Run Among Thorns (24 page)

Funny how some of those men—those spies with the lies in the smile—reminded him forcibly of Alan Waring.

He stayed silent, while Alan sent Jenny a look tight with frustration. Before answering her, he turned to Kier and the grim look in his eyes was hell and gone from lying.

He turned back to his sister. “Work,” he said. “I have to go.”

“Go?” she echoed. “Go where?”

He closed his eyes, and pinched the brow of his nose.

“Alan? What the hell is going on?” she asked again.

“I don’t believe this,” he muttered, then, to her, “I’m sorry, I have to go on a business trip, and I can’t get out of it. I don’t want to leave you in this, Jenny, love, but—”

“A business trip?” she squeaked.

Kier laid a large hand on her shoulder. “If he can’t help it, he can’t help it,” he said, and met Alan’s eyes over her head. “A word, Waring?”

Alan nodded. Jenny folded her arms tight across her chest, and because Kier guessed just how excluded she must feel, he tightened his hand before he followed Alan out the room.

In the living room, Alan paced. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just call the police and hand her over into protective custody?”

As an opening gambit, it wasn’t even in the vicinity of cooperative. Fair enough. “Because anyone you contact is more likely to believe them, than you.”

Alan braced his hands on his hips and scowled. He couldn’t look less like Jenny if he tried.

Kier relented. “Look, I’ll get her out of this. I’ll keep her safe.”

“Would you trust me with your sister?”

“I don’t have a sister, and this isn’t an issue of trust.”

Alan shook his head. “I don’t believe this. Are you about to tell me what makes you so well qualified to look after her?”

“Are you about to tell me what this business trip is about?”

Alan looked grim. “Bloody hellfire,” he spat. Then, “What are your plans?”

“We can’t stay here long. They’ll check this place soon enough. I want to find somewhere else to hole up until we can get a handle on this. I can call in some favours, make some safe contacts and see where we stand.”

Shaking his head and grimacing, Alan turned on his heel and headed for the dark wooden closet against the far wall. “I don’t believe you, I can’t believe what’s happening, and I certainly don’t believe I’m doing this,” he said, his voice muffled as he rummaged on the top shelf.

He came out with a small, dark wallet, and extracted two keys—a door key and one that looked like a locker key.

“This is what you do,” he said. “You take the A1 north, past Newcastle, keep on going towards Berwick upon Tweed. About fifty miles north of Newcastle you’ll start seeing signs for Bamburgh on your right. Take the turning where you can see grain silos. Couple of miles on, there’s a track going down towards the big bay, on the left, opposite a caravan park.

“About twenty yards from the shore, there’s a cottage and a shed. It’s just a three-room thing, single-story. I don’t use it often, but you’ll find everything you need. Did you get the directions? I don’t write them down.”

“Surely Jenny will—”

“Jenny doesn’t know this place exists.” He held out the smaller key. “In the main room is an ordinary brick fireplace, boring nineteen-fifties thing, but it has a back boiler for heating water. There’s a metal slider to adjust the flue just out of sight up the chimney. You can feel for it with the poker.”

“I’m sure I can—”

“Listen
. About six inches above that slider is a cavity in the chimney. You can’t see it, but you can just about reach it. In the cavity is a box.” He jangled the key. “This is the key to the box.”

“What’s inside?” Kier said, taking the key, suspended in wary surprise.

“There’s a Browning nine milli and extra rounds. Maps, money—” he turned a hand palm up, “the usual misc. Oh, and a clutch of passports, but you can ignore those.”

You have to be kidding me
, Kier thought. “You know,” he said, instead, “once this is sorted out, you and I must have a talk.”

Alan snorted a laugh. “You can try,” he said. “I’d rather,” he continued, carefully, “that Jenny didn’t know anything else that could put her in danger.”

Kier sighed. “Well, we agree on that one, at least.”

Alan was gone. And Jenny had no idea why. She stood staring at the closed front door, listening as his car door slammed, and he drove off.

Without noise, without fuss, Kier was behind her, radiating warmth and strength.

“A few days ago, I would have said my life was boring,” she said. Now she was juggling secrets, bound to a wanted man, and having to reevaluate everything she ever thought she knew about her easygoing, urbane brother. Outside, she heard another car pull up.

Kier’s arms closed about her, tugging her close. She felt the pressure of his chin resting on top of her head. “A few days ago, I would have said mine was exactly how I wanted it to be.”

