The Kremlin's Vote – sample chapters - Andrew Turpin Thriller Author

Prologue

Monday, March 30, 2015

Pevensey, United Kingdom

The sharp creak of the wooden stair underfoot sounded like a rifle shot in the darkness, causing Neil Knapp to jump slightly. He instinctively moved his foot sideways on the step and stopped still, then listened for any movement on the upper story of the old building, even though he was virtually certain nobody was there.

Nothing. No sounds. He knew there was no danger of the alarm sounding, because he had skillfully disabled it on his way into the property through a rear window. He was also sure it would not have been switched on if anybody was there.

He stood for a moment, ran a hand through his mop of iron-gray hair, and tugged at the thin rubber gloves he had put on before entering. Then he continued up the stairs, now planting his feet wide at the edges of the steps where they were less worn and hopefully less likely to creak. Even if nobody was there, he still wanted to avoid making a noise.

The building, a 650-year-old former mint house that had been converted into a high-end antiques dealership, was among the oldest in the historic village of Pevensey. It stood just a few yards across High Street from Pevensey Castle, the remains of a fort originally built by the Romans in AD 290 and massively expanded by the Normans following their invasion of England in 1066.

Knapp reached the top of the stairs and paused again. He coughed heavily and then felt a sneeze coming. He tried to stifle it but failed to get his handkerchief out of his pocket quickly enough. The noise echoed around the building, and he cursed inwardly as he blew his nose. He always seemed to come down with some kind of heavy cold as winter turned into spring.

He knew from a previous reconnaissance visit to the dealership exactly where he needed to go. The business owner had installed a wall safe in the large office on the southwestern corner, and inside it were the four objects he had been commissioned to steal.

He had done a slight double take when the request came to him. Never before had he been asked to steal wooden ducks.

But these were no ordinary wooden ducks. They were finely carved decoys that were destined for sale at Sotheby’s auction house the following Friday, each with an estimated valuation in excess of £200,000.

They all dated back to between 1915 and 1920 and were produced by Elmer Crowell, a master carver from East Harwich, Massachusetts. Their current owner, a friend of the dealer whose property Knapp was now in, was sending them to auction with the aim of taking a big profit on his original investment. However, Knapp’s client, based in Amsterdam, had heard on the grapevine about the imminent sale a few days earlier and had called him. It wasn’t the first such request from that particular client.

Within a couple of minutes, Knapp had used his set of picks and rakes to open the locked door to the office and had begun work on the safe door, which was hidden behind a hinged wooden panel. There was just enough illumination coming in through the window from a streetlight near the Royal Oak and Castle pub across the road, thus allowing Knapp to avoid using his flashlight.

He coughed or sneezed occasionally as he worked, swearing out loud in his native Liverpudlian accent every time he did so. It took him twenty minutes of head-scratching work before the door of the safe finally swung open.

Knapp saw the decoys immediately, all in thick protective plastic packaging. He removed them and placed them carefully in his backpack. There were other items in the safe, including a small plastic bag containing what looked like old coins. Knapp hesitated for a moment, glancing up at a clock on the wall, which read twenty minutes past one in the morning. Then he picked up the coins and pushed them into his backpack and zipped it shut. He was no antiques expert himself, but he figured the coins were almost certainly worth something if they were locked away. Then he closed the safe and refastened the wooden panel.

He was about to head out of the antiques dealership when from outside he heard the muffled sound of raised voices. Alarmed, he stepped over to the leaded glass window and peered around the side of the curtain.

In the parking lot next to the Royal Oak were two cars, one dark, one white, parked near to a bus shelter. They hadn’t been there when he had entered the building. Next to the vehicles stood two men who appeared to be engaged in an argument.

One man, a sturdily built, military-looking type, pushed the other in the chest, causing him to stagger backward. As he regained his balance, the first man raised his right hand. Knapp could now see he was holding a pistol with a silencer attached.

There were two muffled thwacks, only just audible through the window, as the man fired twice. Knapp saw the victim, who was wearing a suit but no tie, fall backward to the asphalt surface of the parking lot, raising both arms involuntarily as he did so. His head smashed hard into the ground as he fell, and he lay still.

The gunman shoved his weapon into his jacket, moved quickly to his victim, and went through his pockets, removing what looked like a phone and a wallet. Then he turned and walked with a slight limp to a dark Volkswagen Passat station wagon. He opened the door, got in, and drove off.

“Shit,” Knapp muttered. He scratched his head, feeling slightly bemused at what he was witnessing. The Volkswagen turned to pull out of the lot, which gave him a brief view of the license plate. He swore out loud again. This wasn’t good.

