Birdkill (18 page)

‘The police are here. They want to talk to you again.’

‘Oh fuck. Not Farmer, please not Farmer.’

‘That’s the guy. I put him in the boardroom. Will I call Iain?’

‘No, that’s fine. I’ll go talk to him. Thanks. Hey, Kelly!’

The bearded visage blinked and focused on her. ‘What?’

‘Name check.’

She almost skipped up the stairs, buoyed by Kelly’s exasperated ‘Fuck off!’

Farmer stood at the head of the polished mahogany boardroom table. His gaunt frame was cloaked in a long raincoat, despite the blue sky showing through the windows. It flapped around him as he breasted the table’s end to meet her.

He gestured for her to sit. She pulled up a chair. ‘What do you want from me now? You have my statement.’

‘We do, we do. And fascinating it is, too.’ He dwelled on the word fascinating in a way that made it sound dirty. Come to think of it, Farmer seemed to make everything sound dirty. He had a way of smearing everything he picked out for fastidious examination by implication. Farmer’s world was not a place of pleasant dreams.

Mariam waited. Farmer sat on the table, looking down at her. She caught the hint of stale cigarette smoke from his jacket and, when he spoke, from his breath. It was the one thing about Robyn she couldn’t abide, that occasional hit of stale fags. But Robyn had cut down to a couple a day or, perhaps, more when the pressure was on. Farmer was a harder case. She noted the yellow patina on his index finger and shuddered.

‘Mister Kovak, as I am to understand it, was what they call a whistleblower.’

‘He was.’

‘Whose whistle was he blowing, Ms Shadid? Who would want to take his breath away?’

‘The list would be very long. The archive he released to us covered mostly British and American intelligence and military operations in the Middle East, but there are details of secret and often inflammatory correspondence between a number if intelligence agencies and government bodies across Europe and the Middle East, including Mossad and the Israeli Defence Forces. Are you saying it wasn’t suicide then?’

‘I’m saying nothing. Did anyone know of what Mr Kovak had passed to you?’

‘He said he was blown. We put him in the hotel for safety.’

‘Taken the law into your own hands.’

‘Protected a source.’

‘Not very effectively, it would appear.’

‘So it was murder.’

‘I’m saying nothing.’

‘I’ll join you.’

Farmer stabbed his yellowed finger at her. ‘You know what? I’d bleeding love to nick you. See if you’re so cocky sitting in a cell on a charge of obstruction.’

‘I’m not obstructing you. You can go to hell with my full blessings.’

Farmer slid off the table with such ferocity Mariam thought he was going to hit her. He wheeled away from her, his raincoat flapping. He strode to the window and stood, framed against the sunlight outside. Her heartbeat slowed.

‘Suxamethonium chloride.’ Farmer turned to her. ‘He had been injected with it. It’s a paralysing agent. He was likely questioned but forensics found no trace of any violence. Some slight bruising to the wrists consistent with being bound, but very carefully. His killers were very
considerate
.’ There was that dirty inflection again. ‘Then they dumped him in a warm bath and cut his wrist.’

‘So why was there so much mess?’

‘They think the drug wore off, that he moved about before slipping away. Tried to get out of the bath.’

Mariam rubbed her eyes to brush away the weariness and the memory of Buddy’s thin, marblesque corpse in its bath of carmine.

‘I’m not sure how I can help you.’

‘Your offices have been burgled, so has your house. Your pal is dead. Someone’s pretty mad with you, it would appear.’

‘I had considered that.’

‘But you have no idea who?’

‘None whatsoever. If I did, believe me, I’d be at your door in seconds.’

His voice was gentler. ‘Here. My number. Perhaps you should consider police protection.’

She glanced up at him. ‘What if it’s our side?’

‘We’d still protect you.’

She took the card. ‘I think I’m covered for now, but I’ll bear it in mind.’

ELEVEN

Security and insecurity

Lawrence Hamilton sat behind his desk, his chin resting on steepled hands. He didn’t move as Heather ushered Bill Foster in and closed the door behind him. Foster wore a tweed jacket, a beige V-neck and a burgundy tie. All very country, Hamilton thought, mildly surprising himself with the bitterness of the sentiment.

‘Bill. Nice of you to drop in. If unusual.’

