“Yeah, sure. What difference does it make to you?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“Fuck you!”
“You wish!”
“The bastard could have stopped,” he says suddenly, his anger bordering on violence.
“Did you see the car speed up? Did it veer toward them?”
A shake of the head.
“Then why are you so sure?”
“He was lying.”
“Is that it?”
He raises one shoulder as if trying to scratch his ear. “Just forget it, OK?”
“No, I want to know. You said the driver was lying. Why?”
He goes quiet. “I just know. He lied. He ran them down.”
“How can you be sure?”
He turns away, muttering, “Sometimes I just am.”
My mother always told me that people with green eyes are related to fairies, like the Irish, and that if I ever met someone with one green eye and one brown one, it meant that person had been taken over by a fairy, but not in a scary way. Donavon is seriously scary. The bones of his shoulders shift beneath his shirt.
“I found out some stuff about Blake,” he says, growing calmer. “He signed on with the minicab firm a week ago and only ever worked days. At the end of every shift he handed over eighty quid for the lease of the car but the mileage didn’t match the fares. He can’t have done more than a few miles. He told another driver that he had regular customers who liked to have him on call. One of them was a film producer but there’s no way some hotshot film producer is going around London in a beat-up Vauxhall Cavalier.”
He straightens up, into the story now. “So I ask myself, ‘Why does a guy need a car all day if it’s not going anywhere?’ Maybe he’s watching someone—or waiting for them.”
“That’s a big leap.”
“Yeah, well, I saw the look Cate gave him. She recognized him.”
Kicking back his chair, he stands and opens a kitchen drawer.
“I found this. Cate must have dropped it.”
He hands me a crumpled envelope. My name is on the front of it. The swirls and dips of the handwriting belong to Cate. Lifting the flap, I pull out a photograph. A teenage girl gazes absently at the camera. She has fine limbs and ragged dark hair, trimmed by the wind. Her wide lips curl down at the edges making her look melancholy rather than gloomy. She is wearing jeans, sandals and a cotton shirt. Her hands are by her sides, palms open, with a white band on her wrist.
I turn the photograph over. There is a name written on the back. Samira.
“Who is she?” asks Donavon.
“I don’t know.”
“What about the number?”
In the bottom right-hand corner there are ten digits. A phone number, perhaps.
I study the image again as a dozen different questions chase one another. Cate faked her pregnancy. Does this girl have anything to do with it? She looks too young to be a mother.
I take out my mobile and punch in the number. A recorded voice announces it is unavailable. The area code doesn’t belong in the U.K. It could be international.
The fight seems to have gone out of Donavon. Maybe alcohol mellows him.
“What are you gonna do?” he asks.
“I don’t know yet.”
On my feet, I turn to leave. He calls after me, “I want to help.”
“Why?”
He’s still not going to tell me.
Carla intercepts me before I reach the front door.
“He’s losing it,” she whispers. “He used to have it together but something happened in Afghanistan or wherever the hell they sent him. He’s not the same. He doesn’t sleep. He gets obsessed about stuff. I hear him at night, walking about.”
“You think he needs help?”
“He needs something.”
9
Chief Superintendent Lachlan North has an office on the eleventh floor of New Scotland Yard overlooking Victoria Street and Westminster Abbey. He is standing by the window, beside a telescope, peering into the eyepiece at the traffic below.
“If that moron thinks he can turn there…”
He picks up a two-way radio and communicates a call-sign to traffic operations.
A tired voice answers. “Yes, sir.”
“Some idiot just did a U-turn in Victoria Street. Did you see it?”
“Yes, sir, we’re onto him.”
The Chief Superintendent is talking while still peering through the telescope. “I can get his number plate.”
“It’s under control, sir.”
“Good work. Over and out.”
Reluctantly, he turns away from the telescope and sits down. “There are some dangerous bloody morons loose on our roads, Detective Constable Barba.”
“Yes, sir.”
“In my experience, the morons are more dangerous than the criminals.”
“There are more of them, sir.”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
He dips his head into a drawer and retrieves a dark green folder. Shuffling through the contents, he clears his throat and smiles, attempting to appear warmer and fuzzier. A nagging doubt hooks me in the chest.
“The results of your medical have been reviewed, DC Barba, along with your psychological evaluation. I must say you have made a remarkable recovery from your injuries. Your request to return to active duty with the Diplomatic Protection Group has also been noted. Courageous is the word that comes to mind.” He tugs at his cuffs. Here it comes. “But under the circumstances, having reviewed the matter thoroughly, it has been decided to transfer you out of the DPG. You might be a little gun-shy, you see, which is hardly a good thing when protecting diplomats and foreign heads of state. Could be embarrassing.”
“I’m not gun-shy, sir. Nobody fired a gun at me.”
He raises his hand to stop me. “Be that as it may, we have a responsibility to look after our foreign guests and while I have every confidence in you, there is no way of testing your fitness when push comes to shove and Abdul the terrorist takes a potshot at the Israeli ambassador.” He taps the folder several times with his finger to stress the point.
“The most important part of my job is shuffling people and priorities. It is a thankless task but I don’t ask for medals or commendations. I am simply a humble servant of the public.” His chest swells. “We don’t want to lose you, DC Barba. We need more women like you in the Met, which is why I am pleased to offer you a position as a recruitment officer. We need to encourage more young women into the Met, particularly from minority communities. You can be a role model.”
A mist seems to cloud my vision. He stands now, moving back to the window where he bends to peer
