‘Karen Hope?’ Silva had seen the woman many times on the news, read the approving commentaries in the papers. ‘Is this some kind of sick joke?’
‘I wish it was.’ Fairchild pulled the picture back and looked at it himself. ‘You’re right about who she is though: US Congresswoman Karen Hope.’
‘And how is she in any way connected to my mother’s death?’
‘You mother was investigating the Hope family and trod on too many toes. Quite simply she got in the way of Karen Hope’s ambitions.’
‘Her ambitions?’
‘Hope is a virtual shoo-in for the Democratic nomination. With the way the opinion polls are heading she’s almost certainly going to be the next president of the United States of America.’
‘And she killed my mother?’
‘Correct.’
‘Bullshit,’ Silva said.
She nestled in behind a car transporter and rode along the motorway at a steady fifty-five, unable to trust herself to ride safely if she went any faster.
Fairchild had made her angry but she blamed her father for that. He’d asked her to come and visit and, if she knew him, he had to have been the one behind the crazy accusation Fairchild had made. What the purpose of such a story was, Silva had no idea. Then again she’d never been able to work out her father’s motives and likely this was some kind of game or test. Pass and she’d be in his good books. Fail and his disapproval would follow. And walking out definitely fell under the fail heading.
Calmed by the monotony of the motorway, Silva played back everything Fairchild had said to see if she could work out exactly what was going on. Fairchild had claimed her mother was investigating Karen Hope, but that was plainly wrong. Her mother concentrated on the Middle East and North Africa, and she’d been killed while interviewing the head of a women’s aid charity. When Silva had visited her in Tunisia a few months before her death, she’d been filing report after report on the people traffickers preying on the refugees prepared to risk everything to make the deadly sea crossing to Europe. Her work had nothing to do with US politics. Silva guessed there were plenty of journalists digging around looking for dirt on the congresswoman, but it was inconceivable her mother was one of them.
She tried to recall what she knew about Karen Hope to see if there was anything that might be a clue as to what her father was up to. Like the cryptic crosswords he did, his games often involved some measure of obfuscation. Peel away the obvious and perhaps the answer would reveal itself.
She knew Hope was a Democrat and was involved with the military in some way. If Silva remembered correctly the family business built up by her father was armaments. That and the fact Hope was on the right of the party gave her an ‘in’ with Republican voters, and broad cross-party appeal meant she was the front runner in the race to be president. Aside from the obvious military angle nothing suggested a connection to her father. Was there something there? Something from his time in the Ministry of Defence? She didn’t know. If whatever he was up to was cryptic then she lacked the wherewithal to decode it.
She blipped the throttle and overtook the car transporter, noting a dark BMW with tinted windows behind her do the same. Now she thought of it, the car had been in her mirrors for several miles. Fairchild’s Range Rover came to mind. It too had smoked-glass windows. Silva dismissed the coincidence and accelerated up to eighty. She rode in the fast lane for several miles, trying to clear the cobwebs and confusion from her mind. When she slowed for some congestion ahead she glanced in her mirrors again. The car was still there. For a moment a chill slipped inside her leather jacket, but then she threaded her way down between two lines of vehicles and left the BMW stuck in the stationary traffic.
When she reached Swindon she turned off the motorway and headed south to the town of Marlborough. Her mother’s house lay a few miles outside the town on the banks of the young river Kennet. A lane led away from the main road and down to the river where a brick weir-keeper’s cottage stood next to a foaming pool of white water. A picket fence surrounded the front garden, the grass within long and in need of a cut. Silva kicked down the stand on the bike, pulled off her helmet and listened to the rumble of the weir. As a child she’d grown used to the sound, the constant white noise so pervasive that when she’d moved away she’d found it difficult to sleep.
She slipped the keys into the lock and the door opened against a mound of letters, free newspapers and junk mail. She pushed the pile to one side and closed the door.
Silence. A waft of air filled with the scent of jasmine and coffee beans. Silva inhaled and stepped into the living room. Shelves crammed with books either side of a fireplace. A sofa with a throw and an abundance of cushions. A Turkish carpet on the floor. A plant in the window bay with leaves brown from lack of water. She dropped into the sofa and pulled a cushion to her body and hugged the softness. Remembered back to when she’d lived in this house as a teenager. Remembered the arguments and fights and the way she and her mother had rubbed each other up. Parent and child. Back then the place had seemed claustrophobic and they’d been under each other’s feet with not enough space, Silva’s unsuitable boyfriends matched against her mother’s equally unworthy lovers. Later, when Silva was older and more world wise, the relationship had matured. Mother and daughter. Friends.
Silva wiped away
