So, the first treat for the day is the high-speed magnetic train, something we only learned about after arriving in China and was not on any of the pre-tour documentation.
The train line connects Shanghai Pudong International Airport and Longyang Road Station (in the outskirts of central Pudong). It is the oldest commercial maglev still in operation, and the first commercial high-speed maglev with cruising speed of 431 km/h (268 mph). At full speed, the journey takes 7 minutes and 20 seconds to complete the distance of about 30 km.
Construction of the line began on March 1, 2001 and public services commenced on 1 January 2004. It was built by a joint venture of Siemens and ThyssenKrupp from Kassel, Germany.
But, like visiting anything from a hotel, first we have to drive to the station and because we are leaving at 8, its peak hour traffic, and it takes 1 hour 10 minutes to get there.
The train also has a practical use and that is to take passengers from Shanghai to Pudong international airport as well as for those train enthusiasts, which is what we are.
On the train, it has the same sleek look as the bullet trains, but it is completely different, and you are able to see from the front of the train to the back.
Reputed to travel at 431 kph we take a seat and it is not long before the doors shut, and a loud humming noise is soon replaced by what sounds like an engine, then we start moving. It sounds just like a normal train, and is a lot noisier than a normal bullet train.
Seating on the train was nothing special, as one might expect
It didn’t take long before it hits the advertised speed of 431 kph. This is not sustained for very long, because the distance is on 40 odd kilometers, and the whole trip takes about 7 minutes.
We go to the airport, and then we come back. Is it worth the price, yes. If you are a train enthusiast.
How many of us have skeletons in the closet that we know nothing about? The skeletons we know about generally stay there, but those we do not, well, they have a habit of coming out of left field when we least expect them.
In this case, when you see your photo on a TV screen with the accompanying text that says you are wanted by every law enforcement agency in Europe, you’re in a state of shock, only to be compounded by those same police, armed and menacing, kicking the door down.
I’d been thinking about this premise for a while after I discovered my mother had a boyfriend before she married my father, a boyfriend who was, by all accounts, the man who was the love of her life.
Then, in terms of coming up with an idea for a story, what if she had a child by him that we didn’t know about, which might mean I had a half-brother or sister I knew nothing about. It’s not an uncommon occurrence from what I’ve been researching.
There are many ways of putting a spin on this story.
Then, in the back of my mind, I remembered a story an acquaintance at work was once telling us over morning tea, that a friend of a friend had a mother who had a twin sister and that each of the sisters had a son by the same father, without each knowing of the father’s actions, both growing up without the other having any knowledge of their half brother, only to meet by accident on the other side of the world.
It was an encounter that in the scheme of things might never have happened, and each would have remained oblivious of the other.
For one sister, the relationship was over before she discovered she was pregnant, and therefore had not told the man he was a father. It was no surprise the relationship foundered when she discovered he was also having a relationship with her sister, a discovery that caused her to cut all ties with both of them and never speak to either from that day.
It’s a story with more twists and turns than a country lane!
The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.
Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in.
I could truthfully say I was blinded by the light. Whoever my next visitor was, came in and turned on the lights just about blinding me after the ethereal darkness I’d been in for several hours.
Of course, it had to be Lallo.
“I trust you had an uneventful journey and got plenty of rest.” He seemed to be in what might be called a jovial mood.
Perhaps they were going to let him use his instruments of torture on me now we had arrived. I was sure that the Geneva Convention, if we were still a signatory to it, was left outside the door to this building.
“Well enough. Whose idea was it to put me in casts and make me think I had been severely injured?”
“I doubt that would be of interest to you now. Just be thankful it wasn’t purposely done to you. I had been an option, but Colonel Bamfield apparently has you in mind for a job he needs doing, so we opted for subterfuge. You can thank us later.”
Or not at all. I was right. Bamfield, or they, whoever they were, needed me alive. And in one piece. I was not sure I liked the sound of that.
“More questions?”
“No, not at the moment. I’m going to have a chat to the source, you remember me telling you we were bringing him over with us. He was not so lucky as you, as you’ll soon discover. I want you to sit in on the session, I want you to listen and assess what you think about what he tells us.”
“In what capacity?”
“Just listen. I’m told that you have conducted a few interrogations, and have a sense about the target, whether they’re lying or telling the truth. We won’t be using force initially, so let’s hope he opts to tell the truth.”
