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Where There's Smoke

Robert Hale Limited

Annie glanced at the time as she saw her quarry cross from the far side of the road and merge with the throng outside Farringdon station. She fell into step some way behind him, scrutinizing the top of his head where one tuft of dark brown hair stood at an angle. They would be in the midst of a dense crowd in a few seconds and the top of his head might be all she could see. Not that she had real concerns about losing him. It was a routine surveillance that had been assigned to someone else. She wasn't yet sure why she'd insisted on taking it over. It was just a feeling that something didn't add up.

The man she followed accepted a free newspaper before turning into the station. A few paces behind, Annie waved away the proffered pages. She was less than two metres from her target as he pushed through the turnstiles, and she made sure that a dozen bustling commuters separated them as they made their way down to the platform in amongst London's Friday stampede for home. A train pulled in as they headed down the stairs. Annie kept a close eye on the man ahead as he moved with the surge of the crowd.

Then it happened. As she timed her leap for the doors, hearing the beep-beep-beep of imminent closure, seeing her quarry squeeze aboard further along, something caught her foot. She fought to keep her balance, all her unease about the case flooding to the fore. Attack in a dense crowd could mean a hidden blade ...

But in the fraction of a second that it took for her instincts to ready for fight or flight, she realized it was chance. A child's buggy awkwardly angled ... a flurry of apologies from the woman who'd entangled her ... the thunk of the train doors closing, leaving her behind. Such a stupid thing, losing someone on the Underground; a real beginner's error. She ducked her head so that her escaping quarry wouldn't clock her face as the carriage sped past.

And as she turned, she saw him.

He stood on the platform, momentarily exposed as the crowd thinned, then was swallowed up again as the next surge surrounded him. He had his back to her, his head buried in his newspaper. A moment's confusion. Had she been wrong; glimpsed someone else squeezing their way into the train?

No, nothing so simple. The answer was plain in his stance, the way his back was to her, his too avid interest in his newspaper. He had leapt out at the last moment. She hadn't been following him at all. He'd been leading her. Her spine tingled as people pushed through on to the platform. The all-pervasive rumble of trains, the hiss of air-brakes, the general clatter of a system that moved thousands of commuters across miles every day had been her cloak of invisibility. It had just become the camouflage behind which anyone might be hiding within arm's reach of her. The hidden blade in the crowd became a real possibility.

She made herself stay still until the next train hurtled in and clattered to a halt. Moving with the crowd, she edged forward. A line of disembarking passengers wrestled their way through the narrow gap left by those waiting to board. Well-practised, Annie used her small size to advantage, snaking through the pack, ducking under outstretched arms and jamming herself just inside the door, claiming this prime position as her own.

It was hard to see through the press of bodies, but she made out the distinctive tuft of hair. Her quarry had crammed himself in further down the carriage.

As the doors slid closed, Annie pushed her foot forward to plant the bulk of her steel-toe-capped boot in their path, bracing herself for the jolt as they banged into her foot. The doors reopened. She watched for any signs of anyone getting on or off in this moment of reprieve, and saw nothing but a trio of commuters who threw themselves down the last of the stairs and dived aboard, just as the beep-beep-beep sounded again, with an impatient 'Stand clear of the doors'.

This time, Annie snaked her whole body out between the closing panels and took three strides to bury herself in a group crowding up from the mainline platform, hurrying along with them as the train carrying her quarry pulled out.

As she marched out of the station, she pulled her phone from her pocket and rang back to the office. 'Pieternel, don't go till I get back. We need to talk.'

'I thought you'd gone home, Annie. We'll nip across for a drink then. Where are you, anyway? What's up?'

I need to know just what in hell's going on, she thought, but said only, 'Tell you when I get there.'

Annie's senior partner, Pieternel, latched immediately on to a point Annie considered irrelevant. Raking her hand through her hair in a characteristic gesture of annoyance, she said, 'But you know you can't take on these jobs, Annie. Not till you're fit again. What if anything had happened? We wouldn't have been covered.'

Annoyed in her turn, Annie snapped, 'I'm fine.' She hated reminders of the events that had led to her being at the wrong end of a boot to the head, to the weeks in hospital, the worry she'd caused. She'd been well enough to be back in the field for months, but the insurance company medics insisted she wasn't and Pieternel was terrified of being caught without cover. Going back to the case, she said, 'I told you there was something wrong with this one. It doesn't add up.'

'Come on, ninety per cent of our clients walk through that door with their own agenda. It's why they come to us, to protect their secrets. It's why they pay over the odds, and we're getting a good premium on this one.'

'Too good.'

