‘You said he had something to do with terrorism?’
‘Just so. Haddad is on a US watch list of terrorist sympathisers. Allegedly he helped fund a training camp in Somalia and provided advice and contacts to ISIS commanders in Syria who were involved in selling oil on the black market to Turkey. Such overt activity had to stop a few years back when the Saudi government launched a crackdown on their nationals funding terrorists. In reality the crackdown was half-hearted and it was easy for Haddad to find another way of getting money out of the country.’
‘Brandon Hope.’
‘Correct.’
‘And who are the other men?’
‘The good looking one is unidentified, but the guy with the beard is a man by the name of Mohid Latif.’
‘Should I know him?’
‘Not yet, but the security services do.’ Fairchild lifted another photograph from the table. ‘This picture comes courtesy of the Tunisian police. It’s taken from a CCTV camera on a building close to the cafe where your mother was killed.’
Silva took the picture and examined it. The still was monochrome and showed a street scene. A minibus sat across from the cafe, slewed in the road. Three men stood beside it, two of them holding assault rifles, the other a pistol. In the distance, distorted by the wide-angle lens of the camera, Silva could see the tables and chairs of the cafe. Anonymous people sitting at those tables, their faces too pixellated to recognise.
‘My mother?’ Silva’s hand shook, the photograph flapping in her hand.
‘The picture was taken at 2.31 p.m. exactly. Thirty seconds later the camera went offline when it was hit by a stray bullet.’ Fairchild lowered his voice. ‘Take a look at the man to the right of the minibus.’
Silva glanced down and tried to stop her hand from shaking. Like the other men, the figure to the right wore a chequered shemagh, but in this case it had slipped, revealing the face.
‘Mohid Latif?’
‘Yes. He was one of the attackers, and in the other picture there he is with Brandon Hope and a Saudi terrorist sympathiser. I don’t think they were discussing aid budgets.’
Silva sighed. It was too much to take in. She looked at the picture of the villa again. The blue sea sparkled in the distance, white boats scattered on the surface of the water. Hope appeared hot and uncomfortable, the other men calm. It was like a scene from a movie set. Unreal.
‘And Karen Hope?’
‘Here.’ Fairchild reached for yet another photograph. ‘Tell me she isn’t involved.’
Silva took the picture. The same metal bench, the same backdrop of sea and boats, the same green wall. Only this time Brandon and Haddad had gone and had been replaced by Karen Hope. Her head was turned towards Latif and the other man and was bowed slightly, as if she was listening intently.
A tingle slipped across the back of Silva’s hand as she let the picture drop to the table. She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘If this is true – if, mind you – then you have all the information you need to expose Karen Hope and her brother. I don’t see how I can add anything to what you’ve already discovered. Where do I fit in?’
‘You haven’t twigged?’ Fairchild smiled. ‘Where do you think these pictures came from?’
‘I presume you’ve got sources. People who snoop for you.’
‘These photographs were taken by your mother.’
‘What?’ Silva stared down, the photographs all of a sudden imbued with a heightened significance.
‘Yes. Your mother was in Italy tracking Brandon Hope.’
‘But what about the people-trafficking story?’
‘The people-trafficking story led her to the Hopes. You see, the charity Brandon runs operates a rescue boat that scours the Med for refugees. Your mother suspected something dodgy was going on and discovered the Saudi connection and a much, much bigger story. A story that ultimately got her killed.’
‘Because the Hopes wanted to cover up the links to Haddad?’
‘Precisely. What she didn’t realise as she took those photographs was that she was witnessing the Hopes signing her own death warrant. They were recruiting Latif and the other man to kill her. The attack on the head of the women’s charity was just a front, a blind. She was the bystander, not your mother. You mother died because she was about to expose the Hopes and their dodgy dealings. Had the story come out, Karen Hope would have been toast.’
‘How do you know all this? It can’t be common knowledge.’
‘Of course not. Your mother knew she was working on the scoop of a lifetime, a story that had the potential to bring down the most powerful person in the world. This was Watergate for the twenty-first century. Bigger, even. She knew that was dangerous so she took precautions. All her files were backed up to the agency’s server, but she