So did I. The last thing I wanted to see was a messy interrogation. Those I’d been on were relatively simple. A man at the end of a gun usually told the truth or felt a great deal of pain and suffering if he didn’t.
It had never been my favourite job, which is why I’d not done very many, and I had hoped I’d never see Lallo at his worst. Perhaps, then, that was the point of this exercise. They were not finished with me, so he’d make an example out of someone else, letting me know the extent to which he would go, thus making me more co-operative.
A bit pointless, really, because I didn’t know very much. Maybe the Colonel forgot to tell him that.
“There are clothes in the cupboard over there,” he nodded towards the corner of the room where there were two doors. One I figured was the bathroom. “Clean yourself up, get dressed, and let Monroe know when you’re ready. Oh, and take it easy for the first few minutes, the serum we gave you tends to make your legs turn to jelly when you first try to stand up. It’ll pass. Just be careful.”
I was literally waiting for her to tell me she hadn’t anything to wear for our little trip, but instead said she would need to take a few things. She added, in the same breath, that she would tell her bosses whatever they needed to hear.
I didn’t think that included that I’d take a shine to her. I don’t think she quite knew what that meant. At any rate, she had to go home, and I had to head to the car, and on the way, call Cecelia.
She wasn’t going to believe half of what I had to tell her.
I gave her the address of the parking garage and told her I would see her there in two hours. I seriously doubted I would see her again.
Back on the train, I called Cecelia. She answered straight away but with a noncommittal “Yes?” Perhaps she was guarding against the phone falling into the wrong hands. Hers and two others were the only numbers on speed dial.
“It’s me.” I didn’t qualify ‘me’ she would know.
“Where are you?”
“Just leaving Rome after seeing the countess’s solicitor.”
“Did you get a voice recording from Rodby?”
“Yes.”
“Are you suitably surprised?”
“That we only get half, or in this case, a quarter of the story. I didn’t see that coming, though I had an inkling that Martha wasn’t Martha, but then I wouldn’t recognise my mother some days.”
“Who’s that woman pretending to be the countess?”
“Anyone’s guess. Did you get them into the hotel?”
“And left them to it. I’ve been at the Sorrento mansion, waiting for the old lady. The two boys are here, Alessandro and Fabio.”
“Given what we know about the fake Countess, you might want to stay away until I get there. I’m not sure where Vittoria and Juliet fit into the puzzle yet, or whether the fake Countess is keeping them nearby for other reasons, but I’m sure the two of them can take care of themselves.”
As for the information the solicitor gave me, I would save that until I saw her.
“Just one other wrinkle, I picked up some surveillance, and now I have one of their team with me. She’ll be coming to Sorrento. I believe she’s working for a PI who’s working for the Burkehardt’s who want to know where the countess is. They would want to know before the sealing of the inheritance, so extra eyes and ears might be useful.”
“She could be trouble.”
“Which I’m sure you’ll deal with like I will. I’ll be there in three to four hours. Have we got another hotel? I don’t fancy staying with the others?”
“Yes. I text you the name. Take care.”
I waited in the café near the parking garage, and three minutes before the two hours were up I saw her getting out of a taxi, and leaning in to talk to someone who had accompanied her.
A husband, or a boss?
The taxi drove off and she looked around, then saw me sitting at the table on the street. Not the safest place to be, but needs must.
I waited until she sat down and called the waiter over to order her coffee.
“Your supervisor in the car?”
“He insisted on coming with me. I told him the truth, rather than what you said, and he wasn’t pleased. However, at that moment, he said, our interests are aligned, so I would be better off staying with you. At least then if you find the countess, so will we.
“Did you bring a gun?”
“What. Wait. Why would I? A gun?”
She didn’t answer the question, so it was likely the boss just gave her one. I wasn’t going to search her handbag right then, but maybe later. It also raised a small red flag in my head, what if she was more than just a ‘pretty face’?
I shrugged. “If you have, remember don’t point it at me. I tend to get a little annoyed at people who do stupid things like that, with very bad consequences. For them. I hope you like 80s rock. if you don’t then you only have to endure it for about three hours.”
She smiled wanly. “I’d rather not be going, but we don’t always get what we want.”
So, the first treat for the day is the high-speed magnetic train, something we only learned about after arriving in China and was not on any of the pre-tour documentation.
