Blind pursuit, p.10
Blind Pursuit, page 10
Aaron came over and sat down at the table.
‘You said Hadjam is Algerian?’ Callum prompted.
‘Through his family, yes.’
‘And his daughter is married to a British MP?’
‘Omar Yousefi. Whose parents were Iranian immigrants.’
A British MP? Callum wouldn’t say he was completely ignorant of politics, but he’d never heard of the guy before. Didn’t recognise his face either.
‘So what does it mean?’ Callum asked.
‘Feels like it’s something geopolitical, doesn’t it? Perhaps even, at a stretch, it could be… terrorism-related or something like that?’
‘You think a British MP is involved in plotting terror attacks?’
Aaron sighed. ‘We have zero evidence of that. But terrorism doesn’t only have to be overt bomb attacks. It could be something more subtle. There could still be foul play with these people, behind the scenes, that manifests in some other way.’
Callum had no idea what he meant by that.
‘Whichever way you look at it, these people are linked to Lea’s death,’ Callum said.
‘According to one guy who talked to you. Who claimed to be from MI6, but based on everything else you’ve told me… why would you believe a word he said?’
A good question. And one of many reasons why Callum’s head continued to pound. He couldn’t make sense of any of it.
‘I told you last night… we could run all of this through Jack.’ Jack Wilcox. Aaron’s lawyer friend. Although it turned out he was a corporate lawyer, not a defence lawyer. ‘Whatever we tell him is privileged and it wouldn’t do any harm to get his perspective.’
‘No,’ Callum said with absolute assurance. ‘Not yet.’
Although they had spoken to the guy briefly on the phone last night as Aaron drove them west. Jack wanted them both to go to his house. Do a full, lengthy debrief and come up with a game plan, tactics, before he contacted the police directly to offer them time with Callum. Probably far juicier for him than dealing with legal contracts or whatever his day job usually entailed.
Regardless, there was no chance Callum was putting himself in front of the authorities willingly. Not until he knew more. Not until he knew who to trust.
He checked his watch. Five past nine. They’d waited long enough.
‘Let’s hit the road,’ Callum said.
Aaron pulled the car up outside the bungalow. Only seven properties on the short side street away from the main A-road that dissected the village of Clemens, which had probably less than 200 homes total. Callum was sure he’d driven through the place before but had never had cause to stop until now.
‘That’s the one,’ Aaron said, ducking his head down a little to look out at the modest home. Modest, but the redbrick bungalow had a vibrant, immaculately tended front garden with all manner of colourful flowers in bloom. ‘You’re sure this is a good idea?’
‘Not really,’ Callum said.
‘But Lea told you to come here?’
He’d already explained this, both on the drive west and in the hotel room last night. This morning too, actually.
‘Not directly, Aaron. But she… she told me Claire Simmonds was an old friend. Someone she was really close to when she was younger.’
‘And Claire Simmonds died?’
Callum huffed. ‘Yeah. In a motorbike accident in Bucharest a couple of days ago.’
‘Not what I meant.’
‘I know. Apparently, Lea is Claire Simmonds. But she told me Claire died of cancer when they were in their teens. Claire was an only child and her parents’ lives were destroyed by her death. She said she always got along with them really well. That she visited them every now and then.’
Aaron shook his head, looked almost aggrieved. At the lies Lea had told?
‘She said if anything ever happened to her… she’d really like me to go and see them.’
‘A pretty odd thing to say.’
‘It didn’t seem odd at the time. Not the way she said it. It just seemed… caring. Like she was.’
Aaron scoffed at that.
‘You didn’t know her,’ Callum said through clenched teeth.
‘I’m not sure you did either. No offence.’
Plenty taken.
‘And she told you this when? Recently?’
‘A long time ago, actually. But… yeah, she reminded me of it recently. A few weeks ago.’
‘And you think there was a reason for that?’
‘It’s possible. Like she was warning me. Or giving me a clue.’
‘But she never told you she was in trouble?’
‘No. Never.’
‘Even if it was a clue, have you any idea what you’re looking for here? You think she told them something? Gave them a message for you?’
‘I’m certain she didn’t.’
‘Then what?’
‘I have no idea.’
Aaron sighed. ‘Cal, I want to help, but this just all sounds so… loose. Vague.’
‘It is what it is. Worst case? Maybe I’ll be able to make two lonely people who’ve just lost their daughter feel a little bit brighter.’
‘They probably don’t even know their daughter is dead. And no, that’s not the worst case. The worst case is an armed response team turns up here and fills you with bullets.’
‘Then what else do you suggest?’
‘You know what I suggested.’
‘Go see your lawyer friend.’
‘Jack explained the situation to us both pretty clearly last night. Running isn’t the answer. Interfering isn’t the answer. It’ll only make things look worse for you.’
Except Callum had done nothing wrong.
‘So you’re really doing this?’ Aaron asked after a few moments of silence.
‘I have to.’
‘Want me to come in too?’
‘No. Wait here. If… anything doesn’t look or feel right, blast the horn.’
Aaron gulped, as though he hadn’t really felt there could be a threat to him being here until that point.
