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TWENTY - THREE
23
DCI Burton organised six boxes delivered to my home address. They must be back at the police station by the following day. A courier will collect them just after six o'clock the next day.
Inside the boxes were witness statements, timelines, phone calls and crime scene photographs relating to the eleven deaths.
Closing my study door, I turn the key and take a seat before opening the first box. In the boxes stacked around my feet is evidence of eleven lives and eleven deaths. Nothing will bring these people back, and nothing can harm their feelings anymore.
I feel like I am intruding, flicking through photographs, statements, timelines, videos, all different versions of their pasts.
They say once is okay, twice is a coincidence and the third occasion is a pattern. But I possibly have eleven crimes to consider. Eleven victims. All involved in a business project in Moscow, except Mariella Novotny, the journalist.
Ten men. Property developers,
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NO ONE ASKED TWENTY-FOUR
24The blue-and-white crime scene tape was a great deal further back than usual. But, to our surprise, DCI Burton was on this side, having aged about ten years by the time we arrived, forcing our way through the already gathering media."Thanks for coming," she says with sincerity. "I am really out of my depth with this one.Greater London's Metropolitan Police Service Terrorism Unit has taken over this investigation. The United Kingdom Government COBRA committee has already met to discuss the research, and the FBI will assist the analysis for their expertise on radioactive weapons.""Looks like you've got everything covered," I say."No, we haven't," Burton said, directing us away from the media so that no one would detect dissension in the ranks. "The police and Dr Baker, the Home Office Pathologist, declared it a suicide – concluding that Dr Brett had somehow managed to stab and slash himself repeatedly with two separate knives before succ
NO ONE ASKED TWENTY-FIVE
25University College Hospital is a teaching hospital in London, England. It is part of the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is closely associated with University College London. The hospital is on the south side of Euston Road in the Bloomsbury area of the London Borough of Camden, adjacent to the main campus of UCL. Its tower faces Euston Square tube station. Not far away west is Warren Street tube station, and Euston station is beyond Euston Square Gardens, situated east.I put the money in the machine and got out two coffees. Blanche had driven me to the hospital to see if Jimmy Raistrick would say anything.The very least we would want was an ID of the shooter. I handed a coffee to Blanche."White, no sugar."Blanche took the coffee in both hands.Hospital waiting rooms are useless, helpless places, full of whispers and prayers. Nobody looks at us.Doctors and nurses wander in and out, never able to re
NO ONE ASKED TWENTY-SIX
26It wasn't until we left the University College Hospital that a wave of panic suddenly overwhelmed me. My thoughts send chills rolling down my spine, like a cube of ice is being dragged over each vertebra, bringing my skin to life. I've seen that nurse some before. She has haunted my dreams and hunted for my hiding places.Blanche looked at me, concerned. "Are you okay?"My head was spinning, and my heart was thumping like mad in my chest. I felt short of breath. Sweat breaking out everywhere."The nurse," I just managed to say."What about her?""Why would she be so worried about his call-bed equipment when there is a policeman on duty outside?"Realisation flashed over Blanche's face. "And where was the policeman when we left?"We stumbled back out of the car. The car park is underground and accessible only by a staircase that brings you up in the street opposite the A&E of the hospital. So, we cut across the street, we
NO ONE ASKED TWENTY-SEVEN
27The traffic meanders at an agonisingly slow pace, shuffling and pausing. I can only see the back of the driver's head. He has a soldier's haircut and wrap-around sunglasses, looking ridiculous as he is wearing them at night."Where are you taking me?""To see someone important.""Who?""You'll find out when we get there.""And where is there, by the way?""There is where we are going.""There must be some mistake.""You are Quintus Andrew Noone. You are sixty-three years of age. You worked for MI5 for nearly forty years. You are the youngest of five children, with one brother and three sisters.Your brother passed away suddenly seven years ago. You went to Littlegrove School in East Barnet and then Challoner School for Boys in Woodside Park. You lived in East Barnet, to begin with, followed by Whetstone for fourteen years and then moved to Suffolk. You graduated from Homerton College, Cambridge, with a degree i
NO ONE ASKED TWENTY-EIGHT
28I try not to react."Can you explain?" Patterson asks."No.""Not even a vague notion."My mind was racing through the possibilities, but I couldn't think of any."Do you know this woman?""I met her in Moscow when I went there with Amber Chase. Her name is Elmira. She was General Ozdoyev's, the Russian Deputy Prosecutor's escort for the night. She tried to take Mrs Chase's handbag, but Mrs Chase slapped her around the face to stop her."Numbness rather than shock seeps through me. I felt like someone had walked up and hit me in the back of the head with a piece of wood, with the noise still ringing in my ears."Why weren't they found sooner?""The five MI6 operatives went off the grid five days ago. General Ozdoyev's girlfriend went missing the day after. Felixstowe has nearly four thousand lorries passing through every day.If Customs searched everyone, there'd be ships queued back to Rotterdam."
NO ONE ASKED TWENTY-NINE
29Blanche has scarcely said a word since our flight left Heathrow. Her silences can be so eloquent.I told her that she didn't have to come. "I'm sure you've got enough on work-wise.""I have," she replied, "but how am I going to keep you out of trouble if I don't go with you." The faintest of smiles wrinkles the corners of her eyes.It's incredible how little I know about her. She has children – twins – but doesn't talk about them. Her mother is in a retirement home. Her stepfather is dead. I don't know about her birth father as she's never mentioned it before.Blanche is the most self-sufficient woman I have ever met. She doesn't appear for human contact or needs anyone. You can those survival shows on TV where people are separated into competing tribes and try to win immunity. Blanche would be a tribe of one, all on her own, and would come out on top every time.Paris. It makes me think of finance, diplomacy, commerce, fashio
NO ONE ASKED THIRTY
30I am on my second beer when Blanche gets to the restaurant. I am watching the pizza chef spin a disc of dough in the air and draping it over his knuckles before relaunching it.The waiters are young.Two of them are watching Blanche, commenting to each other. They're trying to fathom our relationship. What is a beautiful, slender, blonde woman doing with me who is a great deal younger?She is either my mail order bride or my mistress, they are guessing.The café is nearly empty.Nobody eats this early in Paris. An older man with a dog sits near the front door.He slips his hand beneath the table with morsels of food."She could be anywhere by now," I say with reluctance. "She played us like a violin, and I didn't see it. I am getting too old for this cloak and dagger shit. I should retire."Blanche becomes angry. "She has fuelled a lot more people than just you. She is very good at her job, but you are better."
NO ONE ASKED THIRTY-ONE
31Oh my God, what the fuck do I do now?I naively looked around me to locate her missing limbs and put them back where they belonged. Only then did I see the other casualties. Those who had not only lost limbs but their lives. Like Pierre Duvall, whose head had separated from the rest of his body. Customers, tourists, and people passing by had all been caught up in Katrin Cajthamlova's collateral damage.A fireman says something in my ear in French, and when I tell him that I am English and my French is limited, he immediately talks to me in embarrassingly good English.He holds my shoulders as he guides me away from Blanche. "Come on, Monsieur. Let's get you out of here.Are you in any pain?"My tongue felt huge in my mouth, choking me. "No," I rasped before pointing at Blanche. "My friend." I am unable to say anything further."Don't worry, Monsieur," he said to me, "we'll do our best to look after her."He helped me to my f
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