The man’s body was spread-eagled on the ground, clearly visible in the glow of the streetlight to anyone driving past the pub in either direction. It seemed inevitable that within minutes, someone would call the police, officers would be on the scene, and the entire area would be locked down and searched. He needed to get out, quickly.

Knapp headed out of the office without bothering to shut the door. He moved quickly down the stairs and out of the building the way he had come in, through the rear window he had left open.

A slight drizzle had begun to fall. Knapp made his way through the yard and over a low fence, then returned to the street, where he crossed to the other side and walked briskly through the Royal Oak’s parking lot. He glanced briefly at the man’s body as he passed ten yards away. He was very obviously dead.

With the towering and crumbling castle walls forming a dark silhouette to his right and the pub’s walled garden to his left, Knapp walked to the bottom of the parking lot and through a narrow gate into what seemed to be an overflow parking area with a rough unmade surface. Once there, out of sight of anyone on the street, he broke into a run and continued along a path that led through some trees at the far end of the lot to a cricket ground.

Knapp, still fit despite being in his midfifties, ran across the grass at a full sprint for about a hundred and fifty yards. He almost fell in the darkness as his right foot slipped and skidded on a wet, muddy patch of earth. Now coughing intermittently, he arrived at his car, a black Toyota sedan, which was parked in a lot next to the cricket clubhouse. He unlocked the car, took off the backpack, and put it and its near-million-pound contents carefully in the footwell on the passenger side.

He was about to take off his rubber gloves but then thought better of it. He started the engine, accelerated out of the parking lot, turned left, and headed on the A259 toward Hastings.

Knapp had a nagging sense of unease as he drove. He might be a criminal, and indeed he had done a couple of short stints in prison several years earlier after making mistakes during jobs. But burglary and theft, usually to order—and occasionally punching the odd person’s lights out or tying them up if necessary as part of such jobs—was as far as it went.

In his mind, anyone who took another’s life was on the dark side and deserved all they got. Two of his closest friends, both minor-league burglars, had been shot dead several years earlier after inadvertently crossing a London Mafia boss, and he had found it a heavy burden to bear.

As he drove into the seaside town of Hastings along the beachfront, Knapp glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard, which read 2:14 a.m. By now, the drizzle had turned into steady rainfall. He spotted a public phone booth on the sidewalk, pulled onto the side of the road, and scrutinized the area for any sign of CCTV cameras. The silver steel structure was well away from any buildings, and there appeared to be no surveillance. Nevertheless, he pulled a woolen hat down tight over his head before jumping out of the car and walking into the booth.

Still wearing his rubber gloves, he picked up the black handset, took a handkerchief from his pocket, and screwed it into a ball and held it against the mouthpiece. He then dialed 999 and asked to be put through to the police. A male operator answered after just one ring.

“Listen to me, mate, because I’m only going to say this once,” Knapp said. “I saw a murder twenty minutes ago at the car park of the Royal Oak and Castle pub in Pevensey, next to the castle.”

He sneezed twice, then continued. “A man shot another bloke with a pistol. I think he had a silencer on it. They were arguing. Then he drove off in a car. A Volkswagen Passat estate car. Black or dark gray.”

“Okay,” the operator said. “I’m only just hearing you. Your voice sounds very muffled. Where is the body, and are you—”

“Shut up. No questions. The man is lying dead in the car park.”

“I understand. But can you tell me your name and your location?”

“I said no questions.”

“Right,” the operator said. “Did you see—”

Feeling irritated and anxious at the handler, Knapp slammed the handset back into its cradle and ended the call.

It was only on the way back to his car that he realized he hadn’t given the part of the Volkswagen’s license plate number that he had noted.

Chapter 1

Monday, March 30, 2015

London

The apartment still smelled somewhat musty to Jayne Robinson, despite having left her windows open for much of the day with a lavender-scented candle burning on her dining table.

Hardly surprising, she thought. She had only been there a handful of times in the previous eleven months, and most of those had been fleeting visits for a night or two. Otherwise the place had remained shuttered and locked.

Most of her time since the previous spring had been spent across the Atlantic in Portland, Maine, where she had moved to be with her colleague on a number of war crimes investigations and espionage operations, Joe Johnson. The previous year, they had rekindled an affair that originally took place in the 1980s in Islamabad.

But it felt good to be back in the place she had bought in 2005 after returning to London from the Balkans and still thought of as home. It was the only place she actually owned, where she could truly do as she pleased. That hadn’t been possible in Joe’s house, where his two teenagers, pleasant as they were, had proved a little more difficult to adapt to than she had envisaged.