Callum got out and headed to the front door. The ring was answered within a few seconds by a woman he didn’t know – certainly not the woman who’d attended his and Lea’s wedding pretending to be the mother of the bride. She was short, probably no more than her late sixties given Lea’s age but she looked frail, with wispy white hair and droopy features.
‘Mrs Simmonds?’
‘Yes?’ she said, obviously suspicious.
‘I’m a friend of Claire’s.’
She said nothing but her eyes welled. A man appeared behind her. He was only a little taller and equally withered.
‘Is it the police again?’ he said, coming up behind her.
Again. They already knew.
‘He says he’s a friend.’
‘Callum Murphy,’ Callum said, holding his hand out. Both looked hesitant but then each of them gave a limp shake in turn.
‘Why don’t you come inside.’
They sat in the living room. Mrs Simmonds – Janet – had made a pot of tea and was propped on the edge of one end of the sofa, Callum at the other. Her husband, Fred, sat sunken in an armchair. The furniture – like much of the decor – was a little dated, but everything in the house was neat and tidy and well-kept. Photo frames adorned most surfaces. Plenty of them were of Lea. Claire. Even some pretty recent ones of her abroad – both trips she’d taken with Callum, and some ‘business’ trips.
Callum had spotted the photos the moment he’d stepped inside. The truth smacked him across the face.
It’d been years ago when Lea had first mentioned her old ‘friend’ Claire and her parents. When she’d said she’d like for Callum to visit them if anything happened to her. And he got it now. This would have been her reveal to him, because the second he walked in she knew he’d have seen all the pictures and the dots would have been connected in his mind within the first few moments of speaking to her mum and dad.
But she’d specifically mentioned Claire Simmonds to him more recently too. That had to mean something.
‘What did the police say?’ Callum asked.
‘That there was an accident overseas,’ Janet said. ‘Prague, I think they said?’
Fred nodded. Callum inwardly cringed. Prague? Was that some sort of insult to him? Obviously, the Simmonds hadn’t seen, or at least not properly understood the news articles referencing Lea Torrence’s death in Bucharest, but then the pictures of her in the news had been pretty unclear really. Perhaps deliberately so.
Not the picture of him, though. His picture had been pretty damn clear, but still neither Fred nor Janet seemed particularly alerted by his presence here.
‘When did the police come?’ Callum asked.
‘Last night. Just after 6 p.m. We were eating dinner.’
‘Did they say much? Ask you much about Claire?’
Fred’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, but he didn’t answer.
‘Hardly anything,’ Janet said. ‘They only wanted to know when we’d last seen her. If she’d left anything of hers here.’
‘Had she?’
‘Like what?’ Fred challenged.
Callum didn’t answer.
‘You knew her well?’ Janet asked.
Callum dwelled on the question a few seconds before diving in. He’d thought about how to approach this, his relationship with Claire. He didn’t tell them they were together, but he did talk, and talk, them asking him questions, him asking them. It felt good. It made him feel better. They were talking about the same person, he realised. Claire Simmonds and Lea Torrence were the same person.
He cringed at his own thought. Of course they were the same person, but he’d kind of expected that maybe… she’d created two wholly different personas or something. But she really hadn’t. The woman he’d fallen in love with and was married to was the Simmonds’s daughter. And yet that tugged at his heart so much. They’d never heard of him, never met him, had no idea their daughter had even been married.
Another thought wrestled for control in his head, not for the first time. Who the hell was the woman who’d come to their wedding? The one Lea had said was her mother?
That question pushed away a great deal of his growing fond reminisce.
The phone was ringing. Janet picked it up.
‘Rachel! I’m so glad you called. It’s… Yes… Horrible… just horrible… No, we’re doing OK… But… Yes… But… We’ve got company—’
‘It’s OK,’ Callum said. ‘You carry on. Fred, do you think I could use the bathroom?’
He nodded. ‘Down the hall. You won’t miss it.’
Callum got up and headed that way, Janet’s voice carrying through the small space.
Fred was right. Callum couldn’t miss the bathroom. It wasn’t as though there were many options off the hallway. Although he didn’t actually make it there. Hadn’t necessarily intended to really, because his intention was to mooch a little, and he found himself in the doorway of the spare bedroom – one of only two in the small home.
He stared at the painting hanging on the wall above a drawer unit topped with a variety of photos of Lea, mostly as a child. The painting looked a little odd, out of place versus everything else. It wasn’t particularly big but was finished in an almost overly elaborate gold-tinged frame. What had first caught his eye though were the symbols in the bottom corner: the same characters Lea had tattooed on her wrist.
Hope and light.
The rest of the painting was of spring blossom, purples and whites. Something like that, anyway.
He moved forward, right up to the frame and stared at the picture, looking over every detail, brain whirring. It looked like…
‘So you did miss it?’ came the voice from behind him.
Callum spun around to see Fred there in the doorway.
‘I’m so sorry, I… didn’t mean to snoop. But I saw the picture. The symbols. They’re the same as Lea—same as Claire’s tattoo?’
Fred’s frown remained and he didn’t answer straight away. Callum wondered whether he’d made a big mistake.