Pieternel's eyes narrowed. Annie knew her senior partner would sail close to the boundaries of their professional code with regard to the legitimacy of a client's motives when a big fee was offered, but equally she and Pieternel had worked together for long enough not to ignore each other's instincts. They moved through the office as they talked, checking that the desks were locked, the computers off, as the noise from the street outside swelled from commuters hurrying for home to partygoers coming out to play. 'We were assuming a pressure group, right?' Annie ticked off the points on her fingers. 'And that we're working for some official outfit that wants it all at arm's length. Fair enough, but why not tell us who they think these guys are? Why the pretence?'

'Maybe they genuinely don't know.'

'I don't buy that.'

'OK.' Pieternel blew out her cheeks in a sigh. 'What now? I'm not letting it go. We aren't doing so well that we can chuck out this sort of repeat business.'

'Let me run with it. I'll get at them from a different angle.'

'No way. You'll run a coach and horses through all our insurance cover.' Pieternel reached out to tap the security code into the alarm system and they headed for the door.

'Then you'll have to do it,' said Annie. 'We don't have anyone experienced enough to throw to these sharks. When your quarry knows you're following and does everything to make it easy for you, it's time to back off. You'll get nothing useful and you might end up under ten metres of concrete at a road junction.' Annie's mind flashed through the scenario. The less-experienced operator, seeing it as a stroke of luck that the guy wasn't on the train; being led along to somewhere quieter, perhaps a door left temptingly ajar; an opportunity too good to miss. And then? They'd lost someone once; someone who'd been out doing an errand for Annie. Casey had been a friend as well as a colleague. She'd have been relaxed, job done, making for home when she was taken unawares, not seen the blade, her body burnt beyond recognition to disguise the crime. Annie didn't want that to happen ever again. This was a big case, far bigger than the contract which dressed it up as routine surveillance for mundane and rather woolly reasons. Annie knew, and Pieternel knew, that the huge fee didn't match what they'd been asked to do. They were unofficial subcontractors several steps removed from someone who didn't want to get their hands dirty.

'Oh, and here's a thing,' Pieternel said, as they stepped out into the night air. 'You remember that outfit you used to work for in Hull? One of the sisters called up for you this morning. God, I'm looking forward to a drink tonight.'

With that, she left Annie, mouth agape, staring after her as she dodged through the traffic and headed for their usual Friday night drink-after-work bar. The Thompson sisters from Hull? She had no idea they even knew where she was. They'd never tried to get in touch, not even during her long spell in a Glasgow hospital when they must have heard what had happened to her. Suddenly nothing about today added up. She felt perplexed and uneasy, as though an opponent hadoutguessed her.

Pieternel was already at the bar ordering their beers when Annie caught up. 'Which sister and what did she want?' she snapped, then watched as Pieternel, her mouth open to reply, paused and threw her a puzzled look.

'I'm not sure. I think she just introduced herself as one of the Thompson sisters.'

Annie shrugged. 'It doesn't matter. It'll have been Pat. They used to do that on the phone. It's one of the Thompson sisters. Like gangsters. What did she want?'

Pieternel raised her glass to her lips and drew in a mouthful of the rich dark liquid. 'You,' she said. 'They want you to go back and do a job for them.'

They carried their beers to a table by the window. Annie shook her head. The idea that Pat had been in touch after all this time to ask Annie to go back and do a job for them was absurd on so many levels.

'That's ridiculous. I'll give her a ring tomorrow and see what it's really about.'

'Ah, well, there's a thing. She said not to. She doesn't want her sister getting to know just yet.'

Annie sipped her beer, savouring its cool velvety smoothness. That was the Thompsons all over, Pat keeping things from Barbara; Barbara stifling all progress with her cautious outlook. She pushed the memories away and returned to the case in hand.

'What are we going to do about this surveillance? Are you going to take it on?'

Pieternel shrugged and nodded. 'Looks like I'd better. But listen, the Thompson woman wants to do everything through a London-based agency so that her sister doesn't get wind of it. Here's the number.'

Something in Pieternel's tone snapped Annie's gaze to her senior partner's face. 'Hang on! You haven't said I'll do it, have you? It makes no sense for me to chase a two-bit job in the north-east with all we have on here.'

'Think about it, Annie. You're stuck behind a desk until you get your health clearance. You're not exactly paying your way. Wouldn't you like a bit of a change?' Pieternel glanced around as she spoke, not meeting Annie's eye.

Annie stared, dumbstruck at this betrayal. Sure, she'd been a long time in hospital and convalescing afterwards. It had been a serious injury. She might have died. And she'd done her best to be at full throttle for months now. It was hardly her fault they had such wary insurers. 'A pittance of a fee from them isn't going to make a difference.' She heard the sullen note in her own voice.

'Pittance?' Pieternel leant forward, lowered her voice and told Annie how much Pat had offered.

'For just a few weeks! They can't afford that.' Annie felt the weight of her bottom jaw.