She took two sets of cutlery from a drawer in her kitchen and laid them on place mats on the dining table, where she had already put wine glasses and an ice bucket. Then she turned on the oven and placed the vegetable stew she had cooked earlier on the middle shelf to reheat.

Jayne went out onto her small second-floor balcony, placed her hands on the rail, and stood staring down the street at the outlines of Tower Bridge and the Tower of London, the lights of which were visible no more than a third of a mile to the south. The location, which was very personal to her, and the view had been the selling points.

The adrenaline rush that had kept her going since her arrival at Heathrow Airport that morning was fading, and she could feel fatigue setting in. Sleeping on planes had always been difficult.

But she needed to keep going for a while longer. The man who had been her boss in 2012 when she left Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, Mark Nicklin-Donovan, was due to visit for supper on his way home. It was the only time he could fit her in, and she felt she should make the effort, as he might channel work her way at any point.

Despite the unseasonably warm March sunshine that had cast a glow over London during the day, the evening had turned chilly, and after another five minutes of silent contemplation, Jayne retreated back into her living room and closed the balcony door behind her. The aroma from her stew had begun to permeate the apartment, and the mustiness was finally receding.

The security buzzer chimed, and Jayne made her way into the hallway. The video screen showed a slightly fuzzy image at the ground-floor entrance, but it was unmistakably Nicklin-Donovan, his graying hair, as ever, combed neatly forward into a schoolboy-style fringe.

Jayne pressed the button to allow him in, and he turned and made a signal to someone, presumably his driver.

She hurriedly tidied up the entrance area, putting her running shoes into a cubbyhole and her gym bag into the cupboard. She had always been a runner, but over the past few months she had really stepped it up, with a view to doing a few half marathons and maybe the London or New York marathon. Then she opened the front door and stood waiting in the corridor.

A couple of minutes later, Nicklin-Donovan emerged at the top of the stairwell. He had been to her apartment a few times before and had never used the elevator.

“Jayne, good to see passport control let you back in,” he said, slightly out of breath and with a faint grin, as he made his way toward her. “Did my people turn up this afternoon?”

“Yes, they came, don’t worry.”

Maintaining his friendship had its advantages: it meant she knew her apartment was definitely free of monitoring devices. Nicklin-Donovan had sent a member of his technical team earlier that afternoon to sweep it in advance of his visit. They had found nothing.

He pecked her on both cheeks, as usual, and followed her into the living room, where he placed his battered leather briefcase behind the sofa and removed his coat. He had put on a few pounds, mainly around the belly, since she had last seen him, although he was still relatively trim compared to many other men of his age.

Since 2012, when she had left the SIS, otherwise known as MI6, Nicklin-Donovan had clambered another couple of rungs up the greasy pole to become director of operations. Astonishingly to Jayne, this meant he was now the deputy to Richard Durman, the overall chief of the SIS, who was universally known simply as C—the tag given to whoever held the position.

But despite his meteoric rise, Nicklin-Donovan had remained very supportive of Jayne in her new role as a freelance investigator. She knew why.

“How are things going?” Jayne asked.

“Bloody awful day. I’ll tell you later.” He stood still and looked her up and down. “You’re looking trim. Have you just had your hair done?”

Jayne reflexively ran a hand through her short, dark hair. “Yes, this morning. And I’ve been doing a lot of running. Getting back into it.”

“New England life’s obviously suiting you, then?”

“It’s more relaxed than here. Maybe too relaxed, although I’ve been getting myself fit, yes. I need to get back into work mode.”

“From what I heard, you and Joe needed a break after that last episode in Russia.”

“You can only recuperate for so long.”

Jayne and Joe had taken a six-month break after their previous joint investigation in Russia’s Black Sea region, searching for the Russian perpetrators who destroyed a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet over Ukraine. It had culminated in a life-or-death battle in an oil refinery with the oligarch and former KGB officer Yuri Severinov, who had died in an explosion triggered by Jayne.

“I’ve told you before, I could send you back into Russia,” Nicklin-Donovan said as he sat at the dining table. “We’ve still got problems there.”

He hadn’t wasted any time. That was the second occasion in twelve months he had suggested in general terms that she might consider working for him in Russia. MI6 had lost a number of key people on its Russia desk in London, and she knew he might find it useful to have her available as an option to use on certain deniable operations. So far, she had done no more than indicate she would bear his offer in mind, preferring to work with Joe on projects that had often involved his former employer, the CIA. But she had guessed that Nicklin-Donovan might revisit the subject. Indeed, that had been one reason for seeing him.

