‘You’re talking about Helen Flowers.’
The light in his eyes vanished. ‘Yes.’
‘Where is she?’
‘I can honestly say, hand on heart, that I don’t know.’ He rested his hand on his chest, but she didn’t believe him. She could never believe him after all his lies.
‘You sold fake bomb detectors.’
He looked away. ‘It wasn’t my idea.’
‘But you still sold them!’
When he began to spread his hands, to tell her another lie or two no doubt, she said, ‘Are you Shaitan?’
At that, he looked incredulous. ‘God, no. That’s her. She made up the name to keep people scared. And bugger me if it didn’t work like a dream. You breathe that word in a place like, say, Morocco or Libya, and they practically shit themselves.’
‘You did her dirty work out there. Because they wouldn’t deal with a woman, you represented her.’
He looked as though he wasn’t going to respond, but then he nodded.
‘All for money.’ She looked at him with an expression of disgust.
‘Don’t be so sanctimonious, Lucy. You’ve never been so hungry you’ve had to eat dog food out of a can. So thirsty you’ll drink out of puddles. You have no idea what it’s like to be poor.’
‘That is no excuse for flogging a fake device that’s ended up killing innocents all over the world!’
Carl shook his head. ‘You sound just like your mother.’
‘Don’t you have any remorse?’ she hissed.
He seemed to reflect for a moment, then he shrugged. ‘I suppose so. But I didn’t think that far. I just saw the opportunity to sell something and make a bloody fortune.’
‘Are the BreatheZero masks fake too?’
He shrugged again, which she took to mean yes.
‘Jesus.’ She fell quiet with the enormity of it all. The depths of her father’s greed. His Machiavellian personality. Dark and light, he was both of those. No wonder she and her mother loved him but hated him too.
‘Why did you become a cop?’
He was silent for a moment, then he turned his head to hold her eyes.
‘My final foster parents were in the police. They wanted something steady and safe for me, with a good pension. They knew my moral lines were a bit blurred and did their best to put me on the straight and narrow. I liked being a cop, you know. But it wasn’t half as interesting as being an entrepreneur. Nor did it pay half as well.’
The taxi cruised along the M1, past Brent Cross, then Edgware.
‘Dad.’
‘Yes, sweetheart?’
‘Did you kill Kaitlyn Rogers?’
At that, he turned and looked in her eyes. ‘I may be a bit on the edge business-wise, but I have never, ever, killed anyone in my life. And that includes poor Kaitlyn.’
Did she believe him?
Lucy was nibbling her lip, wondering if he could be a killer, when her phone buzzed. Amina Amari. It was, Lucy saw, bang on the hour: 4am.
Lucy answered by saying, ‘He’s with me.’
‘Excellent! Put him on.’
Lucy passed over the phone. Watched her father as he said, ‘Yes, I thought you might. We’re already on our way. Yes… yes…’ He glanced at his watch. ‘An hour. Yes.’ His expression was stony when he hung up.
‘What did she say?’
‘She’s given me the rendezvous.’
‘Which is?’
He leaned forward and tapped on the Plexiglass divider. The driver snapped a section back. ‘Yep?’
She listened to her father giving the driver an address in Imperial Way, Watford.
‘Not TASS’s old factory,’ she said disbelievingly.
‘The one and the same.’ He snapped shut the Plexiglass divider once more. ‘I guess she feels comfortable there, knowing the area.’
Lucy put her hand out for her phone, wanting to check the area out on Google Maps, but her father put it in his jacket pocket.
‘Hey! Give it back!’
‘I’ll give it to you later. I don’t want you ringing your cop friends and messing things up.’
‘They might save your life!’
‘They’ll throw me in jail.’
‘And I won’t?’
He held her eyes. ‘I’ll have to risk that, won’t I? But I’d rather it was you than some spotty constable with bad breath and an attitude.’
Lucy twisted her hands in her lap. She hoped she wouldn’t have to arrest him. The ignominy! She’d never get over it. She had to pray something else turned up during the handover, like a passing patrol car, but since they didn’t exist any more she’d do better to rely on a simple miracle from God Himself.
He leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes.
‘I wish I’d been a better father.’
‘Me too.’
They sat in silence for a while.
‘I saw Superintendent Hanmer,’ Lucy told him.
‘He’s a good man, Geoff.’
‘He stuck his neck out for you.’
‘Yes.’
‘He didn’t know you were involved with TASS or BreatheZero.’
‘No, of course he didn’t.’
‘What about Colin Pearson?’
‘Ha! Don’t make me laugh. The SFO? They couldn’t find their arses from their elbows. We were long gone before they even sneezed in our direction.’
‘It’s not a joke now, though?’ Her voice turned vicious. ‘With Kaitlyn dead and my friend, Dan, kidnapped.’
His jaw flexed. They didn’t speak until the taxi slowed, began winding its way through an industrial park. Builders’ warehouses, tool stations, van rental centres. At 4.20am the area was deserted.
‘It should be a simple swap,’ her father said. ‘Him for me. But if anything goes pear-shaped, run like hell, okay?’
The knot in her stomach tightened.
‘She won’t really kill you, will she?’
‘Put it this way,’ he said drily, ‘she won’t want it known that she’s been hoodwinked. Not least by her business partner.’
The taxi turned off the road and came to a halt in front of an engineering company. Orange street lights lit rows of parked cars, a skip.
‘We’re meeting around the back,’ he told her. ‘In the car park. We’re to walk there.’
He turned to her, expression bleak.
‘I love you, dearest daughter,’ he said, and she heard the tremor in it. ‘Which is why