She was thankful, then, that she had her back to him. It wasn’t just her life that she’d turned on its head. She closed her eyes, trying to suppress the ache that was equal parts sorrow and need.

Thankfully Kier didn’t seem to want an answer. He dropped a kiss on her hair, but seemed in no hurry to move. “We have to go,” he said.

“Where?” she murmured.

“There’s a place farther north. Belongs to … to Alan.”

She frowned. “When did—” she faltered, feeling Kier tense.

“Did you hear that?”

“What?”

He stepped past her, shaking his head. “Not what did you hear, what did you not hear.”

“Talk sense, Kier.”

He shot her a glance over his shoulder. “You heard the car pull up, right?”

“Yes.”

“Did you hear anyone get out?”

Jenny thought back. There had been nothing. The car drawing up, the engine purring to silence. No doors opening, no one getting out. “Maybe they’re waiting. They could be listening to the radio, waiting for someone, anything.”

“Maybe,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced.

And in spite of herself, in spite of thinking he was overreacting, that they were both of them just on edge, her heart started to race and she strained her ears to hear anything.

Nothing.

Then—”What was that?” she hissed, but Kier was already moving, into the living room, towards the patio doors at the back. It had just been a scuffling sound at the back of the garden.

“We stayed too long,” he growled, shooting her an angry look over his shoulder, as if he blamed her.

Well, that’s the last time I act the femme fatale
, she thought, remembering their slow, gradual ascent of the stairs that morning, where she’d kissed him on every step. But all the bravado in the world couldn’t quell the twist of pain his words caused.

She watched him twitch the curtains, standing to one side of the doors.

“Upstairs.”

“What—”

“Move.”

She moved, suddenly breathless, Kier just behind her on the stairs, crowding her onto the landing.

“They’re in the back garden,” he said.

God.

He stepped swiftly into her room, rounding the bed to check the window that overlooked the street. He let the curtain slip slowly into place and for a moment he stood there, his head tipped back, his eyes closed, only his throat moving as he swallowed.

I’m sorry
, she wanted to say.

Eventually he turned back to her, crossing the room in swift strides, coming to stand in front of her, hands braced on his hips, head bent. “There’s an SUV parked outside,” he said without looking at her, “one man in the driving seat, one man … standing beside it. It’s Kendrick.”

She blinked at him. “He’s just standing there?”

His jaw worked. “He’s grinning up at the house.”

He met her gaze and she flinched away from the look in his eyes. But she bit her lip, squared her shoulders, and looked back at him. “Okay. What do we do?”

The murderous intensity faded, and he lifted a hand to sweep the hair off her face, his fingers lingering a moment.

“We’re surrounded,” he said. “Trapped.”

She turned her head up and looked at the ceiling. “Are you sure?”

Chapter
        TWELVE

K
ier frowned in confusion. Jenny took his hand and ran for the second flight of stairs, up to the two smaller bedrooms and the tiny shower room on the second floor. Standing on the landing, she pointed over her head to the small, white-painted loft hatch above her.

She grinned. “I’ll get a torch.”

“But—” he said, still scowling. “Up there we’ll be like rats in a trap, it’s not a way out …”

She was heading for the stairs, but threw him another grin over her shoulder. “Did you never read the
Narnia
books, McAllister?
The Magician’s Nephew?
The kids get drawn into the adventure through playing in an interconnecting loft space.”

She ran for her room, wrenched open the bottom drawer under the old, pockmarked pine wardrobe, and rummaged through the few things she’d left there. Sleeping bag, old jumpers, picnic bag, a hair dryer she’d never used.
Ah-ha!
She grabbed the big lantern torch and headed back to Kier.

He already had the hatch open, but hadn’t bothered with the fixed ladder. He’d just done a chin-up on the hatch-edge, and now hung there, head and shoulders out of view. It was so typically Kier. Why do it the usual way, if his strength was sufficient.

“Show-off,” she said, mildly. “You can’t see anything without a light.” She handed him the torch, and he wedged one arm over the edge of the hatchway to reach down for it.

He pulled he torch up and flicked it on. “Huh.” His voice came muffled. “You’re right. Interconnecting lofts. How far do these things run?”

“I’m not sure—six houses maybe?”

“Okay,” he said. “Get the bag from the stash. Quick.”

She didn’t waste time. Back to Kier’s room, a snatch at his bag, and ramming her feet into a pair of half-walking boot, half-trainers from under the bed, she was done.