Jayne pursed her lips. “As you know, I like working with you. Let’s keep talking, and if there’s anything you’d like me to look at, we can discuss it.”

Nicklin-Donovan was silent for a few seconds. “There’s a lot going on, but nothing I can go into any detail with you about right now.”

“Of course.” She hadn’t expected him to mention anything unless he had a concrete proposal.

“But if you’re open to the idea, I will bear that in mind.”

“Yes, that’s fine. Are you hungry?”

Nicklin-Donovan nodded, and she turned, put on a pair of over mitts, and removed the stew from the oven.

“I think both you and the Agency have issues in Russia,” Jayne said as she ladled the stew onto two plates. “You’re not alone.”

Both the British and the Americans had lost a number of assets in recent years within Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the SVR, and its domestic equivalent, the FSB, the federal intelligence service. This was thanks in part to Russian infiltrations of Western intelligence and the recruitment of high-level spies in London and Washington, DC, including the CIA’s London station chief Bernice Franklin, whom Jayne had helped trap the previous year. The result had been a sharp fall in intelligence emanating from the Russian capital and a corresponding rise in the triumphalist tone of the Russian president on the international stage. A rebuilding phase was beginning, with the main objective being to recruit more sources, and the task was proving far from easy.

“But you’re doing your best to put things right,” Nicklin-Donovan said. “At least, across the Atlantic, that is.”

Jayne looked up sharply as she placed a plate in front of Nicklin-Donovan. “Are you trying to say I shouldn’t do any work for the Agency, Mark?”

“On the contrary, our interests often coincide, although of course I would prefer you to work for us. I was actually referring to your new friend in Yasenevo.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do. I’m talking about VULTURE.”

Jayne had assumed, but wasn’t certain, that as a key player in the Secret Intelligence Service, the CIA’s closest intelligence partner globally, Nicklin-Donovan would have been briefed about Anastasia Shevchenko. She was the newly promoted deputy director in charge of Directorate KR, the SVR’s external counterintelligence arm, based at the agency’s Yasenevo headquarters south of Moscow.

The previous year, Jayne and Joe had trapped Shevchenko in Washington after an SVR operation that had gone badly wrong. Faced with the likelihood of being dispatched to prison or a penal colony for her failure in the US capital—a second such major failure in the space of a few months—she had then immediately offered to spy for the Agency if they agreed to help her cover up what had happened.

If Shevchenko delivered on her promises, she was now the CIA’s biggest asset in Moscow, and she had stipulated that Jayne and Joe should be involved in handling her.

The Agency had code-named her VULTURE.

“I don’t know if she’s going to help us yet or not,” Jayne said. “We haven’t put her to the test.”

“Time will tell with her,” Nicklin-Donovan said as he picked up his knife and fork. “Let’s hope it works out. Anyway, this food is looking good.”

“Thank you,” Jayne said. She filled their wine glasses from a bottle of Bordeaux and picked up hers. “Here’s to future operations.”

“Indeed. To future operations.”

Nicklin-Donovan smiled as he gently clinked her glass with his own.

The conversation turned to somewhat inconsequential updates on Nicklin-Donovan’s grown-up children, his wife’s attempts to learn tennis in her midfifties, and Jayne’s description of her efforts to settle into the neighborhood around Joe’s home in Portland.

She liked her former boss. They had always gotten on very well professionally because they had a similarly flexible approach to finding solutions to seemingly intractable problems. She occasionally had the feeling that he might be attracted to her. It was just the way he sometimes looked at her and his tone of voice. She might be wrong, but either way, she definitely didn’t feel that way about him. Thankfully, he had never given any sign of trying to make a move on her.

After a pause in conversation as they finished their food, Jayne rewound to his opening remark. “So, you said that today was bloody awful. What happened?”

Nicklin-Donovan swallowed, placed his knife and fork neatly on his plate, and leaned back in his chair, twiddling his wine glass in his right hand.

“A few things. First, I had to act as a punchbag for C. He came back in a foul mood after a meeting with the new foreign secretary.”

Jayne nodded sympathetically. C’s boss, the British foreign secretary, Tim Pontefract, was known to be a demanding character.

“That’s the problem when you mix with politicians,” Jayne said. “Anything else?”

