Trust No One

She pounded hard along the pathway, thanking Christ that she was wearing her low winter boots. Even so, she almost lost her footing on the slick paved surface as she turned the corner.

Her little Toyota was a hundred yards or so ahead, tucked into a row of other parked cars. She had her handbag open as she ran, struggling to find her keys. She glanced over her shoulder. The main doors of the apartment block were open. One of the men was peering out, maybe three or four hundred yards behind her.

She reached the car and pulled out the keys at more or less the same moment, thumbing open the central locking. Then she was in and starting the engine.

She looked in the rear-view mirror as the engine roared into life. As she pulled out into the road, she could see the man, still a long way behind. He’d halted in the doorway, aware that there was no point now in trying to pursue her.

She kept her foot down as she headed along the quays, the roads empty at this time of the night, passing between the lines of silent shops, restaurants, hotels, offices. The lights out on to Trafford Road were on red, but she didn’t slow, hoping to Christ that no late-night patrol car was lurking nearby. Moments later, still with no other traffic around, she reached the roundabout and took a sharp left, her foot hard to the floor.

Once she was on the motorway, she finally relaxed enough to look in the mirror. There were no cars behind her. Breathing more slowly now, she pulled off at the next junction, taking a right and following the road round until she saw the massive complex of Salford Royal Hospital on her right. A good place to stop, she thought. In a hospital, people would be coming and going at all hours of the night. Her car wouldn’t be conspicuous.

She took another right and entered the hospital grounds, following the signs to one of the visitors’ car parks, pulling in among a small scattering of other cars. She paused for a moment to gather her wits, the panic finally subsiding, then dug out her mobile. She couldn’t use the formal channels, couldn’t reveal that she’d been in Jake’s flat. She dialled 999 and gave a false name, reporting a break-in and serious assault at Jake’s address. Her number was withheld, so there’d be no clue to her identity showing up on the operator’s caller ID. She answered the questions as briefly as she could, trying to give nothing away. No, she didn’t know what was happening, she was just a passer-by, didn’t want to get involved. Then, feeling guilty at her own impotence, she ended the call.

It was all she could have done, but she felt no confidence that her call had been taken seriously. Then somewhere behind, in the heart of the city, she heard the rising wail of a police siren. Maybe they were already answering the call. Maybe.

She could feel her training kicking in, leading her through the ramifications of all this. Someone had taken out a contract on Jake. She could easily guess why and probably even who. But the real question was how. How had they known? And where did that leave her?

She tracked back through her movements of the previous evening, working out whether she’d left any sign of her presence, anything that would allow her to be identified. She’d taken her clothes, her bag, her mobile. There was nothing else, other than her DNA. No one was likely to make the link, unless she’d already been compromised.

The other question was whether the man had seen her car registration. She thought not. It was dark, she was pulling out from between parked cars, he was a long way away. But she couldn’t be sure. If he had, she was a dead woman already.

Shit. The professional part of her mind was grinding through its dispassionate gears. But the other part of her brain was silently screaming. Jake. Jake lying naked, crouched at the feet of three professional fucking assassins. Jake with blood already pouring from him. Jake, her lover only hours before. Jake.

It was possible she’d frightened them off. They might have left the job unfinished. The police might have turned up in time. Any fucking thing might have happened.

But it wouldn’t have. She knew that. They were pros. They always finished the job. They didn’t leave witnesses. They got what they wanted.

And they’d got Jake.

Part One Summer: Preparation (#u6d48e3df-e606-5501-88b5-080e56020409)

Chapter 1 (#u6d48e3df-e606-5501-88b5-080e56020409)

She was looking for her car when she noticed the moving van on the far side of the car park. Going too fast, Marie thought. Not just exceeding the notional speed limit – most drivers here did that – but hitting thirty, forty miles per hour. Open road speeds, in an unlit airport car park littered with jet-lagged arrivals from the long-haul red-eyes. Jesus.

Not her business, though. There’d been a time when she might have felt obliged to intervene, pull out her warrant card to deal with some loser getting his kicks scaring others. But not now.

God, she was tired. Tired and woozy. Not exactly jet lag. She hadn’t got her sleep patterns together long enough for it to kick in, or at least that was how it felt. Two days in Washington had been a stupid idea. A knackering interruption to her training, not the relaxing jolly that had been sold to her. She could see why none of the others had wanted to go. She’d learned nothing, met no one of any value. Just a dreary round of mind-numbing presentations, tedious seminars, formal dinners, late-night sessions in the bar, fending off the advances of drunken marrieds who assumed, naturally, that their drawling American accents would be irresistible to any Brit.

