Kitabı oku: «The Girl Who Ran (The Project Trilogy)», sayfa 2
I turn the photograph in my hands. On the back is scribbled an address and the geolocation coordinates of a hospital – Weisshorn Psychiatric Hospital, the place Isabella was last kept in Geneva, and next to it the date of her death, all etched out by my Papa and hidden from Ines before he died.
Patricia stares at it. ‘He knew she was kept there, didn’t he, your dad? He’d found out about what Ines was doing – getting the cancer drugs to keep her alive in exchange for you.’
Too sad to speak, I trace the address and date with my fingertips as, to the right of the café, a television repeats a news feed detailing the killings at Mama’s apartment.
‘A triple homicide was reported in Madrid, in what is being cited as a cartel crime. Spanish lawyer and member of parliament Ines Villanueva; her lawyer son, Ramon Martinez; and a British prison chief, Balthus Ochoa, have all been implicated in what sources are saying is a decade-long fraud ring stretching into millions of dollars and which includes trafficking in illegal medical drugs. The bodies of the three were found at Villanueva’s central Madrid house this afternoon. Villanueva, who was a likely pick to become the next leader of the right wing, and prime minister …’
Tilting her head so I can see her eye-creased smile, Patricia nods to the television. ‘Same story they’re telling like before, same bullshit.’
‘It is all lies. The deaths did not happen in that way.’
She sighs as the television screen flashes across the faces of Ines, Balthus and Ramon.
We finish our coffees. I carry out a final check of my belongings, secure the photographs in an inside pocket near my notebook and, acknowledging the presence of my passport one more time, in my head I begin to carry out a run-through of the airport journey when Chris runs up to the table, breathless.
‘Jesus,’ Patricia says, ‘what’s with you?’
He swallows, pointing behind him. ‘People…’ He gulps air, slaps two palms to the table and hauls in some oxygen. ‘C-coming…’
‘What d’you mean?’ Patricia says, frowning. ‘You’re not making any sense and we’ve got to—’
‘Shush!’
Patricia opens her mouth on the verge of speaking when Chris raises a hand and finally spits out the words he wants to say.
‘The Project – they’ve found us!’
Chapter 3
Madrid Barajas Airport, Spain.
Time remaining to Project re-initiation: 31 hours and 30 minutes
I turn, stand, focus. ‘Tell me.’
He swallows. ‘So, I was just walking back and looking in the duty-free bit, and they have the mirrors and stuff there and I’m sure there were two guys watching me.’
‘This is ridiculous,’ Patricia says.
‘What? No. I was followed.’ He looks straight to me. ‘I’m telling you – they were different, these guys.’
‘How?’
‘Just, well, I guess they were, like, rigid, you know. Kind of robotic and—’
‘Christ,’ Patricia says, ‘this is the last thing we need, you freaking out on us like this.’
‘I’m not freaking out.’
‘You are, and you’re going to upset—’
‘No!’ His voice is raised. I flinch. The people at the next table stop eating mid-sandwich bite and narrow their eyes.
Chris lowers his head. ‘No. Please,’ he whispers, ‘you have to listen to me. I know they have to be different because I recognise them, from when I was locked up for hacking, okay. One of the two guys who investigated me via the UK, well they were MI5. The other one, I’m not sure…’
‘You have to be sure,’ I say. ‘Now.’ My eyes scan ahead, quick fire.
‘I’m sorry. I recognise both of them, just can’t place the second one.’
‘One of them is definitely MI5?’
‘Yes.’
The cogs in my head, as if tripped by a switch, begin to turn at such a rate, for a second I feel dizzy.
‘Shit,’ Patricia says. ‘Doc, MI5 wanted you dead. If they’re here, this is not good.’
‘Oh fuck.’ Chris rubs his head. ‘Oh fuck, oh fuck.’
As my friends swear repeatedly, I scan the crowds.
‘Maria,’ Chris says now, ‘I’m sorry. I sent that email. MI5 must have tracked it.’
‘Why would you be sorry?’ I ask. ‘This is not your fault.’
‘It is,’ Patricia snaps.
I look between the two of them. ‘We cannot determine with any mathematical certainty why these men are here. We can only assume.’ I pause, my mind firing at such a rate now, the probabilities and conclusions whip out. ‘We can only assume a level of danger which requires some amount of action on our part.’
Patricia blows out a breath. ‘Shit a brick.’
Chris nods. ‘Too right.’
