The Lethal Target(29)

He sat in the cell for another half-hour, although it seemed much longer. Then the cell door opened and the constable looked in.

‘OK, you,’ he said. ‘Out you come.’

‘Has my lawyer arrived?’ asked Jake.

‘Something like that,’ said the constable.

Jake stepped out of the cell and followed the constable, puzzled. ‘Something like that.’ What did that mean? Either his lawyer had arrived or he hadn’t.

They walked into the main reception area of the police station, and Jake stopped. Pam Gordon was at the desk with Detective Sergeant Stewart, signing some papers. She signed the last of them and handed them all to Stewart.

‘There you are,’ she said.

‘Thank you,’ said Stewart. ‘He’s all yours.’

Pam Gordon gestured towards the door.

‘My car’s outside,’ she told Jake.

Stunned by this sudden turn in events, Jake followed her out of the police station. What was going on? Why had Pam Gordon turned up? A sudden bolt of fear shot through Jake. She’d sprung him from jail to kill him in revenge for killing John Gordon! But that didn’t make sense. What power did she have that could force Stewart to hand Jake over as easily as that? Of course, he and Lauren had suspected she was MI5. This proved it.

They got into the car, and then Jake blurted out: ‘I didn’t kill him.’

‘If I thought you had, I’d have killed you before you even got in the car,’ she said bluntly.

She started the ignition, and they moved off.

‘Where are we going?’ asked Jake.

‘Back to Craigmount,’ she said.

They headed along the road away from the coast and into the heart of the south part of the island.

‘How did you manage it?’ asked Jake. ‘Getting me out of there, I mean.’

‘I had authority,’ said Gordon. ‘Orders to follow.’

‘Whose?’ asked Jake.

‘Let’s just say an old boss of yours.’

‘Not Gareth Findlay-Weston?’

Gareth Findlay-Weston, Jake’s former boss when he worked as a trainee press officer at the Department of Science; and — beneath that cover of a bureaucratic desk job — a top figure in MI5.

Gordon glared at him.

‘You do throw names around, don’t you?’ she snapped. ‘God, you’d make a terrible agent!’

‘We’d already guessed you were both MI5,’ said Jake defensively. His voice softened as he said: ‘I’m sorry about John.’

She shook her head.

‘Whoever killed him must be good. A real professional. John would never have allowed an amateur to get that close to him. That’s why I don’t think it was you. Like I said, if I thought it was, you’d be dead by now.’ She frowned. ‘Although you may just be playing a clever game and putting on the pretence of being enthusiastic amateurs. You and that girlfriend of yours. Lauren Graham.’

Jake threw a surprised look at her.

‘You don’t think we bought that story of her being someone called Helen Cooper, do you?’ said Gordon scornfully. ‘John clocked her as soon as he saw her. He’s got a photographic memory for faces.’ She corrected herself bitterly. ‘Had.’ She scowled, then said: ‘We’d been told to watch out for you once we knew that the Russians were after the Malichea book. Your old boss was sure that you’d come looking for it. We got a bit of a surprise when Ms Graham turned up first.’ She nodded admiringly. ‘She’s good, I’ll give her that. Getting back to the UK like that, without getting stopped. Very impressive.’

‘I suppose it was you who shopped her to Immigration,’ said Jake.

‘Not us,’ said Gordon. ‘We were told to leave you both in place. I think You Know Who thought you’d both be a good decoy. Take the Russian’s attention away from us.’

‘Do you have to call him You Know Who, and He Who Must Not Be Named?’ asked Jake. ‘It makes him sound like Lord Voldermort.’

For the first time, Jake saw a smile pass over Pam Gordon’s face.

‘You know, I think he’d like that,’ she said. ‘Very appropriate.’ Then her face turned grim again. ‘By the way, your girlfriend’s disappeared.’

‘Yes, we know,’ said Jake. ‘She disappeared before I was taken away.’

‘No, I mean really disappeared,’ said Gordon. ‘She’s gone from that boathouse place where she was hiding, and it looks like there was some kind of struggle.’

Jake let this sink in, horrified.

‘Where is she?’ he demanded.

‘If we knew that, we’d be doing something about it,’ said Gordon.