Foster dropped into one of the green studded club chairs. ‘It’s not social, I can assure you. That’s a hell of a drive from London.’

‘I try not to do it too often, myself. To what, then, do we attribute this rare pleasure?’

‘Project Odin has been compromised. Details of the entire process from the first day we applied for funding to scope out the research project until the end of the trials in Lebanon have been leaked. A Middle East gossip website has obtained them and is working with the Guardian and the Telegraph on investigating the story.’

Hamilton let the news sink in. He laid his hands down on the desk. ‘What does Raynesford say?’

‘Keep our heads down. The Select Committee has approved our funding; the Americans are making their contribution. Operationally, everything is smooth. His people are endeavouring to deal with the issue. The Americans are on board. On no account are you to speak to anyone from the media.’

‘And precisely how is he going to ‘deal with the issue’?’ Hamilton snapped. ‘Besides, when did we stop calling a problem a problem?’

Foster pushed himself to his feet and wandered over to the bookshelves, his amused glance making Hamilton regret his asperity. ‘You’re getting more like Victor Meldrew by the day, Lawrence. Old age isn’t sitting well with you.’ He picked out a book and riffled through its pages. ‘As for what Raynesford intends, I didn’t ask him. There are things you don’t really want to know. Jolyon’s people don’t always play nicely. But they’re effective.’

‘There’s no link in any case between the Institute and Odin. There’s no case to answer.’

Foster grimaced and replaced the book. ‘Apart from the Shaw girl.’

‘You mentioned an Arab website. What’s it called?’

‘3shoof.com. It’s all scandal and tittle-tattle.’

There was something nagging at him and he couldn’t put his finger on it, an infuriating sensation akin to forgetting a common word in the middle of a sentence.

‘Do we know the names of the journalists who are involved?’

Foster darted a glance at him. ‘No. What a strange question. Why do you ask?’

‘No reason. Curiosity.’ Hamilton was remembering the young Lebanese firebrand Robyn Shaw had inveigled into his study. Looking away from Foster, he had a distinct and unpleasant sensation in his stomach.

The cat was clearly very much out of the bag.

Robyn sat at her desk. The last of the class had just left and she scanned the empty classroom. She was tired, but it had been another engaging session and she felt she was making tangible progress. The kids had started to open up and she was beginning to get a feeling for quite how screwed up having a kid’s emotional age and an adult’s intelligence and learning could be. She felt for them and they had responded to that by letting her in.

She put her pen down just as Martin Oakley walked back. Panic rose in her. She fought to stay in control and at least outwardly calm. ‘Hello, Martin.’

He really was an urchin. Snub-nosed, freckled and thin, he stood in his shabby coat and baggy jumper, his stained jeans marked with biro. Even his sneakers were shabby, the white laces grubby and trailing. His usual scowl puckered his brow. ‘It’s alright. I know. Your head’s all fucked up. There’s nothing there, a big emptiness. You’re like Pandora. It’s in a box you’re keeping shut. I can open it.’

She fought the urge to scream, her body electric with adrenaline. The urge to flee made her quiver.

‘Please don’t.’

‘I can. I can let it free. Your memories.’

‘You’re cruel, Martin. What made such a young person so cruel?’

He grabbed his sleeve, pulled it up to expose his chalk-white forearm. It was criss-crossed with scars and straight scarlet lines. Razor cuts. ‘We’re cruel. That’s what we do. We’re fucked up. Us lot more than most. We’re all guinea-pigs.’

‘Why do you let them experiment on you?’

‘Because we’re a community. An elite. The future.’

‘That’s scary, Martin.’

‘You scare easy, bitch.’

She fought to stop herself flinching at the word. She summoned every inch of kindness in her, shook her head at him slowly. She thought of her mother, soft summer days and washing on the line, babies’ laughter and the love in her mum’s eyes even in those last final moments before they closed and she left Robyn forever. ‘I’m not a bitch Martin. I’m your mother.’

His features had relaxed with astonishment but her words seemed to hit him physically. He shook his head, tears welled in his eyes and she radiated feelings of gentleness, pity and love at him.

He turned to leave. Robyn called out. ‘Martin. You don’t have to fight against people. You don’t have to use hurt to make your own pain go away.’

The small figure with its shock of mousy hair kept going. He didn’t look back.

