The Cilla Rose Affair (32 page)

“Thanks awfully—you’re a true life saver. Look after that sore throat, won’t you? Bye-bye.”

She hung up.

“You’re a hell of a good liar,” Ian remarked. “What did you do?”

“I’ve taken over the booking,” Sara replied, very pleased with herself. “It’s quite legit—happens all the time. Passengers make reservations directly with an airline and ask an agency to do the ticketing. Martin’s released the file back to me.”

She keyed RQ134A6 into the computer, and waited.

“There you are.”

[[ VYX161 F 07SEP LHR1045 ANU1415 HK1

[[ VYX F ANULHR OPEN

[[ N1 BOLTON/J MRS

[[ C1 EPSOM 555-8210 H

[[ C2 AGENCY RQ TKTNG…MARTIN 06754/2225/06SEP

[[ C3 C/O SARA YOUNG AND DAILEY ROMILLY SQUARE LON

[[ SSR FQTV VYX 125636R BOLTON

[[ SSR VYX RQ NONSMOKING WINDOW

[[ SSR VYX KK1 VYX161

[[ T/1000 ARPT…CASH P/U

[[ RQ134A6

“OK, so where’s she going?” Ian asked, unable to make sense of the coded jumble of letters and numbers.

“Antigua. First class, open return.”

“Nice for some,” he said. “When?”

“Tomorrow morning. Quarter to eleven.”

Ian considered the computer screen. “It gives you an amazingly perverse sense of power, doesn’t it,” he mused, folding his arms. “All those times you turn up at the airport with your ticket in hand…and nobody seems to know who you are…”

Sara looked at the two brothers. “What,” she asked, suspiciously, “is it you’re suggesting I do?”

Saturday, 07 September 1991

Mrs. Jacqueline Bolton had arrived. A quiet women, her taste in clothing and hairstyles purposely understated, she attracted little attention to herself as she paid the taxi driver and directed the porter to wheel her luggage through the Terminal Three entranceway, into the busy Departures concourse, and across to the Sales and Reservations counter of the airline.

“Hello,” she said, adjusting her spectacles—the right arm was pressing into her ear, and her ash blonde wig was an added irritant. “I believe you have a ticket waiting for me. Mrs. Bolton. Jackie Bolton. Today’s flight to Antigua.”

She placed her passport on top of the counter, open at the page which contained her false identity and picture.

“Yes, good morning, Mrs. Bolton.” The agent tapped her flight information into his computer, and waited for a response. “That’s odd.”

“I’m sorry I’m a bit late,” said the soft-spoken Mrs. Bolton. “Unavoidable delays along the M4.”

“When did you make this reservation, Mrs. Bolton?”

“The day before yesterday. Is anything the matter?”

The ticket agent was making a number of furtive entries.

“Is there something wrong?” Mrs. Bolton inquired again.

“I don’t seem to be able to locate your reservation, Mrs. Bolton. Are you quite certain you booked your flight through us?”

“Quite,” she replied, the pleasant veneer she had so carefully cultivated taking on a distinctly glacial tone.

“Well.” The agent was momentarily at a loss for words. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Bolton, but we seem to have no record of your booking.”

“But that’s quite ridiculous. I reserved it myself, the day before yesterday, over the telephone. Kindly explain how it’s possible for one of your agents to confirm a flight number, a specific seat and a file locator on Thursday, while today, when I attempt to purchase the ticket, your computer claims never to have heard of me.”

The passenger agent brightened. “Have you got that locator number with you, Mrs. Bolton?”

With a distinctly annoyed sniff, Jacqueline Bolton searched her handbag for the hurried notes she had scribbled during her conversation in the call box.

“There you are,” she said, placing the slip of paper on the counter.

The agent keyed in the combination of letters and numbers, then paused.

“Well, Mrs. Bolton, it does indeed appear that a booking under your name did exist in our system at one point.” He had located the ghost of her file, and was busily calling up its history. “However…that reservation does appear to have been cancelled.”

“
By whom
?” Nora Darrow demanded, her outrage running rough-shod over any remnants of Jacqueline Bolton’s placid demeanour that had managed to survive intact.

