Paula scribbled in her notebook. ‘Always happy to have input,’ she muttered.
‘OK. Back here tomorrow morning unless you hear otherwise. I’ll be on the end of a phone as usual if you need me.’ Carol got to her feet. ‘Let’s hit the bricks.’
‘What about me?’ Tony said plaintively.
‘Keep on thinking, Tony,’ Carol said. ‘It’s what you do best.’ There was, he knew, a tiny buried barb there, but he was content to let it go.
On their way to the lift, Paula drew Kevin to one side. ‘I need a word. Meet me in the canteen in five minutes.’
Kevin immediately looked anxious. In his experience, when Paula went off on one of her tangents, it always made for times that were interesting in the Chinese sense. She was a magnet for complications, and complications were what Kevin thought he’d finally left behind. He’d given up the quiet life for the time being but that didn’t mean he was eager for full-on aggravation again.
He arrived in the canteen to find Paula in a quiet corner with a can of Diet Coke and a small stack of Kit Kats. ‘The four main food groups,’ she said as he sat down. ‘Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate and Diet Coke. You want one?’
‘Neither,’ he said. ‘Are you always like this when Elinor’s not looking?’
Paula pulled a face. ‘Pretty much. Not to mention that Torin hoovers up any stray biscuit, cake or chocolate in the house.’
‘That’s teenagers for you.’ The weary voice of experience. ‘So, what’s the word?’
Paula looked wary, which worried him even more. ‘Somebody leaked the story about Carol to the press.’
He flushed the dark blotchy red that sometimes afflicts redheads. Leaking was the sin that had cost him his inspector’s rank all those years before. Was Paula actually suggesting he’d be stupid enough to commit the same transgression twice? ‘I didn’t even know the details,’ he said quickly. ‘Don’t look at me, Paula.’
Her expression was aghast. ‘God, no, Kevin, that truly was the last thing on my mind.’ Her hand covered her mouth as if she wished she could swallow the words that had so upset him. ‘No, that never even occurred to me.’
He studied her eyes for what felt like a long moment. ‘OK. I’m a bit sensitive on the subject, even after all this time. So what are you getting at?’
‘Like I said, somebody leaked. Stacey and I decided we needed to know who. It’s always easier to deal with your enemies if you know who they are. And we need to know if this is someone inside or outside the tent.’
Kevin gave a grim smile. ‘So Stacey went walkabout inside the Sentinel Times server.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘And she couldn’t find anything,’ Paula said ruefully. ‘Not a single electronic trace. No memo, no internal mail, no payment linked to the story. And no payment requisitioned in the name of anyone we recognise.’
‘So why are we having this conversation?’ He had a terrible feeling of impending doom. Someone had told him that was one of the warning signs of a heart attack. The way he was feeling now, a heart attack would be a better option than where he feared Paula was going with this.
‘When elint lets you down, you have to go back to humint.’ The sentence hung in the air between them. Paula’s words were, Kevin knew, the opposite of what Stacey believed. Machines have limits; human relationships are more flexible, more malleable. That was anathema to someone who had staked everything on the machines. But to the likes of him and Paula, it made perfect sense. And now he knew why they were there.
‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘I can’t go back there again.’
‘I’m not asking you to do that. All we need is for you to ask the question.’
He shook his head. He tried to feel numb because he knew numb was safe. Numb was protected. ‘She nearly destroyed my marriage. She nearly destroyed me.’
‘I know. But someone’s trying to destroy Carol and we owe it to her to try to put a spoke in their wheel. It’s been years, Kevin. Surely it’s ancient history for both of you now?’
He gave a bitter little bark of laughter. ‘Have you ever had love like a virus? Something in your bloodstream that you can’t medicate against? You think you’re over it, you think you’ve recovered and then you see her and bang! It’s like you’re back at square one. Mad with it.’
