Chris Ryan - Who Dares Wins

‘If he’d gone dark,’ Sam asked dubiously, ‘what was he doing talking to you?’

Clare shook her head slightly. ‘That’s what I couldn’t work out. At first I thought it was just the money. I mean, the kid had to eat, you know what I mean? But then maybe I thought it was more than that. I think perhaps he was gambling that if he spilled the beans and it appeared in the national press, it would embarrass MI5 into shutting the operation down.’

‘The guys from Five,’ Sam muttered, ‘don’t really do embarrassment.’

The woman shrugged. ‘Whatever,’ she replied. ‘It was difficult for me to back any of this up. It was all down to Bill’s word and I wasn’t even sure how much I believed him. The only thing I knew for sure was that he was very, very frightened of being found out. That led me to believe that there was at least something in what he was saying. And whatever it was that the security services were asking him to do, it was something bad.’ She looked straight into Sam’s eyes. ‘Something one of these red-light runners would baulk at.’

For some reason, the stare she gave him made Sam feel deeply uncomfortable.

‘Go on,’ he told her.

‘That was the last time I saw Bill. We spoke on the phone once or twice, when I wanted to ask him a question or check a fact. I wrote my article sitting at this table. I didn’t show it to anyone. I didn’t even mention it to anyone. To be honest with you, I didn’t even think it would see the light of day. I thought it would be laughed at.’

‘So why did you carry on writing it?’

Clare stuck her neck out slightly. ‘Because I believed it,’ she said. ‘I believed, at least, that some of it was true. My plan was to show it to the powers that be, to gauge their reaction to what I had written.’

‘And did you?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Clare replied, her Irish accent suddenly light and dancing. ‘I did that all right.’ She stared into the middle distance, as though remembering something that left her numb. ‘I did that all right,’ she repeated.

‘And what happened?’

Clare frowned. ‘It sounds a bit stupid, doesn’t it? Giving everything you’ve got to the enemy, I mean. But actually I wasn’t being all that dumb. The way I figured it, they could do one of three things. If it was all a load of rubbish, they’d just ignore it. I’d have been stymied if they’d done that, to be sure. If it was true, they could either deny it – that’s what I was hoping for – or slap a DA notice on it.’

A DA notice. Sam stretched out and picked up the document. He read the front page again.

‘So that’s what they did.’

‘Sure,’ Clare told him. ‘That’s what they did. With bells on. I don’t know how much you know about DA notices, Sam. The MOD uses them to suppress information that might compromise national security. It’s a voluntary code, not the sort of thing they can actually enforce. Not legally, anyway. But my editor would never print something that had been suppressed under a DA notice. It’s just the way it works.’

Sam dropped the document back down on the table.

Clare closed her eyes and pinched her forehead. ‘It happened about a week ago. I sent my article to the Home Office for them to comment on it first thing in the morning. About four hours later there was a knock on my door.’ She smiled faintly. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘a ring on my bell, I suppose. But you know what I mean. I answered it. There were two men there. They said they were from the Government and asked if they could come in.’

She paused before continuing weakly. ‘I should have asked them for identification,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t. I don’t know why. Suppose I thought I was probably on to something. I let them in and we came back in here. That’s when I realised something was wrong.’

‘Why?’

‘Because there was another man standing by the back door. They didn’t seem surprised to see him, so he was obviously one of them. The damn door was locked when I answered the bell, I’m sure of it. So I don’t know how he got in.’

Any number of ways , Sam thought, but he kept that to himself.

‘There was one man who was older than the others,’ Clare carried on. ‘He wore a big black raincoat, even though it was a fine day outside. Looked like someone’s granddad. Well…’ She hesitated. ‘Not my granddad, anyway, but someone’s. Sort of posh. Polite. I didn’t like it. He sat down where you’re sitting now. The other two just stood by the doors. The old man didn’t tell me his name. None of them did. But he sure as hell knew mine. He told me that they were going to search my house, take away my computer, any notes I had. And then he told me to forget everything I had heard about this…’ She raised her fingers in the air to indicate quotation marks. ‘This “red-light runner nonsense”.’

Clare’s words were tumbling from her mouth now. Sam had the impression that she felt somehow relieved to be unloading them.

‘I’m afraid I didn’t really take it lying down. Occupational hazard, I suppose. If it was such nonsense, I asked him, why was he coming to my house to intimidate me? He didn’t say anything, not at first. He just handed me a picture.’

Clare passed her hand across her face. The memory of that picture, whatever it was, was clearly traumatic.

‘It was Bill,’ she whispered. ‘Although I could only just recognise him. He was lying on the ground. He was dead. His legs were pointing in different directions and one side of his face was all mashed up. There was blood all around.’

She sobbed suddenly, loudly. ‘It was awful.’

Sam let the woman take her time.

‘The old man held the picture in front of me for a long time,’ Clare continued. ‘A minute at least, maybe two, before he spoke. I’ll never forget what he said, not as long as I live. “A terrible accident, Clare. It could happen to anyone, and it would be a dreadful shame if it happened to you. Do you understand what I’m saying?” Then he told me again to forget everything about what I’d written. And he told me that if I ever saw him again, it would mean I was in a whole load of trouble.’

A silence fell on the room, and a coldness. Clare pulled her cardigan more tightly around her shoulders.

‘I’ve barely left the flat since it happened. Only to buy food. I keep seeing things from the corner of my eye. I keep imagining I’m being followed. And now you turn up on my doorstep. Holy Mother, are you surprised I’m so frightened?’

Sam looked steadily at her. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m not surprised at all.’ He glanced beyond Clare to the kitchen door. ‘You said you keep seeing things from the corner of your eye. Is that you, or do you think they’re really there? Do you think you’re really being watched?’

Clare shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’

Sam considered that for a moment. Then, without a word, he stood up and headed out of the kitchen.

‘Don’t go!’ Clare shouted. He turned to look at her. ‘Don’t leave me alone,’ she added weakly.

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Sam told her. ‘Just wait there.’

He explored the flat in the darkness. Towards the front, off the main corridor, there was a lounge. This was the room he’d seen from outside with wooden blinds. He edged towards them, lifting a gap in them with one finger, and peered out. All was quiet on the street. No movement. No people. He let the blind fall closed again and allowed himself a moment in the darkness.

Who the hell had posted this article through his letterbox? And was Clare telling him the truth? The only way he could be sure was by forcing it out of her, but the woman seemed so brittle she could snap. In any case, forcing things out of frightened women wasn’t what he’d signed up for. And whatever the truth, Clare was certainly frightened. She certainly believed at least some of what she was saying. He decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. At least for now.