The Rain-Soaked Bride (6 page)

Shining had agreed, despite the fact that the operation would have to be run off the books – there was no way the British government would have signed off blowing a chunk out of one of the most prestigious hotels in Russia just to rescue a single woman who had no strategic asset.

The mission had been successful. Tamar was back where she should be, living in the small flat above the office. But she wasn’t the same woman Toby had met on his first day in the department. How could she be? With several more years of abuse and a drug addiction that she was only just showing signs of recovering from, she was a troubled soul.

On that first night onboard the cruise ship they had used to leave Russia, she had offered herself to Toby. He had woken up to find her hand in his boxer shorts and a look of fatalistic acceptance on her face as she proposed sex. She had simply expected it would be the price for her rescue. He couldn’t recall ever feeling so miserable.

He had put her back to bed and then held her during the long hours until morning. He had hoped she might cry, show some kind of release, some kind of emotion. In fact, she had simply stared at the wall of the cabin. Until, that was, the morning, by which time she was so desperate for a fix she was almost uncontrollable.

It had been a difficult few months.

And he felt responsible for all of it.

He listened as she paced up and down on the floor above, a woman still at odds with her environment, unable to fit into her new life. Toby didn’t know what to do.

When the door opened downstairs and he heard Shining’s feet making his way up to the office, he was struck with a desperate hope that his superior might bring some news that would distract him from standard duties. Section 37 was in a slump and it wasn’t helping Toby’s mood. He needed something to take his mind off the real world. It seemed a reasonable hope given the special directive of the department.

The door to the office opened and Shining breezed in, his usual dapper self. Today offered a black three-piece suit and a violently pink shirt. As always, the old man made Toby look at his own grey suit and wonder what he was doing wrong. He had gone through a phase of trying to live up to his section chief’s sartorial ambitions but had stopped after Shining had pulled him to one side, taken a forgiving look at the green frock coat he had been wearing and suggested he pop home and change. Some people had it, Toby had decided, while others were forced to just watch.

‘Afternoon, Toby,’ said Shining, settling in behind his desk, ‘and how are things here at the very hub of the world?’

Toby looked out of the window at the bored hustle and bustle of Wood Green High Road and sighed. ‘Boring. How was the medium?’

‘He shall trouble the spirits no more. Never mind him, though. I have something far more exciting to occupy us!’

Toby perked up. ‘Last time you said that it turned out you had tickets to see Jethro Tull in concert. I do hope this is better news.’

‘No prog-rock flautists for us today, my eager young spy. I’ve had a fascinating phone call from Detective Sahni. You remember her, of course?’

‘Of course.’

‘She has been investigating some particularly unusual deaths and, unless I am very much mistaken, we shall soon find ourselves in the almost unheard of position of being called upon by our superiors.’

‘You think they want their office back?’

‘I think, Toby, that life is about to get more interesting!’

c) Cornwell’s Club, Mayfair, London

Shining was proved right in a matter of minutes, a call coming through that requested their presence for a briefing of ‘utmost importance’.

Within an hour, they found themselves ensconced in a private room at the Cornwell’s Club on Mayfair.

‘I’m not sure people like me are allowed in here,’ said Toby, shifting awkwardly in his seat and trying to keep his hands off the highly polished meeting table.

‘Think yourself lucky,’ Shining replied. ‘The place is poison, a hell of bigotry, tweed and ironed newspapers.’

The door opened and three men entered. One was a young, professional-looking man. An intelligence officer, Toby decided. The others were a pair of civil servants. They were of a type, the sort of men who spent their weekends pointing shotguns at wildlife. One of them was particularly familiar.

‘Sir Robin,’ said Shining extending his hand to the most corpulent and familiar of the trio. Looking at him in his suit, Toby was reminded of the way a plastic bag filled with water strains and wobbles into unexpected shapes. ‘How delightful to see you.’

Sir Robin ignored the extended hand, as Shining had known he would. He kept it there for a brief moment then popped it back into his pocket where it played contentedly with some loose change.

‘This meeting is not my idea, Shining,’ Sir Robin said. ‘My attitude towards your department is well known.’

‘It is indeed,’ Shining said with a smile as if Sir Robin had offered a compliment.

