Ugley Business (15 page)

“Do you maybe have some friends you could stay with?” Luke asked.

Angel shrugged. “I’m guessing this doesn’t include you,” she said to me, and I shook my head. “Well, Livvy and Charis live in London…”

“Too busy,” Luke said.

“Penny lives just up the road…”

“Too close,” I said.

“Well, I suppose there’s Livvy’s dad’s house…”

“Where’s that?”

“Cornwall.”

“You think he’ll let you stay?”

“He probably won’t even notice. It’s huge. Oh—” She put her hand to her mouth.

“What?”

“The Trust Ball. It’s supposed to be tomorrow, it’s in London…”

“No,” Luke said. “No way.”

“But it’s every year.” Angel’s voice was firm. “It raises millions for the Trust.”

“What trust?” Macbeth asked. I’d forgotten he was there, which is quite a feat.

“The IC Winter Cancer Trust,” I said. “Every year they have a huge charity ball to raise money. Totally A-list. Coverage in the glossies and everything.”

“But not this year,” Luke said.

“Yes,” Angel said, “
this year
.”

“It’s too high-profile—”

“The security is amazing! Livvy arranges it. Bouncers all over the place, everyone gets scanned as they come in. Even the caterers. He won’t get in.”

“I don’t care. It’s not happening.”

Angel looked mutinous, and I suggested quickly, “Why don't you give Livvy a ring and see if you can go down and stay at her dad’s place? We’ll sort something out about the ball.”

Angel looked doubtful, but she left the bedroom and went out into the kitchen to call her very posh friend Livvy.

“She’s not going to give up about this ball,” I said. “Her dad set up the trust and it’s happened every year since IC died. It’s the closest thing Angel has to a religion.”

“Can you say that in a house of God?” Macbeth wondered.

“Whereabouts in Cornwall is this place?” Luke asked me.

“I’ve never been, but I think it’s off to the south somewhere. Off the coast.”

“Off the coast? What, is it a yacht?”

“No,” I shook my head, “it’s on a, what do you call it, like a peninsula or something. Somewhere near Falmouth.”

“That’s the Lizard peninsular,” Macbeth said.

“No, it’s not there. It’s off the coast. In the sea. On a sort of little island, you can only get across when the tide’s out or you have to take a boat.”

“Like St Michael’s Mount?”

“Do not mention the name Michael,” I said darkly.

Luke looked puzzled.

“That’s Docherty’s name.”

“Seriously? I never knew that.”

“Can we get back to the issue at hand here?” Macbeth said, but Angel opened the door and walked in before anyone else could speak. She had the cordless phone pressed to her ear.

“We have a proposition,” she said, and Luke looked wary.

“We?”

“Me and Livvy. Her PR firm is handling the ball. She says maybe we could hold it at Pela Orso.”

“What?”

“Lancelot’s castle?” Macbeth frowned, and Angel looked impressed.

“That’s what it’s named for, yes. It’s really remote—out to sea most of the time. We could maybe charter ‘copters from Newquay airport, make it an adventure.” She listened to something from Livvy, and then said, “We could get all the guests to assemble at City airport and fly them all down in secrecy.”

Luke looked sceptical. Macbeth looked thoughtful. I was thinking,
how cool is this?

“That could work,” I said. “No, I think it could. It’d generate huge publicity, everyone’ll be trying to figure out where they are…”

“The sea might give it away,” Luke said.

“Yes, but by then they’ll be there, and anyway, it’ll be dark. Afterwards it won’t matter so much where everyone was. And I don’t think Docherty’s the type to read glossies anyway.”

It took us ages to persuade Luke, and in the end I called Maria and Karen, who both thought it was an excellent idea and suggested that Luke and I went to the ball to keep an eye on things. Outvoted, Luke gave in, while I wondered idly who Karen had planned on sending to the ball to bodyguard Angel in the first place. Macbeth carried Angel’s stuff out to the car and drove her off down to Cornwall, and I was left with Luke, who scowled a lot like everything was my fault.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I said, “it wasn’t my idea.”

“I didn’t hear you disagreeing.”

“I think it will work. It’ll be really cool. It’ll protect Angel and boost the charity’s profile.”

Luke glared at me and threw himself at the sofa. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and I could see the bandage around his left bicep. Somehow it made him look sexier.

