Adrian Magson - Execution

‘I don’t know. It doesn’t fit, somehow. Look at it from the other side’s point of view and you’d make the same assumption — that she bugged out under her own steam.’ He shrugged. ‘Whatever. We need to find her. Correction — you need to find her. If she’s out there too long, she’ll get scooped up. I’d rather that didn’t happen.’

Harry felt a needle of cynicism. ‘You’re all at it, aren’t you? Secrets within secrets. Who are you protecting?’

Ballatyne brushed the comment aside. ‘I’m not. Unlike the others, I cleared Jardine’s treatment in that unit with higher authorities. But placing a targeted Russian — and a former FSB man at that — in the same hospital was certifiably insane.’

‘Are you worried about her safety?’ Harry knew what Clare was capable of. ‘She’s no school kid. And she stayed under cover perfectly fine before she got herself shot.’

‘As you say, that was before she got shot and because she wasn’t important enough for us to go looking seriously. Now she’s walking wounded and it does matter, because on the one hand she’s a useful scapegoat in the event of an enquiry, and on the other they’ll want to stop her blabbing about what she saw or heard.’ He looked sombre. ‘I mean it, Harry; our people aren’t going to mess about. They’ll put some sub-contract ex-military attack dogs from one of the more iffy agencies on her trail until they get her. And if the people who knocked off Tobinskiy are still out there and looking to do the same, she’s as good as stuffed.’

‘Russians, you mean.’

‘Who else? Nobody else cared about him. I don’t have a line on who they are because it doesn’t really matter. But I’ll bet they’ve got the FSB oath of allegiance tattooed inside their eyelids.’

‘Why should they care about Clare? If it was a Moscow hit team they’ll be long gone by now.’

‘Maybe. Thing is, she might have heard something, put two and two together. And after the Litvinenko scandal, the last thing Moscow needs is someone leaping out of the woodwork proving they’re a ruthless bunch of bastards who’d murder a helpless man in his hospital bed to stop him talking.’

Harry pushed his coffee away. He had a feeling Ballatyne was being unusually frank about Clare. Rik had already come up against one brick wall on the HM Prison Service transfers database, but was currently trying other ways in. Unless her name had been deliberately kept off any official list, she must have gone to ground for her own reasons.

‘So you want me to find her?’

‘No. I don’t.’

Harry was surprised. ‘Then what are we doing here?’

‘We’re not. We didn’t speak, you haven’t seen me.’ He swept a hand out. ‘None of this took place. If you say it did, I’ll have you taken out and shot.’

It explained the absent minders. Ballatyne was being very discreet.

‘So this is off the books?’

‘So far off, it’s on the other side of nowhere.’ Ballatyne looked grim. ‘I’m not kidding, Harry. You and I don’t know each other.’ He held out his hand. ‘Give me your mobile.’

Harry did so, and Ballatyne keyed in a number and handed it back.

‘That’s how you contact me, but by text message only. It’s an untraceable number. If you need to speak, say so and I’ll call you back as soon as I can.’

Harry stared at him. He had never known Ballatyne to be so cautious before. Whatever was worrying the MI6 man had to be internal — something that he couldn’t talk about. Whatever it was, to be using ‘black’ phones and numbers, it was serious.

‘Find Jardine and make it toot-bloody-sweet,’ Ballatyne concluded. ‘If only to prove I wasn’t wrong in putting her in that hospital in the first place. I’ll work out a way of paying reasonable expenses, but it’ll be right under the counter, so keep the costs down.’

Harry nodded. ‘In that case I’ll start here and now. First off, I’d like some clear photos from her personnel file, in case we need to show them around.’

‘Agreed. What else?’

‘Her home address. I doubt she’ll go back there, but it’s a start.’

‘You’d be wasting your time. She sold her flat through a solicitor after the Georgia business; took the money in cash and went underground.’

‘I’d still like the details.’

‘Why — because of friends, drinking buddies, the man at the corner shop remembering her for her cheery hello? That’s a hell of a reach.’ When Harry said nothing, he sighed. ‘Fair enough. You know best. And I owe you that, I suppose. What else?’

‘CCTV in the hospital?’

‘I’ve asked, but they’re playing silly buggers, citing invasion of privacy. It might take time, so work on the basis that you’ll have to do without.’

Harry frowned. ‘It’s a murder enquiry at the very least. Doesn’t that trump those issues?’

‘I thought so, too. But our legal brains say because of other personnel being treated there, it’s rather delicate.’ Ballatyne pulled a sour face. ‘Bloody silly if you ask me, but there you go. Is that it?’

‘Who were her buddies around the water cooler at Vauxhall Cross? You know she had some.’

Ballatyne looked wary. It was a sore point. Following the Red Station debacle, it had become apparent that Clare Jardine had been receiving information from inside MI6, helping her to stay out of reach of the authorities. The friends responsible had so far remained hidden, but Harry was willing to bet that some still worked in the MI6 building.

‘That’s never going to happen,’ Ballatyne said at last.

‘Why? I’m hardly going to make their names public.’

‘I’m sure you’re not. But under the circumstances, having you galloping around London after members of Six isn’t going to help matters — and I’d never get it sanctioned, anyway.’

Harry breathed easily. In spite of his words, Ballatyne hadn’t made an outright refusal. He’d become used to the MI6 man’s language, and he had a way of showing when he was amenable to persuasion. All it needed was the right kind of pressure.

‘I’m not after the entire department. Just one person.’

Ballatyne looked wary. ‘Christ, please don’t tell me you actually have a name.’

‘No. But it had to be a woman. Someone she worked with and trusted, although not necessarily in the same section.’

‘Why a woman?’

‘Because she doesn’t trust men.’

Ballatyne stood up, a flicker of something on his face which might have been understanding. ‘I have to go. I’ve got a round of meetings to stop this thing going global. I’ll see what I can find out. In the meantime, let’s just hope Jardine doesn’t bump into any of Moscow’s bogey-men.’

Clare pulled back her waistband and inspected her stomach in the bathroom mirror. With no electricity, she was relying on the pallid light coming through the small frosted window to see. It didn’t help appearances much. Gingerly peeling back the edge of the bandage, she found the skin around the wound looking angry and swollen. It wouldn’t look good on the beach, but she wasn’t planning on going swimming any time soon. It wasn’t itching as much as it had been, although she wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad sign. Good if she was continuing to heal, bad if her body was shutting down around the wound because of infection.

Somehow, though, she felt it was improving. Her core fitness had a lot to do with it, and a resolve to survive, the latter something she had managed to keep a hold on even at her lowest ebb. All she had to do now was take care of the injury.

She put the dressing back in place and listened to the sounds of movement above her head. People were heading out to work, vans and trucks were coming and going, and the intensity of traffic was a faint buzz in the background. It was nine o’clock and another day was well under way.