the absurdity of it.
‘Do you know which company?’
She nodded. ‘They’re local. Menai Management. In the centre of Caernarfon.’
‘Thank you. I don’t suppose you know if Vanessa has any friends in the area?’
‘I doubt it. She was such a quiet girl growing up — and her mother always kept her nose to the grindstone. Wanted her to go to university and get a good job. She was too hard on her, in my opinion, always pushing her to excel, poor kid — as if she might make up for being a bit plain by having a string of letters after her name. Her father wanted it, too, don’t get me wrong, but he died when she was in her teens.’ She looked sad. ‘I’m not surprised she never came back, not once she got away. All that pressure — it was bound to tell in the end. Still, if hard work was the way to succeed, Maureen made sure that was how Vanessa would do it.’ She waved a vague hand towards the bungalow. ‘Makes you wonder why she keeps this place on, though, doesn’t it? If she’s never coming back.’
In exchange for her number, Harry left his card with Mrs Crane with a request that she call if she thought of anything useful, and returned to the car. Mrs Crane stood and watched him leave. Maybe, he thought, strange men calling on houses in the area constituted real excitement up here.
He got the number of Menai Management and got through to the office manager, Ian Griffiths, who said, ‘Sorry, Mr Tate. Can’t help you. There’s a standing order for the management fee, paid up to date. Instructions are to continue until notified otherwise. We don’t have authority to sell, if that’s what you’re after. I can’t give any further information, though, not over the phone and without proper authority-’
Harry cut the connection and drove into Caernarfon. The man was only doing his job, but he could do without the confidentiality runaround. He found the offices of Menai Management next to a chemist and stepped inside. The staff consisted of a pasty-faced man in his early thirties with a premature comb-over. He was sprawled behind a PC looking bored, and glanced up as Harry entered. He tapped a key, shutting down the screen.
‘Can I help?’
Harry flashed his MI5 card and said, ‘MOD police, Mr Griffiths. I’m trying to trace Miss Vanessa Tan.’
Griffiths jumped up.’ Oh, you’re the bloke who rang earlier. Police, you say? What’s happened to her, then? Nothing serious, I hope.’
‘That’s what we’d like to find out.’ Harry gave him a level look. ‘Are you going to help me or do I need a warrant?’ He looked at the PC humming on the desk and tapped the monitor reflectively. ‘Are all your records computerized?’
‘Of course. Why?’
‘We’d have to impound that, for a start.’
Griffiths looked stunned. ‘What? But there’s nothing on there. I mean. . work stuff and a few games, stuff like that. Nothing that would interest the police, though.’ He put a protective hand on the monitor. ‘Um. . what exactly do you need?’
‘A contact number or an address. Either would do. I presume you have one?’
‘Of course, yes. Standard practice. I’ll just call it up.’ The manager’s throat sounded dry, as if he was having trouble gauging how much damage could be done by having his computer taken away. He slid behind the desk and tapped at the keys, then frowned. ‘That’s odd.’ He tapped again but the frown stayed. He looked up at Harry in a mild state of panic. ‘I don’t understand it; there’s nothing on here. No address, telephone — nothing. But we
‘How long is it since you last looked at the file?’ Harry was sceptical about the man’s air of surprise. Whatever had happened, whether by accident or design, he was willing to bet that a long-term arrangement with automatic payments made through a bank would soon become part of the wallpaper, rarely checked or updated because anything more would be too costly. Until something went wrong.
‘I don’t know.’ Griffiths looked embarrassed. ‘A while, I admit.’
‘You did some patching work on a window recently. Is that part of the agreement?’
‘Yes. I mean, it doesn’t include anything major or structural — we’d have to get permission to do that. But we had instruction to look after the basic skin, if you like, make sure the property’s secure, no burst pipes and so forth. I saw the cracked window on my last visit about three weeks ago — a blackbird had hit it — so I placed a panel of three-ply over it until I get the owner’s agreement to replace the glass.’ He pulled a wry face. ‘I suppose I can whistle goodbye to that, if she’s gone missing.’
He had a thought. It was a long shot, but Griffiths was about the same age as Vanessa Tan, and the catchment area for schools here would probably have covered a fairly wide patch. He took out the photo and said, ‘Is this the owner? You might have known her.’ He was to be disappointed.
‘No idea. I never met her.’ Griffiths looked at the photo and made a soft whistling noise. ‘I wish I had, though. Would’ve made life a lot more interesting.’
Harry thanked him for his help. The fact that they’d never met cut down the need to ask any further questions. He returned to the car. On the way, he rang Rik and asked him to access the phone records for the Tan number. Then he set off back to London. There was nothing to be gained by staying around here. It was a blind, going nowhere.
Thirty minutes later, Rik sent a text.
Harry switched off the phone. At least the drive back gave him plenty of time to think. Mainly about what had happened to Vanessa Tan, hard-working, nose-to-the-grindstone student with ambitious parents. Had the enforced studies coupled with military service been a push too much, or had something more sinister happened to make her disappear?
He took out the photo and glanced at it as he drove. Something was tugging at the corner of his mind. Something Mrs Crane had said. . and Griffiths, too. But whatever it was wouldn’t come. Instinct told him it was significant, but knowing that didn’t help.
TWELVE
In a small bar in Wandsbek, a district of north-east Hamburg, three men sat around a table in a back function room. One of them was talking quietly on a mobile. The other two waited patiently. The room lights were on and the broad Friedrich-Ebert-Damm outside hummed with the rush of traffic. Four glasses and a chilled carafe of Mosel stood on a tray in the centre, but none of the men had yet taken a drink.
‘It’s done.’ The man on the phone switched it off and dropped it into his breast pocket. Then he reached for the carafe and poured three measures of wine. Thomas Deakin was slim, fair-haired and tanned, with quick eyes and a way of checking his surroundings on a constant rotation. It was unsettling to anyone meeting him for the first time, but a habit those around him had come to accept. He had the antennae of a guard dog and his instincts had served him well since going AWOL — a useful function for a man permanently guarding his back. He hadn’t stepped foot inside the UK since walking away from his unit in the Scots Guards while in transit through Germany, and was constantly on the move from one country to another, regularly changing identities to stay ahead of anyone hunting him. Infrequent meetings in anonymous bars like this, with routes in and out guaranteed and locations never used more than once, were what had kept him out of trouble for so long.
‘Which one?’ The man to his left was in his early forties, whipcord thin, balding and ascetic-looking. Former Master Sergeant Greg Turpowicz, a Texan, had taken his own leave of the US 101st Airborne Division and joined Deakin after surviving too many close shaves in a job he had long ceased to care about.
‘Pike. The Signals wonk. They iced him on the way to Colchester. That’s the British Military Detention Centre,’ he added, for the American’s benefit.
‘What a waste.’ The third man was Colin Nicholls, once a major in the Intelligence Corps. ‘I was counting on getting Pike on board. What went wrong?’ His tone was soft but accusatory. He’d made it clear already that he considered Deakin’s general approach to deserters far too aggressive, and likely to frighten off those who really needed help.