‘Oh yes,’ Paula said softly. ‘The demon lover. The one you can never outrun. The one who always has your number. Alison Young. I keep tabs on her even now, to make sure our paths don’t cross because I’m scared I wouldn’t be able to resist. How insane is that? I absolutely adore Elinor. I don’t have a nanosecond of doubt about the love we have for each other. But I don’t trust myself enough to be convinced I could walk past Alison Young. So yes, I do know exactly what you mean. I’m asking you to take Alison Young out for a drink.’
Kevin closed his eyes and breathed slowly in and out. Then his eyes snapped open and he reached for a Kit Kat. He stripped off the wrapper and stuffed it in his mouth. It was gone in two bites. ‘You want me …’ he spoke through a mouthful of chocolate wafer, ‘to make contact … with Penny Burgess?’
Paula sighed. ‘If she doesn’t already know the source of that story, she could find out. And God knows she owes you.’
Kevin covered his face with his hands and rubbed, as if he was scrubbing himself clean. ‘I almost wrecked my marriage. And my family. Stella and me, we’ve rebuilt our life together.’
‘And that’s your rock.’
‘You think?’
Paula nodded, reaching out and taking hold of Kevin’s trembling hand. ‘I don’t think, I know. I’ve watched you piece your life back together and I admire you for it. Kevin, I don’t believe Penny Burgess should hold any fear for you now.’
He gave an unconvincing smile. ‘You’re only saying that because you want me to find out who shafted Carol.’
Paula shook her head. ‘I won’t deny that’s important. Not just to me, but for all of us. But sitting here, seeing you like this, I can’t help feeling that what’s as important is for you to lay the ghost of Penny Burgess to rest. I mean that, Kev. You’ll never be free in your head till you confront her and realise she has no power over you any more. If you won’t do it for Carol, if you won’t do it for all of us, do it for Stella.’
43
Ursula Foreman stared at her car in dismay. That the tyre was flat was bad enough. But it definitely looked as if someone had taken a knife to it. She’d grown almost blasé about the endless online vituperation, laughing it off in public and despising it in private. But if this was what it looked like, it represented an unnerving escalation. It was no big deal to rip into someone anonymously online. Slashing her car tyre was aggression of a different order. She looked around, as if half-expecting an attacker to be lurking in the shadows of the food bank car park.
But there was nowhere to hide and no one in sight. Just a handful of cars belonging mostly to volunteers; most of their clients couldn’t afford to drive to the facility. Whoever had done this was long gone. There was no certainty that the attack had even been directed at her. There were some nutters around who were opposed to the food banks, suggesting that their very presence attracted people they considered to be human vermin – immigrants, the poor, the care-in-the-community cases with their mental health problems.
Ursula muttered under her breath and unlocked the car. The last thing she felt like doing was changing a tyre. All she wanted was to be home, eating whatever delicious meal Bill would have whipped up. He was off to London for a couple of nights in the morning, and he always made a point of cooking something special on the eve of such departures. It was as if he wanted to leave a reminder of himself in the aromas that would linger in the kitchen and the fridge.
As she popped the boot, another car drove into the car park and pulled up alongside her. Ursula glanced across and recognised the new volunteer she’d chatted to the week before. What was his name again? Mike? Matt? Martin? She pushed aside the pile of bags for life and raised the carpet of the boot.
Matt, that was it.
Almost before she knew it, he was standing between the two cars, a look of concern on his face. ‘Is something wrong, Ursula?’
‘Somebody’s slashed one of my tyres,’ she said, leaning forward to unscrew the brace that held the spare in place.
‘You’re kidding. That’s terrible.’
She paused and sighed. ‘It’s pretty upsetting, Matt. I’m used to being challenged for what I write, but it’s never descended into a direct attack like this.’
He stepped forward. ‘Let me help you with that. I’m pretty good with my hands.’ He smiled, an open, disarming expression on his face.
