‘Have you been in contact with Dean Furness?’
She frowned. Dean Furness was that guy who she had met on that freezing January night in Frankfurt, when she had brought Hakim Mansour and Ali Hamsin to meet with Hugh Fielding and General Brooking or someone. Not Brooking… Bruckner. ‘Dean Furness? Who’s he?’ she asked.
‘Give me a break. Have you heard from him recently?’
‘No I haven’t heard from any Dean Furness. Why are you asking?’
‘I want to know what happened to Rashid Hamsin, and also to Dean Furness… he’s a good friend.’ He placed a card on the dashboard above the vents. ‘I’ll get out now if that’s ok. You can look me up on the computer, but if you want to get in touch I’ll leave my phone number here.’
Gerry nodded and watched him walk back to his silver Ford Mondeo. He turned round to gaze at her for a moment and called out ‘I’ll be seeing you, Gerry,’ before climbing into his car.
As she drove home Gerry wondered what to make of the fact that Jasper White, a CIA agent had evidently been watching her every move during the last few days, but then had candidly admitted to her that he had done so. If she was under some unknown American suspicion then why had he waylaid her on a quiet country road and introduced himself. There was evidently a connection between herself, Dean Furness, Jasper White, Ali Hamsin the translator and his son Rashid Hamsin, but what did it amount to?
CHAPTER TEN
Reaching her Richmond apartment, Gerry opened her front door, put down her overnight case and picked up her mail. She found a letter from a solicitor that confirmed that she was sole beneficiary to the will of the late Mr Philip Barrett, and could she attend his office at a mutually convenient time? She guessed that she would be given title to his house in Twickenham, but she wondered what else the terms of his will would reveal. Perhaps, she thought with some anticipation, there would be something that would shed light on his death and the e-mail that he had sent, but then she knew that was ridiculous. Secrets would not be left around for his lawyer to see. Nevertheless she decided to drive over to his place immediately on the off chance that there was some letter for her.
She had not been to Philip’s home since she had checked up on it two weeks ago as the rooms held to many memories for her. She had spent some time looking at his clothes and books and personal effects, trying to come to terms with the fact that he would never return to wear them or read them or use them again.
As soon as she opened the door she realised that since her previous visit Philip’s house had been searched thoroughly. It had not been ransacked and there was no sign that anything had been stolen, but her inspection revealed that every drawer had been opened, the contents removed and put back in a slightly different way that was immediately apparent to someone who had spent so much time there. The pictures on the walls were no longer hanging quite straight while the toiletry items in the bathroom, some hers, some his, were arranged in neat groups on the shelves and on the corner of the bath.
She wondered if her own organisation had carried out the search or if it had been the work of the Americans. She wondered what they were looking for, and indeed if they had found it. Then she noticed that the tower case of his computer had been taken away.
Gerry returned to her own flat in a state of some anxiety. She and Philip had been too security conscious to leave much of their personal lives on a home computer and certainly nothing of their professional lives was stored there, but she nevertheless worried about what the thief might discover besides some slightly embarrassing photographs.
It wasn’t until she opened her wardrobe doors ready to unpack her bags that she became more suspicious. When she had clumsily pulled some clothes out to pack them, she remembered cursing as her blue silk evening dress had rustled off its hanger onto the bottom of the wardrobe. Now it was hanging back up. Also the hangers were in a fairly orderly row rather than pushed to one side. She looked around and realised some other items were not quite in their familiar places
Her own flat had been rummaged by someone who had clearly not been bothered about revealing the search. She shivered and sat down on the bed. Her landline telephone rang. ‘Hello.’
‘My name’s Dean Furness,’ an American voice told her.
‘Who are you and how did you get my number?’ Gerry said deciding to play ignorant in case her line was bugged.
‘Do you know the Hollytree café, Richmond? It’s in the Terrace Gardens on the river side.’
‘Yes. Yes I do. It’s about fifteen minutes’ walk from here.’
‘Ok, I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’
Gerry locked up her front door and walked to the cafe. She ordered a latte, sat down outside and gazed out over the river watching some rowers sculling back towards the local club. Philip had been a member there; she wondered if Furness knew that. Gerry shivered and folded her arms. Then she checked the time. He was late. ‘Look Furness, I don’t really know who you are or why you’ve asked me to meet you, but I’m here,’ she said to herself. ‘What is it you want?’
As if on cue she saw a man aged about forty, deeply tanned with a wary expression on his face walking towards her. He looked all around before sitting down next to her.
‘Hello again Gerry, or should I still call you Emily?’
‘You’ve shaved off your beard and had a decent haircut, but I recognise you. Should I still call you Dean?’
‘Dean’s my real name,’ he answered. He gazed at her while reaching for a packet of cigarettes from his shirt front pocket.
‘Sorry this place is no smoking.’
‘Not out front here it isn’t,’ he countered. Gerry reached across and deftly removed the cigarette from his mouth before he could bring his lighter up to it. ‘I’m a no smoking area, then. Why did you call me?’
‘I worked with Philip Barrett in Abuja.’
‘Oh yes?’ Gerry picked up her coffee and took a drink. The saucer rattled when she replaced the cup. ‘Go on.’
‘Yeah, we got on pretty good, I don’t know if he ever mentioned me. Did Philip tell you what we’d been working on? Send you any messages about our stuff out there?’
She stared at him for a few seconds. ‘No, his work was classified. Although we’re partners… we were partners, he wouldn’t send me official material. So what were you doing out there?’
‘We were interrogating people brought out from Iraq. Well I was interrogating; Phil was mostly doing Arabic translation for us and drinking a little too much. Anyway we were ordered to fly back to London together. That’s the day he was killed. I was due to travel with him to the airport in the same car, but I had a motor bike to deliver.’ He looked all around, and then reached for a cigarette again. This time Gerry just watched him light up and inhale deeply.
‘I was interrogating this guy Kamal Ahwadi. I don’t know if you’ve done any waterboarding. Rumsfeld and Cheney might think harsh interrogation is ok, but they haven’t done it. The guy thrashes around and he starts bleeding from the places where he’s held. You can see the cloth over his face puffing in and out, in and out as he tries to breath. It might not be torture in the sense of inflicting physical pain, but it’s everything else.
‘Anyway this guy Ahwadi had readily told us that he was working on Qusay Hussein’s staff and then he admits that he was his personal bodyguard and hatchet man. He’s given us the names of the people who worked in his office, but I was convinced he was keeping something back. What we wanted to know was where his boss is hiding, possibly Saddam as well. He tells us he has no idea but when I give Sergeant Myers the order to pour water over him he hollers out ‘No wait, wait I tell you, I’ll tell you about Gilgamesh!’