‘Are you sure about that?’ Silva held Milligan’s gaze, sensing he was being evasive. ‘Because somebody broke into her cottage. They tried to make it look like a simple burglary but they removed the hard drive from her old computer.’ Silva lifted her hands and turned them over. The grazing from her fall into the weir was evident. ‘And when I was there yesterday someone attacked me and pushed me into the river. I nearly drowned.’
Milligan cocked his head. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m in one piece,’ Silva said, lowering her hands and noticing the slight shake as she did so. ‘Physically anyway.’
‘Did you report it to the police? They could help. Victim support. That kind of thing.’
‘No.’ Silva wondered why she hadn’t done just that. She’d been assaulted and the house had been burgled. At least the police would have been able to give her some reassurance. Unless… her train of thought was curtailed by an involuntary shudder. ‘But it got me thinking if my mother might have stumbled across something, something which could have got her killed. I’ve an idea about what it might be and it has absolutely nothing to do with people trafficking.’
Milligan reached for a remote control and blipped the volume on the TV monitor up several notches. Sirens in the background. A reporter talking to camera. A blast of music as the channel went to an ad break. Milligan shook his head and mouthed the word no. He reached for his jacket on the back of his chair and stood.
‘Let’s take a walk,’ he said.
Light chinked through the curtains and fell on Holm’s face. He blinked awake, aware of traffic noise in the street outside, the growl of a heavy goods vehicle, the beep of a horn. Then somebody pounding on something. Bang bang bang. Holm screwed his eyes shut. He had a beast of a hangover for which Palmer was entirely to blame. As Holm was leaving work the previous evening, a text from his friend had bleeped into his phone.
‘If you’re going to drown your sorrows, best not to do it alone, eh?’ Palmer signed off with a winking emoji, and half an hour later they were starting their second pint in the Morpeth Arms at the bottom of Millbank, ostensibly to celebrate Holm’s new job.
The night had gone downhill from there, ending with a curry that Palmer insisted on paying for.
‘The way you’ve been talking, it sounds like you could be taking early retirement soon,’ he said. ‘Best save your pennies.’
One Madras and several bottles of Cobra later, Palmer was bundling Holm into a taxi for the ride home. He could remember little else except the taxi driver’s shake of the head when Holm had stepped out and vomited on his own front step. Drinking with Palmer tended to be like that.
‘Bloody hell.’ Holm heaved the words out and pulled a pillow over his head.
Bang bang bang.
The pounding came again. Then a pattering on the window. Stones or earth hitting the glass. Holm pushed off the pillow and cast the duvet aside. He staggered to the window, drew back the curtains and looked down into the street.
Farakh Javed grinned up at him before gesturing at the front door. Holm bent and lifted the sash window.
‘Boss. Are you going to let me in or what?’ The smile again. Like a bright sunbeam and about as welcome.
Holm groaned. This wasn’t the sort of morning he’d been expecting. He’d hoped to phone in sick and lie in bed for a couple of hours. Later, when he eventually got up, to cook a hearty breakfast and veg out in front of some daytime TV.
‘Well?’
Holm nodded and moved to the hallway. He buzzed the entry lock and a minute later the door to Holm’s flat swung open and Javed stepped in.
‘Some dirty wino’s spewed on your front step,’ he said. ‘This neighbourhood’s going to the dogs.’
‘Tell me about it.’ Holm crossed the room. He wondered about closing the curtains because the light was altogether too strong for his eyes. Instead he dropped onto the sofa. Javed was bouncing like a first-round featherweight who’d yet to land a punch. ‘Sit down, you’re making me nervous. Besides, what are you doing here?’
Javed stopped moving for a moment. ‘You look like you could do with some fresh air.’
Holm shook his head and started to protest, but Javed was already moving back towards the hallway and heading for the front door.
Five minutes later Silva and Milligan were leaving the busy centre and strolling into Highgate Cemetery. Stillness. The peace of the dead. Milligan hadn’t spoken since they’d left the agency and now he led the way in silence, following a path that wound beneath huge trees, the light from above filtered to a soft lime by a canopy of leaves.
‘What’s going on, Neil?’ Silva said, trying to keep up. ‘What exactly was it my mother was working on?’
‘I told you, the trafficking story.’ Milligan hunched over and shuffled along. ‘She wanted to do a series, a piece on each country involved, she was interviewing the actors and—’
‘You said.’
‘I did?’ Milligan stopped walking and shook his head. His eyes were wide open but his pupils tiny. He glanced back the way they’d come. ‘Sorry. The past few weeks have been stressful. I’ve been under a lot of pressure.’
‘I’m sure you have. It must be difficult when one of your journalists is deliberately targeted because of a story she was working on.’
‘Yes, it…’ Milligan’s affirmative nodding stopped and changed to another shake of the head. He started to walk on. ‘No, Rebecca, not deliberately. Your mother was killed by terrorists in league with the people traffickers. Their target was the head of a charity providing help to refugees, and your mother and the other victims were bystanders unwittingly caught up in the attack.’
‘That’s bullshit. If it was really true then why couldn’t we have this conversation in your office? Why did somebody break into my mother’s house? Why was I followed