‘The meeting was called by me,’ said one of the other men. Toby recognised him as Clive King, the assistant Business Secretary, a man who occasionally languished on
Newsnight
when the day’s current affairs had been minimal. ‘I had no idea such a department existed, I must say, but if the night’s events are anything to go by then we will have good reason to be grateful it does.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ muttered Sir Robin, sitting down at the head of the table. ‘You know Fratfield?’

Toby was thinking of a small town in Gloucestershire when he realised that Sir Robin was gesturing to the third member of the party. ‘SIS.’

Fratfield, looking almost as uncomfortable as Toby to be in such pompous company, reached out and shook their hands. ‘Bill Fratfield, Section K, I’m here to keep an eye on the foreign aspects of the matter.’

‘And what matter might that be?’ asked Shining, offering a look of utter innocence that Toby knew was as false as the majority of Sir Robin’s hair. ‘Perhaps the death of Sir James Lassiter?’

Bill Fratfield smiled while Sir Robin and King exchanged uncomfortable glances. ‘You’ve heard?’ asked King.

‘I would hardly be worth my budget had I not,’ said Shining, grateful of the hour or so head start that had been offered to him by Sahni, the chief investigating officer on the case. ‘He was found dead on his kitchen floor this morning. The evidence suggests he slipped on the wet tile floor, hitting his head on the sideboard. Of course, the real mystery is why the floor – as well as the carpet throughout his hallway – was so wet in the first place. “Saturated” was, I believe, the word used by the chief CSO. There was no sign of a water leak, no natural explanation found for its presence.’

‘Indeed not,’ agreed King. ‘It is most curious.’

‘But hardly due cause to go running to Section 37,’ said Sir Robin, back-pedalling slightly when he saw the look on King’s face, ‘with all due respect.’

‘But then,’ continued Shining, ‘there is also the matter of Sir James’s personal assistant. Dead under the wheels of the 5.12 Northern Line train to High Barnet. I believe the platform was also unaccountably wet?’

Toby smiled. He enjoyed watching his superior dance his little dance, so polite, so charming, so completely ahead of the game.

‘The video footage shows something even more strange,’ said Fratfield, reaching into his briefcase to pull out a data tablet.

‘All in good time,’ said King staring at Shining. ‘I really must ask how you came by this information so quickly.’

‘With respect, sir, we intelligence officers must be allowed to keep the sources of our information secret. If it helps, that’s all I know. I was meaning to investigate further when my colleague and I were called here.’

‘Then at least you haven’t heard about Leonard Holley,’ said King. ‘He died last night, too. Run over by his own car.’

‘Clumsy,’ said Shining. ‘Where have I heard that name before?’

‘He was part of the trade delegation run by Sir James,’ explained King, ‘working to improve business ties with South Korea.’

‘Ah,’ replied Shining, ‘that must be it.’ He looked to Toby who was always more well informed on matters of current politics. Toby was quick to jump in and prove his credentials.

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘the much-vaunted new deals after President Geun-hye’s visit. I believe the plan is to double both foreign trade and direct investment between the UK and South Korea by 2020?’

‘It is,’ King agreed. ‘The UK will take all the business opportunities it can get right now and our South Korean friends are only too happy to establish stronger ties.’

‘Lovely people,’ said Shining. ‘Such a shame about their neighbours.’

Fratfield smiled. ‘Exactly. I confess that’s why I’m here. We have no evidence linking North Korea to any of this but, well … it would seem that someone’s trying to damage the negotiations and …’

‘Occam’s Razor,’ agreed Shining. ‘The North are the most likely candidates.’

‘At this stage,’ said King, ‘the who is not so much the question as the how, that’s why I asked to meet with you. From what I can tell you have considerable experience with matters that fall outside the … ah … conventional.’

‘Indeed we do,’ Shining agreed. ‘When it comes to the impossible, we’re the department to call.’

Sir Robin made a scoffing sound. ‘Improbable more like.’

‘I’m afraid,’ continued Shining, ‘this has marked us out for a quantity of cynicism amongst the more traditional offices of Whitehall.’

‘To say the very least,’ Sir Robin said, ‘the man’s a bloody menace.’