“Yes. I spent most of my time chasing business I shouldn’t really have to get involved in,” he said. “It was a murder, down in Sussex. The victim was from your new home territory, you might be interested to know—he was the secretary of state for New Hampshire, which is why I was roped into it. Shot dead in a pub car park. God knows what he was doing there. Happened in the early hours of this morning, about two o’clock.”

A shock ran right through Jayne, and she found herself feeling light-headed. “Did you say the secretary of state for New Hampshire?”

“Yes. Bloody irritating. Right at a time when I’ve got a million other things to do and—”

“Curtis Steyn?”

Nicklin-Donovan paused. “Yes, that was his name. Why?”

Jayne shut her eyes momentarily.

Surely not. Poor Simone.

“I know his wife, Simone,” she said, looking at Nicklin-Donovan. “Very well, actually. She was my best friend from home. I only saw her only three months ago—we met for coffee. I know Curtis too. Met him a few times over the years. She emigrated to the States to marry him.”

Nicklin-Donovan put his wine glass down. “My God. I’m sorry to hear that, Jayne.”

She shook her head. “What happened?”

“I only got the outline of it. The local police are all over it, of course, and they called in MI5 once they worked out who he was. And then I got a call midmorning. I’ve been dealing with the US embassy and the Foreign Office, and Langley has asked to be kept updated, although as far as I know there’s nothing in it that would involve them.”

“What was he doing in the UK?” Jayne asked.

“He was at a conference in London, apparently.”

“So why did he travel to Sussex at night?”

Nicklin-Donovan shrugged. “Nobody knows.”

It immediately sounded odd to Jayne. Simone’s now aged parents lived in Nottingham, still in the same house near to Jayne’s old family home. Jayne and Simone had gone through junior and senior schools together and had then both won places at Cambridge University, albeit studying different subjects and at different colleges.

She remembered Simone telling her that when Curtis occasionally visited London on business, he didn’t stray out of the capital. But maybe he had some secret mistress or business arrangement she didn’t know about. Jayne had occasionally thought to herself that he seemed the type—a man with a large ego that he liked people to stroke and yet who kept his cards close to his chest. He was someone who needed to feel important, to hold information, to know things that others didn’t.

“Do you know if the family has been informed?” Jayne asked.

“I believe so.”

“Any media coverage?”

“Not yet.”

Jayne knew that it could potentially turn into a big story on both sides of the Atlantic. Newspaper and TV coverage was inevitable, although how much was difficult to say. It seemed highly likely that Simone was going to be inundated with calls.

“I’ll give Simone a call and see if there is anything I can do,” Jayne said. “She’ll need support and someone she knows who can help over here. I can perhaps coordinate between her and the police and MI5.”

“Good idea. I can help you with the key contacts there,” Nicklin-Donovan said. He paused and finished his wine. “It sounds like you and Simone have been quite close over the years?”

Jayne nodded. “Yes, we have.”

Chapter 2

Monday, March 30, 2015

London

Jayne sat for half an hour after Nicklin-Donovan had gone, undecided over whether to call Simone and, if she did, what to say. Her tiredness had gone, replaced by the old operational wave of adrenaline that had seen her through many sleepless nights over the years.

Nights spent waiting in safe houses, dark city streets, and deserted forests for sources and agents from countries hostile to the United Kingdom who were risking their lives and their freedom to provide information and documents to her. Men and women from places like Russia, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria, often with principles that compelled them to betray their own countries and leaders.

It was that adrenaline that had propelled her through three decades of exhausting, draining work as an intelligence officer, often fighting stressful internal battles within MI6, as well as external ones.

Maybe she should wait until the next day, until Simone had had a chance to absorb the shock and discuss it with her two adult children?

But what would I want in the same set of circumstances? Jayne asked herself.

She remembered how she felt after her father had been murdered years ago, and she decided that more than anything, she would want to feel that her oldest, closest friends were there in a time of need and were responding quickly to what must be a massive shock, doing what they could to help. Simone must need a shoulder to lean on, to cry on, even if it was over the phone.

In the end, she scrolled through the contacts on her cell phone and found Simone’s details. Jayne normally kept her own number blocked, but she decided to unblock it so her friend knew who it was.

“Hello, Simone’s phone,” an unfamiliar voice said when it was answered.

“Ah, I was hoping to speak to Simone. It’s Jayne Robinson. Is she there?”

There was a muffled conversation as the person who had answered asked Simone if she wanted to take the call. A few seconds later she came on the line.

“Hello, Jayne. Sorry—the house is full of people and my phone’s been going crazy. A friend has been filtering my calls.” Her voice cracked and sounded strained.

“That’s okay,” Jayne said. “I’m in the UK and heard what happened to Curtis. I’m so sorry.”