I scan the busy foyer, the noise so loud, my body wincing at the near physical hurt it causes me. Heads, hats, citrus perfume, detergent, the smell of ice cream and pancakes, a series of buckles and trailing laces.
‘I can see them,’ Chris says.
‘Where?’
He gestures to an area by a burger bar thirty metres away. ‘Right… there.’
I follow his line and spot two men, black jackets, casual clothing, no suitcases, no definable baggage, just coffee bean eyes and steady strides.
‘Doc,’ Patricia says, ‘is it them? Could MI5 be back working with the Project now, you know, running it or something?’
‘I do not know,’ I say, sight missile-locked on the two figures. Flickering fluorescent lights, the clatter of suitcase wheels, the hum of a fan somewhere in a nearby store, the oppressive stench of chip fat. It all collides in my head, making it harder to think straight, but even between the chaos, a cold calm descends and a phrase, one drummed into me by the Project, despite my resistance, enters my head as easy as walking through an open door. Prepare, wait, engage.
I turn to Chris. ‘You are certain it is them?’
He gulps. ‘Yes.’
‘Then we have to go.’
He rubs his face. ‘Oh man, oh man, oh man.’
Bags secured, Patricia moves backwards, her feet stumbling a little, Chris following as the three of us slip behind a large silver pillar that houses neat billboards for expensive Parisian perfumes.
‘Doc, what do we do now?’
I glance to the area ahead and watch the two men. They walk five steps then stop and, as they do, my brain carries out a full and rapid assessment of the immediate threat. Each man is approximately one hundred and sixty-six centimetres tall, the right man blonde, the left brown, no distinguishable facial features, no definable scars, and by quick track of their frames, each appears to be built to endure long distance runs over twenty kilometres, yet still bulked enough to carry the weight of a full army training kit on their backs.
Patricia bites her lip. ‘They’re not real travellers, are they? Oh, God.’ There is a shake to her words. She chews on a nail. ‘You think they’ve seen us?’
Chris risks a glance. ‘Maybe… Fuck.’ He slips out his phone, sets up a fast proxy, starts tapping on a screen I cannot see. ‘Let me… Hang on.’
‘What are you doing?’ I ask, but he shakes his head, taps his phone and does not reply.
I scan the shops to calculate the best route forwards. By the entrance of a chain of toilets, a toddler is squirming in a ball on the floor screaming while his mother flaps around him, coils of hair springing up, shored by sweat, the father nearby, scratching his head, tutting into a smartphone that’s stitched into his hand. The noise of it all ricochets around my brain.
‘Doc,’ Patricia whispers, ‘should we get out of the airport?’
‘No.’ I take a breath, try to count the noise away. ‘We must board our flight and travel to Zurich as planned.’
‘You think that’s wise? Won’t they know where we are going?’
‘Negative.’ I swallow. Someone make the toddler be quiet. ‘We look different. Our email tracks have a high probability of being invisible.’
Chris, head up from his phone, points. ‘They’re moving.’
Patricia bites down harder on her fingernail. ‘Doc, I’m bloody shitting it.’
‘If you soil yourself, you could impede our escape.’
She ceases eating her hands.
The billboard with the perfume advert on the pillar is a rolling one. I observe it. Every six seconds, there is a change of posters, promoting gilded watches, branded clothing, vintage bottled cognac, champagne and truffles, and each time a new poster flashes, the entire board moves from side to side creating one small yet significant space behind it, a scooped out hole. A blind spot.
I turn to my friends. ‘There is a place to hide, there.’ I point. ‘It will provide us cover to plan the next move. When I say go, we all go. Do you understand?’
They nod.
‘Does that mean you understand?’
Two frantic nods. ‘Yes.’
‘Good. I will count to three. On three, we will run to the billboard.’
‘We won’t be seen?’ Chris checks.
‘No.’
‘Okay.’ His eyes flick ahead then back to me, a breath billowing from his chest. ‘Go for it.’
‘Okay. On my count: One…’
Patricia slaps a hair from her face, mutters, for some reason, what I believe is a slang word related to a man’s genital area. The billboard begins to revolve to the side.
‘Two…’
Chris taps his foot. He shields his phone screen with his hand as his eyes dart left and right in the glare and bustle of the concourse beyond.
‘Three. Go!’
We run. Lights, sounds, sharp slaps of heat and noise. They all fly through my ears as we weave in and out of the crowds. The men do not immediately follow us and yet still there is something about the way they move, about the assurance of their steps.