The train line connects Shanghai Pudong International Airport and Longyang Road Station (in the outskirts of central Pudong). It is the oldest commercial maglev still in operation, and the first commercial high-speed maglev with cruising speed of 431 km/h (268 mph). At full speed, the journey takes 7 minutes and 20 seconds to complete the distance of about 30 km.
Construction of the line began on March 1, 2001 and public services commenced on 1 January 2004. It was built by a joint venture of Siemens and ThyssenKrupp from Kassel, Germany.
But, like visiting anything from a hotel, first we have to drive to the station and because we are leaving at 8, its peak hour traffic, and it takes 1 hour 10 minutes to get there.
The train also has a practical use and that is to take passengers from Shanghai to Pudong international airport as well as for those train enthusiasts, which is what we are.
On the train, it has the same sleek look as the bullet trains, but it is completely different, and you are able to see from the front of the train to the back.
Reputed to travel at 431 kph we take a seat and it is not long before the doors shut, and a loud humming noise is soon replaced by what sounds like an engine, then we start moving. It sounds just like a normal train, and is a lot noisier than a normal bullet train.
Seating on the train was nothing special, as one might expect
It didn’t take long before it hits the advertised speed of 431 kph. This is not sustained for very long, because the distance is on 40 odd kilometers, and the whole trip takes about 7 minutes.
We go to the airport, and then we come back. Is it worth the price, yes. If you are a train enthusiast.
John Pennington’s life is in the doldrums. Looking for new opportunities, and prevaricating about getting married, the only joy on the horizon was an upcoming visit to his grandmother in Sorrento, Italy.
Suddenly he is left at the check-in counter with a message on his phone telling him the marriage is off, and the relationship is over.
If only he hadn’t promised a friend he would do a favour for him in Rome.
At the first stop, Geneva, he has a chance encounter with Zoe, an intriguing woman who captures his imagination from the moment she boards the Savoire, and his life ventures into uncharted territory in more ways than one.
That ‘favour’ for his friend suddenly becomes a life-changing event, and when Zoe, the woman who he knows is too good to be true, reappears, danger and death follow.
Shot at, lied to, seduced, and drawn into a world where nothing is what it seems, John is dragged into an adrenaline-charged undertaking, where he may have been wiser to stay with the ‘devil you know’ rather than opt for the ‘devil you don’t’.
It was the first time in almost a week that I made the short walk to the cafe alone. It was early, and the chill of the morning was still in the air. In summer, it was the best time of the day. When Susan came with me, it was usually much later, when the day was much warmer and less tolerable.
On the morning of the third day of her visit, Susan said she was missing the hustle and bustle of London, and by the end of the fourth she said, in not so many words, she was over being away from ‘civilisation’. This was a side of her I had not seen before, and it surprised me.
She hadn’t complained, but it was making her irritable. The Susan that morning was vastly different to the Susan on the first day. So much, I thought, for her wanting to ‘reconnect’, the word she had used as the reason for coming to Greve unannounced.
It was also the first morning I had time to reflect on her visit and what my feelings were towards her. It was the reason I’d come to Greve: to soak up the peace and quiet and think about what I was going to do with the rest of my life.
I sat in my usual corner. Maria, one of two waitresses, came out, stopped, and there was no mistaking the relief in her manner. There was an air of tension between Susan and Maria I didn’t understand, and it seemed to emanate from Susan rather than the other way around. I could understand her attitude if it was towards Alisha, but not Maria. All she did was serve coffee and cake.
When Maria recovered from the momentary surprise, she said, smiling, “You are by yourself?” She gave a quick glance in the direction of my villa, just to be sure.
“I am this morning. I’m afraid the heat, for one who is not used to it, can be quite debilitating. I’m also afraid it has had a bad effect on her manners, for which I apologise. I cannot explain why she has been so rude to you.”
“You do not have to apologise for her, David, but it is of no consequence to me. I have had a lot worse. I think she is simply jealous.”
It had crossed my mind, but there was no reason for her to be. “Why?”
“She is a woman, I am a woman, she thinks because you and I are friends, there is something between us.”
It made sense, even if it was not true. “Perhaps if I explained…”
Maria shook her head. “If there is a hole in the boat, you should not keep bailing but try to plug the hole. My grandfather had many expressions, David. If I may give you one piece of advice, as much as it is none of my business, you need to make your feelings known, and if they are not as they once were, and I think they are not, you need to tell her. Before she goes home.”
