E. Seymour - A Deadly Trade - A gripping espionage thriller

‘You did not know about the boy?’ Condemnatory, Reuben’s dark eyes turned as black as the sharps and flats on a keyboard.

My jaw ground but I said nothing. I’d broken a fundamental rule. ‘I…’

‘Didn’t do your homework,’ he barked. ‘What have I always taught you: surveillance, knowledge, survival. You check the intelligence then you check it again.’

He was right, of course. It was not Wes’s fault. The blame lay with me.

‘Have you forgotten the art?’ Reuben snarled.

What could I say? Even if I’d elicited screeds of personal details, something told me that I would have missed the one that counted. ‘It was a one-off, an unusual job.’ More unusual than I could ever imagine, and one I never wished to repeat. Ever.

‘How could you be so remiss?’ he growled. ‘What was it, greed?’

I met his eye. He had a point but I’m not sure it fully explained my incompetence. I’ve heard it said that there is a particular time in a serial killer’s life when he wants to be found and stopped. To facilitate his discovery, he makes a mistake. I was not a serial killer in the sense that the term was generally applied so I didn’t believe I fell into this category.

‘I slipped up, took my eye off the ball,’ I said lamely.

‘You got complacent,’ Reuben said, contempt in his eyes. After all I’ve taught you, his expression implied.

‘I admit I was reckless,’ I said, stubbornly defending my reputation.

‘And you let the boy go?’ Reuben saw me for the fool I was. This rattled me.

‘I did.’

‘Why?’ In Reuben’s book, you took no prisoners.

Stumped for an answer, I said. ‘If ordered to kill him I would have done. Nobody gave the order.’

‘Then you have taken an unacceptable risk.’

‘Yes.’ No point in denial.

‘The police will be all over it and now they will have a description of you.’

‘A description but not an identity.’ They couldn’t exactly issue a warrant for the arrest of a man without a name. Even so, the boy had dragged me kicking and screaming out of the shadows. Did Reuben of all people recognise this? If so, he didn’t enlighten me.

Reuben took out cigarettes and a lighter. I sensed he was playing for time. He offered me the pack. I rarely smoked but this seemed like the right occasion. I took one, lit it. Reuben did the same.

‘You need money?’

‘Yes.’

‘I will see to it.

‘Somewhere to hide?’

I hesitated. It would be the smart move yet I could see now that it would be too easy for Reuben to slip back into his old role as mentor and me as pupil. I no longer responded well to criticism. ‘No, just give me the cash, I’ll be fine.’

‘As you please.’ Dark-eyed, he took a drag of his cigarette, drawing the tobacco deep into his lungs.

‘The reason I’m here,’ I confessed, ‘is that I went back.’

‘Back?’ he spat, ‘Are you out of your mind?’

‘To finish the job,’ I lied.

Reuben met my gaze with watchful eyes. He nodded briefly.

‘After I arrived,’ I continued, ‘the place teemed with British, Russian and Israeli security services.’

Most people would have reacted. Reuben was not most people. He barely flinched. ‘The woman,’ he began. ‘You said she worked at Imperial College.’

‘That’s right.’ I inhaled deeply. ‘Dr Mary Wilding.’ I floated her name as if it were a smoke ring. A pulse fluttered in Reuben’s thick neck. I checked any natural response of my own.

‘The microbiologist,’ he said slowly, as though his brain had suddenly filled with sludge.

I blinked. ‘She was a research scientist.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘You didn’t bother to look into this aspect of her background?’

Unforgivably, I had not. I glared at him. He said nothing, his expression one of sheer disbelief. He took another drag of his cigarette, flicked a flake of tobacco from his tongue. ‘So who did she upset? What was her crime exactly?’ A shrewd glint entered his eyes.

I told him what I’d been told, then I said, ‘As the security services are all over it, I assume she committed industrial espionage.’

‘ Assume ?’ Reuben’s damning expression ripped right through me.

‘It’s a fair…’

‘Clearly you were not familiar with her sphere of work.’

I said nothing. My brain was in overdrive, misfiring and failing to make connections.

‘She worked at the Department of Virology at Imperial College,’ Reuben said.

‘Virology,’ I repeated, sounding leaden.

‘The department she allegedly worked in was a front,’ he added, darkness in his tone.

‘For what?’

Reuben did not answer my question directly. ‘The college has many departments,’ he continued, cool-eyed. ‘Some more secret than you can ever imagine.’ His voice assumed a forbidding note. It felt as if a chill easterly wind gusted across the room. I felt faintly nauseous and it was unconnected with brunch.

‘Meaning?’ I said.

‘Bio-weapons,’ he snapped. ‘Chemicals that kill,’ he added as though I didn’t get it the first time. ‘As deadly as nuclear but more vile in its application.’

‘And illegal,’ I flung back at him. This was Britain, for God’s sake, not some far flung Russian outpost.

Reuben threw me a contemptuous look. ‘Yes, which is precisely why any sane government ensures that it has counter-measures in the event of a biological attack. Wilding was working in strategic defence.’

I contained a groan. This had catastrophe written all over it. No wonder the security services were all over it like typhoid in an Indian slum. Christ Almighty, what was on the hard drive? Reuben read my expression and asked the same question. I shook my head.

‘ Why don’t you know, and when the hell did you become a common thief?’

I opened my mouth to protest. Reuben waved away any attempt at excuses with a flick of his wrist. ‘And your American friend, how does he fit?’

I gave no names. I explained that Wes was the fixer, the guy who acted as a middleman. ‘Crime lords have their own contract killers on the payroll, but sometimes they need a specialist job that puts enough distance between them and the intended victim.’ Safe to say, I usually got involved in the dirtier end of the business although I drew a line at abduction and torture.

Reuben stared at me with distaste. ‘And this character, you have operated with him before? He is reliable?’

‘As much as anyone.’ Except, of course, he’d lied royally to me.

Reuben nodded slowly. I realised he was trying to work out a way to save my reputation, my skin. Thank God for that.

‘You want out?’

I did my best to conceal my shock. How could I? Was it really possible for me to rub out the past, get a nine to five job, settle down and start over? Straight answer: no. My silence lurked like a restless ghost in the room.