Kier was still dangling in the hatchway. She hooked his bag over one shoulder.

A swing and a heave and he was through. She saw him pick his footing carefully, treading carefully on the joists to avoid breaking through the fragile ceiling. Dropping to one knee, he braced one arm across the hole and reached down for her.

No ladder for me, either, huh?
she thought, but she didn’t mind. She smiled a smug little smile and reached up a hand. He hauled her up cleanly, and she found her feet with equal grace, not missing the look of approval he threw at her. She was almost enjoying this.

Suddenly she understood how he loved to outwit an opponent.

“Hold this.” Kier handed her the torch, and she shone it on his hands as he pulled the hatch. She’d never grow tired of watching the movement of those hands. So direct and sure, completely devoid of unnecessary flourish and hesitation.

“Stop waving the torch around,” he said.

She said nothing, only dragged her thoughts back to their current predicament, and hooked her other arm through the bag’s straps. He took the torch from her as he straightened, and she reached round to tug the straps to a better fit for running.

Assuming they’d be running. She shivered.

“Okay?” he was talking more softly now, and the thought that he was taking precautions lest their pursuers were already in the house didn’t help the shivers any.

“Fine,” she lied.

The torch picked out their path, showing grey-dusty joists between thick layers of insulation. The roof slates were hung with dirty cobwebs, and, looking into the darkness, they could see one or two chinks of light where slates had slipped, or cracked.

“Come on,” he said.

It was awkward, with one torch, trying to walk on the narrow joists like so many beams in the school gym. She’d always been terrible at gym. Her foot slipped, misled by the moving torch beam, and she lunged for another joist, almost crying out.

“Shh,” he hissed, and she almost punched him for it, but it would have unbalanced her.

“Oaf,” she muttered, but he’d shone the torch behind him so she could catch up.

“How many houses do you reckon we’re over?” he said.

She looked back over her shoulder, but the darkness stretched away, and there was no way to tell. In her mind’s eye, she pictured the location of the hatch in relation to the floor plan of the house, ran over in her head how far they’d come.

“Hard to say. Two maybe? Why don’t we just keep going until we hit a wall?”

He grunted, but he kept moving.

She rocked, both feet on one joist while she picked her next move. Up here it was cold, the houses jealously guarding their heat with fibreglass.

“Kier? Could you—”

“Here?” He shone the torch back.

“Thanks,” she skipped a few steps and missed her mark, almost colliding with him, and grabbing hold of the back of his belt.

“Steady,” he said, and she could hear the smile in it.

“You don’t mind if I hang on, do you?” she said, supremely reluctant to enter another property through the ceiling.

“Be my guest,” he said, and they shuffled on like that, with one of her hands anchored in the back of his jeans, and her fingers warming up fast.

“Ah-ha.”

She peered round him, with difficulty. They’d found the wall, rough-finished brick.

“Where’s the hatch?” she whispered, and Kier cast around with the torch.

“Can’t see it. Does every house have roof access?”

“Usually. What’s over there?”

“Got it.”

It was just a piece of plywood, this one, no ladder, half-covered in insulating material.

“They’ll just call the police, won’t they?”

“Very likely. Keep moving. Straight downstairs and preferably out the back. Don’t wait for me, but find cover in the back garden.”

The torch flicked up to her face for a moment, blinding her. “Ready?”

“No. But go ahead,” she said, wryly, and he touched her shoulder briefly.

“Coming, ready or not,” he whispered, and hooked up the hatch.

Blue carpet and a white banister. That was all Kier could see for a moment. He set his hands across the hatch, and ducked his head through to look. A landing like many others. Just the carpet, and the banister, and a basket of washing at the top of the stairs.

“Go,” he said, and Jenny swung her legs over the hole, braced her hands on the edge, and levered herself through. He caught her wrist before she dropped, and lowered her the rest of the way. Like before, she didn’t fuss, but landed cleanly, immediately looking around her.

Damn, but she was good to work with.

“Go,” he said again, and she headed for the stairs without argument, although her lips were a straight line, and he knew she didn’t like it.

He didn’t much like letting her out of sight, either.

He followed her through the hatch in short order, swinging the bag down with him. He landed as softly as his bulk and the height would allow and started down the landing, past the white-painted, brass-handled doors.

One of which opened.