“And look at it this way—you get to go to one of the most exclusive parties of the year.”

“Big deal,” Luke said. “I go to all the exclusive parties. There’s always someone there needs keeping an eye on.”

“Well, you’re just a bundle of fun today.”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I just can’t believe Docherty is in on this.”

“Believe it.”

“It could have been Janulevic…”

“How did he know where we were? Luke, I didn’t know where we were and I was there. Janulevic couldn’t have known where I lived, either. He—oh God, Luke!”

“What?”

“It was Docherty who was shooting at us! Who shot you. We just assumed it was Janulevic because we thought we were after him. What if this whole thing is made up?”

“What do you mean?”

“We don’t even know if Janulevic exists. Docherty could be masquerading as him to put us off the trail. If you’re looking for a Czech you wouldn’t suspect an Irishman. If he really is Irish.”

“He is. At least, he was when I trained with him.”

“SAS?”

Luke nodded and stood up. “Soph, you really think he was trying to kill you?”

I nodded and shivered, and he came over and put his arms around me. “Well, he missed. You’re good at escaping that, you know?”

“So far.”

“Don’t get maudlin on me.”

“I trusted him, Luke.”

“Me too. I suggested him.”

I said nothing. There was nothing I could think of to say.

He stroked back my hair. “You have enough bullets for that gun?”

I shrugged. “Nothing to refill it with. I need to get my SIG back. And my damn phone charger.”

“Use mine.”

“Where is it?”

“My place.” He ran his fingers over the cut on my temple. “Maybe you should come and stay with me until we go down to Cornwall. Docherty knows where you live.”

Tempting, very tempting. “He probably knows where you live. He could be tracking my car.” I thought about that. He could have put a GPS device on the car when it was crashed. I wouldn’t have noticed.

“So leave your car here. We’ll take Angel’s.”

“He’s probably tracking that, too.”

“You know, you’re making a lot of excuses. We could get the bus.”

I recoiled. “I don’t do buses.”

“Me neither.” Luke dropped his arms and stepped back, and I felt a rush of cold air. “You might want to sort out a cattery for Tammy.”

“What? Why?”

“You’re going down to Cornwall.”

“I’ll take her to my parents’,” I said, realising even as I said it that I couldn’t, because then I’d have to tell them where I was going. “I’ll think of something.”

Angel’s phone rang and I turned up the volume on the answer machine to listen. To my surprise, a very familiar American voice rang out.

“Angel? It’s Harvey. I guess you’re not there. Listen, I just got told I can leave tomorrow, so if your offer’s still on I’d like to take you up on it. If you could give me a call back, that’d be great. Bye.”

I raised my eyebrows at Luke, who was looking moody. “Offer?”

“Call him back.”

“No, that sounded personal.”

“I don’t care. Call him back.”

Marvelling at his mood swings (If I didn’t know better I’d say he was really a woman. But I do know better. Much, much better.), I picked up the phone and dialled 1471 for the number. Then I called Harvey at the hospital.

“Sophie? It’s great to hear from you.” There was a bleep as Luke turned the speakerphone on and I glared at him. “I was just about to call you to see if you knew where Angel is.”

“She’s, uh, she had to go away,” I said. “It’s not safe for her at home. I just heard your message. Whatever the offer is, it’s probably going to have to be postponed.”

Harvey sighed. “She said I could come and stay with her for a while. Just ‘til I’m back on my feet. Do you know where she is?”

I looked at Luke. He shook his head. I deliberated whether or not to tell Harvey, then decided that as he was after the possibly fictional Janulevic, I didn’t want to get him on Docherty’s hit list.

“I don’t,” I said. “It’s very secret. Karen went over our heads. But listen, why don’t you stay at my place? I have to go away tomorrow, I could do with someone picking up the post and feeding the cat.”

“That’s really great of you, Sophie. I appreciate that,” Harvey said, as Luke glowered at me.

I arranged to pick Harvey up tomorrow and put the phone down half a second before Luke snarled, “What the hell was that about?”

“Was what about?”

“Inviting the Yank to stay?”

“He needs a place to stay and I need a house-sitter,” I said calmly. Why was it such a problem?

“For all you know he could be involved with Janulevic—”

“Don’t you mean Docherty?”

Luke narrowed his eyes at me. “Is this because I hired Docherty?”

“No! Jesus, Luke, stop taking it all so personally.”

