestured for Marie to take a seat.

An hour later, Marie emerged from the salon feeling, externally at least, like a different person. The stylist had been slightly surprised by her request for a radical change, cropping her shoulder-length hair into something much shorter, colouring her hair darker.

‘Do a lot of sports,’ Marie explained. ‘Get sick of it getting in my eyes.’

The stylist had expressed some scepticism about the change, but ultimately just shrugged. When the new style was complete, she’d shifted her position to claim full credit. ‘Yeah, said it would suit you,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t work with everyone’s face, but looks good with yours.’ Marie decided to accept that as a compliment.

She stepped back out into the street and made her way up Market Street towards Piccadilly Gardens. It was approaching eleven fifteen. Her window of opportunity was rapidly closing. It might have been sensible to use her phone before getting her hair changed, but she felt much less conspicuous now. Her hope was that her phones would have been left operational for the moment, in the hope that she might make contact or even allow them to trace her movements.

She entered a chain coffee shop, bought a caffè latte and a sandwich, found a discreet corner, and switched on her secure phone.

As she’d expected, there was a string of messages. She listened to the most recent first. Salter’s sharp voice, ‘For fuck’s sake, Marie, just call in.’ She didn’t bother with the rest.

She wanted to get a heads-up, find out what was happening. Her first thought was to call Salter, but instead she dialled Welsby’s number. On balance she was inclined to trust him slightly more than Salter, if only because he was less likely to shaft her simply to advance his own career.

‘Keith. It’s Marie Donovan.’

There was a momentary pause, and she wondered whether Welsby was trying to have her location tracked. They’d have been waiting for her to make contact. She couldn’t afford to talk for long.

‘Christ, Marie. Where the hell are you?’

‘In a bit of trouble, Keith. That’s where I am.’

‘Too fucking right you are. What the fuck’s going on?’

‘I’ve been set up, Keith.’

Another pause. ‘That right, girl?’ It was impossible to read his response.

‘I didn’t kill Morgan Jones. Why the hell would I want to do that?’

‘You tell me,’ Welsby said. ‘Way I’ve heard it, your prints were all over Jones’ room.’

‘I know,’ she said, keeping her voice low. ‘I went to see Jones yesterday. He said he had some business for me. That was part of the set-up. And how did anyone know they were my prints? They turned up on my doorstep at seven this morning. They wouldn’t have had time to trawl through the database. Someone tipped them off.’

‘That doesn’t make you innocent.’

‘Christ, Keith, you don’t think I did it?’

‘Not looking good, girl. Even got your prints on the murder weapon.’

So Blackwell had been holding back that bit of information. Not really a surprise.

‘They found the gun, then?’

‘Dropped in a bin along the road. Didn’t take a lot of finding.’

‘Of course not, Keith. Do you think I’d be that bloody careless if I really had done it?’

‘So how come your prints were on it? Jonesie asked you to fondle his weapon, did he?’

It didn’t matter whether he really didn’t believe her, or was simply protecting his own backside. Quite probably, there were others listening in. Either way, she was getting nowhere.

‘He made a half-arsed attempt to threaten me. I grabbed the gun off him and threw it across the room. Maybe he did it to get my prints on there.’

‘Frame you for his own murder? Even Jones wasn’t that much of a fuckwit.’

‘They misled Jones. He thought he was helping set me up. He just didn’t know what he was setting me up for.’

‘You need to work on your story, girl. When we catch up with you, you’ll be telling it to more cynical buggers than me.’ Another hesitation. ‘Something else you ought to know. You asked why you’d have killed Jones. You might have had a motive.’

‘What motive? I hardly knew him.’

‘What I hear, looks like Jones was involved in Jake Morton’s death.’

‘Jones wouldn’t have had the bottle,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t a killer.’

‘Maybe there to hold their coats. But looks like the gun that killed Jones was the one that killed Morton. They found some traces of blood on Jones’ clothing – the used clothes in his wardrobe, I mean. The ones he was wearing were liberally covered with his own. This stuff’s different. We’re getting it checked but it could be Morton’s.’

‘So what?’ she said. ‘I wasn’t happy about Morton’s death, but it’s not turned me into a screaming vigilante.’

‘That right? One more thing you should know, girl.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Word is,’ Welsby said, ‘that you and Morton were close. Any truth in that rumour?’

‘For Christ’s sake, Keith. He was one of our major contacts, one of our best potential routes into Kerridge and Boyle. Of course I kept close to him. It was what I agreed with Hugh.’

‘Maybe too close?’

‘I’m a professional, Keith.’ She could feel the lies dragging her further into the mire. How the hell did they know all this, anyway? Was it something else the phantom tipster had thrown into the pot? ‘What are you trying to say?’

‘I’m trying to say nothing, girl. Just letting you know what’s being said. Ugly things, rumours.’