Interesting advice. Not only a purveyor of excellent coffee, but Maria was also a psychiatrist who had astutely worked out my dilemma. What was that expression, ‘not just a pretty face’?
“Is she leaving soon?” I asked, thinking Maria knew more about Susan’s movements than I did.
“You would disappoint me if you had not suspected as much. Susan was having coffee and talking to someone in her office on a cell phone. It was an intense conversation. I should not eavesdrop, but she said being here was like being stuck in hell. It is a pity she does not share your love for our little piece of paradise, is it not?”
“It is indeed. And you’re right. She said she didn’t have a phone, but I know she has one. She just doesn’t value the idea of getting away from the office. Perhaps her role doesn’t afford her that luxury.”
And perhaps Alisha was right about Maria, that I should be more careful. She had liked Maria the moment she saw her. We had sat at this very table, the first day I arrived. I would have travelled alone, but Prendergast, my old boss, liked to know where ex-employees of the Department were, and what they were doing.
She sighed. “I am glad I am just a waitress. Your usual coffee and cake?”
“Yes, please.”
Several months had passed since we had rescued Susan from her despotic father; she had recovered faster than we had thought, and settled into her role as the new Lady Featherington, though she preferred not to use that title, but go by the name of Lady Susan Cheney.
I didn’t get to be a Lord, or have any title, not that I was expecting one. What I had expected was that Susan, once she found her footing as head of what seemed to be a commercial empire, would not have time for details like husbands, particularly when our agreement made before the wedding gave either of us the right to end it.
There was a moment when I visited her recovering in the hospital, where I was going to give her the out, but I didn’t, and she had not invoked it. We were still married, just not living together.
This visit was one where she wanted to ‘reconnect’ as she called it, and invite me to come home with her. She saw no reason why we could not resume our relationship, conveniently forgetting she indirectly had me arrested for her murder, charges both her mother and Lucy vigorously pursued, and had the clone not returned to save me, I might still be in jail.
It was not something I would forgive or forget any time soon.
There were other reasons why I was reluctant to stay with her, like forgetting small details, an irregularity in her character I found odd. She looked the same, she sounded the same, she basically acted the same, but my mind was telling me something was not right. It was not the Susan I first met, even allowing for the ordeal she had been subjected to.
But, despite those misgivings, there was no question in my mind that I still loved her, and her clandestine arrival had brought back all those feelings. But as the days passed, I began to get the impression my feelings were one-sided and she was just going through the motions.
Which brought me to the last argument, earlier, where I said if I went with her, it would be business meetings, social obligations, and quite simply her ‘celebrity’ status that would keep us apart. I reminded her that I had said from the outset I didn’t like the idea of being in the spotlight, and when I reiterated it, she simply brushed it off as just part of the job, adding rather strangely that I always looked good in a suit. The flippancy of that comment was the last straw, and I left before I said something I would regret.
I knew I was not a priority. Maybe somewhere inside me, I had wanted to be a priority, and I was disappointed when I was not.
And finally, there was Alisha. Susan, at the height of the argument, had intimated she believed I had an affair with her, but that elephant was always in the room whenever Alisha was around. It was no surprise when I learned Susan had asked Prendergast to reassign her to other duties.
At least I knew what my feelings for Alisha were, and there were times when I had to remember she was persona non grata. Perhaps that was why Susan had her banished, but, again, a small detail; jealousy was not one of Susan’s traits when I first knew her.
Perhaps it was time to set Susan free.
When I swung around to look in the direction of the lane where my villa was, I saw Susan. She was formally dressed, not in her ‘tourist’ clothes, which she had bought from one of the local clothing stores. We had fun that day, shopping for clothes, a chore I’d always hated. It had been followed by a leisurely lunch, lots of wine and soul searching.
It was the reason why I sat in this corner; old habits die hard. I could see trouble coming from all directions, not that Susan was trouble or at least I hoped not, but it allowed me the time to watch her walking towards the cafe in what appeared to be short, angry steps; perhaps the culmination of the heat wave and our last argument.
She glared at me as she sat, dropping her bag beside her on the ground, where I could see the cell phone sitting on top. She followed my glance down, and then she looked unrepentant back at me.
Maria came back at the exact moment she was going to speak. I noticed Maria hesitate for a second when she saw Susan, then put her smile in place to deliver my coffee.