There was a pause that lasted a couple of seconds. “Thanks for calling, Jayne. I’m just trying to take it in. I only heard myself a few hours ago.”

“I couldn’t believe it when I heard. I was talking to an old colleague who had been briefed on what happened, and he told me.” She didn’t need to explain to Simone why she couldn’t be more precise about where the information had come from; her friend knew Jayne operated in intelligence agency environments with strict obligations not to discuss her work externally.

There was a sob at the other end of the line. “I still can’t believe it.”

“I can only imagine. It’s so terrible.’’ Jayne paused, wondering how she might be able to help with the logistical problems Simone must be facing in getting information from across the Atlantic. “Who contacted you—was it the Bureau of Consular Affairs?”

Jayne knew that the bureau, part of the Department of State, was normally the channel through which next of kin were informed if a relative who was a US citizen died while overseas. She had dealt with them a few times when working at MI6.

“Yes, someone from there called me. I don’t know what to do next, though. I’d like to speak to the police or someone who’s investigating. I want to know what the hell happened. The bureau isn’t saying much. I don’t think they know much.” Simone sobbed again.

“Listen, Simone, I’ve got contacts here in police and security services. I can speak to them and try to help, if you’d like me to. You might need someone you know to act as a go-between. I’m happy to do that.”

Simone hesitated for a second. “Yes, please. That would be helpful.”

Jayne felt suddenly self-conscious. It seemed a little intrusive at this stage to start asking for details about what Curtis might have been doing in an English pub parking lot in the middle of the night, but she felt she needed to try and get at least some of the background to what might have happened.

“Can I just ask, have you any idea why Curtis might have been in a Sussex village at that time, so late? Did he say who he was meeting or anything like that?”

“Nothing. I have no idea. I was completely taken by surprise when the bureau told me where it happened. He never said anything about going there. He was staying in London, so God knows what he was doing that far away. Pevensey is at least a two-hour car journey from where he was staying. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“He drove there?”

“That’s what the bureau said. They said police had told them he rented a car.”

“What was he doing in the UK?”

“It was a work trip. He was at a conference on public administration in London. He went with another secretary of state. He’d been to the same conference the past three years.”

Jayne guessed that it was standard practice for those in Curtis’s type of role to attend international conferences to benchmark against and learn from similar government administration offices in other countries. She knew that the vast majority of US states had a secretary of state whose job it was to manage the local government administrative machine in their territory. Their role usually included everything from registering businesses to keeping state records and administering state and federal elections, and they worked closely with the state governor, who had overall responsibility.

Like most states, the secretary’s position in New Hampshire was a political one, and he or she was elected. Curtis was a few months into his second two-year term of office.

“Who was the other secretary of state he was with?” Jayne asked. Clearly whoever it was hadn’t been involved in the nocturnal parking lot meeting in Sussex.

“The Wisconsin secretary of state, Gareth Weber. He’s a friend of Curtis’s from way back.”

“Did the bureau say anything about him?”

“No, nothing. I didn’t think to ask. I was so shocked at that call.” Simone paused, audibly struggling to get the words out. Then she continued, her voice shaky. “Jayne, can’t you find out what happened for me? I just want someone I trust to be doing it, not some faceless policeman.”

Jayne hesitated. She was tempted just to say yes and drop everything, but if the police investigative machine had already swung into action, that might not help.

“I would really like to do that,” Jayne said. “But I’m thinking this will really be a matter for police to investigate. I don’t think I should poke my nose into their business. I’d only end up confusing matters. I’m happy to help if I can and act as go-between, to make sure you know what’s going on and vice versa, but I’m not sure it would be a good idea to go beyond that.”

There came a long sigh from Simone. “Anything you can do to help would be good.”

Jayne thought quickly about what practical steps she could take. “Perhaps I should try and contact Gareth, to see if he’s got any information. Do you know where they were staying? Or do you have a number?”

“I don’t have a number for him. But I do know they rented a two-bedroom apartment online for the four days they were in London. I’ll give you the address. Just wait a minute.”

There was a clunk as Simone put the phone down and then a rustling noise as she presumably went through some papers. A few moments later, her voice now somewhat less faltering than it had been, she read out the address of an apartment in the Barbican area, which Jayne realized was only around a mile from her own property.

“Thank you,” Jayne said. “I’ll try and reach him and see what he knows.” She paused, hesitant to ask the question she had in mind, but then decided to go ahead. “I’m reluctant to ask this, Simone, but it may be important. Was Curtis in any kind of trouble, or can you think of any possible reason why someone would want to do this to him? Did he have any known enemies?”