We reach the billboard. ‘Which way?’ Patricia whispers.
To our right is a concourse of cafés and shops, people spilling out of them in various states of speed and urgency. To our left is the open floor, shining, twinkling in a yellow brick road that leads off to the departure gate announcing cities and flight numbers. My brain photographs it all. Istanbul, Melbourne, Washington, Paris, locations that span the world across data lines that lie hidden underground.
‘They know we are here,’ Chris says. ‘I’m certain now.’
I whip round. ‘What?’
He turns his phone to me and my heart starts to race at an alarming speed.
‘I hacked into the Madrid police database,’ he says. ‘You know, to be on the safe side, get some firm intel. I found this.’
‘Oh, holy fuck,’ Patricia blurts. ‘It says wanted. It’s us!’
There are pictures of all three of us. My mouth runs dry so fast that I have to lean against Chris to steady myself.
‘Hey,’ he says, ‘you okay?’
‘They have us in different wigs,’ Patricia says. ‘Shit – they’ll know what we look like!’
‘I have put you in danger.’
‘Huh? What? Oh Doc, no. None of this is your fault. Doc, it’s okay.’
‘Er, no,’ Chris cuts in. ‘It’s not okay.’
We both look to him, mouths open.
‘Why?’ I say.
Very slowly, he guides his eyes to the left. ‘Because they’re looking right at us.’
Chapter 4
Madrid Barajas Airport, Spain.
Time remaining to Project re-initiation: 31 hours and 13 minutes
‘Oh, Jesus, they’re – they’re looking straight towards us,’ Patricia says, ducking behind me.
I stare now at our faces on the police alert in Chris’s hand, and a feeling wells inside me, one of guilt, of shame and confusion. By making friends, have I done the wrong thing? Is life not easier, better, safer when we are on our own?
‘Doc? Doc, you alright? Should we go?’
My head snaps up, refocussing. ‘Negative. If we move now it will alert the men. They have images of us. We must wait. We must prepare.’
Chris tips his head to the left towards a landslide of bodies approaching. ‘What about them?’
I direct my sight to where Chris points. A pack of students has entered the walkway, flooding the air with chatter in a melody of Italian and French, a river of language rushing forwards amid a sea of brown limbs, all long and lean and clad in assorted patchwork pieces of denim and cotton and hooded drawstring sweats. Tinny music, the tap of phones, beeps, rings. The sounds send my brain into red alert, and I am about to move when two teenage students stop almost next to me and kiss. I find myself staring, unable to look away, and when I inhale I detect bubble gum, washing powder, body odour masked by a sugary scent.
‘Hey, Google?’ A pause. ‘Maria?’
I turn to Chris. ‘What?’
‘They’re all moving – the students. If we move with them, they could be good cover.’
The teenagers pull away from each other, the girls smiling in a way I do not understand. The chatter rises, smacking into my ears, slap, slam. Startled, I look to Patricia.
‘It’s alright,’ she says automatically, trotting off what she’s had to say to me now so many times. ‘Deep breaths. It’s going to be loud and close, but I’ll stay right by you, yeah? Chris is right – the students’ll be good cover.’
I nod, but my eyes are on the moving mass. ‘Their skin, their scent.’
‘Deep breaths.’
Chris starts to move. ‘Let’s go.’
We dart in and out as, ahead of us, the boarding gates appear. People, limbs, spit and sweat. Announcements hanging from the ceiling with flashing orange letters and numbers declaring the areas our flight is leaving from. Our feet brush the tiles as we surge forwards amid the slippery mass, sliding across the mirrored thoroughfare where the shoes of the students clomp down in hooves of plastic and leather, jostling, laughing, bumping into me. Head down, I bite my lip and try not to scream.
Hidden by the human cloak, we remain out of direct sight. Some metres nearer now, the men move rapidly, steady, their presence two dark monoliths against the landscape of pick-a-mix colour. My heart rate rockets. We duck, weaving, as Chris keeps watch and Patricia spreads five fingers on her thigh, but every time someone’s arm or leg grazes me, I flinch. Every time I smell their burger breath, feel the heat of their perspiring skin near me – deodorant, talcum powder, flowers and musk – I want to scream at the top of my voice, curl up into a tight ball. It is impossible to switch off.