Neither spoke nor looked at each other. I said, “Susan will have what I’m having, thanks.”
Maria nodded and left.
“Now,” I said, leaning back in my seat, “I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation as to why you didn’t tell me about the phone, but that first time you disappeared, I’d guessed you needed to keep in touch with your business interests. I thought it somewhat unwisethat you should come out when the board of one of your companies was trying to remove you, because of what was it, an unexplained absence? All you had to do was tell me there were problems and you needed to remain at home to resolve them.”
My comment elicited a sideways look, with a touch of surprise.
“It was unfortunate timing on their behalf, and I didn’t want you to think everything else was more important than us. There were issues before I came, and I thought the people at home would be able to manage without me for at least a week, but I was wrong.”
“Why come at all. A phone call would have sufficed.”
“I had to see you, talk to you. At least we have had a chance to do that. I’m sorry about yesterday. I once told you I would not become my mother, but I’m afraid I sounded just like her. I misjudged just how much this role would affect me, and truly, I’m sorry.”
An apology was the last thing I expected.
“You have a lot of work to do catching up after being away, and of course, in replacing your mother and gaining the requisite respect as the new Lady Featherington. I think it would be for the best if I were not another distraction. We have plenty of time to reacquaint ourselves when you get past all these teething issues.”
“You’re not coming with me?” She sounded disappointed.
“I think it would be for the best if I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“It should come as no surprise to you that I’ve been keeping an eye on your progress. You are so much better doing your job without me. I told your mother once that when the time came I would not like the responsibilities of being your husband. Now that I have seen what it could possibly entail, I like it even less. You might also want to reconsider our arrangement, after all, we only had a marriage of convenience, and now that those obligations have been fulfilled, we both have the option of terminating it. I won’t make things difficult for you if that’s what you want.”
It was yet another anomaly, I thought; she should look distressed, and I would raise the matter of that arrangement. Perhaps she had forgotten the finer points. I, on the other hand, had always known we would not last forever. The perplexed expression, to me, was a sign she might have forgotten.
Then, her expression changed. “Is that what you want?”
“I wasn’t madly in love with you when we made that arrangement, so it was easy to agree to your terms, but inexplicably, since then, my feelings for you changed, and I would be sad if we parted ways. But the truth is, I can’t see how this is going to work.”
“In saying that, do you think I don’t care for you?”
That was exactly what I was thinking, but I wasn’t going to voice that opinion out loud. “You spent a lot of time finding new ways to make my life miserable, Susan. You and that wretched friend of yours, Lucy. While your attitude improved after we were married, that was because you were going to use me when you went to see your father, and then almost let me go to prison for your murder.”
“I had nothing to do with that, other than to leave, and I didn’t agree with Lucy that you should be made responsible for my disappearance. I cannot be held responsible for the actions of my mother. She hated you; Lucy didn’t understand you, and Millie told me I was stupid for not loving you in return, and she was right. Why do you think I gave you such a hard time? You made it impossible not to fall in love with you, and it nearly changed my mind about everything I’d been planning so meticulously. But perhaps there was a more subliminal reason why I did because after I left, I wanted to believe, if anything went wrong, you would come and find me.”
“How could you possibly know that I’d even consider doing something like that, given what you knew about me?”
“Prendergast made a passing comment when my mother asked him about you; he told us you were very good at finding people and even better at fixing problems.”
“And yet here we are, one argument away from ending it.”
I could see Maria hovering, waiting for the right moment to deliver her coffee, then go back and find Gianna, the café owner, instead. Gianna was more abrupt and, for that reason, was rarely seen serving the customers. Today, she was particularly cantankerous, banging the cake dish on the table and frowning at Susan before returning to her kitchen. Gianna didn’t like Susan either.
Behind me, I heard a car stop, and when she looked up, I knew it was for her. She had arrived with nothing, and she was leaving with nothing.
She stood. “Last chance.”
“Forever?”
She hesitated and then shook away the look of annoyance on her face. “Of course not. I wanted you to come back with me so we could continue working on our relationship. I agree there are problems, but it’s nothing we can’t resolve if we try.”
I had been trying. “It’s too soon for both of us, Susan. I need to be able to trust you, and given the circumstances, and all that water under the bridge, I’m not sure if I can yet.”