She hesitated, but only for a moment. As a good feminist, she knew she should take responsibility for herself. But there were worse things than accepting help from someone, even if it was a man. After all, it wasn’t as if she was playing the helpless little woman. She was perfectly capable of doing it herself but, if she was honest, she could live without the hard labour of changing a tyre and the concomitant mess. ‘Thank you. I appreciate that.’ She stepped to one side to give him access to the spare and the tools.
‘I’ll have this done in no time,’ he said. ‘I quite like getting my hands dirty. I don’t get the chance much these days.’
He’d explained during their previous conversation that he was a systems analyst, working with small and medium-sized businesses to streamline their operations. It took him all over the country on an unpredictable schedule. She imagined he was good at his job. He seemed very precise and organised in the food bank. And he was pretty anonymous-looking, with his mid-brown hair cut neatly in no particular style, his regular features and his average build. There was nothing dramatic or threatening about him, nothing that would unnerve female clients or make men feel challenged.
Just like now. Without any fuss, he had the spare wheel out and the jack in place under the chassis. ‘You’re right, somebody has taken a blade to this,’ he said, squatting down to study the tyre. ‘That feels very personal.’
‘It does,’ Ursula said, unable to stop the shudder that ran through her. ‘But maybe it’s random. Somebody who hates the food bank.’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. If they hated the food bank that much, they’d throw a brick through the window or put dog mess through the letter box.’
‘That’s a scary thought. I’ve had a lot of hate mail – I don’t know if you remember me telling you I help to run an online magazine? Some people – let’s be honest, some men – don’t like the things I have to say. But this is the first time I’ve had a direct personal attack like this.’
He grunted as he strained the wheel brace against the nuts. ‘That’s not something you think about when you take up a controversial position. The people out there who are so offended they’ll take up arms against you.’
‘You’re so right,’ Ursula sighed. ‘But I wouldn’t have done anything differently. You’ve got to stand up for what you believe in. Otherwise, what’s the point?’
The final nut gave way to his strength and he manhandled the wheel clear of its housing. ‘I agree. The problems start when you have to deal with the fact that other people have a different set of beliefs. Sometimes ones that are incompatible with yours. And they would say they have as much evidence to back them up as you do.’
‘That’s a very good point. But surely the sensible thing to do is to talk it over? To agree to differ? Not fill people’s inbox with abuse and slash their tyres?’
He jiggled the spare tyre, trying to align the bolts with the holes in the wheel. ‘Some people are beyond rational argument, though. They won’t shift their position even when you offer them compelling evidence that they’re in the wrong.’ The wheel clanked into place. ‘Oof. Nearly done now. Are you heading off anywhere special?’
‘No, I’m going home. My husband’s off to London tomorrow on a business trip and he’s cooking a special dinner.’
‘Just the family?’
‘Just the two of us. We don’t have kids.’
‘That’s a shame.’ He finger-tightened the nuts.
‘No, we’ve no regrets. We decided there were enough children on the planet and we both have careers that we enjoy, and it would have been difficult to pursue them to the full if we’d had kids. And neither of us has ever felt particularly broody.’ She shrugged. ‘It works for us. What about you?’
He hunched over the wheel. ‘Never met the right woman.’
Ursula, who still felt blessed by Bill after fourteen years together, had a momentary pang of sorrow for him. ‘It’s not too late,’ she said. ‘Lots of people find love later in life.’
He gave a dry chuckle. ‘And lots don’t. I think my standards are too high.’ He wiggled the wheel nuts back on. ‘Speaking of high standards. I could use a little advice from you.’
‘Sure,’ Ursula said, not sure what she was letting herself in for but aware that one favour deserved another.
‘I’ve been doing this job for a long time now, and I think I’ve got a pretty individual approach to figuring out what companies can easily do to make their systems more effective. I thought there might be some money in a self-help book that would teach bosses how to work out their own streamlining.’
‘You’re probably right. After all, you can’t be everywhere.’