‘A menace that is sitting right next to you, Sir Robin,’ said Fratfield and Toby found himself warming to the man. He had no doubt the SIS officer had his own doubts about Section 37 but at least he had the sense of departmental honour not to express them to their faces.

‘With respect, Sir Robin,’ said King, ‘the decision isn’t yours. It is clear to the Secretary of State, and indeed myself, that the circumstances surrounding these deaths fall under Section 37’s purview and they will be added to the ongoing investigation. They will also advise on security moving forward. The new head of the delegation is quite insistent on that fact.’

‘And who would that be?’ Shining asked.

‘Me,’ King replied with a somewhat self-conscious smile. He looked to Fratfield. ‘Would you like to take over explaining the details?’

‘By all means.’ Fratfield pulled a pocket-projector out of his briefcase, connected it to his data tablet and drew the curtains. ‘I’ve included all the relevant information on here,’ he skimmed a USB drive across the table which Shining snatched up and dropped into his waistcoat pocket, ‘but it’s worth mentioning a few especially curious factors. As I mentioned earlier, there are some unsettling details to be found on the security camera footage from the Tube station.’

He swiped his fingers across the screen of his tablet and a grainy shot of the platform at South Wimbledon appeared on the far wall. ‘Can everyone see that clearly?’ he asked, tinkering with the focus on the projector.

‘Oh, do get on with it,’ sighed Sir Robin.

‘Right,’ said Fratfield, clearly irritated.

He started the footage and they watched as Sonia Finnegan took her seat on the platform, waiting for her train. She pulled her mobile phone from her pocket and then flung it away before looking around in embarrassment and moving over to the platform edge in an attempt to retrieve it. Then she flinched, stood up and fell over. Fratfield paused the footage.

‘It’s hard to tell as the quality isn’t all that good, but this is the point when, well, the water appeared.’

‘Sprinkler system?’ Toby asked.

‘You would have thought so, but the fire alarm wasn’t engaged and all evidence points to the system having remained inactive.’

‘So where did the water come from?’ asked Shining.

‘If we knew that we would hardly be talking to you,’ said Sir Robin.

‘It gets stranger still,’ said Fratfield, resuming the footage.

They watched as Sonia shouted at what appeared to be an empty platform. Then she moved further along and reached out towards thin air. As if trying to grab something that was suspended above the rails.

‘There’s nothing there,’ said King.

‘Nothing captured on film at least,’ qualified Shining. ‘That’s not necessarily the same thing.’

Suddenly the train appeared. The whole room winced as Sonia Finnegan tumbled forwards, her body hitting the train.

‘Play that again,’ said Shining.

‘Do we have to?’ asked Sir Robin.

‘Just the moment when she’s leaning out over the tracks.’

Fratfield did so, pausing the footage just before the collision.

‘She’s reaching out to somebody,’ said Shining. ‘It’s what overbalances her.’

‘Here we go,’ sighed Sir Robin.

Fratfield played it again. ‘I see what you mean. But surely there’s nobody there?’

Shining shrugged. ‘As I said before, nobody we can see. She certainly seems to believe there is. What about the mobile phone?’

‘Yes,’ said Fratfield with a smile. ‘Curious, eh? Even more so when I tell you that a damaged mobile was found at the scene of the other deaths too. In all cases the phones were completely fried. Not a working circuit left in the things.’

‘Anything interesting on the call records?’ asked Toby.

‘In each case, there’s no record of any received calls or texts at the time of death, first thing I checked.’

‘And yet, Sonia clearly received one,’ said Shining. ‘She wasn’t just reaching in her pocket to check something, surely?’

Fratfield rewound that portion of the footage. ‘Hard to tell for sure. She certainly acts like someone responding to an alert.’

‘You say Holley was run over by his own car?’ asked Toby.

Fratfield nodded. ‘Sounds absurd I know. He and his wife had been in New York for two days, flew in last night. Rather than stay in a hotel, they were driving from Gatwick to their home in Weedon, little place just outside Aylesbury. Presumably, Holley had things he wanted to do at home before travelling back into London the following morning.

‘Unfortunately, his wife has yet to regain consciousness otherwise we would know considerably more than we do. She was in the car when it apparently lost control at the top of a hill.’