We finally approach the flight gates, Patricia to my right, Chris to my left. We drop our speed as the students slow down lolloping and laughing at each other, and as I risk a small glance, I find myself fascinated by their ease with each other, their calmness, happiness even, transfixed at the way in which their limbs seemingly absentmindedly intertwine, vines of arms and fingers interlinking as if all branches from the same tree. They oscillate and flutter, and I imagine a shoal of clownfish swimming over into a new anemone, relaxed, loose, just another day hanging in the reef.
I unpick my gaze from the students and inspect the two men. They are talking to each other.
‘They’re calling our flight,’ Patricia says.
The entrance to our boarding gate is drenched in sunlight from a vast glass and steel dome above. Glass, steel, huge masses of heavy concrete. I do the maths in my head.
‘If a bomb went off here, the glass would shatter and kill and maim the people beneath it.’
Chris stares at me. ‘Seriously?’
‘Of course.’
‘Oh shit. Shit!’ Patricia whispers. ‘They’re looking this way.’
She’s right. ‘Walk.’
We stride, not running, not wanting to create attention. Backs straight, footing as sure as we can make it, we mimic three busy work colleagues eager to catch their business flight. Soon we reach the gate. Patricia’s face is pale. Chris’s fingers are tapping his phone.
‘Good afternoon,’ the flight attendant says, his eyebrows two tapered caterpillars. ‘Boarding passes, please.’
We hand over our travel documents, fake IDs, as from my peripheral vision I see the two men searching through the students, casting them to the side, one after the other. The lights above shine bright, a traffic of chatter and laughter pummelling the air. I count to stay calm.
‘Hurry up,’ Patricia mutters, but, just as the line begins to move again, everything stops.
The flight attendant looks to us. ‘Could you step aside for a moment please?’
‘But we’re getting on the flight,’ Chris says.
My teeth start to grind. Breathe. One, two, three. One, two, three. The men are moving towards us in the pile of students washing up near the gate.
‘We have to run,’ Chris whispers.
‘Negative.’
‘Yes,’ he insists, stronger now. ‘The attendant’s stopped us.’
‘They are nearer now,’ I say.
Patricia’s eyes go wide. ‘Oh God.’
‘God has nothing to do with…’ I halt. Something is not right. The men have stopped. Their movements – why are they now so still? Keeping my head as rigid as I can, I check the CCTV cameras, their small domed lenses, dark black caps, blinking in the nearby areas. All seems as it should, all cameras facing the correct way, all security staff, in the immediate zone at least, carrying on with their duties as before.
Patricia shuffles from foot to foot. ‘Shall we peg it? This is fecking MI5. Shit.’
I trace the outline of the officers. They may have been trained, like me, to prepare, wait, engage. Is that what they are doing now? If I were them, what would I do next?
‘Doc? Doc, I think we should move.’
‘Holy fuck,’ Chris says.
I look to him. He is staring at his phone. ‘What is it?’
‘I’ve just…’ A shake of the head. ‘No way. It’s—’
‘They’re coming!’
We look up at where Patricia is staring. The second man, the one with the slightly narrower shoulders, is touching his ear, scanning to his right and moving slowly forwards. I track his eye line, wincing at the sharp clatter of some tray that is dropped in the distance, my assaulted brain just about keeping it together. What is he looking at, the man? What can he see?
I force my brain to focus, think clearly. Maybe Chris is right – maybe the flight attendants know who we are and have been informed to keep us back and make us wait.
I turn to Chris and Patricia. ‘We must go.’
Chris points to his phone. ‘You have to see this email.’
‘Not now. We must leave first.’
We all turn, ready to duck from sight and out of the airport, my mind already fast forwarding to a next plan to hide, when the flight attendant calls to us with a bright white smile beaming on his face.
‘Hello? I’m so sorry about the short delay.’ We hesitate. He gestures over to us. ‘If you’d just stand to the side and allow our late wheelchair passenger through, who we were waiting for, then you can board. Apologies for the inconvenience.’
We look to each other, the three of us, our chests visibly deflating, eyes blinking in what? Shock? Relief? I cannot tell, but we watch a wheelchair board the ramp and, with one nod of the attendant, we follow it fast through the final doors that lead to the plane ahead.
Outside, the Madrid air hits me. Aviator fuel, warm concrete, the roar of jet engines, all of it colliding in my head. I grind my teeth and blink at the blue sky that swirls through clouds spun with cotton. I stay close to Patricia.
As we reach the door of our Zurich-bound plane, Chris stops me.
