Getting into the van, I take a moment to get familiar with the stick-shift gearbox and the general layout of the dashboard. Then I tap an address into my GPS and rev my way up the twisting exit ramps of the garage and out into the London traffic that slowly trails its way down the Embankment.
Jake Graham’s home is located in Wimbledon, a leafy area of London best known for its Grand Slam tennis tournament. It takes me about fifty minutes to get there, weaving through the traffic over the Albert Bridge and through Battersea. Jake lives with his wife and two teenage boys in a small, detached house on a quiet backstreet. I pull up across the road and scan over the building. Both he and his wife are at work, and the kids are not due back from school till after four. But there is a cleaning lady who apparently comes over twice a week.
I jump down from the van. I’m wearing dark green overalls and a baseball cap supplied to me by Amber. Both are embroidered with the energy company’s logo. In my right hand, I hold an iPad in a thick cover. In my left, I hold my company ID, complete with a phone number that a suspicious homeowner can call, so that Amber can use her cut-glass accent to assure them that I really am an employee of South West Power.
The outside of Jake’s house is free of CCTV cameras, with only an alarm box on the brickwork outside the upstairs window. I keep my head down, anyway, so that my cap covers my face in case of any bored or nosy neighbors. I ring the front doorbell twice, and it repeats a tinkling chime that feels completely suburban. I watch through the frosted glass panel in the door as a shape approaches from inside the house.
A small, muscular woman opens up. Pale eyes, pale hair pulled back from her face. She’s in jeans and a sweater, covered with an apron. She’s also holding a microfiber duster cloth and a can of furniture polish, so it doesn’t tax my powers of deduction to feel sure that this is, indeed, the cleaner.
“I’ve come to read the meters,” I say. “Gas and electric.”
I hold out my ID and her eyes flicker onto it briefly, but she’s not terribly bothered and just holds open the door. I suppose that this is one of the safer parts of town and I am a nonthreatening young woman. The cleaner bustles across the hall and throws open the door to a small utility room. Inside, a tumble dryer spins a load of laundry in relentless circles and there, on the wall opposite, are the power meters. She doesn’t stop to watch me do my fake read of the numbers, but carries on back to the kitchen, where I hear the tap go on. The laundry room has a small window but it’s locked. Casting about, I find the key neatly placed on a shelf beneath it. Quickly, I unlock it and put the key back. Just in case I don’t get what I need right now, I’ll be able to come back in later.
I pad out of the room and call out. “Sorry, would you mind if I use your loo?”
The cleaner comes out of the kitchen, but leaves the tap running in there. A yellow washing-up glove on her hand drips water.
“Upstairs, first door on the right.” She seems a tad annoyed. Maybe she just cleaned it.
“Thanks. Won’t be long.”
I hurry up the stairs and open and close the bathroom door—but I’m still outside it. I take a hasty glance around. There are obvious bedrooms running off the long hallway, but right at the end is a closed door that feels right. I stride down toward it, my steps mercifully silent on the thick carpet. The door’s unlocked, thank goodness, and as soon as I step inside the room, I can see I’ve hit pay dirt. Jake’s office is compact and filled with books and magazines, not to mention towering stacks of old newspapers piled on the edge of a wide, wooden desk. Digital subscriptions don’t appear to be his thing. To my left, a small window looks onto the road. To my right, a university degree hangs on the wall, along with a couple of framed newspaper clippings and pictures of Jake meeting political bigwigs. But my attention is drawn wholly to the long wall behind his desk.
It’s a chart, but on steroids. The first thing I notice is a head shot of Kit, positioned top and middle. A clipping about Peggy, with a quote of hers highlighted in pink marker, is next to it. From there, hand-drawn arrows radiate out—to other story clippings and a picture of Ahmed, the warlord I killed in Cameroon.
Still more arrows lead to city names written out in capital letters—BELGRADE, CAMEROON, LONDON, TOKYO, MOSCOW, BEIRUT. Some I know all too well, some I’ve never even been to. There’s a bunch of stuff that means nothing to me and a lot that does, but I can’t process it because I’m under extreme time pressure here. Lifting my phone, I snap photos of the chart from all angles. There’ll be time to analyze it later. Turning my attention to the desk, I stick a tiny microphone under the foot, just in case Jake takes calls in here.
Next, I flip through the notebooks on his desk, taking more photos of the pages. The one that’s open is filled with notes and clippings about the attack on Kit’s school. Flipping through, I find more charts, and a transcript of a call he’s had with a source, in which he’s trying to find out who Family First are. It’s all fascinating, but spurring me on is the sense that time is passing