It felt as if she’d had no sleep for days. She’d expected to be out cold on the return flight, but she’d slept fitfully, disturbed by the comings and goings of the flight attendants and the noisy family next to her.

She felt semi-conscious. She’d already alighted from the shuttle bus at the wrong stop and was having to trawl through the rows of vehicles, dragging her wheeled suitcase behind her, to wherever her own car was parked.

She’d planned to go back into work today, but that increasingly seemed like a bad idea. Everyone expected her to take the day off, anyway. All she wanted to do was head home and crawl into bed. Liam would be pleased, at least.

From somewhere close by, she heard the roar of an engine. That bloody van. It had reached the end of her row and was turning left, down towards where she was standing, its speed undiminished.

Instinctively, she stepped back, pulling her case with her, positioning herself between two parked cars. Joyriders, maybe, or some drunk. Either way, best avoided.

She moved back into the shadows, expecting the van to roar by. But just before it reached her, the driver braked hard. For a second, she thought the vehicle would skid, but the control was perfect. The van slammed to a halt just a few feet from her.

The driver’s door opened slowly and a figure, little more than a silhouette, leaned out. ‘In the back,’ the man said quietly. It was a command, and the object in his hand suggested he had the means of enforcing it.

What the fuck? She looked frantically around her. Moments before, as she’d watched the van careering round the edge of the car park, there’d seemed to be numerous other people making their way back to their cars. Now, suddenly, the place was deserted. Somewhere, across at the far edge of the car park, she could hear the churning of a car ignition, but that was no help to her.

‘In the back,’ the voice said again.

She stepped forwards, as though to obey, leaving her case and handbag on the ground behind her. Then, as she drew close to the van, she raised her right foot and kicked the driver’s door as hard as she could. It slammed shut, trapping the arm of the half-emerging figure.

‘Shit—’

She was already running, her head down, expecting gunfire at any moment. Instead, she heard the revving of the van’s engine and a squeak of tyres as it U-turned.

Where the hell was her car? In the half-light, all the vehicles looked similar, indistinguishable colours and shapes.

And then a further thought struck her.

Her keys. Her fucking keys. They were in her handbag.

She was running headlong now, with no idea what she was going to do. There was no point in trying to reach her car. Her only hope was that someone else would appear, someone who could help her.

She could hear the van’s engine coming up behind her. No longer speeding, but moving slowly, taunting her, knowing she couldn’t escape. There was nowhere to go. A high metal fence lined the car park perimeter. The entrance was half a mile away across the vast expanse of tarmac.

She stopped and turned, blinking in the van’s headlights until it pulled in alongside her. A head peered out from the passenger seat, the face invisible. A different voice.

‘Christ’s sake. You’re going nowhere. Just get in the back.’

She heard the sound of the driver’s door being opened, footsteps. She stood silently, gasping for breath, as a silhouetted figure emerged from behind the vehicle. He gestured her to step forwards, a pistol steady in his other hand.

‘Nice try. Hurt my bloody hand, though. Now don’t open your mouth; just get in the back.’

After only a moment’s hesitation, she obeyed both instructions.

‘And you’re sure you still want to go ahead?’ Winsor had asked, two months before.

‘Yes,’ Marie had replied confidently. Then, after a pause, ‘I think so, anyway. As best I can judge.’

He’d nodded approvingly and inscribed an ostentatious tick on the sheet in front of him. ‘Exactly the right answer,’ he said, a proud teacher commending a promising pupil. ‘Confident, but realistic. Just what we need.’

Patronizing git, she thought. Par for the course down here. She could live with it from the operational types. They might have been promoted to pen-pushing and desk-jockeying, but most had been through it. They had some idea of the front line.

Winsor was a different matter. He was a sodding psychologist, for Christ’s sake. Most of what he said was either blindingly obvious or plain wrong. Quite often both at once, remarkably. He was here on sufferance because they were supposed to give due consideration to the psychological well-being of officers. Winsor ticked a few boxes and showed that the Agency cared.

And yet here he was, passing judgement about her suitability for a job he probably couldn’t even imagine. Assessing her psychological equilibrium, she’d been told. Seeing whether she was really up to it, whether she could handle the unique pressures. In truth, though she doubted Winsor’s ability to assess her mental state, she knew the assessment was needed. This was a big deal. She wasn’t sure, even now, whether she really appreciated quite how big.

‘The main thing,’ Winsor said, unexpectedly echoing her thoughts, ‘is that you appreciate the magnitude of the challenge.’

Maybe he was better at this than she’d thought. ‘I’ve spoken to people who’ve done the job,’ she said. ‘Hugh Salter, for example.’