‘Exactly. Could I pop round sometime and have a chat with you about how I might approach it? From the practical side? I thought with your involvement in TellIt! you might have some useful tips.’
It was, she thought, not much of an ask. An hour at the kitchen table would easily repay his kindness. ‘Yeah, sure,’ she said. ‘Any morning this week would be fine. I’ll be at home working. I’m always glad of the chance of a coffee break.’
He smiled. ‘You’ve no idea how much I appreciate that. I’ll look forward to it.’
44
Every now and again, Stacey got to step out from behind her desk and play at being James Bond in a dress. The lengths she went to in protecting her sources and herself might have seemed paranoid to an observer. But Stacey knew exactly how many traces people scattered behind themselves every day, merely going about their routine business. Not leaving a trail in the era of electronic surveillance and cameras everywhere was impossibly difficult. But Stacey had schooled herself; she could have chosen ‘hiding in plain sight’ as a Mastermind specialist subject.
In her desk drawer she kept a stash of pay-as-you-go SIM cards, all bought with cash in a haphazard selection of shops all over the country. Whenever work took her to a different city, she would top up her stock. Now she selected a random SIM and slotted it into a phone that any teenager would have been embarrassed to possess, never mind to use. She sent a text that consisted of a string of numbers that were two digits higher than the actual number she was sending, which corresponded to a public phone on the central station concourse, ten minutes’ walk from her flat.
When her text arrived, she knew her contact would leave his flat and scurry across the shopping centre to a bank of pay phones. Fifteen minutes after she’d sent the text, he would call the phone where she was waiting. It was, she thought, ironic that with all the advances in technology, the most secure way to communicate was by the practically prehistoric system of telephone landlines. But these calls couldn’t be scanned or streamed through some government security system. They were pretty robust when it came to security, especially if you used pay phones rather than a home line that could, theoretically, be tapped.
Exactly quarter of an hour later, the phone next to Stacey rang abruptly. She picked it up and said, ‘Valhalla.’
There was a short pause. She could hear the man on the other end of the line breathing. ‘DVLA,’ he said.
‘Done. Ten, K.’ Transaction completed, she put the phone down. The arrangement was simple. In exchange for access codes for Valhalla’s server, she would hand over access to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency’s database. Both would be time-limited, obviously. Any system worth ha
ving changed its access codes regularly. As in, daily or weekly. The handover would take place in row K of screen ten of the shopping mall’s multi-screen cinema at the start of the next film being shown there. All beautifully random and, of course, invisible to CCTV because they’d be in the dark.
Stacey checked her regular phone. She had forty-seven minutes to kill before the next showing. She groaned. A romcom set in a Midwest college dorm. And she’d have to sit through enough of it not to look suspicious. The things she did for Carol Jordan.
She cut through the city centre to the shopping mall and slowly browsed her way through, doubling back on herself and lingering over displays of handbags and shoes. She was as certain as she could be that she had no pursuit on foot, so she made her way to the cinema, bought a ticket with cash and settled into a seat midway along the empty row K. There were less than a dozen patrons in the cinema; pensioners taking advantage of cheap matinee rates. Good for them, Stacey thought. Better here than sitting in a cold flat watching day-time soaps.
The lights dimmed and still she was alone. Adverts for cars and holiday destinations and fast-food chains; trailers for films she swore she’d never see; then finally the BBFC certificate revealing that Cupcakes to Die For had a 12A certificate. Halfway through the opening titles, a tall, lean figure folded itself into the seat next to her. He smelled of coconut and pineapple. What was it with hair product these days? Half the world smelled like a tropical fruit salad. ‘Hey, Stace, how’s it going,’ a low bass voice rumbled in her ear.
‘It’s going, Harvey.’
He chuckled. ‘It’s later than we think, right?’ He stuck a hand in his pocket and pulled out a taxi company receipt. In the light from the screen, Stacey could see a scribbled line of numbers, letters, slashes and dashes. ‘This is good till midnight. Best I could do.’