Back at her apartment, Robyn called up Martin’s file on the school network. She sat eating an apple and reading his reports. There wasn’t much background to be had. There was a sub-folder but when Robyn tried to access it, a dialogue flashed up demanding a password. It sent a thrill through her, somehow made the intrusion more real. She fought the urge to shut down and flee. She keyed 12345 for the hell of it. And she was in.

She laughed, more in shock than anything. Really? Just like that? She reached for her bag, grabbed the little 16G memory key she kept in the zipped inner pocket and started copying files. She didn’t know how long this would last and didn’t want to leave traces on her notebook. She was no hacker, but she was aware of the trails that using networks left.

She started to open up the files in the folder and read them. The assessments and child psychologist evaluations alone told of a worrying and traumatic history.

Martin had been born to a single mother, Pamela Oakley. The father was unknown. Pam had been working on the streets in Northampton, but Martin was born in a hospital in London. She had two cautions for indecency and had been arrested for a lewd act. The referring doctor for the admission was Lawrence Hamilton.

Robyn bit into her apple, munching and thinking about how a hooker from Northampton could afford a private hospital. And what Lawrence Hamilton could possibly have had to do with her.

She downloaded the file and signed out of the session. She disconnected the Wi-Fi and relogged using her mobile’s data connection. She sent the folder on the memory key to Mariam, deleted her browser’s cache and history and then sat back, thrilled at what she’d just done.

Brian Kelly’s excitement was infectious and Mariam struggled to keep up with his determined scuttle as they raced through the streets of Twickenham. He’d told her nothing, just urged her up out of her seat in the office and pushed her down the stairs ahead of him and out into the street. She’d just got Robyn’s email but hadn’t had time to read it properly, resolving to go back to it later once Kelly was off her back.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Bistro. Thought we could splurge and maybe order some lunch.’

‘Seriously.’

‘I got a contact from the Ministry of Defence agreed to talk to me about Odin. Thought you might like to come along.’

‘Fair enough. What if I have a heart attack before we get there?’

‘You’re young. You should be fitter.’

They crossed the road onto the big, open green. Cricketers in whites dotted the tree-lined area. Mariam never ceased to be amazed by the English. ‘Jesus, they’re mad. It’s too cold to be standing around like that.’

‘They’ve got jumpers on. April – start of the season.

There was a little building with a conservatory at the edge of the pitch, tables set out to the front of it. ‘Here we go,’ Kelly beamed. ‘Used to be a public toilet.’

‘I just went off the cake.’

‘Rubbish. Food here’s glorious.’ He held the door open for her and accosted the girl in uniform. ‘Table booked for Kelly.’

‘Ah, yes. Over here, sir.’

They followed her to a table set against the glass. ‘Would you like some water?’

‘Please.’

Kelly handed her a menu. ‘Here. I know what I’m having.’

‘Where’s our contact?’

‘Should be here any minute. Better be or I’m ordering without him.’

The waitress brought a stoppered bottle of water. Kelly peered up at her. ‘Could I get a latte, please, Lottie? And my friend here will take a—?’

Mariam tried not to pull a face at Kelly. She was disappointed he turned out to be a name badge reader. ‘Americano, please. No milk.’

‘Sure. Will you be ordering food?’

‘Waiting for a friend.’

The waitress, whom Mariam had mentally christened Lottie the Latte Lady, had barely turned away when Mariam spotted a portly, nervous looking man bobbing between the tables towards them. He was balding and soft-looking, perhaps in his late thirties. His head was too small for his body. He had a fleshy nose and wide-set blue eyes.

Kelly stood, his hand out. ‘Alan good to see you. Alan Potts, Robyn Shaw. Robyn, this is Alan, he works for the MoD in procurement.’

‘Shh. For God’s sake, Brian. I’m not even supposed to be within a hundred miles of you.’

Kelly gestured Potts to a chair. ‘Right. Let’s order. I recommend the chorizo bap or the veal’s excellent if you’re hungry.’

Their coffees came. ‘You fancy a coffee, Alan?’

Potts started. ‘Um, yes. Please. The same, please. American.’

Mariam was fascinated by the man, clearly nervous and not wanting to be there at all. She wondered what satanic hold Kelly had over him. The waitress was hovering. Kelly turned to her. ‘Lottie, I’ll take the chorizo bap, please. Mariam?’