Ian Rankin - Westwind

They sat down and she poured, handing him a cup.

God, he hadn’t used this tea set in living memory, preferring a chipped red mug. It had come with the flat, the tea set. But then so had the mug.

‘I thought it was odd,’ Harry continued, ‘your door being open like that, so I called in to report it. I’ll pay for the call, of course.’

‘Called in to whom?’

‘To my employers,’ she said, ‘who are, ultimately, your employers. It’ll be useful to keep that in mind.’

‘Why?’

She chose to ignore this, lowering her fine eyelashes as she sipped from her cup. Hepton drank too, playing her at her own game. The tea was strong and aromatic. Harry put down her cup and crossed her legs.

‘You saw your friend this morning. Paul Vincent. And now your little holiday begins.’

‘That’s right.’ Then it hit him. ‘And you,’ he said, ‘drive a black Ford Sierra.’

She smiled, but did not reply.

‘You were following me?’ he said.

‘Why were you so anxious about Mr Vincent?’

Hepton shrugged. ‘It’s no secret. Paul was taken ill. He’s a friend of mine, as you yourself said. So, naturally, I was worried.’

‘But there’s more to it than that, isn’t there?’ Her voice had taken on a hard, professional edge. He stood up.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve got no proof that you are who you say you are — not that you’ve said very much.’ He walked to the window and stared down into the street. An old man was stooping to pick up a discarded piece of fruit from the side of the road.

‘Very good, Martin. I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever get round to asking. I thought you’d forgotten procedures. Take this.’ She produced a slip of paper from her skirt pocket and rose from her chair to hand it to him.

From close up, he could smell the subtle soap she used. She wasn’t wearing perfume, though; either that or his nose wasn’t attuned to it. He stared at the numbers on the paper.

‘It’s a telephone number,’ she said. ‘Ex-directory; you won’t have come across it before. If you dial it, you will find yourself speaking to your superior, Mr Fagin. It’s a direct line. He’ll give you clearance to speak to me, and he’ll promise also to give that permission in writing. Don’t worry, nothing you might say to me will get back to him.’

‘You don’t have any identification on you?’

‘Nothing formal,’ said Harry. ‘It’s against the rules. I can let you have a library ticket or my credit card, but that’s about it.’

Hepton smiled but was already picking up the telephone. The receiver at the other end was answered after the very first ring.

‘I suppose that’s you, Martin. I was told to expect a call. Listen, I want you to tell them everything , do you understand? It may be more important than you think. Don’t let it spoil your holiday, though; just get it all off your chest and then you can enjoy yourself.’

As Hepton listened to Fagin’s unmistakable voice, saying little himself, he watched Harry picking invisible hairs off the arms of her chair. His head was spinning. What is all this about? A little while ago, Fagin hadn’t seemed interested in anything he or Paul Vincent might have to say. Yet now he was ordering Martin to tell all. He wrenched his thoughts back to the here and now in time to catch Fagin’s final statement:

‘If you keep anything from them, you could get into serious trouble, and they’ll know if you’re hiding something. That’s their job. I must go now. Goodbye.’

As though she had heard everything, Harry raised her head at this, staring towards him with a righteous look on her face. Hepton put down the telephone and sank into his chair, feeling not at all comfortable in his own home. He pinched the bridge of his nose, then straightened up.

‘So what do you want to know?’ he said.

‘What I really want, Martin,’ Harry began, ‘is not so much to be told as to do the telling. As I said before, there probably isn’t much you could tell me that I don’t know already. You should be aware, however, that this is a matter of national security. It sounds like a cliché these days, but I’m in absolute earnest. It is in everyone’s interest for you to forget whatever Paul Vincent told you.’

‘Told me about what?’

Her look was that of a disappointed schoolmistress, some favoured pupil having let her down. Hepton stared at her evenly.

‘Told you,’ she said, ‘that he had noticed something on his monitor.’

‘Then there was something up there?’

‘Certainly there was... interference. We’re looking into it.’

‘But who’s “we”?’

‘You could say that I do PR work for the armed forces.’

‘Public relations?’ Hepton sounded doubtful. Harry shrugged. ‘But I don’t understand,’ he persisted. ‘What have the army got to do with it?’ Then he remembered. Zephyr was watching for civil unrest during the US pull-out. The army must be on standby, of course.

‘As a matter of interest, Martin, what do you think happened?’

‘Me?’ Hepton seemed genuinely surprised. ‘Why should anyone be interested in what I think?’ He remembered his final sighting of Paul Vincent, looking scared and beaten. For some reason, the memory stirred him to anger. ‘I’ll tell you what I think,’ he said. ‘I think you know less than you’re saying, not more.’ He was out of his seat now, standing over her. ‘I think you should get out and leave me alone. That’s what I think. And if I want to tell anybody about all of this, then I’ll damned well tell them.’

She stood too, her eyes on a level with his. Her face had tightened, and there were spots of red on either cheek. Her voice when she spoke was as cold and lifeless as a deep freeze.

‘Of course you must do whatever you see fit. I’ll get my jacket.’ He followed her to the kitchen and watched her put the jacket on. She surveyed the newly cleaned work surfaces. ‘Neat and tidy,’ she said, ‘that’s how I like things, Martin.’

‘Is that a threat?’

She smiled at this, but not pleasantly, and moved past him into the hall, opening the front door. She paused on the threshold, reached into her jacket pocket and brought out a laminated business card. Well, it looked like a business card, but in fact all there was on it was a printed telephone number. ‘You can contact me at that number,’ she said.

Hepton stared at the card. ‘What did you mean when you said we work for the same bosses?’

She chose not to reply, but reached again into her pocket and held out a ten-pence piece towards him. ‘For the call,’ she said. He accepted the money. She was leaving now, but she turned one last time. ‘You know Major Dreyfuss, don’t you?’

‘How do you know that?’

‘It’s my job,’ she said.

He watched her descend the stairwell, then listened as she walked along the passage to the main door. He closed his front door and walked briskly to the living room window, but there was no sign of her in the street outside, no sound of her shoes moving away. His head was spinning. His flat, his private life, everything had been suddenly whisked away from him, reshuffled and brought back altered beyond repair. The old man was still examining stray scraps left by the market stalls. Dispossessed, but no more so than Hepton was himself. As Hepton watched, the man arched his back, straightening it, and in that moment looked up at the window. Hepton flinched, shrank back into the room. Was he being watched? Who was watching him? He realised that he wasn’t just confused. He was afraid. Terribly afraid, and yet without knowing quite why.

Harry used a small infrared device to disconnect her car alarm as she walked towards the black Sierra, then unlocked the boot and took from it a large attaché case, which she carried with her to the driver’s-side door. Sliding into the seat, she quickly opened the case and studied the telephone equipment inside. She should check in, but she still wasn’t sure how much of a threat Hepton was. He seemed at the same time quite innocent and quite devious. Of course, as she knew from experience, even the innocent could be dangerous. She had to be sure. She closed the case again, unlocked the glove compartment and removed from it a small black plastic module. Switching it on, she was rewarded with a high-pitched bleep and a strong green light at the centre of a series of radiating LEDs. It wasn’t the world’s most sophisticated tracking device, but it would do. She placed the tracker on the passenger seat and sat back, hands on the steering wheel, eyes staring straight ahead, waiting...