“It…doesn’t say,” the agent replied, nonplussed. “I show a record of your original conversation with our reservation office on Thursday morning…” He continued to search the file’s past history. “Your original ticketing deadline…our agent Martin touching it last at 25 minutes past ten last night…”

He stopped.

“It looks as if the file was passed over to a travel agency.”

He brought up the chronicle of active and past Comment fields.

“And then, for some reason, all references to that transaction were purged from the file when the seat was cancelled. Did you not give an agency permission to take over the booking?”

“No,” Nora replied, coldly, “I did not. And as this appears to be a gross error on your part, I would appreciate your re-instating my reservation immediately.”

“I’d like to be able to help you, Mrs. Bolton, but, unfortunately, today’s flight is already overbooked by 32 passengers. We’re completely full in all classes.”

“Then you’ll have to remove someone from your computer. It’s imperative I board that plane.”

“Unfortunately, Mrs. Bolton, I’m not able to do that. I can offer to put you on a priority waitlist, if you’d care to travel on a stand-by basis—”

“That is not possible,” Nora snapped. “I’m certain you’re not the only airline flying to Antigua. Perhaps your competition will be more responsive to my needs—”

“British Airways does have a flight at approximately the same time as ours,” the agent replied, helpfully, checking the schedule on the CRT. “However I am showing seats full in all classes.”

An impatient queue had formed behind Nora. On either side of her, bemused passengers were practising minding their own business, all the while silently congratulating themselves that it wasn’t them facing the same sort of predicament.

Nora looked at her watch. Behind her, a man cleared his throat. The agent waited, his fingers resting on the keyboard.

Suddenly, she saw them: two men, stepping quickly out of the queue, and, to her left, another man with red hair, his arm in a sling.

Harris.

Evan Harris.

And the conspiracy became abruptly clear to her. The travel agency…the cancelled reservations…

Abandoning her luggage, Nora ran, surprising the two detectives, catching Harris off-guard, giving all three of them the slip as she disappeared into the crush of passengers crowding the Departures concourse.

“
Watch her! Watch her!
” Evan shouted into the small radio that was clipped to the collar of his jacket.

There was a crackling silence in his ear, and then:

“She’s outside.”

It was Ian, running. Evan could hear his son’s breath, hard and fast. Something unintelligible blasted through his earjack.

“She’s in a taxi!”

“Stay with her, old son.”

“Follow that cab.” Ian jumped into a taxi that had just discharged its fare.

“You what?”

“Go!
Go
!” Ian shouted, hurling a £10 incentive into the front seat.

As the taxi lurched forward, Ian peered through the windscreen at the disappearing rear of Nora’s taxi. A flurry of conversations flooded his earjack as half a dozen of Scotland Yard’s finest joined in the chase.

“Northeast on whatever road this is,” he said, into the microphone. “Crossing Chipstead Road…roundabout ahead—”

“Have you got a registration number, old son?”

“No chance. South past the Staff Car Park…uhh…north again—”

“She’s on the main road out,” his father said.

“Uhhh…no—we just rounded the petrol station. Missed the turnoff for London. Looks like we’re touring Heathrow. Stand by.”

“Stop,” Nora commanded.

“What, here?”

“Here.”

She kicked the door open, and before the taxi had come to a complete halt, and the driver could protest about his unpaid fare, was gone.

“Uhh…Terminal One,” Ian said, briefly, into his radio. “Arrivals.”

“She can’t be serious,” said one of the Special Branch men.

Ian was already out of the taxi. “She’s serious,” he confirmed. “Where the hell are you guys?”

“Right behind you, old son.”

“She’s into the terminal…I’m losing her…” He was running. “OK—spotted her—Baggage Claim—Skyshop—”

There was a sudden burst of static.

“Say again?”

There was no reply.

The driver of Evan’s car screeched to a stop in front of Terminal 1 and Evan leaped out and flew into the building. The concourse was packed with arriving passengers. He looked for his son, unsuccessfully. He was trailed into the terminal by his assembled contingency of plain-clothed police officers.

“Ian…?” he tried, again, but, again, there was no answer.

He searched the Domestic Baggage Reclaim area.

“Ten to one they’ve gone down into the tube station,” said Detective Inspector Crowther, who was monitoring the conversation, and who’d been in the queue behind Nora at Terminal 3. “This way.”