“I am not—”

“Yes, you are. Harvey is a friend of mine and Angel’s—”

“Oh, yeah, I can see what a friend of Angel’s he is. You know she’s been telling him all about this case?”

“She trusts him. And so do I.”

“And look how that worked out with Docherty.”

I stared. “You hired him!”

“So it is about me?”

I mean, really. How egotistical was he?

“You have problems,” I told him, when my powers of speech had returned. “Real problems.”

Then I went outside, ignoring him coming after me, and drove away.

I mean, really, was I being stupid here? Or was Luke being a drama queen? What was wrong with Harvey staying at my house? I wouldn’t even be there most of the time and it wasn’t as if anything was going to happen—he and Angel were clearly bats about each other.

And besides! Luke and I were over!

I got home and put Shawn Colvin on to calm me down. Then I called Angel. “Harvey called. He said you’d invited him to stay.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding embarrassed. “Oh, yeah. Well, he didn’t have anywhere to go, and I do sort of still feel slightly responsible.”

“Plus you fancy him rotten.”

She was silent. I smiled.

“That too,” she admitted after a long pause. “He said how all his stuff was in a B&B so I just went to pick it up, and he had nowhere to go… He really shouldn’t be alone.”

“Well, he’s going to have to be. I have to come down to Cornwall tomorrow and he can’t possibly come. He’s too much of a liability as he is, all injured.”

“I’d look after him,” Angel said wistfully.

“You have this whole ball thing to organise.”

“Livvy’s coming down tonight,” she said. “She’s getting the planes and helicopters sorted out. Got to mess around with landing permission or something. She wants to have the ‘copters land on the actual island, but there’s no helipad and she can’t remember how big the lawn is or if it’s flat enough…”

“Well, let me know what’s going on,” I said, sensing a long party rant coming on. “I have to go.”

So go I did, then I sat there feeling useless, and rather vulnerable. To be honest I wasn’t happy at the thought of leaving an injured man and a cat to guard my flat, but what else could I do? There were locks on the doors and shutters for the windows, Tammy’s cat flap was electronically operated, and I guessed Harvey would have a gun with him. He always used to.

It was just that I didn’t know where Docherty was or what he was planning. Sure, he probably thought I’d been killed in the blast, and was therefore not likely to come after me again, but what if he realised the car was missing and started checking flight manifests?

I grabbed my bag and left the house. I could get one step ahead of him.

At the office, I logged on to the flight database and started checking all the inbound flights to Stansted for Docherty’s name. I hadn’t seen his documents when he checked in, but I was reasonably sure he’d used his real name. Just to be sure, I opened up the Knock flight we’d been on and found his seat next to mine. Yes. Michael Docherty.

Originally we’d been booked on a return to Kerry, so there was still a booking on the system for Green, Sophie, and Docherty, Michael, departing on Saturday at 1930 from Kerry airport. But, as we’d still been at the Kennedys’ then, neither seat had been taken. I searched all Kerry-Stansted flights from last night until Tuesday for Docherty’s name and found nothing. Then I checked Cork and Shannon flights, Dublin and Knock and Derry, even though that was a long shot. Nothing. He hadn’t booked anything so far.

I sat and drummed my fingers for a bit. Then I picked up my mobile, which was charging up from the computer, and dialled one of the emergency contacts Luke had programmed in for me when I first got the phone. I’d never had cause to call the military, but now I figured it was time.

“I have a suspect who is supposed to be in Ireland,” I said, once I’d identified myself, “but I’m pretty sure he’ll be flying back over soon. Probably to Stansted. I need your back-up to detain him.”

Commander Graves asked, “Who is he? What is he suspected of?”

“Trying to kill me.”

“Ah.”

“I’ve been checking flights but he’s not booked in so far. I’m going to call the airlines for cooperation but if I find out he’s flying in, do I get your back-up?”

“You do. I heard about your takedown at the school. That was impressive work.”

I preened a little. “Well, thank you.” Then I remembered myself and added, “I’ll be in touch.”

Feeling very professional and efficient, I then called up each of the airlines that flew from Ireland to anywhere, just to be on the safe side, and asked them to alert me if Michael Docherty booked a flight.

By the time I was done, it was mid-afternoon and I was exhausted, not to mention starving. That was a lot of airlines. I picked up my bag and wandered up to the Metro for a sandwich, and when I returned, Maria’s little red 205 was outside.

