Novak could find nothing else in the clothes or suitcase, and the rest of the small room was also devoid of clues. A few clothes hung in the wardrobe, but after cutting them all open he found nothing hidden in the lining. Nor was there anything in the heels of her shoes, which he broke off one by one. Only detritus remained on the desk and in its drawers. The waste paper basket had been upended, presumably by the gendarmerie, and its contents left on the floor; two empty Marlboro cigarette packets, a banana skin, a plastic salad container from the local marché, a paper bag from a local farmhouse containing two stale cakes.
Novak crouched to poke through the trash, found nothing, stood, hesitated, crouched again.
Délices de la Ferme Baudin, Côte-d’Or.
Côte-d’Or was far from local. It was two hours’ drive away. He remembered something Montgomery had said, that Ms Short lied about visiting a vineyard. He thought she might have returned to London that weekend. But what if she actually spent it at a farmhouse in Côte-d’Or? A farmhouse she didn’t want Montgomery to know about?
Novak emptied the bag of its stale cakes, folded it, and placed it in his pocket. He stepped over the unconscious gendarme, who was murmuring and sweating in his sleep, and entered his own room. There, he returned his tools to their pockets in his case, removed all trace of himself from every surface, and left the guest house to drive south.
59
Andrea Thomson cursed and kicked the side of a cargo container. The metallic clang rang out across the dockside tarmac.
The cargo ship carrying the matériel chaud had docked the night before, and its cargo finished unloading several hours ago. The dock kept a record of each container’s location within the port, among the rows and rows of multicoloured stacked metal boxes, but some had already been placed on trucks and driven away. So there was no way to know if the smuggled material was still at the port, or on its way. Even if it was still here, the chances of it being part of the ship’s registered cargo were essentially zero. Everyone along the chain would have been paid handsomely to look the other way and wave the mysterious package through. Emily Dunston believed it would likely be buried inside a random legitimate container.
Andrea had demanded every container from the ship still at Portsmouth be detained until port security opened each one and ran a Geiger counter over it. She’d also insisted that every container leaving the port be scanned for radiation, but the port manager had put his foot down over that.
“We process more than a thousand import containers through this port every day,” he said, “and we conduct random scans of departing containers at all times. We can add radiation scans to that procedure, and increase the frequency by maybe thirty per cent, maximum. But any more than that would cause an impossible bottleneck. It’d make French fuel strikes look like a day at the beach.”
“I don’t care,” protested Andrea. “This is a matter of national security.”
“And this is an international port with some of the strictest security measures in Europe,” said the manager. “I’m sorry, but even you lot don’t have unlimited authority here. Technically, this whole area is answerable to the Crown, not Parliament.”
Andrea wasn’t convinced that was true, but arguing the point would only waste more time. The manager turned on his heel and left, with an I’ll-see-what-I-can-do shrug.
Emily Dunston scowled. “Never mind the Crown, this is a right royal balls-up. I should have pushed for more resources. Now you lot are stuck with chasing a radioactive box around the country, and we can’t tell you where it is or who has it.”
As the clang from Andrea’s kick faded, she sighed. “It’s got to be London, hasn’t it? You don’t ship a box of nuclear waste halfway round the world, smuggle it up through Europe and over the Channel just to unleash it on Skegness.”
Dunston looked amused. “Surprisingly London-centric for a Scot.”
“Call it realism. Comes with the job.”
“That it does. And you’re right, if this is to be weaponised, we have to assume London is the target. But there’s still a chance it could be on its way to a buyer, who might then ship it on somewhere else.”
Andrea snorted. “Chance’d be a fine thing. At least then it’d be someone else’s problem.” They walked back to the car. “But something tells me we won’t be that lucky.”
60
The data recovery process on the SD card had been running all night — she’d had enough foresight to plug the laptop in before she went to sleep — and was eighty per cent finished at six-thirty in the morning, when Bridge was woken by Izzy and Steph making cakes again. In the bathroom, visions of Syria drifted behind the mirror as she cleaned her teeth with Izzy’s brush. The sight of Adrian’s blood, his nightmarish head in the jeep’s passenger seat…it was just dream logic, they weren’t real memories, they meant nothing. And yet.
She took a scalding hot shower to distract herself, and move the thoughts to a dark corner of her mind. Dr Nayar would frown at that, but she didn’t have time to process this stuff right now. If past experience was anything to go by, they’d stop bothering her in a few hours. As she entered the kitchen they were already little more than phantoms, tenacious but insubstantial.
“Are you coming with us to the patisseries, Auntie Bridge?”
Steph’s question pulled Bridge from her thoughts, but before she could respond, Izzy cut in.
“Actually, sweetheart, I think this morning it’ll just be Maman and Auntie Bridge by ourselves. We need to talk about grown-up stuff.”
Steph was devastated. Bridge thought she might burst into tears at any moment. “But I’m four. I can talk about grown-up
