Al had watched her without seeming to, a skill honed in a million pubs, a hundred market squares. River would love this guy. He’d want to hear his life story, then recount it all to Sid afterwards. I’ll shoot you dead. That’s been tried, she wanted to tell him, but to make it effective she’d have to remind him what he’d said, and that would remove its punch.
Cleaning up took three minutes. Sid had days it took her longer than that to rinse a coffee mug.
When they were done, CC sent them out to his car—blue Peugeot—bags in hand; still clearly the boss, despite what she read as a hairline fracture in his command. He said, “A thousand pounds isn’t what I had in mind.”
“My day isn’t going to plan either. I’d intended to return a library book.”
“What’s Taverner going to do?”
“Teach you the error of your ways,” Sid said. “I imagine.”
“But if she was planning a hard stop, she’d not have sent you.” He tapped his breast pocket, where he’d tucked the envelope. “Or this.”
“No.” Don’t get involved. You had a job to do; you’ve done it. But it couldn’t be helped; she was who she was. “Look—CC?”
“What they call me.”
“Okay. Whatever you think you’re holding over Diana Taverner, she clearly doesn’t care. She told me she wasn’t going to do you harm, but she lies just for practice. If you want my best guess, by trying to blackmail her, you’ve given her leverage.”
“So no happy ever after.”
“I don’t know how this’ll end. But you’ve money in your pocket. If I were you, I’d give some thought to dropping out of sight.”
“This isn’t 1963. With a thousand pounds I could barely drink myself to death. And there are four of us.”
“Not if you walk away.”
“You think I’d do that? What do they teach you at the Park these days?”
She assumed he wasn’t anxious for an answer to that.
He said, “You’ll have to come with us.”
“Am I expecting a bullet in the neck in a lay-by?”
“Al is fond of Daisy. It’s not a good idea to threaten her in his presence.”
She walked in front of him, out of the house, down the road, round the corner. The others were already in his car, and Avril got out at their approach, making space for Sid in the middle of the back seat.
“I’m next to her?”
“Just don’t make eye contact,” Avril said.
Between the other two women, Sid put her head back as CC started the engine. She imagined it raining, imagined it night. Wondered how a day that had started the same as most others had come to this, and decided that the blame lay with herself, for believing that any task devised by Taverner would turn out other than a mantrap.
She did not think, though, that these people were about to kill her. Even Daisy, whose thigh she could feel against her own, wasn’t a danger; just someone who’d miscalculated a threat and responded accordingly. Not so different from her own history, or that small part of it that involved being bundled into a car by strangers. The anger that had drained from her now had left her feeling worn out, like a story told too often. In the front seat, the big man—Al—was asking CC, “How long has it been since you handled an op?”
Fifty minutes later they pulled into the services at Beaconsfield, and Sid found herself being escorted into the loos by Avril and Daisy. Before slipping into a cubicle, she said, “You think I couldn’t escape?”
“You’re not a captive, dear. Just a bit of a nuisance.”
CC and Al were waiting by a bubble gum dispenser when they’d finished. CC ushered the others back to the car with a hand gesture, then handed Sid her tote bag, which held her purse, her sunglasses and her emergency make-up kit. “Where’s my phone?”
“I haven’t touched it.”
Which, if true, meant it was back in the safe house, having scattered when she went sprawling. Shit. A cherry-red cover, a present from River. She was dead.
“I’m sorry about this.” He looked it too, and a penny dropped. She wasn’t about to be left in a lay-by with another bullet in her head. She was about to be abandoned in a service station twenty miles from London; Muzak blaring from hidden speakers, and no phone to call an Uber.
She said, “Whatever Taverner wants you to do, run a mile.”
“I appreciate the advice. But I’ve the others to think about.”
She tried to come up with something else to say, anything that might put a brake on what she feared would turn out a runaway train, but he was gone already, so she stood a while longer, weighing her tote bag in her hand. Taverner would be expecting her to report back, but that was an irrelevance. She’d delivered a burner phone: Taverner would be hearing from CC himself before long. Sid was a surplus detail. It would have been handy to have had this insight earlier that morning, but she could berate herself at her leisure. She was also going to have to find a phone and summon up some numbers, but before she brought any more grief down on herself, she might as well have a cup of coffee.
The others were in the car, like a family gathering gone wrong; Avril and Daisy now with the back to themselves, Al up front, scanning the surrounding vehicles for threat. CC didn’t doubt he actually had a gun—I’ll shoot you dead—but the only immediate threat was CC himself. He had put them all in the crosshairs, though the nature of the approaching bullet had yet to be determined. Who would be pulling the trigger was less of a mystery.
Raising a finger in his friends’ direction—one minute—he retrieved the burner from his pocket, found its contacts and selected the single number listed. It rang twice before he heard four high-pitched beeps and the call ended. When he attempted a redial, the number had vanished from the list, and didn’t appear on the numbers dialled screen either. Spook tech. He allowed himself a moment’s frustration then dropped the phone back in his pocket. Immediately, it rang.
Diana Taverner said, “So you’d be the chancer who thought blackmailing the Service was a smart idea.”
“Not one of my better days.”
“No, those are behind you. Charles Stamoran, formerly of the Brains Trust. Was that a name you gave yourselves, by the way? It smacks of those lumbering giants you meet called ‘Tiny.’”
This didn’t need answering. “Thanks for the money. I’ll admit I had a larger sum in mind, but that was when I thought I was anonymous. You won’t be hearing from me again.”
That got a laugh, if not one CC hoped to hear again. “Where are you? Still in Oxford?”
If in doubt, lie. “Yes.”
“And Baker?”
Phoneless, thought CC. So won’t have reported back yet. “Gone for her train.”
“You’re alone?”
“Yes.”
“Good. You can find Calthorpe Street?”
“. . . In London?”
“Obviously.” She gave him a street number. “Five p.m. Don’t be late.”
And then he was listening to dead air. When he checked the calls received folder, nothing was listed.
Putting the phone away he returned to the car, where he found, you might call it, an atmosphere.
“All done?” Avril asked. “Or are more mysterious phone calls required? You need us to carry on sitting here like children?”
“I liked Sid,” said Daisy. “Are we leaving her here?”
“We’re all done. There’ll be no more calls. And yes, we’re leaving her here.” He was standing by the car, his door open. Al was in the passenger seat, his bag between his feet. “Here, I’ll put that in the boot.”
“I’m fine.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll get thrombosis or something. Do you girls need anything putting away?”
“Call us that again, and you’ll find out.”