She frowned at me. “As you wish.” She took an envelope out of her bag and put it on the table. “When you are ready, it’s an open ticket home. Please make it sooner rather than later. Despite what you think of me, I have missed you, and I have no intention of ending it between us.”
That said, she glared at me for a minute, shook her head, then walked to the car. I watched her get in and the car drive slowly away.
The problem is, there are familiar faces, and the question of who is a friend and who is a foe is made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.
Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in.
…
When I woke up, it was in a whole new world, but not necessarily of pain.
It was a different room, not quite dark, not hot or cold, and looked much like a hospital room layout with a hospital bed and bright lights outside the doors.
I had no idea if it was daylight or night. Classic disorientation procedure before a different sort of interrogation.
What I also realised, though I was not sure why, was that the casts and bandages I had back at the previous base hospital were gone, and everything looked, well, different.
That there was nothing wrong with me.
It’s a terrible thing to realise your own people had basically told you a web of lies about your condition, and how the mind adjusted to those lies. And yet, I would have sworn on a stack of Bibles my pain was real.
Drugs. Not only could they do good, but they could also do some very bad things, to the mind and the body. At a guess, I would say it was for Breeman’s benefit. If I’d come back in one piece, there would be a truckload of questions.
So, I’d been moved and kept under the whole time. And if there was nothing wrong with me, why was I still in what looked like a hospital? Maybe it wasn’t. There was only one bed in the room. Perhaps it was a cell for recovering transportees.
My worst fears then, a black site.
My waking must have triggered an alarm because I heard the door open and someone come into the room. The exact position of the door was hidden by a curtain, but I could see the light from outside intensify when it opened and slowly drop ass it closed.
The curtain moved on its rings to show a man in a white coat, perhaps a doctor, but more likely the interrogator or his assistant coming to check the viability of their target.
I had to ask, “Where am I?”
“In a camp, at a location, I’m not at liberty to disclose.”
“When did I get here?”
“Yesterday, late last night. It was busy. We had three new arrivals. You must be on the right side because you didn’t arrive in chains; the other two did.”
He took my temperature, blood pressure and some other tests, and wrote the numbers on a page in a file.
“You haven’t reacted to the serum we gave you. That’s good.” He saw my look of concern. “Oh, it’s only used for transporting injured people from one base to another. It helps to minimise the external forces causing them unnecessary pain.”
“Apparently, I’m not injured.”
“No. Not quite sure what happened there, but whatever happened is above my pay grade. By the way, don’t try to leave this room. There’s a guard outside who had been told to shoot first and ask questions later. I’ve seen the results of her work.”
Investigation of crimes doesn’t always go according to plan, nor does the perpetrator get either found or punished.
That was particularly true in my case. The murderer was incredibly careful in not leaving any evidence behind, to the extent that the police could not rule out whether it was a male or a female.
At one stage, the police thought I had murdered my own wife, though how I could be on a train at the time of the murder was beyond me. I had witnesses and a cast-iron alibi.
The officer in charge was Detective First Grade Gabrielle Walters. She came to me on the day after the murder seeking answers to the usual questions like, when was the last time you saw your wife, did you argue, the neighbours reckon there were heated discussions the day before.
Routine was the word she used.
Her fellow detective was a surly piece of work whose intention was to get answers or, more likely, a confession by any or all means possible. I could sense the raging violence within him. Fortunately, common sense prevailed.
Over the course of the next few weeks, once I’d been cleared of committing the crime, Gabrielle made a point of keeping me informed of the progress.
After three months, the updates were more sporadic, and when, for lack of progress, it became a cold case, communication ceased.
But it was not the last time I saw Gabrielle.
The shock of finding Vanessa was more devastating than the fact that she was now gone, and those images lived on in the same nightmare that came to visit me every night when I closed my eyes.
For months, I was barely functioning, to the extent that I had all but lost my job and quite a few friends, particularly those who were more attached to Vanessa rather than me.
They didn’t understand how it could affect me so much, and since it had not happened to them, my tart replies of ‘you wouldn’t understand’ were met with equally short retorts. Some questioned my sanity, even, for a time, so did I.
No one, it seemed, could understand what it was like, no one except Gabrielle.
She was by her own admission, damaged goods, having been the victim of a similar incident, a boyfriend who turned out to be an awfully bad boy. Her story varied only in that she had been made to witness his execution. Her nightmare, in reliving that moment in time, was how she was still alive and, to this day, had no idea why she’d been spared.