He stopped, face to face with a short, blonde woman, with her hand still on the light switch. Beyond her he saw white bathroom fittings and glossy black and white tiles.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the top of Jenny’s dark head disappear down the stairs.

The woman’s mouth dropped open, her eyes went wide. She drew a sharp breath, but he put a finger to his lips and she held it.

“Excuse us,” he said. “We were just leaving.”

She gave one, deliberate blink. Gently he pushed her back into the bathroom, taking the door handle from her hand, and pulling it closed. He opened it again on a thought.

“Put a lock on your loft hatch,” he said, and followed Jenny down the stairs.

She was in the kitchen—laminate floors and too much stainless steel—turning the key in the back door.

“I’ve got it,” he said, taking her place and cracking the door to peer out.

Decking, gravel paths, shaped lawn, and a dismal shrubbery, alleviated by the occasional brightly glazed pot with bamboo and ferns.

And no one to be seen.

At the bottom of the garden was a five-foot larch lap fence, no gate. He ushered them through, took the key, and locked the door from the outside, then crouched down, scanning the windows and eaves of the houses either side. He pulled Jenny down beside him.

“What will be behind the fence?”

“Um, a car park, a recreation ground, and then the river.”

“Excellent,” he said. “Wheels.”

She was looking at him. “Uh, Kier?”

“Uh-huh?”

“How exactly are you planning on getting ‘wheels’?”

He scanned the back fence. “You don’t want to know.”

“If I didn’t want to know, I wouldn’t ask, numbskull.”

He grinned at her, and wondered at the warmth he felt when she smiled slowly in response. “I,” he said, enjoying himself, “am about to add grand theft auto to the rap sheet.”

“Oh, God.”

“Where the fuck is Groven?”

John got up from his desk, staring at Davids. He’d never even heard his boss raise his voice before. “In his office.”

“He is not in his office. His computer is switched off. His desk is tidy. The light is off. I called him at home, I called his cell, I’ve left messages. Where is he?”

John frowned, trying to think. He’d hardly slept last night. And it couldn’t have been because he was alone. He was alone more often than not.

But not usually quite so … permanently.

“I was not aware he had left the premises,” he said.

Davids swore again, spun away, slammed the door closed, and came round behind the desk, crowding closer, bristling with anger. John stepped sideways.

“Where is he supposed to be today?”

John kept his voice level. “In his office.”

“Christ! Where’s Kendrick?”

“I … uh—”

“Spit it out, man!”

“He’s not been responding to calls since I gave him Waring’s address in York.”

Davids shook his head, his face red, eyes staring. At this rate he was begging for an aneurysm. “Sir, I—”

He interrupted him again. “We’re in trouble, John. We’re going to be investigated,” he gave a bitter laugh. “This whole setup was only supposed to have a finite life, a
research
facility, John! We built a whole agency out of it, Groven and me, playing one department off against the other, telling them what they wanted to hear. Well, they caught up with us. And we knew it was coming, so we planned this thing with Kendrick.”

John kept his mouth shut. He wanted to know… but knowing scared the hell out of him. Knowledge is power. And a kind of power other people can hold over you.

“The Kendrick thing was … was an alternative to government employ. A money earner, that’s all. Groven’s idea. Groven’s plan. And now he’s gone.”

“You think Kendrick …?”

Davids barked a derisive laugh. “Groven’s run off, you idiot. Kendrick’s gone off the deep end, indefensible. Nothing in your profiles ever said anything about him being a crazy psychopath.”

That stung. “You wanted someone who would be happy breaking the rules, who could think on their feet, who would work exclusively for you, no questions asked. Someone who’d be happy with a little treason before breakfast. And you’re
surprised when
he causes havoc?”

“My. You’ve been busy.”

And that was stupid. Davids was watching him speculatively, well in hand, now. And now Davids knew exactly how much
he
knew. Which only proved what he already knew—he was a paper pusher, not a field agent.
God
.

John swallowed. “I get paid to put two and two together and make five to the power often, sir. It’s my job. It’s what I
do.”

“And just what have you
made
this time, John?”

His hands were cold. His neck felt stiff. “Just what you’ve told me. That’s what I made. That’s all.”

Davids considered him. “Groven’s long gone. And we’re in deep trouble.”

“When you say, ‘we,’ sir?”

Davids stared at him, long and hard. “You’re in it up to the neck, Dawson. You doctored the files, you drugged the woman, you provided Kendrick with intel.”

“But I was not a party to your plans,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Sir.”