'Maybe someone else's paying. Whatever ... they're keen to get you up there. We can hardly refuse.'

'Or someone wants me away from here.' As Annie voiced the thought, her eyes met Pieternel's, where she saw her own puzzlement reflected. It couldn't be anything to do with the dodgy surveillance because no one could have known she'd be involved. She hadn't known herself until a couple of hours ago. She tried to catch the thoughts that flitted through her head.

'Coincidence,' said Pieternel. 'It has to be. It can't be anything to do with ... anything ...'

Annie heard Pieternel's voice fade into uncertainty. She feels it too, she thought. That insecurity of someone else pulling the strings, massaging the agenda behind the scenes.

'Listen, whatever the Thompsons have cooked up, I need to stay properly in touch with the office. None of this ducking under the radar, dropping out of sight stuff. And you need to keep me up to date on what's happening here. If this is some ploy to get me out of the way, we need to know.'

'Of course we'll keep in touch, Annie. I'm going to need your input, but the timing of this Hull job's just a coincidence. Don't get paranoid.'

Annie's gaze focused somewhere in the crowd now building between them and the bar. Her hand reached out to raise her glass to her lips. As she tipped the liquid into her mouth, she thought of the man on the station, buried in his paper, pretending not to see her, and about this unexpected job that would take her hundreds of miles away. Pieternel was right. It must be coincidence. How could the two things be linked? But her misgiving remained. Something didn't add up.

Monday, mid-morning and 200 miles away, the scene gave Annie a sharp contrast from the cityscape that usually surrounded her. She crawled her car along the bumpy track that twisted towards her rendezvous. After her rushed departure from London and the long drive through the morning traffic, the calm felt unnatural. London quiet was always accompanied by the background bustle of the city at some level.

She had reached Hull after a crack of dawn start and had been at the Thompsons' office by 9 a.m. only to have to wait the best part of an hour before both sisters arrived in a flurry of speculation as they saw her pacing up and down by the door. By their own admission neither had expected her actually to show up. Barbara fished for details of the contract she'd signed. Annie stalled, knowing a row would ensue once Barbara found out how much they were paying her. By the time Annie had dragged their attention on to the job she was here to do, it was to learn that she had better hot-foot it out of the office if she were to make it to the meeting with the client.

'It's nothing you can't handle,' Pat tossed after her. 'Drugs ... kids ... right up your street.'

And now she was here in the middle of nowhere. A battered Range Rover sat alone at the end of a track that had widened into an irregular surface crisscrossed with tyre marks. She pulled her car to a halt beside it, killed the engine and looked around. The dirt roadway along which she'd driven snaked back past a large, square stable block and on out of sight between fenced paddocks. Ahead lay a vast open expanse, a rickety sign at the corner labelling it a 'Lorry Park'. To one side nestled a long one-storey building, functional rather than attractive, that tailed off into a derelict-looking annexe at the far end. No sign of life from the blank doors and misted windows. Ahead, a wide footpath meandered away over the crest of a gentle hill.

A tall, angular woman climbed out of the other vehicle and Annie went to meet her.

'You must be Jean Greenhough.'

The woman stretched out her hand to shake Annie's. 'How do you do, Miss Thompson. Good of you to come.'

'No, my name's Annie Raymond. Pat Thompson brought me in to work on your case.'

The woman gave her an apologetic smile. 'Yes, I understand ... I didn't mean ... I know it can't take priority. Had Miss Thompson made any initial enquiries? She said she would.'

'Let's start afresh,' Annie said. 'I want you to assume that I know nothing at all. How about telling me about this place, for starters?'

The woman looked taken aback, but Annie smiled reassuringly and listened as she explained that this was the back way in to one of Yorkshire's busiest racecourses, in easy reach of Hull, York and Beverley. The racetrack wasn't visible from this off-stage area but on race days it would be packed with horses, boxes, grooms and all their paraphernalia. Today it was a deserted wasteland.

'This is where we're having the camp,' she ended.

Again Annie smiled and nodded, not wanting to admit to how totally clueless she was about what this woman wanted.

Since she and Pieternel had spoken on Friday night, she'd sought answers to this strange call from her Hull past and found none. Pieternel had signed a contract whose co-signatory was Vincent Sleeman. Annie had laughed outright at that.

'If that's Vince Sleeman's signature, I'm a domestic goddess. He hates my guts. If he gets wind of any of this, he'll have me out of there faster than you can blink.'

'That's what you're to say if anyone quizzes you, you were hired by Sleeman. But apparently this Sleeman guy's ill, really ill.' After a pause, she'd added, 'They paid for you in advance.'

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Excerpted from Where There's Smoke by Penny Grubb. Copyright © 2012 Penny Grubb. Excerpted by permission of Robert Hale Limited.
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