A jolt went through her. Dr Allen's parting words rang like a warning bell in her head. She should ignore him, see him only once: in the witness box. Her finger hovered over the call button but reception faded and vanished, saving her from the decision. She had the ten minutes until she arrived home to sober up and get a grip.
As she pulled into the cart track at the side of the house she had worked out a strategy: call Alison and tell her to take any message from McAvoy. Tell him the inquest would resume on Wednesday morning and request that he attend to give evidence. Keep it all businesslike and at arm's length. She could deal with the feelings he had stirred in her afterwards. She would have something by which to judge him then, a clearer insight into his motivations.
She reached over to the glove box to get the torch she used to navigate the ten yards along the path to the front door. She found it and was searching for the switch when the car lit up. Startled, she looked up to see a tall, male figure beneath the halogen lamp that automatically triggered on approaching the porch. He was featureless with the bright light behind him, but the silhouette was unmistakable: the long dark coat, the scarf, the unruly wisps of hair. He raised a hand in a tentative wave that acknowledged her alarm. Arrested by the drugs her heart held steady, but a fierce heat spread across her chest and neck and prickled across her lips as fear blazed another pathway to the surface.
'It's only me,' he called out. 'It's Alec. It's OK.'
She thought about driving off and hoping he'd vanish, but she knew he wouldn't. He was the kind who'd walk all night and go days without sleep; he had a prisoner's patience and a madman's will.
She left her keys in the ignition and stepped out into the biting air, holding the torch defensively in front of her as she stepped around the car.
She stopped by the passenger door, still some twenty feet between them. 'What are you doing here?'
'I've got some information.'
She swept the torch beam over him. He was in a suit and tie, clean shoes.
'I meant what are you doing
'My car packed up. I caught a cab.'
'Are you going to stand there talking bullshit or answer my question?'
Jenny aimed the beam of light at his face. McAvoy shielded his eyes.
'I didn't want to speak to you on the phone ... I found out who Tathum was working for when those two boys disappeared.'
'You spent forty quid on a cab to tell me that?'
'I didn't mean to scare you. I'll go if you want me to . . . It's just. . .' He looked down, ran his hands distractedly through his hair. She heard him exhale wearily. 'The truth? These are dark waters, Jenny. I'm not sure how deep in you want to get. I thought it better to tell you here, away from everything. You can make your own decision. No public pressure.'
She slowly lowered the beam away from his face, responding to the sincerity in his voice. If he had wanted to hurt her, he could have run straight over or jumped out of the shadows. He wouldn't have sent her a text, left a trail.
'All right,' she said. 'I'd better hear it.'
She unlocked the front door and led him into the sitting room. Straight to business, she sat at the small dining table and motioned to the chair opposite. No offer of drinks. Even in forgiving light McAvoy looked tired. Dark shadows haunted his eyes. His face was drawn, his thick stubble grey in patches. He knotted his fingers and leaned forward in a way which suggested he had agonized long and hard, and arrived at a painful decision.
'Remember Billy Dean, the private investigator?' McAvoy said. 'His son took over the business. I gave him a call after our visit to Mr Tathum last week, asked him what he could dig up. He got back to me first thing this morning, just before you turned up.' He gave a strained smile. 'In Z002 Tathum was registered self-employed. He declared an income of sixty- five thousand pounds and his bank records show it came in the form of three payments from the same account. That account was in the name of Maitland Ltd, a private security contractor with a registered office in Broad Street, Hereford.'
'Where did he get hold of that?'
'He's got someone in the tax office, I expect. His dad always made most of his money from divorce. Anyway, until the year before Tathum was receiving his pay cheque from the army. Mid-thirties - I guess he must have done his time.'
'What do you know about Maitland?'
'According to their website they're close-protection specialists. Hereford's the home town for the SAS, so I'd guess that's where they draw their personnel from. I gather it's something of a local tradition: the ex-special servicemen cross the road and make their fortunes in the private sector.'
'What would Maitland want with Nazim and Rafi?'
'They're just being paid to perform a service. If you're asking me to speculate, I'd say they provided a snatch squad. But for whom . . . who knows? Could be the kids were terrorist suspects who were spirited away to God knows where. Or they could have been agents whose cover was blown, in which case they'll be living happily in condos in Australia.'
Jenny said, 'Why tell me now? Why not save it for the inquest? You know how risky it is for me to talk to a witness. Anyone could turn around and say my inquiry was tainted and have it overturned.'
'Well, there's the thing, Jenny - neither of us knows where each other stands, not truly.' He fixed her with a sad, searching look. 'I've seen and done enough wicked things in my span to know not to lead you to this lightly. British citizens disappeared by their own state - is that ever going to be allowed to be exposed? Call me a hoary old cynic, but I'd say another life or two would weigh lightly in the balance.'
'But?' She knew there was a but, that the flame that still burned in his eyes wouldn't be extinguished that easily.
'You're not cut from the regular cloth, are you?' McAvoy's worn-out face creased into a smile. 'I've got a shoulder so sore I've hardly been able to lift a drink all day.'
Unrepentant, Jenny said, 'That was for lying to me. And for what it's worth, I think you still are.'
There was a pause. McAvoy lowered his head. 'It's a funny thing, Jenny: I made a fine career out of telling other people's lies for them. The other side were always the bigger sinners. Even when I was caught out and put away, all the virtue was with me. But this case . . . I've fixed trials, I've bought and sold witnesses, I've helped murderers walk free and drunk their good health with a clear conscience, but this one
Jenny inwardly reeled. The breath left her lungs. The visceral part of her willed him to touch her, to make the slightest contact so he could feel his charge and let it happen.
She knew he could feel the change in her, read what was written in her face.
'You're a temptation, that's what you are,' McAvoy said. 'A sweet and beautiful temptation as dark and damned as I am. I can't even touch your hand for fear—'
'Of what?' Jenny said.
He shook his head again. 'Let's talk about something else.' He swallowed and pushed himself on. 'Dr Sarah Levin - she's a beautiful girl, I understand. She was eighteen years old at the time. She would have been spoken to, I'm sure of that. Wherever Nazim and Rafi went they would have been interrogated, questioned within an inch of their lives. It's no coincidence she was the one who spoke to the police - she wouldn't have had any choice. I guessed as much eight years ago. Should it be dragged out of her now? Does she have to be destroyed too? How much damage is enough?'
'Why would she be on your conscience?'
'She was a blameless child. Why wouldn't she be?'
'Don't you think you're idealizing her?'
'Compared with me, she's the Blessed Virgin herself.'
Jenny said, 'What about the man who telephoned you, the American?'
'I’ve no idea, except that whoever took those boys hounded Mrs Jamal to death, even if they didn't physically kill her.'
'You don't even know the whole story,' Jenny said, feeling an irrational compulsion to share her burden. 'There were traces of radiation in her flat and on her body. Caesium 137.' As soon as she'd said it, she knew it was
