As the Boeing 767 climbed out of Halifax airport Gerry twisted about and tried to get comfortable while she considered her last two trans-Atlantic flights. The first had been in the supreme comfort of a Gulfstream corporate jet and in the second one she had been lashed to the seat as a criminal. The best she could hope for now was that the flight would pass off quickly without any incident. Any discomfort she felt would easily be endured in the confident expectation of a safe arrival and in the comfort she felt in the presence of the man sitting next to her. She looked at his profile. He was not especially handsome and his features were spoilt by the dog bite scar that disfigured his cheek, but she had an undeniable urge to reach over and hug him. She tried to analyse when this emotional bonding had begun. She had originally thought that she had seduced him, or allowed him to seduce her as part of a general plan to bend him to her will, but now she felt an undeniable impulse to reveal her innermost secrets to him. She felt she needed to speak to him about her terrifying time on the raft and how she was rescued by Steven Morris, but of course not including her affair with him while she was on board. She wanted to talk to him about her life in prison, the unexpected death of her mother and giving up her baby for adoption. Not her sexual adventures with Angela though. Or maybe that would be a turn on for him? Men were weird that way. No better not risk it. She glanced towards him again. If he had experienced any gay encounters she certainly didn’t want to know. Anyway he was a regular guy in the marines, just like that Jasper White bastard, so no chance. Then she frowned as she thought about him.
‘Do you think Richard Cornwall will be ok,’ she asked Dan after a while, ‘I feel really guilty about leaving him in the lions’ den, so to speak.’
‘I’m sure they’re not going to arrange for his termination, not while we’re alive and loose anyway.’
‘I’ll bloody well be after them if they do,’ she muttered.
‘I hope you’re not considering some kind of death list after all this,’ he said. ‘We need to find out what this Gilgamesh thing is about, and then we can get people arrested.’
‘Don’t worry; I’m not trying to wreak vengeance and I don’t have a hit list,’ she assured him.
Apart from the one with Robert Bruckner, Sir Hugh Fielding, Jasper White, Neil Samms and Vince Parker on it, she thought. She lapsed into silence and stared at the back of the seat in front of her. Dan briefly squeezed her hand. ‘What are you worrying about?’ he asked. She looked across at him.
‘I’m ready to tell you what happened to me after you left me and Ali Hamsin on the aircraft.’
‘Ok good, I was kinda hoping you would.’
She described her fight on the aircraft, how she had fought the two pilots, the crash and her time on the raft with Ali and then his death. The near miracle of her rescue by Steven and the days spent on the yacht.
He listened in silence asking the odd question but generally letting the story and emotion flood out. When she had finished her story she hesitated a moment and then made her admission. ‘Steven and me on the yacht; we had sex. Several times.’
He remained still but she could hear him take a couple of deeper breaths. ‘Was it… was it having sex, or making love?’ he asked.
‘It was sex.’
‘Well I shouldn’t be surprised,’ he said. ‘After all you’d been through, the isolation. And him being alone on the yacht for all those weeks and then suddenly this beautiful women drops into his lap.’
‘So you’re not mad?’ she asked, ‘or disappointed?’
He smiled at her. ‘Why should I be? I’d have no right, though I’m relieved you told me.’
‘What? I don’t get that.’
‘Well for one thing I would have guessed that you did, because I’m sure if I was in a similar situation I would have done the same.’
‘Ok…’
‘And for another, your hesitation in telling me shows that you were concerned about my reaction. So that means you care about me and my feelings.’
‘You’re right; I do’ she said. She grabbed his hand and then leant over and kissed him.
‘Terminal Five is certainly an improvement,’ said Gerry as they rode up an escalator and walked into the Arrivals hall. ‘It was still being built when I went inside. Not that way!’ she called to Dan as he walked towards the Foreign Nationals line. ‘You’re a UK citizen now.’
‘Oh gosh yes, so I am’ he said in an appalling attempt at a sounding British.
‘Let’s hope your passport is more convincing than your accent,’ she muttered as he lined up behind her. ‘Stop it!’ she said when he tweaked her backside.
They emerged unscathed from immigration and took the coach to Oxford. ‘How far away’s this place where your folks lived?’ Dan asked.
‘It’s just beyond the city. From the centre we can get a bus to the village.’
‘Wouldn’t it’ve been quicker to hire a car?’
‘Well yes, but it would have been difficult without a credit card and I don’t want to leave any trail behind us if we can help it. Anyway we’ve got plenty of time.
‘I haven’t been on a bus in ages,’ he said.
‘Ok don’t be scared, I’ll look after you.’ she said with a grin.
‘You said you’d explain why we need to go there.’
‘I’ve got a small stash there. It’s under the garden shed. A couple of passports, a few other useful IDs, some more cash.’
‘Who owns the house now?’
‘My brother and I still own it, but it’s leased out,’ she explained. ‘We wanted to sell it but it proved difficult when I was inside, then property prices took a hit and it made better financial sense to keep it. I just hope the people in it aren’t at home. It’ll save some explanations.’
So it proved when Gerry rang the bell and knocked on the front door. Then she clambered over the side gate and unbolted it. ‘I guess this is how you used to sneak your boyfriends in when you were a teenager,’ Dan said.
‘I didn’t have any boyfriends,’ she replied. ‘Not until I went to university. There’s the shed. Seems to be in good condition, and someone’s certainly looking after the garden. It’s beautiful.’
Dan stared at her for a moment in surprise and then followed her over to the shed. ‘It’s padlocked,’ he said.
She fumbled briefly underneath by the door and came up with a small plastic bag inside which was a slightly rusty key. Inside the shed she pulled an old petrol engine mower aside and lifted up the floorboards, and then from under the shed she pulled out a metal box with a combination lock. ‘Here it is!’
She opened the lid and pulled out two hand guns wrapped in plastic and two boxes of ammunition. ‘Can’t take these with us, more’s the pity.’ She put them on the floor and pulled out a big envelope. ‘Here we are!’ She showed him a UK passport. ‘Do you recognise that name?’
‘Emily Stevens! I knew I recognised you from somewhere.’
She put it back in the envelope and pulled out another. ‘Ah this one’s better. Anne Fuller.’ She pulled out a third, stared at it then handed it to him. ‘You can take this one as a spare.’ The photo showed a cheerful looking young man slightly overweight judging by his neck. ‘Matthew Reynolds. It’s due to expire in about eight months but it will get you out of the country.’
Dan frowned at the picture. ‘He doesn’t look much like me, but then it’s nearly ten years old. How can I use this to go to Kuwait? The ticket’s in the name of James Huntley.’
‘I don’t think we should use those tickets. I think we should take a flight to Amsterdam or Frankfurt and then travel on from there.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘It’s just a feeling. If anyone’s on our tail then they’ll be expecting us to take the flight from London this evening we’re already booked on. This just leaves the trail cold.’