Riot Act

barbell back onto its stand and was eyeing up Madeleine, clearly wondering if she was dangerous, too.

“It’s OK,” I said, “we’re leaving now. There’s no need for the strong-arm tactics.” I met Jav’s eyes and held them for a long moment. “But God help you if you’ve lied to us, Jav.”

I let go of my captive with enough of a shove to send him sprawling, giving us space for a dignified retreat. At the doorway I glanced back at Jav, and saw the fear there. Stark, it was in the lines of his body, behind his eyes.

But somehow I knew that it wasn’t me he was afraid of.

***

“Look, I’m sorry, I panicked,” Madeleine said later. “I saw those two coming for us, and I just wanted to get an answer out of him quickly.” She turned away from the window and shrugged with a rueful smile. “I guess I just wasn’t thinking straight.”

Sean put down his coffee cup, moved over to put his hands on her shoulders, and smiled back at her. “It’s OK,” he said lightly. “We’ll work round it.”

We were in the living room at my flat, which had seemed like the only safe neutral territory to meet up with Sean after our abortive interrogation of Jav.

Apart from telling Madeleine to follow me I hadn’t said a word to her since we left the health club. I couldn’t believe she’d given Jav such an easy escape route, and I didn’t trust myself not to tell her so in short, pithy sentences. I should have realised that Sean would take a line of less resistance.

Watching the two of them together now I wondered, briefly, what it was about some women that made men so desperate to hold the nasty world at bay for them. Whatever it was, I knew I didn’t have it.

“So, what happens now?” I asked, breaking in more abruptly than I’d intended. “Have you had any luck tracking down Langford?”

Sean let his hands fall away and shook his head. “He’s dropped right out of sight,” he said.

“Is there any chance Jav might have been telling the truth?” Madeleine asked now, with some hesitation.

“Doubtful,” I said shortly.

“But possible, nevertheless,” Sean said. The look he directed towards me lasted only half a second, but it was enough for me to read the warning.

“We still need more information about him.” He sighed, passed a hand across his eyes, and leaned against the wall by the window. He had that focused quality I’d seen in him before. Whenever we’d been out in the field, even just during training, Sean switched into a different mode, pared-down, alert.

“Madeleine, would you go and see O’Bryan?” he said now. “See what you can wheedle out of him about Nasir’s background, and quiz him about Harvey Langford while you’re at it.”

I opened my mouth to argue, then shut it again. Sean had always had the knack of inspiring his troops. The way the other girl reacted, so pathetically grateful at being given the responsibility, took the wind right out of my sails.

“What would you like me to do?” I asked instead.

“If you’ve nothing more pressing, I’ve got a couple of leads on where to find Ursula,” he said casually. “I’d like you to come with me.”

I nodded, downed the rest my coffee in a gulp and collected the empty mugs together. By the time I’d dumped them in the kitchen sink and gathered my leather jacket, Madeleine had already used her mobile phone to check that Eric O’Bryan was available, and willing to see her.

“He’s in his office all afternoon,” she said brightly when I returned to the living room.

We moved out of the flat, and I followed the two of them down the wooden stairs to the street where the Grand Cherokee was parked next to the kerb.

We took the back streets into Lancaster, winding up through the Marsh estate, before dropping Madeleine off near the Castle prison. It was easy enough for her to make her way down from there through the pedestrianised shopping centre to O’Bryan’s office.

She left us cheerfully enough, with a purposeful stride. Sean watched her cross the road in front of us and set off along the far pavement.

“You should go easier on her,” he said as we nosed back out into traffic.

Surprised, I twisted in my seat to face him. “Funny,” I said dryly. “That’s almost exactly what she said to me about you.”

He glanced at me then, nearly smiled, but not quite, and when he spoke his voice bordered on the chilly. “Not everyone’s had the training you have, Charlie,” he said. “Not everyone can stay so together under pressure. Madeleine’s speciality is electronic security and surveillance, and she’s very, very good at it. She’s not a field agent, and never has been. I won’t have her confidence dented because she made a human mistake in circumstances way outside her usual remit.”

“I’m not a field agent either,” I said, stung by the hinted rebuke. The lights changed and we moved forwards into the flow. “You seem to forget, sergeant, that I’ve been out of the army now for longer than I was ever in.”

“Speaking of which,” he said, “I’ve been doing some digging.”

My heart was suddenly thumping in my chest. “And?”

He let the Cherokee freewheel down the hill past the new bus station, changing lanes to head for Morecambe and keeping his eyes on the road, so it was difficult to tell what he was thinking.

“There was a phone call,” he said at last. “Just after the court martial, apparently. Female. She rang the guard room at camp wanting to speak to me. When they told her I wasn’t available she said to pass on a message. Said I shouldn’t have let it happen to you. Said to tell me not to be so cruel as to keep ignoring your calls. That if I still felt anything for you at all I should get in touch.”

My skin shimmied. “Oh shit,” I murmured. “They didn’t exactly need anyone to draw them a diagram after that, did they?”

“No,” he said, voice neutral, “I dare say they didn’t.”

The traffic slowed where it merged from two lanes into one along the opposite side of the river from my flat. I stared out of the window at the jagged pale blue supports for the new Millennium footbridge that spanned the water, but I didn’t take in a line of it.

“So, any ideas who it was?” I asked after a while.

“That we don’t know,” Sean said. “The call came in on an outside line, but that’s as much as my contact could tell me. Why, who do you suspect?”

I shrugged. “It’s difficult to tell without hearing the voice whether it was malicious or genuine. The words sound concerned for my welfare, but that could just be a clever way of disguising the intent.”

I swallowed, alarmed to discover I was close to tears. I was damned if I was going to cry in front of Sean. Instead, I managed with surprising calm, “That call couldn’t have done my cause more harm than it did at the time.”

“I suppose it could have been someone connected with one of the men involved,” Sean said. “A put-up job to stir it for you. You didn’t tell me Hackett was one of them, by the way,” he added. “He always struck me as a nasty piece of work.”

My neck and shoulders seized instantly, and I could hear the thunder of my own pulse inside my ears. Fear was like a stone in my stomach. Oh God, what else had he found out?

“I still wouldn’t rule out Lewis and Woolley as candidates either,” he went on, as though not noticing my reaction. “It wasn’t much of a secret that they didn’t like you, I’m afraid. You were in a different league, and it showed.”

“If I’d known where it was going to lead, I would have happily moved to the back of the class,” I said, trying not to let the bitterness creep out.

“No you wouldn’t,” Sean said straight away. He flicked his eyes across at me dispassionately. “I know how your mind works, Charlie. You want to win, or you don’t want to play.” He managed a smile that mocked himself as much as me. “In that respect, we’re very much alike.”

“Is that why you quit?”

“Not really,” he said. “In the end I found that I just enjoy breathing.”