‘Keith, it’s all bollocks. I’ve not done anything.’

‘Then get in here, lass, and let’s sort it out.’

‘I can’t, Keith. I don’t know who to trust.’

‘You can trust me. Get yourself in here. You’re only making things worse.’

She was almost tempted. Everything would become straightforward, one way or another. She simply had to keep telling her side of the story. Answer their questions. Point out the things that didn’t make sense. Get forensics to prove she couldn’t have fired Jones’ handgun. Nice and simple.

Except that she didn’t believe it would be. They’d got their claws into her now. The case was open and shut. Why would the local police complicate things by ignoring what appeared to be the obvious? Could forensics even prove a negative? After returning from her meeting with Jones she’d showered, changed her clothes, and put most of the old set into the wash. After all that, there’d probably be no evidence of her firing the gun in any case.

‘I can’t come in, Keith. Not yet.’

‘You don’t trust me?’

‘It’s not like that, Keith. I wouldn’t be able to deal with just you, would I? Somebody’s set me up, and it’s somebody pretty close to home.’

Before Welsby could reply, she cut the call. She turned off the phone, swallowed the dregs of her coffee, and made her way out of the coffee shop. In the street, she paused for a moment, took out the secure phone, opened the back and removed the SIM card. She dropped it to the pavement and ground it slowly under her heel. She repeated the process with the card from her own phone. Over the top, but she felt more comfortable with all links cut off.

She was conscious that, even in the limited time she’d been talking to Welsby, they might have got some sort of fix on her location. She hurried away from the Gardens up towards Piccadilly Station. She considered just jumping on the next train to anywhere that wasn’t there. But they might have the station under surveillance. She was better off staying put.

Looking more confident than she felt, she made her way up the station approach, and then crossed through the glossy concourse, keeping her eyes peeled for any signs of police. There was a British Transport police officer hovering by the entrance to the platforms, but for the moment he was distracted by an elderly man asking for directions. She hurried out of his sight, down past the entrance to WH Smith, across to where the escalators led down to the taxi rank at the rear of the station. At that time of the morning, there were plenty of taxis, bored drivers chatting in the brightening sunshine. She approached the front of the rank and gave the driver the name of one of the large city centre hotels.

The hotel itself was less than half a mile away, but she felt disinclined to spend any more time out on the street. She was also conscious that she was about to arrive at a relatively upmarket hotel with no reservation, credit card or much in the way of luggage. Maybe the taxi would make her appear more credible.

The taxi driver was, fortunately, one of the taciturn types, and said nothing till they’d arrived outside the hotel. ‘Up on business?’ he said, as he counted out her change. She’d asked for a receipt for appearances’ sake, though she couldn’t imagine that Welsby would be too keen to reimburse this trip.

‘Just for a day or two,’ she said.

‘Hope the weather improves for you.’

‘Won’t see much of it, anyway,’ she said. ‘Stuck inside most of the time.’ That was true enough, anyway.

She made her way into the expansive lobby of the hotel. It was a new construction, another offshoot of the city centre regeneration, with a well-reviewed first-floor restaurant with views over the city. She’d met clients here a couple of times.

She’d selected it partly on the grounds that it was more upmarket than Welsby or Salter would expect her to use. More upmarket, that was, than the soulless urban hotels where she typically met Salter. Those were the places the Agency budget stretched to. Functional, comfortable enough, but not luxurious.

It was likely that, once they realized she’d stayed in the city, they’d do a trawl of all the hotels. But she hoped that this place wouldn’t be high on their initial shortlist, and it was large and discreet enough for her not to be exposed too easily. It was a counter-intuitive decision. Her first thought had been to seek out an anonymous back-street bed and breakfast, but she’d felt that would leave her too exposed. A suspicious landlord might ask questions about a woman travelling on her own, and, if her disappearance had been reported in the media, put two and two together. In this place, she’d be just one of many.

She took a deep breath to steady her nerves and approached the reception. A young man in a neat suit looked up and smiled. ‘How can I help you, madam?’

She glanced at her watch. ‘I’m a little early, but I’ve got a reservation for tonight. Wondered if there was a chance of checking in so I could freshen up? Penny Walker.’

The man nodded. ‘I’ll just check for you, Ms Walker.’ He had a trace of an Eastern European accept, though his English seemed flawless. He tapped away rapidly on his keyboard, then frowned. ‘You did say Walker?’

‘Yes. Penny. Penelope.’

The man tapped again. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t seem to find it. It wouldn’t be under any other name?’

‘I booked it through the office. Suppose it could be in the company name.’ She gave him the name of a fictitious IT company.

He entered some more data, his frown growing more pronounced. ‘Doesn’t seem to be there,’ he said. ‘When did you make the booking?’

