in the meantime I need one small favour. Yes, OK, another small favour. The Speedbird crash. Can you let me
have a full passenger list? No, not the one you’ve published, I need names, dates of birth, sex, addresses, nationalities, whatever you’ve got. Why? Because you know I’m curious
about all sorts of things.’ The voice had dropped and the jaw twitched. ‘Yes. You, too. And thanks.’
When the call had finished he spent a few moments lost in thought, gazing at the phone.
‘You take that bloody thing everywhere,’ she said, feeling an unexpected flush of jealousy. It often rang at some extraordinarily inconvenient moments, could play hell with a
girl’s concentration.
‘It has everything in here,’ he said, waving it, ‘my entire life.’
‘Your entire past life. Sometimes I wish you’d drop it in the water.’
‘Oh, I don’t know, Jem, it has its uses.’ He turned the phone to show her the screen. He’d taken a photograph of her in the bath. ‘You know, if I stuck that on my
election literature, I reckon I’d be home in a landslide.’
CHAPTER SIX
Patricia Vaine looked out of the window of the Eurostar at the flat, dreary countryside of northern France, a desolate landscape to which no one had ever paid the slightest
attention, except when there had been a war. Nothing to inspire, nothing to write about, except for what it no longer was – a battlefield. And that was the point, wasn’t it? The guns
had been silenced, the slaughter brought to an end. One community built from so many dissident, fractious parts. If the wars that had been fought across these fields had been worth so much
sacrifice, surely the peace that had replaced them was worth just a little, too? The growing pains of the great European adventure, Felix had said, and her thoughts turned to Harry Jones. A growing
pain. Bloody man. She switched off the vanity light and closed her eyes, listening to the thrumming of the wheels on the rails, hoping it would soothe her troubled thoughts. She could no longer
ignore him. He was becoming a pest. First Hamish Hague, now his request for the passenger manifest. That was the crucial moment, the point of no return. She didn’t think he would be able to
piece together the fragments, but she was no longer sure, and she couldn’t take the risk.
Intelligence agencies can never be mere observers. While they watch events, they inevitably get drawn into shaping them, too, which made it inevitable that once Vaine had begun rocking
Usher’s boat, she wouldn’t be able to stop. Once the poison had begun circulating around the system, it would carry on, until the end. But now there was Harry Jones, too. He was a
different problem. Dealing with Usher was akin to bombarding a castle, you couldn’t miss if you had the right weapons, but with Jones it was more like targeting a single soldier within the
walls. Her aim needed to be more precise, more clinical, and she hadn’t the experience. It was experience she would have to get.
She was still tussling with the problem when she arrived back at her house in Rue Faider, a narrow, four-storey town house that she had bought in dilapidated state for a song and had refurbished
into an elegant and exceptional home – her home. She shared it with no one, not even Felix, although his expertise in the antiques world had been responsible for loading the high walls with a
kaleidoscope of gilded mirrors, oils, portraits and tapestries that would have done grace to any minor museum. The windows were large, the light gentle, the furniture mostly French, the atmosphere
heavy, and in the summer she could catch the scent of sweet honeysuckle that crept in from the small garden. She was preparing herself a lean and lonely dinner when there was a knock at the door.
She was startled when she opened it to find a chauffeur at the door, standing in the rain. Behind him, in the back seat of a black Mercedes limousine, sat the Energy Commissioner, a
have a full passenger list? No, not the one you’ve published, I need names, dates of birth, sex, addresses, nationalities, whatever you’ve got. Why? Because you know I’m curious
about all sorts of things.’ The voice had dropped and the jaw twitched. ‘Yes. You, too. And thanks.’
When the call had finished he spent a few moments lost in thought, gazing at the phone.
‘You take that bloody thing everywhere,’ she said, feeling an unexpected flush of jealousy. It often rang at some extraordinarily inconvenient moments, could play hell with a
girl’s concentration.
‘It has everything in here,’ he said, waving it, ‘my entire life.’
‘Your entire past life. Sometimes I wish you’d drop it in the water.’
‘Oh, I don’t know, Jem, it has its uses.’ He turned the phone to show her the screen. He’d taken a photograph of her in the bath. ‘You know, if I stuck that on my
election literature, I reckon I’d be home in a landslide.’
CHAPTER SIX
Patricia Vaine looked out of the window of the Eurostar at the flat, dreary countryside of northern France, a desolate landscape to which no one had ever paid the slightest
attention, except when there had been a war. Nothing to inspire, nothing to write about, except for what it no longer was – a battlefield. And that was the point, wasn’t it? The guns
had been silenced, the slaughter brought to an end. One community built from so many dissident, fractious parts. If the wars that had been fought across these fields had been worth so much
sacrifice, surely the peace that had replaced them was worth just a little, too? The growing pains of the great European adventure, Felix had said, and her thoughts turned to Harry Jones. A growing
pain. Bloody man. She switched off the vanity light and closed her eyes, listening to the thrumming of the wheels on the rails, hoping it would soothe her troubled thoughts. She could no longer
ignore him. He was becoming a pest. First Hamish Hague, now his request for the passenger manifest. That was the crucial moment, the point of no return. She didn’t think he would be able to
piece together the fragments, but she was no longer sure, and she couldn’t take the risk.
Intelligence agencies can never be mere observers. While they watch events, they inevitably get drawn into shaping them, too, which made it inevitable that once Vaine had begun rocking
Usher’s boat, she wouldn’t be able to stop. Once the poison had begun circulating around the system, it would carry on, until the end. But now there was Harry Jones, too. He was a
different problem. Dealing with Usher was akin to bombarding a castle, you couldn’t miss if you had the right weapons, but with Jones it was more like targeting a single soldier within the
walls. Her aim needed to be more precise, more clinical, and she hadn’t the experience. It was experience she would have to get.
She was still tussling with the problem when she arrived back at her house in Rue Faider, a narrow, four-storey town house that she had bought in dilapidated state for a song and had refurbished
into an elegant and exceptional home – her home. She shared it with no one, not even Felix, although his expertise in the antiques world had been responsible for loading the high walls with a
kaleidoscope of gilded mirrors, oils, portraits and tapestries that would have done grace to any minor museum. The windows were large, the light gentle, the furniture mostly French, the atmosphere
heavy, and in the summer she could catch the scent of sweet honeysuckle that crept in from the small garden. She was preparing herself a lean and lonely dinner when there was a knock at the door.
She was startled when she opened it to find a chauffeur at the door, standing in the rain. Behind him, in the back seat of a black Mercedes limousine, sat the Energy Commissioner, a
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