‘We hated when she got that tattoo. But what do we know? Everyone has them these days, apparently.’
‘Hope and light, she told me it meant.’
Fred nodded. ‘Yeah. I guess it could have been worse.’
‘When did you get the painting?’
‘The first time or the second time?’
Callum raised an eyebrow to show he didn’t understand. Fred waved the reaction away.
‘She brought the picture home with her a few years ago. She’d been in Singapore or Shanghai or something like that. Kind of unique, I guess, that it had the same message as her tattoo. That’s why she said she got it for us.’
‘It’s… pretty.’
‘It’s not our style but… it’s grown on me, to be honest.’
‘You said… something about the first and second time?’
Fred sniffed, shrugged. ‘It’s been sat there for years. Then a few weeks ago, she came over and took it down. Told us it had faded from the sun. She wanted it reframed, so it was better protected. She brought it back… not even a fortnight ago and it’s got that damn awful gaudy gold thing all around it. Talk about culture clash.’
Janet appeared over his shoulder, no phone now. ‘Honey, don’t be so rude. She paid for that herself. Must have cost her a fortune.’
‘It looks… really good,’ Callum said. ‘If you ask me. Definitely a top-quality finish.’
Fred humphed again as though not impressed with the statement.
‘Do you mind if I take a closer look?’ Callum asked.
Really suspicious now.
‘A closer look for what?’ Fred said.
‘Of course you can, dear,’ Janet added.
Before Fred protested, Callum reached out and pulled the frame off its hook and turned it over and scanned the back. The phone rang again.
‘For God’s sake, I’d do anything for some peace and quiet,’ Fred said as Janet wandered off to answer it. He stayed put. At least until, ‘Fred! It’s for you.’
‘Be careful,’ he said, glaring at Callum a moment before he wandered off.
Callum returned his gaze to the painting. To the sticker at the bottom left hand corner on the back of the frame. He squinted, as though that’d help him make sense of the jumble of letters. It looked like it’d been put there by the art shop Lea had originally bought it from, or the framer.
No. The latter. He recognised ‘Bristol’ in the address.
And another word stuck out too.
Adele.
He was sure that said Adele in a pencilled scrawl.
A message for him?
Had to be.
Please.
But he had no clue what the message was.
He took out his phone – the simple prepaid one they’d picked up on the way over this morning to replace his original phone. He took a picture, front and back, then he placed the painting back on the wall. Adjusted it to make sure it was straight.
Then he headed on out, ready to give his excuses to leave.
11
CAIRO, EGYPT
Two and a half years ago
A thick grey smog hung over Cairo, reducing the sun to a dirty, dull yellow disc. The air felt heavy and hard to breathe. Traffic trudged by slowly, exhaust fumes only adding to the choking air, as people moved through the streets, coughing. Many – like Lea – had their faces hidden behind scarves.
Lea adjusted her scarf as she looked out across the Nile, the water gloomy and murky, tourist boats sloshing sullenly along, everything feeling down and depressed here today.
Or perhaps that was only Lea’s mood.
Four days now she’d been in the capital. She’d initially travelled here alone but had spent a lot of the time in Egypt with Sara Kitsch from the CIA – the woman who Denis and Naomi had met at the US Embassy shortly before they’d gone missing on the streets of this gargantuan city.
And looking across the hazy horizon, the city seemingly endless from this vantage point, Lea felt more than a little weary at the idea that Denis and Naomi could now be anywhere in this vast space.
If they were even still alive.
So far, she’d had no evidence that they were.
No evidence that they weren’t either, though, which had to be a good thing.
And she still held out hope that they remained close by to where they’d last been seen, right around the corner from this spot. The US Embassy was one street from her, away from the river, in this district of business hotels – frequented by both tourists and diplomats – and myriad government buildings.
Many embassies were dotted through the streets here too. And that was what worried Lea the most, even though it was the theory she’d pushed most since she’d arrived here.
With Kitsch’s help, and that of an insider at the Egyptian National Security Agency, they’d now traced Denis’s and Naomi’s last movements through CCTV footage, showing them heading south on foot from the US Embassy, along tree-lined Tawfik Diab Street. Except no feeds showed either of them emerging anywhere else nearby. They’d vanished. Even though there were definitely some black spots where they could have slipped away – either deliberately or accidentally – Lea believed there might be another more nefarious explanation.
‘Lea,’ came the voice from behind her, and she turned to see Kitsch approaching on the pavement. Like Lea she was dressed casually, but with the headscarf covering much of her face – a necessity with the smog, plus it was a good way to hide their faces as well as the obvious need to blend in culturally. ‘You were right.’
Lea’s heart sank a little. Although just the slightest relief too that she had some answers now.
‘How do you know?’ she asked.
‘Our friend was able to get the details from someone who works there. Security.’ Kitsch fished out her phone and turned the screen to Lea. ‘It’s one of the service entrances.’
Lea watched the blurry footage. Certainly not clear enough to pass an identification test in a court of law or anything like that, but it was still obvious to Lea what she was looking at. Two people, a man and a woman, hands cuffed behind their backs, being corralled into the building by a group of three. The man and the woman were Denis and Naomi, she was certain.