‘As I said, I didn’t.’ She allowed a touch of impatience to enter her voice. ‘It was done by my secretary, through the agency we use. Must have been a week or so back. You’re sure it’s not there?’

He was still tapping frantically. ‘No, I’ve tried variations on your name in case someone entered it wrongly. But there’s nothing similar. You’re sure it was for tonight?’

‘Well, I’m sure I asked for it for tonight,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t be the first time somebody’s cocked up, though.’ She fumbled in her handbag for one of the inoperative mobile phones. ‘Let me check.’

She thumbed the phone’s buttons as though accessing an address book and pressed the silent handset to her ear. She allowed a few seconds to pass, then said, ‘Gill, hi. It’s me, Penny. Yeah, fine. Just arrived at the hotel, though, and they can’t seem to find the reservation.’ She paused, as though listening. ‘Well, that’s what I thought. Have you got the confirmation?’ Another pause. ‘And it definitely says for tonight. Have you got the reservation code?’ She gestured silently to the hotel receptionist, who slid a pen and a notepad across to her. She scribbled out a set of numbers in the format used by the booking agency that she’d usually dealt with. ‘OK, I’ll try them with that. I’ll get back to you if I find myself out on the street.’ She laughed with an undertone that indicated she wasn’t entirely joking. She paused again, as though her imaginary interlocutor had continued the conversation. ‘No, no joy, I’m afraid. It’s turning into a perfect day so far. Reported it to the police, but I’m not holding my breath. Thanks, Gill. Call you later.’

Switching off the fictitious call, she turned back to the receptionist. ‘Well, it was definitely booked. My secretary has the confirmation.’ She pushed the scribbled code across the desk.

He drummed on the keyboard for a few more seconds, then said, ‘Ah.’

She caught her breath, wondering what he might have found, but realized that his frown had melted to a faint smile. His world was beginning to make sense again. ‘Can’t find that code exactly. But we’ve a Mr Welford booked through the same agency,’ he said. ‘Same initial. I bet the agency mixed up the two records. Happens all the time, I’m afraid.’ And it’s not our fault, was the unspoken subtext. He straightened, the smile fully operational again. ‘Luckily, we’re not full. We can fit you in and still find room for Mr Welford, assuming he’s actually expecting to stay here.’ He made it sound as if he’d taken control of a situation that would otherwise have spiralled dramatically out of control. ‘We don’t have any standard rooms available. But we can offer you an upgrade to one of our executive rooms. At no extra charge, of course, in the circumstances.’

She managed not to look too overwhelmed at this beneficence. ‘That’s very kind.’

He completed the various administrative niceties and then said, ‘If you could just let me have a swipe of your credit card?’

‘That’s my other problem,’ she said. ‘That’s what I was talking about to my secretary. My purse was snatched on the way up here. Some little bugger in the coffee bar at Euston. I put it down on the table for a minute, and he grabbed it and legged it before I could get near him.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. His regret sounded genuine enough, but it wasn’t clear whether it was directed towards her or himself.

‘It’s a pain in the backside, that’s all. Fortunately, there wasn’t much cash in there. But I’ve had to cancel all my cards, and then there was all the stuff like driving licence, membership cards. You name it. There must be some special circle of hell reserved for little toerags like him.’ She paused, warming to her theme. ‘And why does the bank need five working days to send you a replacement, that’s what I want to know.’

The receptionist was looking baleful again, the expression of one who’d successfully deflected one major calamity only to find another coming along immediately behind it.

‘I’m going to have this problem all week,’ she said. ‘So I went and got cash from the bank. Luckily I didn’t lose my passport so I could still prove who I was. Is it OK if I just pay upfront?’

‘Well, I know it seems a little untrusting—’

‘Don’t worry. I spend my professional life chasing up bad debt. It’s just business.’ She lifted up her handbag and pulled out a small selection of the cash. ‘Three nights,’ she said. ‘So that totals . . .?’

She allowed him to make the simple calculation, giving him the sense that he was taking control again. When she’d paid out the money, he said, ‘I’m afraid you’ll just have to pay for any extras as you go.’

‘Story of my life,’ she said. They were both smiling again now.

Upstairs, the door locked behind her, she ran a hot bath, feeling an intense relief as she lowered himself into the scalding water. It was hardly the point to relax, she knew. This was no more than a temporary respite.

Jesus, there was no point in worrying. She’d done what she could. However she’d played it, she’d be fretting about the consequences. She was in a mess and all she could do was try to find the best way out of it.

She was becoming conscious, for the first time, of how difficult it was to stay hidden, even in a large city. She’d spent much of her career working in surveillance, but hadn’t truly registered how all-pervasive it was. If she used her credit card, made a call, even just walked down the street, she was giving out clues about her location. They’d soon know, if they didn’t already, that she’d withdrawn cash from a bank in the city centre. With time, they might even trace CCTV footage of her walking the surrounding streets, maybe even to the hair salon or the taxi. For the moment, though, they wouldn’t know for sure whether she was still in the city, or whether she’d withdrawn the money to fund a move out of town.

