She ducked below and slid the hatch shut. She drew the curtains and hunkered down at the table. Fairchild had left her a burner phone, a pay-as-you-go mobile that was untraceable. Silva pulled it out. She was tempted to ring him but then wondered about Itchy. Was he a target? She didn’t want to phone him either in case Weiss was somehow listening in, but she felt responsible and he deserved a warning. She hadn’t unpacked the day before, but now she pulled the pannier bags open and took out all the clothing she’d taken to Italy. She rummaged in a locker for some fresh items and stuffed them in the bags. Then she clambered up through the companionway, slid the hatch shut and locked it, and made for her motorbike.
Ten minutes later she pulled up outside Itchy’s terraced house. A knock brought him to the door and he hustled Silva inside.
‘You hear about the money?’ he said. His mouth widened into a smile. ‘Twenty-five K. Not bad, considering.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve been paid. Twenty-five thousand pounds. It appeared in my bank account overnight.’
‘Never mind the money,’ Silva said. She followed Itchy through into the living room and closed the door behind her. ‘Neil Milligan is dead.’
‘Who?’
‘The journalist my mum used to work for. He knew about the story, knew about the Hopes. He’s been murdered.’
‘Murdered?’
‘He was stabbed and it was made to look like a mugging, but that’s just a cover.’ Silva shrugged and let her arms hang loose. She was at a loss. She stared past Itchy. The wall behind him had been stripped of wallpaper but little pieces of the gold-flecked covering remained. Itchy’s house was a refurbishment job and for a moment Silva thought about the ridiculousness of the situation. Here she was worrying about his renovation project when just two days ago she’d been attempting to kill the next president of the United States. ‘My guess is we’re next.’
‘Caz.’ Itchy tilted his head and looked at the ceiling. ‘She’s upstairs.’
‘Did you tell her anything about the Italy trip?’
‘Only that I was going on a security job. Protection. That sort of thing. She doesn’t know where we went, who we met, or any of the details.’
‘Good. Is there anywhere she can go for a few days? Not family – they’re too easy to trace – a friend perhaps?’
‘She’s got a mate in Edinburgh.’
‘Perfect. Tell her something’s come up. She shouldn’t be worried but it might be safer if she went away on a little holiday. Say it’s a treat. Spend some of that money.’
‘Shit, Silvi. I hate lying to her.’
‘Don’t lie, then. Just don’t tell her the whole truth, right?’
‘OK.’ Itchy nodded. ‘And us? I guess we could just bugger off in your boat.’ Itchy made a wavy movement with his hand. ‘Head out to sea?’
‘She can do about five knots with a good wind. That’s a hundred and twenty miles a day. I don’t think we’d get far before they caught up with us, do you?’
‘We’re not going to just sit here and wait for them, are we?’
‘No. Remember Afghanistan? What we did there? If there was an enemy sniper pinning down our unit we didn’t wait to be picked off, did we?’
‘No.’ Itchy was moving to the doorway. He’d got the message. ‘We went out into the field and hunted them down.’
‘Exactly.’
Hunting the enemy down was all well and good, but Silva had something else to do first.
‘We need to visit my dad,’ she said into her helmet microphone as they cruised up the motorway. ‘I want to persuade him to go somewhere safe for a bit.’
‘Good luck with that.’ Itchy’s voice crackled back through the earpiece. He’d met Silva’s father. ‘A tenner says he refuses to budge.’
Silva didn’t reply. Itchy was almost certainly right.
They arrived at her father’s place a couple of hours later. Silva told Itchy to wait by the bikes and she went up to the front door. Mrs Collins answered with the look of somebody not best pleased to receive visitors.
‘You,’ she said. Behind the housekeeper the parquet flooring in the hallway shone like a mirror.
‘Yes, me.’ Silva was afraid to step in from the porch. She nodded at the floor. ‘Would you like me to remove my boots?’
‘You could go round the house.’ Mrs Collins gestured at the gravel drive. ‘He’s down by the lake, fishing.’
‘Fishing?’
‘Don’t ask.’
‘Right. Thank you.’
Silva retreated down the steps and walked round to the back. She found her father sitting on an old director’s chair perched precariously at the end of the wooden jetty. He held a fishing rod in his right hand, and every now and then he swished the rod back and forth, the thick fly line curling behind him before he sent it shooting out over the water. Silva stepped onto the jetty with a deliberately heavy footfall.
‘Dad? What are you up to?’
‘What does it look like I’m bloody up to? I’m trying to catch something for dinner.’ The response came without any note of surprise, as if her father had been expecting her all along.
‘Any luck?’
‘Not even a nibble.’ Her father wound in the line and placed the rod down on the jetty. ‘I see Karen Hope’s still alive.’
‘Yup. Snafu. That’s me. Failed again. Only this time I don’t think any of it was my fault.’ Silva noted the fishing rod and the green canvas bag. ‘That’s Fairchild’s, isn’t it?’
‘He sent it to me.’
‘No he didn’t. He’s been here again, hasn’t he?’
‘Well, yes, he came by yesterday.’
‘I guess he told you what happened?’
‘Yes.’
‘And warned you about Haddad?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you heard about Neil Milligan?’
‘Yes.’
‘So what the hell are you doing here, Dad?’ Silva stood