“What the hell did you do to Luke?” she asked as I went in, and added, “Again.”

“I didn’t do anything,” I protested. “He’s in a bad mood because I said Harvey could stay at my place. And probably also because Karen said one of us has to watch Angel’s house, and I left him there.”

“I know. I’m going over in a bit to take over. Why is it such a problem that Harvey stays at yours?”

“Have you met him?”

She shook her head.

“He’s really cute. And a complete gentleman. Unlike Luke,” I added, throwing my bag on the floor and tearing open my sandwich packet with maybe slightly more violence than was necessary.

Maria watched me. “Uh-oh.”

“Uh-oh what?”

“You and Luke.” She reached in her bag and started unwrapping a Chupa Chups lolly. Maria has a bigger sweet tooth than anyone I know, yet she’s horribly, annoyingly thin. Maybe she has some system where all her body fat ends up on my hips.

“How do you get to eat so much and not get fat?” I complained.

“Good genes. Sit-ups. You and Luke,” she repeated, her eyes on me.

I slouched down in the desk chair. “What about me and Luke?” I said sulkily.

“What is going on?”

I did a palms-up. “Beats me. One minute he’s all sexy and kissing me, then he gets jealous of Harvey and stops talking to me properly, and sometimes he’s all sweet and lets me watch
Buffy
with him, and then sometimes he’s just professional and looks completely exasperated with me because, let’s face it, I am a crap spy.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Maybe I’m too fat.” I pinched my stomach and glared at the sandwich. “I shouldn’t be eating this.”

“You’re not too fat.” Maria rolled her beautiful eyes. “You’re gorgeous. And you know it, so stop fishing for compliments.”

“I’m not,” I said, although I was.

“Luke wouldn’t have shagged you in the first place if he thought you were too fat,” Maria said reasonably. “He has pretty high standards.”

“Maybe he’s just bored with me.”

“Are you kidding? You’re like round-the-clock entertainment.”

I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not.

“I just wish I knew why he keeps blowing so hot and cold,” I said, and sounded a lot more forlorn than I meant to.

“Because he doesn’t know how to deal with you,” Maria said wisely, sucking on her lolly. “He caught you because he wanted you, and now he has you and it’s never lasted this long before, so he doesn’t know what to do with you.”

“Oh, great.”

“No, I mean, if he didn’t give a damn, then he’d have let you know a long time ago. He’s not exactly kind when it comes to women.”

I thought about him wiping away Angel’s tears when she found the photos of her father, and about him putting
Buffy
on for me when I was scared, and about how he’d told me once he was proud of me when I caught a bad guy and was terrified, and about how good it felt to have his arms around me.

He could be kind sometimes.

“But if he gives a damn, why doesn’t he say so?” I said. “The whole reason I stopped sleeping with him was because I thought he didn’t want me for anything but sex.”

“It’s more than that. He likes you.”

“Damn funny way of showing it.”

Maria smiled. Then she smiled a bit wider. You could practically see the idea sparkling in her head.

“What?” I said cautiously.

“I’ll ask him,” she said.

“No. No no no no no.
No asking.”

“I’ll be subtle. I’m really good at subtle. And,” she went through into Karen’s office and came back with a little transmitter, “you can listen in.”

I thought she was insane, but I didn’t say anything. She said she’d put her wire on and then grill Luke when she gave him a lift home from Angel’s. The transmitter she’d given me was remote: I could use it here at the office, or at home or wherever I wanted. The sound quality was good and I could talk to her as well as listen.

If I could figure out how to work the damn thing.

Maria left to go home and get some things for an overnight stay at Angel’s, and I sat there feeling nervous. What if she talked to him and he said he didn’t give a damn about me, actually, he just wanted an occasional shag and he couldn’t be arsed to go out and find anyone else? What if he said I was grotesque and pathetic and it was all a bet?

I picked up the phone and almost called Maria, and then it occurred to me that maybe Luke might say something lovely about me.

Damn. Why couldn’t I be ego-less, like Angel?

To kill a bit of time and quiet my guilty conscience, I started searching websites for any news about this morning’s explosion. I found one reference to it, on a regional Irish news site, reckoning it was a gas explosion. But I was pretty sure they’d been too remote for gas, and besides, I’d have smelled it. Plus a great big fireball like that would have blown up the car, too, not just aimed some masonry at it.