Ian stopped running. He was attracting undue attention to himself. He slowed to a brisk walk, maintaining a close distance behind his target, using the cover of other travellers to keep himself concealed. He wasn’t sure if she knew he was behind her. She probably thought she’d outwitted her pursuers at Terminal 3, relying on the element of surprise, the advantage of unpredictability. Her adrenalin was surging—he could tell by the way she was walking—buoying her confidence, carrying her down to the platform in the central Underground station that served Terminals 1, 2 and 3.

If she got aboard a train, he would have to follow her. If he turned around and surfaced and tried to rendezvous with his father, he’d lose her. She’d disappear at Hatton Cross or Hounslow West or at any of the other stations in the labyrinth of lines.

“Anybody there?” he checked, quietly, into his microphone, but he knew: if he wasn’t getting any chatter in his ear, they weren’t very likely to pick up anything emanating from his end.

He could try and detain her on the platform, but then what? He was without the power to arrest—not even his cohorts at MI5 could boast that. They relied on the officers from Scotland Yard’s Special Branch to execute the legalities, just as the RCMP served the Canadian intelligence community.

Nora mingled with the passengers waiting on the platform. Ian glanced swiftly at the indicator: there was a train due from Terminal 4 in less than two minutes. He stood just to her right, the receiver in his right ear, concealed from her, wishing he had something to alter his appearance with. He hadn’t even brought dark glasses: they were still in his car, hooked over the sun visor.

Suddenly, Nora looked directly at him. Ian consciously avoided turning his head away—a certain clue to her that he was dodging eye contact. Casually, he let his gaze wander from one end of the platform to the other, ignoring her, knowing he’d been noticed, hoping the impression would not be long lasting, all the while racking his brain to try and recall whether she was going to be able to recognize him.

His red hair was a dead giveaway. She’d make the connection—she’d know he was his father’s son—

Out of the corner of his eye he caught movement—was she going to panic and run? The train was coming—he saw the headlights in the black depths of the tunnel. No, she was standing her ground.

The train arrived and she stepped aboard, Ian close behind her. There wasn’t time for her to jump off again: he was blocking her nearest exit, and a family of Germans with two suitcases apiece the next nearest exit, midway down the car.

As the doors rumbled shut Ian saw his father appear on the platform. There was too much electrical interference from the train for him to make audio contact. The miniature speaker crackled in his ear. In a split second, he had to make a decision. Stay concealed, or send a signal—and give himself away to Nora in the process.

He took the risk, and banged the window once with his hand, hard.

Nora’s head jerked up.

The train was beginning to move, picking up speed.

Nora’s eyes shifted to the platform. She caught Evan’s acknowledgement as he pointed in the direction of Hatton Cross.

Her eyes flew back to the interior of the carriage, and to Ian. Standing at the end of the car, her back to the connecting door, she remained motionless, betraying nothing of her thoughts.

She was plotting her escape. He knew it. And he also knew that she just might be able to pull it off. If the train got to Hatton Cross before a force could be summoned to intercept her—she’d be off.

It was a mile and a quarter in tunnel. The train began to slow as it approached the station. Ian focused his attention on Nora; what was she going to do?

Hatton Cross.

The train stopped, and the doors opened. One person got off; nobody got on. Nora remained where she was. Ian counted off the seconds, watching the platform for the police. If he ran up the aisle and tried to grab her, she’d bolt.

Thirty seconds.

Too long. People were getting impatient, looking around, questioning the wait. Ian realized Operational Control must have delayed the train, holding it in the station until the authorities could get there.

Nora’s eyes wavered.

In that split second, Ian took another calculated risk, rushing past the Germans, leaping over suitcases and luggage wheels.

At the same moment, Nora darted out through the open doorway of the train.

Ian thought it was ironic. There was a large poster in a frame on the tiled wall, and the poster was of Simon Darrow, exhorting him to buy into a private health scheme. Nora streaked past the poster, heading for the stairs. Ian sprinted after her as she took the steps two at a time—then, abruptly, she turned, and, half-tumbling over the metal handrail that divided the stairway in two, scrambled down again.

At the top of the stairs Ian could see a pair of uniformed police officers. He vaulted over the railing and tore down the steps again, wondering where Nora thought she could possibly run to. The exits were manned, the train had been halted.