The answer came back without hesitation. “I’ve been trying to think of anything in these past few hours, and there’s nothing. He never mentioned a thing. And he didn’t seem worried, or distracted, or anxious. He was just behaving normally, like he always had done. No different at all. Of course, he’s a political man, and he had opponents, people who disagreed with him, but that’s it, as far as I know.”

“Thanks Simone. I had to ask.”

“I know.”

“Listen, I’ll do all I can to help, although it’ll be the police here and the security services who are going to be carrying out the investigation. I’ll call or message you later. I just hope you’ll be all right there. It sounds like you’ve got plenty of help right now, which is good.” She pictured her friend at her house in Concord, the New Hampshire capital, and felt reassured that she had plenty of support on hand.

“I’ll be okay. I’ve got our daughter and friends here at home, and our son is driving up from Manhattan as we speak. He should be here soon.” Both of Simone’s children were in their early twenties.

“Good. Talk later.” Jayne ended the call.

It was now past ten thirty at night in London, and she decided to wait and visit the Barbican apartment in person in the morning rather than make a call in advance to someone she didn’t know. She assumed that the police had already made contact.

Jayne poured the remains of the Bordeaux into her glass and sank into her sofa. This was definitely not what she had expected when she had boarded her flight from JFK the previous evening. The trip had been intended purely as a ten-day visit to check over her apartment, to catch up with Nicklin-Donovan and maintain contact with a view to possible future work for MI6, and to meet a few old buddies for drinks.

Instead, she was now thrown into dealing with the mysterious murder of the husband of her best old friend, whose family had just been shattered. She felt sorry for Simone and for their children. They were only a few years younger than Jayne had been when her father had died in 1994, and she found herself suddenly identifying strongly with them.

The entire situation was heartbreaking. She stifled a sob for Simone, the girl who had once saved her life.

Chapter 3

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

London

The enormous gray concrete structure of the Lauderdale Tower soared more than forty stories above Jayne as she stood on the forecourt at its base. She had occasionally attended classical music concerts at the nearby Barbican Hall during her many years in London, as well as Shakespeare plays at the Barbican Theatre. But despite walking past on many occasions, she had never previously had a reason to visit these buildings that comprised the Barbican Estate. With its brutalist architecture and maze of apartments—all of them built on a site that had been heavily bombed during the Second World War—the estate had never particularly appealed to her.

Jayne had woken early that morning and had spent half an hour in bed, enjoying the sense of peace and solitude that was rarely possible when living with other people. It gave her a chance to think deeply about her friend Simone’s situation. It was the time of day when her thoughts always seemed clearest.

By the time she got up, she had a fresh determination to do what she could to help Simone, and it seemed clear to her that speaking to Gareth Weber was definitely the best starting point. She decided to set off for his rented apartment immediately after eating breakfast.

The Lauderdale was one of three residential towers, all the same height. To Jayne’s untrained eye, they looked very Stalinist and reminded her of the Soviet-era towers she had seen all over Moscow. She knew she would never have chosen to live there, although the estate remained very popular, and the exorbitant prices of the apartments reflected that.

Two police cars were parked outside the building, and a police officer stood next to them, speaking into his radio handset. Another officer was removing what looked like a black toolbox from one car. Perhaps there had been some kind of incident nearby. She wondered if officers were there to talk to Weber about Curtis. It seemed quite likely.

Jayne made her way through the entrance doors on the ground floor, past the reception desk with pink plastic flowers in a pot. The security guard had his back to her, talking to another police officer who stood next to his desk.

Keen to ensure she wasn’t stopped and questioned, Jayne ignored them and headed through a swing door to the elevators.

The elevator car took her to the fourth floor without a problem, but as soon as the twin doors slid open, she guessed instantly what had happened.

There were two more policemen standing on the landing near the elevators. Both of them spun around as soon they heard the elevator doors opening. A third officer stood a few yards to the right, unwinding a reel of yellow tape imprinted at intervals with black lettering that read Crime Scene. One end of the tape was attached to a wall.

As Jayne stepped out of the car, an officer near the door moved quickly toward her, his hands on his hips, his face forbidding. “I’m sorry, but you can’t come in here, madam. Can I help you?” he said.

“I’m looking for Gareth Weber,” Jayne said. “He’s in number three on this floor.” On the far side of the landing the door to an apartment was open. She couldn’t see the number on the door but somehow guessed that was the one she needed.