But the site said nothing about any survivors. Feeling sick, I started looking for hospitals in the area and writing down phone numbers. Then I started dialling.

I found them eventually, in a hospital in Tralee. They’d been admitted that morning, after the garda responded to an anonymous phone call that there had been a fire at a remote farmhouse. Professor Kennedy was being kept under observation. He’d escaped most of the blast, having been out in the stables at the time, but Éibhlís was in ICU with severe burns. Her condition was described to me as unstable at best.

I thanked the nurse and put the phone down, head in hands, feeling nauseous. What did they deserve to be blown up for? To be honest it was some sort of miracle they were both still alive, but even if Éibhlís pulled through, what sort of quality of life would she have?

I was sitting there feeling miserable and guilty for escaping and not helping, worrying about the horses, who almost surely going to be either already dead or so injured they’d be shot, when my mobile trilled.

It was Maria. “I’m just coming up to the church now. I’ll turn on the wire when I park.”

I switched on the transmitter and, sure enough, could hear her shutting off the car’s engine, thunking the door shut and crunching across the gravel to the front door.

“This place is so cool,” she said.

“Wait until you see the inside.”

“No time now,” she replied, and I was sure that if I’d had picture, I’d have seen her winking. “I’ve got a mission.”

My heart was thumping. My palms were wet. I don’t think I’ve been this nervous since I accidentally got onto the motorway on my first driving test. Needless to say, I failed, although I did everything else perfectly. The examiner didn’t have much of a sense of humour.

I heard Luke opening the door, setting the alarms and locking it and mentioning to Maria that round-the-clock surveillance meant just that, and he was sure he could drive Angel’s Mini back home.

I panicked. Maria replied calmly that there was no way in hell she was letting him drive with a fucked knee and that if he tried, she’d break both his legs.

They got in the car and I heard her chatting to him, but couldn’t hear a word over the road noise.

“You need a quieter car,” I said, and she seemed to acknowledge that, because the conversation died down. Luke wasn’t being talkative. He’d sounded pretty pissed off before.

After what seemed like years—surely she was taking a long way around? Maybe via John O’Groats—they finally pulled up outside Luke’s house. One of the roofers was doing something very noisy in the yard and I could hardly hear Maria as she asked Luke if she could borrow his
Pulp Fiction
DVD to watch at Angel’s. She followed him up the stairs—I heard the pips of the alarms being disabled—then they were inside and everything was quiet. That loft has good sound insulation.

“You know,” Maria said idly, and my heartbeat started speeding up again, “this would have been a lot easier if you’d got Sophie to come and pick you up.”

“I don’t think Sophie’s talking to me.”

“Lover’s tiff?”

“Don’t you have to be lovers to have one of those?”

“I thought you were.”

“Yeah, well, that makes two of us.” He sounded really pissed off, and I wondered if this was really the best time to get curious about our relationship. Or lack of.

“He doesn’t sound happy,” I said into the microphone. “Maybe you should—”

“So what happened?” Maria asked, and I realised I might as well not bother. Probably she’d taken out the earpiece.

“With Sophie? I have no fucking idea.” Luke moved farther away, and I heard Maria’s heels tapping on the floor as she followed him. There were cupboards banging, they were in the kitchen now.

“’Cos she was really upset when you broke up.”

Luke laughed, but it wasn’t a “gosh, that was funny” laugh. “Really? She told you that?
She
broke up with
me
,” he said, his tone bitter at the injustice of it. I could well believe it had never happened before. Probably I was the only woman in the world stupid enough to let him go.

“Because she thought your relationship had no future.”

“Well, maybe it doesn’t.”

I stared at the speaker. I couldn’t breathe. I’d suspected it all along, but that didn’t mean I wanted to hear it.

“Luke, stop being a fuckwit and listen to me,” Maria said, and I sucked in a breath. She was going to kick his arse for me. “You know it has a future. This is Sophie. She’s not a silly little girl—”

“Yeah, she is,” Luke said, and maybe I was just hearing what I wanted to hear, but he sounded quite fond. Or maybe I was just going mad.

“Well, maybe sometimes she is,” Maria conceded, and I felt like crying. “But she’s clever and funny and good-looking and I know how you like your girls statuesque.”

I
hate
that word.