trauma of discovering his father was dead. ‘Protecting him to the tune of a few hundred thousand pounds,’ Carol had pointed out coolly.
Because of the drugs, it had taken him a little while to get his head round what Vanessa had tried to get him to sign. The papers were nothing to do with his grandmother’s house. They were a formal renunciation of his claim on the estate of his late father in favour of his mother. An estate which, according to Carol, amounted to a house in Worcester, fifty-odd thousand in savings and a boat. ‘She’s a criminal, Tony,’ Carol had said. ‘That was attempted fraud.’
‘I know,’ he’d said. ‘But it’s all right.’
‘How can you be so understanding?’ Carol said, frustrated.
‘Because I understand,’ Tony said simply. ‘What do you want me to do? Bring charges against my mother? I don’t think so. Can you imagine how much damage she could do to the pair of us under cover of court privilege?’ It had taken Carol about two seconds to understand the force of what he was saying.
‘Let’s forget it, then,’ she’d said. ‘But if she dares to show her face again, don’t sign anything.’ And she’d gone, taking the papers with her for safe-keeping and leaving a stack of information about the victims. He’d been glad of it. It took his mind off Edmund Arthur Blythe.
And that was why, at seven o’clock sharp on Monday morning, he had filed his request for company information on B&R at the Companies House website. While he waited for them to send the fruits of their search, he began to work his way through the list of Yousef Aziz’s victims.
It was a devastating catalogue. Eight colleagues from an insurance company, celebrating the birth of a child; a primary head teacher and his wife, the guests of executives from the company who had donated his school’s computers; three musicians from a local band who’d just released their first CD; a motivational guru and his two teenage sons, along with the CEO of the mountain bike manufacturing company who had invited them; three men who had been friends since childhood, part of a group of successful businessmen who had a season ticket for the box they occupied. The heartbreaking list went on-the youngest, the seven-year-old son of an MP: the oldest, a seventy-four-year-old retired car dealer.
At first glance, there was no obvious candidate for assassination. But then, nobody had done any serious background work on the victims because nobody was seriously considering an alternative explanation to terrorism. He couldn’t understand why Carol wasn’t more enthusiastic. They’d worked so closely together for so long, her first instinct should be to trust him. But it was as if she was using his accident as an excuse for dismissing his professional opinion. If she didn’t want to take on CTC, fair enough. He could understand that. What he couldn’t understand was why she wasn’t saying that to him, to explain why she was so lukewarm about his ideas. All these years they’d worked together, all the intimacy that went with bouncing ideas back and forth, all the support they’d shown each other. Sure, Carol had seen off his mother. But what had happened to their professional relationship?
His laptop gave the discreet click that told him a new email had arrived. Eagerly, he opened it. There, laid out before him, was the company information relating to B&R. The company secretary was the accountant whose address Stacey already had. The two directors were Rachel and Benjamin Diamond. With an address in Bradfield. Tony drew his breath in sharply and reached for the victim details.
Hastily, he riffled through the sheets. At last, he pulled one page free. His pulse was racing and he could feel the fizz and pop of adrenaline shooting through him. He’d remembered right. No matter what Carol thought, his brain was working just fine. He knew exactly where he’d seen that name already that morning. He spread the paper out on his laptop, devouring the words. This was beyond coincidence. Carol was going to have to listen to him now.
Carol barely recognized the HOLMES suite, so thoroughly had CTC colonized the space. Their information boards broke the room up into segments, their computers and peripherals covered every desk. The air was pungent with male sweat and cigarette smoke. Clearly, the building’s smoking ban did not apply to the chosen of the gods. As she walked in the door, she felt the atmosphere shift. It had been the same every time she’d entered what had been her own territory. A moment of immobility, like dogs scenting strangers; the stillness before the hackles rise. They didn’t like having her here, they wanted her to be afraid of them and their masculinity. She wondered, as she always did, how many of them knew her own history, knew about the rape, knew John Brandon had brought her back from the brink. She wouldn’t mind betting that, even if they knew about the assault, they wouldn’t have heard about the betrayal that had gone hand in hand with what had happened to her. Because the betrayal made men like them look bad.
‘I’m here for the meeting,’ she said to the grunt nearest the door.
Stony faced, he logged off from his terminal and walked her to the far end of the room, where David and Johnny had set up camp behind baffle screens. Before she’d even sat down, David leaned forward, elbows on knees, and said, ‘We’re not having a very good time here, Carol. We’ve rounded up everyone in your fair city that we had any intel on. And it seems like nobody knew our friend Yousef. His brother is a complete waste of time. He’s about as politicized as a toilet seat. As are the so-called mates of our suicide bomber.’ He jumped up and started pacing, pulling a cigarette packet from his jacket as he prowled.
‘This is a non-smoking building,’ Carol said.
‘What are you going to do? Arrest me?’ David sneered.
‘I thought I might just pour the water over your head.’ Carol pointed to the jug on the table. Her smile could have slit a sack from top to bottom.
David tossed the cigarette on the table in frustration. ‘I can’t be arsed arguing with you,’ he said. It wasn’t a bad attempt at face-saving, but Carol knew she’d scored a small victory. Doubtless she’d pay for it down the line, but right now it felt worth it.
‘We wondered if you had any intel we’ve not been given,’ Johnny said. ‘Not necessarily about Yousef, but about Islamic militancy generally.’
Carol shook her head. ‘We leave that to you. Anything we get, it comes to us incidentally, in the course of other stuff. And we pass it on routinely. We’re not holding back any terrorist-related intel.’
‘So what are you holding back?’ Johnny said, pouncing on her careful words. ‘Come on, Carol. We’re not stupid. Lines are for reading between.’
She was saved by the arrival of the third member of their cabal. The one who hadn’t even bothered to give her an alias. He cocked an inquiring glance at Carol.
‘It’s all right,’ David said.