But the man, wearing a yellow reflective vest marked Metropolitan Police, shook his head and firmly folded his arms, his feet planted some distance apart. “I’m sorry, we’re closing this floor. You can’t come in. We have an incident ongoing.”

Jayne stiffened. “An incident?”

“I can’t comment on what has happened, madam. Can I ask who you are?”

Jayne briefly explained she was a friend of the wife of one of the occupiers of the apartment, who had been shot dead the previous day. She asked to speak to the officer in charge.

Before the policeman could reply, there came the sound of a minor commotion inside the apartment, and two paramedics appeared through the door, one at each end of a wheeled stretcher. A white sheet covered the stretcher, and beneath it was the unmistakable outline of a body. Although it was at least a dozen yards away, Jayne could see there were two large bloodstains seeping through the sheet, one that appeared to be in the center of the chest, the other in the head.

The sheet didn’t quite cover the body, and a few locks of gray hair were poking out from beneath it at the end nearest to Jayne. It looked to her as if the hair was matted in blood.

“My God,” Jayne muttered.

Close behind the stretcher were two other men, both wearing dark suits, who Jayne assumed must be detectives.

The men with the stretcher stopped just outside the door, but one of the men in suits continued toward Jayne.

“I’m detective chief superintendent Watson. How can I help you?” he said, in a slightly abrasive tone.

She stepped forward, introduced herself, and briefly explained why she was there. This time she added in a lower voice, so she wouldn’t be overheard by the other officers, the extra detail of her connections to the Secret Intelligence Service.

But the detective, clearly preoccupied and looking somewhat stressed, stood squarely in front of her.

“As you might have noticed, we’re in the middle of a major incident here,” he said. “I would have thought that being ex-MI6, you would know better. Please leave.” He then somewhat brusquely instructed another officer to deal with her.

The man she had originally spoken to took her gently by the elbow and steered her away to one side near the stairwell. “You heard the boss. You can’t stay here, but we may need to talk to you further,” he said. He asked for her contact details and address, which Jayne gave.

By that stage, the stretcher had been taken down in the elevator, and the detective chief superintendent had gone with it. The officer who was unwinding the yellow crime scene tape had completed his task, effectively fencing off the landing outside the apartment where Steyn and Weber had been staying.

Jayne, feeling more than a little stunned by the turn of events, could see that, hardly surprisingly, she was going to make no progress with the police officers there. So she turned, went through the door to the stairwell, and made her way down to the ground floor, where she watched as the stretcher was loaded into the waiting ambulance.

After it had gone, followed by a police car, Jayne found a nearby bench. She decided to call Nicklin-Donovan to update him on events.

After she had dialed him using the encrypted service they both used when communicating with each other, she explained what had happened. He listened carefully, asking the occasional question.

“One thing is for certain, Mark: these killings have nothing to do with a London public administration conference.” Jayne drummed the fingers of her right hand on the wooden bench, her left clamping her cell phone to her ear.

“That’s obvious. What did the police say?”

“Nothing. The detective chief superintendent wouldn’t talk to me. I explained the connection and why I was there, and he just got one of his guys to take my details. They said they might want to interview me as the investigation goes on. I feel like I want to interview them.”

Nicklin-Donovan sighed. “Police process. Let them get on with it. It’s not our business.”

“I’d like to be able to report something back to Simone. I owe her that.”

“Can’t you leave it to the US embassy to coordinate with Simone?” Nicklin-Donovan asked.

“She’s been speaking to the Bureau of Consular Affairs, part of the State Department. But they don’t seem to know much, and so she’s had very little information.”

There was a pause at the other end of the line. “You don’t change, Jayne, do you?”

Jayne resisted the temptation to give him a sharp reply. It was true she had always been persistent, probably sometimes to the point of being annoying. It was also true that she should let the police get on with it. But she hated giving up on any task.

“Listen,” Nicklin-Donovan continued. “I do know an assistant chief constable in Sussex, Rod Bunting. I heard he just got promoted. He was the detective chief superintendent—headed the whole criminal investigation department. A homicide specialist. I’m guessing he’ll be all over the Curtis Steyn case, and given what’s happened to Weber, he’ll probably be coordinating with his Met police counterpart too—probably the detective chief you’ve just spoken to.”

Nicklin-Donovan explained that he had gotten to know Bunting when MI6 resettled a Russian spy who had defected to the UK a few years earlier. Bunting had provided confidential advice on locations for a safe house within Sussex for the Russian, who was given a new identity.

“Can we call this Bunting?” Jayne asked.

“I can try.”

“Great. Give it a go.”

***