Trust No One

It was funny, she thought. To succeed in this job, you needed to be able to conceal your emotions, maintain that poker face. And Salter, by all accounts, had been very successful. But just at this moment she could read his thoughts as easily as if he were articulating them out loud. This might be the chance they’d been looking for. This might be a chance to spear some of the big fish – Boyle, maybe even Kerridge himself. More to the point, this might be a chance to boost Salter’s career.

‘We can’t rush it,’ she said, suddenly nervous about what Salter might do with what she’d told him. Jump right in there with his size elevens. ‘Like you say, we only get one chance.’

He nodded, looking distracted, his mind already somewhere else. Planning his next upward move probably. ‘Did you hit it off?’ he said finally. ‘With Morton, I mean.’

She blinked, surprised by the direct question. ‘I suppose so. I mean, I only talked to him for an hour or so at this bloody dinner—’

‘But you got on with him? Well enough to get a bit closer?’

‘Well . . .’

‘We need to keep on him,’ he said. ‘See if your instincts are right. Work out what might be the best way to get him on board. Do you reckon you might be able to do that?’

She shook her head and swallowed the last mouthful of tepid coffee. ‘Christ, Hugh, I don’t know. I’ve only met him once. I mean, we seemed to get on OK, but . . .’

‘Give it a go, then. Even if you’re not right about this, he’s likely to be one of our best routes into Kerridge and his mob.’

She gazed at him for a moment as if she were about to refuse. Then she nodded. ‘OK, Hugh. I’ll give it a go.’

‘Good girl,’ he said, in a tone that made her want to punch him hard in the face. ‘It could be a big one, this.’

Yes, I know, Hugh, she’d said to herself at the time. That was why I brought it to you. In reality, though, she had known that this was the best she could have hoped for. Of course, Salter would be able to shift, without missing a beat, from his initial sneering scepticism to snaffling the idea as his own. He was destined for the top, scrambling his way up on the backs of more scrupulous colleagues.

It didn’t matter. As always, he’d got what he wanted. But as they finished the meeting, she’d been left with a feeling that, almost without recognizing it, she’d achieved an objective of her own. She’d been given a reason to see Jake Morton again. Up to that point, she hadn’t even known that she’d wanted to.

Chapter 7

After her debrief with Salter and Welsby, Marie arrived back at the print shop to find the place in a familiar mild chaos. Joe was berating Darren about some new technical faux pas. Darren was giving every sign of paying full attention short of actually listening. She thought Joe was warming to Darren. It wasn’t that Darren’s performance had improved to any significant – or, for that matter, insignificant – extent. It was more that Joe, recognizing that Marie wasn’t planning to dismiss Darren in the immediate future, had adjusted his expectations. Probably to somewhere below ground level.

There were times when Marie suspected that Joe Maybury – a tall, genial, undemonstrative man in his early thirties – might have a crush on her. There were other times when she was convinced that he was gay. Both, she supposed, might possibly be true. Or neither. Joe seemed disinclined to give anything away. She got on with him well, trusted him implicitly in deputizing for her on business matters, even went for a pint with him from time to time, but she had discovered nothing of any significance about his private life. Not that she had particularly tried. She was keen to protect her own privacy, and Joe’s taciturnity suited them both fine.

He glanced up as she entered, allowing Darren the opportunity to scuttle away. ‘Useful morning?’

She shrugged. ‘Bread on the waters stuff. We’ll get an order eventually, but not today.’

‘Never is, though, is it?’ Joe said. ‘Don’t know how you do it. Keep plugging away. Works in the end, I suppose.’

‘One of my virtues,’ she said. ‘Patience.’

Joe looked meaningfully across at Darren. ‘So I’ve noticed,’ he said, ‘though I don’t know if “virtue” is quite the word.’

She laughed. ‘What excitement did I miss this morning, then?’

‘Nothing much. Post on your desk. Took a few messages. Nothing urgent. Darren printed off a thousand copies when I’d asked for a hundred. Usual stuff.’

She stopped at the door to her office. ‘Anything interesting in the post?’

‘Mostly crap,’ Joe said. ‘Couple of confirmation orders, but only what we knew about. There’s a parcel of some sort – marked Personal and Confidential so I didn’t touch it.’

She smiled at him. She had no problems with Joe handling the incoming mail. Most of it was, as he said, crap. Most of the rest was just dull. A very small proportion – bank statements, stuff about the business finances – was theoretically sensitive, but she had nothing to hide from Joe. Nothing about the business, anyway. The operation was well capitalized, because the Agency had ensured it would be. And it was doing pretty well so far. Even if the business had been struggling, Joe would have a right to know. Funny, she thought. She felt she trusted Joe more than most people – more than Salter, certainly, probably more than Liam, probably even more than she’d trusted Jake – even though she knew next to nothing about him.

She sat down behind her desk and began to flick through the stack of mail. It was mostly advertising bumf, glossy nonsense that poured in by the bucket load. Some uninformative VAT leaflet from the Revenue. And, as Joe had said, something else. A neatly sealed Jiffy bag, with her name and address handwritten in block capitals on the front.

She remained still for a moment, staring at the writing. Then she glanced up, for some reason half-expecting that Joe would be staring at her through the glass partition. But he was busy on the far side of the room, his attention fixed on one of the machines.

Jake.

It was Jake’s handwriting. There was no question. She hadn’t seen it often, but she’d seen it enough. Now, it was like seeing a ghost.

She picked up the envelope and peered at it, as if she might be able to discern its contents through the brown wrapping. Then, with a further glance towards Joe, she tore open the package and gazed inside.

She wasn’t sure what she’d been hoping for. A letter? Some informal last will and testament? A word of goodbye? But the bag was empty, except for a small plastic data stick. She tipped it into her palm.

An insurance policy, maybe. Something that Jake had arranged to be sent if anything should happen to him. But why her? Or, more to the point, why now? If Jake had wanted her to have it, why hadn’t he given it to her before?

She felt a chill run along her spine. The obvious answer was that he’d already known or guessed who she was. He hadn’t given it to her before because he’d assumed, probably rightly, that she’d feel obliged to hand it over to her colleagues. And, as Welsby and Salter had intimated, Jake didn’t trust her colleagues, not completely. But if anything happened to him, he might well see her as the only person he could trust.

It was all too possible. Jake was no fool. He’d been approached and recruited as an informant after meeting Marie. They’d allowed a decent interval to pass before any approach was made, and taken every precaution to ensure that there was no traceable link. But that might not have prevented Jake from having his own suspicions.

She looked up to see Joe gazing at her through the glass wall of the office. For a moment, she thought he was watching her, but then she realized that he was just standing over one of the machines, engrossed in the smooth action of the printing. His eyes were turned towards her, but his gaze was fixed blankly in the middle distance, watching nothing more than his own reflection in the glass.

Christ, she thought. She was really beginning to lose it.