apprehended the suspect in Raab’s shooting.”
“Why don’t I give them directions?”
“I want you to take them there, personally. Wait outside till you get the green light. Then go in. Look around. You’re the only one who’s been inside. I want to know everything that’s missing or out of place.”
“I hope you’ve got a lot of paper. It’ll be a long list. She’ll have had a two-hour head start, minimum, by the time we get there.”
“Then so be it. Just get it done.”
“Since you ask so nicely. And am I traveling alone, or will I have a babysitter?”
Varley stepped aside, and I saw Weston sitting behind the wheel.
“Oh, well,” I said. “At least it’ll be a quiet journey.”
The first FBI team entered Lesley’s house via the garage. The second-with Weston trailing behind, still wearing his suit-went in through the front door. I stayed in the car and figured the odds of Lesley not having booby- trapped the place.
Twenty minutes passed without any explosions then Weston reappeared, heading back down the path. He was flanked by two agents in full urban assault kit, which made him look like an alien abductee.
“Better come inside,” he said. “There’s something you should see.”
It turned out I was wrong about the house being completely empty. Something had been left behind, in Lesley’s office. It was the metal trolley that Cyril had been strapped to. Inside it was a glass bottle. The same cloudy, industrial kind she had used yesterday. Its lid was off, so you could smell the formaldehyde, and a label was attached to the side.
Two words were written on it, by hand, in green ink.
DAVID TREVELLYAN.
EIGHTEEN
My friend Jeremy was a born victim.
I first met him two weeks after I started at high school. He’d missed the beginning of term because he was still recovering from a recent kicking. He appeared in the corner of the classroom one morning and I remember thinking he might as well have BULLY ME tattooed on his forehead, the way he behaved. The local thugs just gravitated toward him. I had to step in and save him on several occasions over the years, when people were taking too much from him or it looked like he was going to get seriously hurt again. I could have stopped the trouble altogether without too much effort, but I didn’t think that would be right. I wasn’t going to be around for the rest of his life and he needed to learn how to stand up for himself. The problem was, he had no instinct for it. No idea how to spot danger coming or stop it in its tracks.
Most of the skirmishes he got into were fairly low level until one day I overheard a couple of kids threatening to beat him up after school if he didn’t give them money. So, straightaway, he emptied his pockets. It was as if he were hearing their words but not understanding what they meant. It was such an obvious mistake. I could hardly believe what I was seeing. And after he’d sent out a message like that I knew there was nothing for it. I was going to have to take the long way home.
I left the school gates at the same time as Jeremy then hung back, drifting between the various groups who walked the same way as him. The journey started uneventfully. Nothing happened until we came to an alley, half a mile from his house. Then my heart sank. He walked straight into it without even looking. I turned the corner and saw the two kids who must have been waiting there. They’d already caught him, about twenty feet away. One was holding him, the other was standing with his fist pulled back, ready to strike. He was too far away to grab so I picked up a rock-a big chunk of flint with sharp, shiny edges-and hurled it at the kid’s head. He looked around at the last second and it connected with the middle of his forehead. He tumbled backward, blood already oozing from the wound, and the other kid turned to run. But the passage wasn’t long enough. I reached him with ten yards to spare.
Jeremy was so happy to get his lunch money back I don’t think he really understood the point I was trying to make. I told him threats are like smoke. They’re like the first wisps that appear before a fire really catches hold. And there’s only one way to deal with them. Stamp them out before they grow into something bigger.
That method worked for me when I was a kid, and I’ve stuck with it ever since.
So you can imagine how I felt that afternoon, locked in an FBI debriefing while Lesley was left to slink away unopposed…
The rickety typist’s chair I’d sat on yesterday had been relegated to the far corner of the boardroom and was now half hidden under a tangle of navy blue overcoats. But that wasn’t a problem. Eight more chairs had been brought up and shared out along each side of the big granite table. I headed to the right, where two empty seats separated Tanya from a plump forty-something in a gray suit. The backrest of the one nearer her was stained, so I went to swap it with its neighbor.
“Hey,” the plump guy said. “Someone’s using that.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Me.”
The double doors opened again and a guy hurried in with four large coffees wedged into a cardboard tray. He left one in the place to my right and took another round to Varley, who was sitting on his own at the center of the long side of the table. Then the new guy came back and flopped into the seat next to me, leaving two cups unclaimed.
“Which one of those was for Rosser?” I said.
“Why would one be for him?” he said.
“Come on, which one?”
“That one. Why?”
“I’m guessing black, no sugar?”
“Right. But what’s that to you?”
“That’s just how I like it,” I said, taking the cup and passing the other one to Tanya.
“Hey,” the new guy said. “That’s…”
“Yes?” I said, turning to look at him.
“Hot. Maybe. Still.”
“Gentlemen,” Varley said. “And lady. Time to get under way. I guess you don’t all know our English friends, so let’s start with a quick round of introductions. We’ll go clockwise. Ivan?”
“Ivan Sproule,” the plump guy said. “FBI Special Operations, working for Mitchell out of New York.”
“Brian Schmidt,” the guy with the coffee said. “Also FBI Special Ops.”
“David Trevellyan,” I said. “Yesterday, in league with the devil. Today, innocent bystander slash tour guide.”
“Tanya Wilson,” Tanya said. “British Consulate.”
“Lieutenant Byron McBride,” the guy opposite Tanya said. “NYPD intelligence task force. I’m pulling together a citywide response to the spate of homicides involving elderly and vagrant victims.”
“Detective Rosenior,” the next guy said. “NYPD intell, working for Lieutenant McBride.”
“That just leaves me,” Weston said from his seat opposite the plump guy. “And our English friends certainly know who I am.”
Varley stayed with Weston for his first set of questions, which involved asking for a full account of the raid on Lesley’s house and then picking it to shreds. How had they entered? Where had they searched? How long had they taken? What had they found? How had they documented the scene? Could they have missed anything? How could he be sure? Had they taken photos? Had forensics unearthed anything later? Varley was relentless, firing his queries and driving Weston over and over the same ground for a full twenty minutes.
The police officers were next to come under the microscope, but Varley came at them from a different angle. This time he wasn’t interested in one specific case, but pushed them for detailed breakdowns of the previous year’s crime figures. How many vagrants had been murdered, precinct by precinct? What were their age groups? Gender? Religion? Previous occupations? Cause of death? How many had made it into the press? State or country of birth? How many had been cleared? The barrage was exhausting, and Varley tired of it first. McBride was still going