It was a story she told me one night, some months after the investigation had been scaled down. I was still looking for the bottom of a bottle and an emotional mess. Perhaps it struck a resonance with her; she’d been there and managed to come out the other side.
What happened became our secret, a once-only night together that meant a great deal to me, and by mutual agreement, it was not spoken of again. It was as if she knew exactly what was required to set me on the path to recovery.
And it had.
Since then, we saw each other about once a month in a cafe. I had been surprised to hear from her again shortly after that eventful night when she called to set it up, ostensibly for her to provide me with any updates on the case, but perhaps we had, after that unspoken night, formed a closer bond than either of us wanted to admit.
We generally talked for hours over wine, then dinner and coffee. It took a while for me to realise that all she had was her work; personal relationships were nigh on impossible in a job that left little or no spare time for anything else.
She’d always said that if I had any questions or problems about the case, or if there was anything that might come to me that might be relevant, even after all this time, all I had to do was call her.
I wondered if this text message was in that category. I was certain it would interest the police, and I had no doubt they could trace the message’s origin, but there was that tiny degree of doubt about whether or not I could trust her to tell me what the message meant.
I reached for the phone, then put it back down again. I’d think about it and decide tomorrow.
The girl was still waiting. To me, it was risky to do so, but it depended on her peers, and if she had been told not to lose me, then I could understand. Myself though, I would have kept an eye from the foyer or outside the building depending on where the exits were.
I sat next to her, which I could see was a little unsettling.
“Not finished yet?” She asked, trying to move a little bit further away from me.
“Yes, I am. But I was wondering, Francesca, why have you taken an interest in me?” I gave her a curious look and tried not to look threatening.
She seemed disconcerted that I knew her name, and was going to respond but instead said, “I think you have mistaken me for someone else.”
She stood.
“Perhaps I have, but if the names of Antonia and Giuseppe mean anything to you, I suggest we go have a cup of coffee, my treat, and talk about it.”
I saw the fear in her eyes, and I knew she knew I had leverage. It was, for a field agent, which I didn’t think she was, the worst-case scenario. The fact she wasn’t was underlined by the amount of information found. Field agents, like myself, were ghosts.
She nodded.
Once we were seated, and coffee delivered, I said, “Whatever you might be thinking right now, I am not interested in causing anyone harm. If what I suspect is the case, then you have nothing to worry about unless your employer expects you not to tell me or anyone anything, but we’re past that. You are not a proper field agent, are you?”
“No.”
“Why then?”
“They were short two people and I had done the training, and they asked if I could fill in.”
“To do?”
“Surveillance.”
“You do realize surveillance is carried out from afar.”
“In London or New York maybe but here it is a little more difficult.”
“Did they ask you to get close?”
“Only if an opportunity presented itself. I was to find out what you were doing, with whom, and why.”
“Are your employers looking for the countess?”
She looked at me sideways, summing up what she could and couldn’t get away with. “Yes. She has gone missing. The team in London lost her at the hotel. You were there, and with her at the opera, that’s how you became a person of interest.”
That told me she was not working with the kidnappers. And quite possibly her employers were working for the Burkhardt’s.
“You usually work in the stolen art department, well, not so much stolen art as identifying fakes. I noticed one case where the owners of several very expensive pieces had them copied, sold the originals to private collectors, and then tried to claim insurance when the copies were ‘stolen’. Why would you want to go out into the murky world?”
“There aren’t any cases at the moment and a change was good.”
“You do realise that if I was not retired and only doing a favour for a friend, you’d be dead, or at the very least in hospital. The world I lived in was very, very dangerous. And information on you and your family is too easily accessible. I suggest you address that when you go back to the office. As it stands that might not be for a while. You will tell your bosses I have taken a shine to you, and you will be coming with me to Sorrento.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Do you know what collateral damage is?”
She nodded.
“That can still happen. I don’t need you running around in the shadows where I’ll trip over you. I believe the countess had been kidnapped, and the fact we haven’t got a ransom means that we are dealing with some very nasty people. At least that way you can keep your people updated. It’ll be easy for you to say you overheard me reporting in. It’s that or a dark hole somewhere for several days. Your choice.”
I didn’t want to take her with me, but she was going to stay on my tail. Better to know where she is rather than have her blunder her way into a possible tense situation.