Her biggest hope was that the local police wouldn’t be giving this the highest priority. Even if he’d managed to keep his record clean, the police would know that Jones was a small-time crook, a legman for the bigger boys. He wouldn’t be much missed, and certainly not by the police. They’d most likely assume that his murder was some bit of underworld business that wouldn’t merit much more than token resources.

She expected equally that, for the moment at least, Welsby and his bosses would want to keep this under wraps. They wouldn’t want the embarrassment of revealing that an under-cover officer had gone AWOL. Her guess was that they’d allow the local plods to keep thinking that she was of interest to the Agency as a target, not as one of their own. They might even put some pressure on the locals to back off.

With a bit of luck.

That depended on the motives of whoever was behind this. By now, she had no doubt that somebody was. And that somebody, one or two steps removed, would be Boyle and maybe Kerridge. They knew who she was. Maybe not the whole of her role, but enough. She’d been exposed. Perhaps it really had been Morton. It looked as if he’d known, or guessed, more about her than he’d let on. Perhaps that was why he’d embarked on a relationship with her in the first place. Not her winning personality and cute looks, after all.

More likely, though, it was whoever was leaking from inside the Agency. Undercover roles were kept confidential even within the team, so her role should have been known only to a handful. Welsby, Salter and a sprinkling of others, mostly at senior levels. But it was possible she’d been hung out to dry a long time before, that they’d been playing games with her for months. The thought wasn’t comforting.

If so, the set-up had been beautifully engineered. Once she was arrested – perhaps already – her credibility was gone. At best, the Agency would just suppress everything, maybe not even give her the chance to clear her name. She’d be sacked or paid off. Jones would be forgotten. The local police would be blamed for disrupting some unrevealed operation, and would write it off as another instance of the Agency’s high-handedness. And the case against Boyle would be quietly dropped.

At worst, they’d leave her twisting in the wind. She’d be cut off from Agency support, charged with murder. Maybe she’d be convicted, maybe she wouldn’t. But it wouldn’t be in anyone’s interest to help her. It might suit everyone for her to take the fall, tie up the loose ends of Jones’ death. She could protest, try to get her story heard, but she’d just be dismissed as another rogue copper.

She was getting nowhere, thinking herself deeper into depression. She already knew she was in a mess. Now she had to devote her mind to thinking of a way out of it. She’d considered a direct approach to Kerridge, but couldn’t see where it would get her. She had tried to identify some intermediary who might help uncover the truth about Jones’ murder, but anyone sufficiently close to Kerridge or Boyle to be of use was, well, likely to be much too close.

She pulled the plug on the rapidly cooling water and stepped out, drying herself hurriedly and pulling on the thick towelling dressing gown supplied behind the bathroom door. One of the perks of the executive-level room, she presumed. She hadn’t noticed many others.

She needed more time to catch her breath. All she could feel was a rising panic, a growing sense that time was running out. There was no one she could risk calling. The police might be monitoring the phones of any of her friends and acquaintances, and would track her back here in minutes. Even assuming, she thought bleakly, that she had any real friends or acquaintances left to call.

There was no one up here. Back home, there was just her family and Liam . . .

Shit, she thought. Liam.

He’d be going spare. She’d tried to call him the previous evening after her return from meeting Jones. There’d been no answer early on, and she hadn’t bothered leaving a message on his voicemail, assuming that she’d try again later or – more likely – that he would call her. In the end, exhausted by the previous disrupted night and the trials of the day, she’d fallen asleep in front of the TV. She’d woken at eleven or so, and barely opening her eyes, staggered into the bedroom, sleepily undressed and fallen into bed. She hadn’t stirred till she’d been disturbed by Blackwell’s unexpected arrival.

Had Liam tried to call her back? It was likely. He didn’t allow many evenings to go by without a call. She’d have expected the phone to wake her, but had been so knackered she could easily have slept through it. She hadn’t thought to check the voicemail this morning.

Would the Agency have contacted Liam? If so, Christ knew what they’d told him. And no doubt he’d been trying to call her on one of her inoperative mobile numbers ever since.

She couldn’t even phone him now. Liam’s line would surely be monitored. Shit, she thought. He’d never forgive her for this.

She pulled open the door of the bathroom, rubbing her face with a towel, her mind still wrestling with this latest problem.

It was the sound that made her stop. The sound of a cough and a shuffle of feet. The sound of someone in the room.

She lowered the towel slowly from her face, as a voice said, ‘Jesus, Marie. You’re one hell of a woman to keep up with.’