The Invisible Assassin(9)

He was about to press on, when she said, ‘You’ve got a nerve, calling me. After what you did.’

His heart sank. She hadn’t forgotten how he’d hurt her. OK, what he’d done was unforgivable, the sort of thing people don’t forget. But he’d hoped time might have helped her forgive him . . . even just a little bit. From the hurt tone of her voice, forgiveness was still a long way off. He took a deep breath, then said, ‘Lauren, this isn’t about us . . .’

‘Of course it’s about us. You’re calling me, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, but not about us. It’s about some weird science thing . . .’

Even as he said it he knew it was the wrong word.

‘Weird?’

Her tone on that one was definitely hostile.

‘Sorry, not weird. Unorthodox. Unconventional. Look, can I see you? I need to talk about this. I promise not to . . . well . . . start anything.’

Again, he mentally kicked himself for sounding like some desperate love-sick twelve-year-old. Pull yourself together, for heaven’s sake! he told himself sharply. ‘Lauren, something odd’s happening.’ His tone was firmer now, more self-assured. A concerned tone, sincere, the tone he used on his job as trainee press officer in order to invoke confidence, no matter how big a lie he was spinning. ‘You’re the only one I can think of who might be able to throw some light on it.’

There was a pause, then she said, ‘OK. I’ve got a lecture at eleven, then nothing after twelve thirty. Let’s meet somewhere neutral. In the square in front of the British Library. One o’clock.’

‘One o’clock,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll see you there.’

As he hung up, he realised he was smiling. He was going to see Lauren again. OK, it wasn’t a date. In fact, it wasn’t really anything except her agreeing to see him to answer some questions about science. It was the sort of thing she might do for anyone, but, considering what had happened between them at the end, she had agreed to see him. It was a start.



In a large and expensive-looking office on the thirtieth floor of a hi-tech building overlooking the Thames, a phone rang. The man in the office picked it up.

‘Yes?’ he said.

‘We’ve got an intercept,’ said a voice. ‘The target has made contact, cell phone to cell phone.

‘Who did he call?’

‘A Lauren Graham. She’s in her second year of a degree in Theoretical Sciences at the University of London. They’re meeting in the square in front of the British Library in Euston Road at thirteen hundred hours.’

‘OK,’ said the man. ‘Set the dogs on them.’





Chapter 5




One o’clock found Jake sitting at a metal table with a cup of coffee in the precinct in front of the British Library, scanning the people as they came in. He wondered if Lauren would be on time. She always had been punctual; he was the one who was usually late. But today, he wanted to show her he’d changed. He was on time.

What had happened had been so stupid. He’d been so stupid.

They’d met soon after he’d landed the trainee press officer’s job at the Department of Science. He’d been taken to the University of London by an older press officer to show him the ropes, and to talk to some of the students about their work. It was for an article about ‘Scientists of the Future’. The facts and figures Jake had been presented with on that day had been overwhelming, and mind-numbing; but one person had stood out among all the others, a first-year student called Lauren Graham. Jake had stopped listening to what she was saying about something called Theoretical Sciences after a minute and had lost himself in her beautiful blue eyes. To his surprise, she seemed quite interested in him, especially once she’d found out that he hadn’t come from a university background. The fact that both had no memory of their parents was another bond.

Lauren’s parents had been killed soon after she was born, and she’d been brought up by her paternal grandparents, both of whom were now dead. At the end of that day, Jake asked her out; and she said yes.

For six months they’d gone out together, getting closer and closer. So close that Jake had been on the point of asking her about moving in with him. And then there had been The Wedding. A friend of Lauren’s was getting married, and he and Lauren had gone to the ceremony and the reception. It had seemed to Jake that Lauren was spending an awful lot of time talking to some rugby-playing bloke she knew. Too much time. Smiling at him, laughing, touching his arm, even flicking her fingers through his hair as she pretended to examine his scalp for nits. Robert, that had been his name. Robert the rugby player. And Jake had got fed up with it. And he did the unforgivable. He went off and found one of the bridesmaids, who’d already given him the eye earlier during the ceremony, and he’d got off with her in the bushes behind the drinks tent. Where Lauren had discovered them when she’d come looking for him.