‘I got an email.’ He swallows, catching his breath. ‘That’s what I was trying to tell you before.’
My heart rate shoots. Alarm bells sound. ‘From who?’
An attendant smiles. ‘Welcome to the flight. Boarding passes, please.’
I thrust her my pass, ignore her and turn to Chris. The woman frowns.
‘Who is the email from?’
Chris pauses then, lowering his voice, he tells me what I didn’t expect to hear.
‘It’s a reply from the UK Home Secretary – from Balthus’s wife.’
Chapter 5
Deep cover Project facility.
Present day
I’m not certain how I feel when I see Patricia held and behind the screen. Shock? Fear? Nothing? I am too scared to answer.
Stepping forward, I observe my former friend as if she were a specimen in a lab. On her head are fresh red lacerations. Deep bruises strangle her neck. Her body is clothed in a dirty grey t-shirt, ripped trousers hanging from her legs that lie crumpled at odd angles. She raises her eyes and calls out my name, but the officer kicks her in the stomach and her middle folds in, body collapsing flat to the floor. I want to slap my hand to my mouth, but something tells me that would be a bad thing to do right now.
‘What do you see, Maria?’ Black Eyes says, a crackle of something indefinable stepping across his voice.
‘Patricia,’ I say, quick, as steady as I can.
‘This O’Hanlon woman – she is not your family.’
‘No,’ I respond, ‘she is not.’ Patricia is looking at me with big eyes, but when before they were blue and clear and shining, now her eyes seem dulled and bloodshot.
He regards me, holding my face with his sight and I so desperately want to tap my finger, my foot, anything to help my mind deal with the intensity of the attention.
‘You had two fathers,’ Black Eyes says, ‘adopted, biological. Now both dead.’
A heartbeat. ‘Yes.’ My sight remains locked on Patricia.
He folds his arms across his chest, watching the scene behind the screen. The officer is hauling Patricia up, but her body must be weak, because her rib-caged torso keeps buckling, her legs bending, feet toppling.
‘I lost my father, too,’ Black Eyes says, sight on the screen. ‘I was fourteen. He was in the SAS.’
Beyond the window, Patricia whimpers. We observe, Black Eyes and I, riding for a moment in a slow seesaw of sound left, right, left, right.
‘Why is she here?’ I dare myself to ask.
‘She is here because she is the enemy. You do understand, don’t you, that after everything that’s happened, she is no longer your friend?’
Friend. I roll the word in my mouth, feel it, test it out. For a long time, I never really understood what having one meant.
‘You made the only choice you could, Maria, by being here. Here is where you belong. Patricia O’Hanlon is the enemy because she does not agree with the aims and objectives of the Project. She does not agree with you being here. Yet this?’ He stretches out his arms to the room. ‘This is where you belong.’
‘This is where I belong,’ I say, the words marching out of my mouth of their own accord.
‘That’s right. And you don’t need people like Patricia O’Hanlon when the Project is our only friend.’
He reaches forward and presses a button. The grey blind rolls down slowly, one centimetre at a time, but the movement of it must jolt Patricia awake as, suddenly, she raises her head, staggering up a little. She begins screaming.
‘Doc! Doc! Help me!’ She wobbles forwards. ‘Don’t listen to them, Doc! They’re lying! They’re all lying! They’re going to—’
The officer hits Patricia on the skull with the butt of his gun and she crumples, falling unconscious to the tiles. Without thinking, I slap my palms to the screen, startled, as before me the officer starts dragging Patricia’s clubbed-seal body out of the room.
‘Where are they taking her?’ I ask fast, pressing my face into the glass trying to see round the corner. ‘She needs help.’ I turn to Black Eyes. ‘Why did he do that? Why?’
I gulp in air, as to the side of me Black Eyes rolls back his shoulders, snapping the bones that puncture his spine one by one. He regards me as I stare at the screen as the blind descends, then he steps to his desk and picks up the photograph that sits on it.
‘When people we love die, it is often hard for us to cope with. Would you agree?’
I blink, the image of Patricia still fresh and raw in my head, not fully comprehending what is happening or why. Black Eyes holds the frame in his fingers closer to his face and as he does, I find myself staring at the picture of the two people in it, my brain prodded by some odd curiosity, a vague, foggy notion that they look familiar. Both female, the oldest appears to be in her thirties: slim, caramel skin, hair in long black cascades down a suited back, wide collar, wire-rimmed spectacles clutching high cheekbones and resting against thick branches of brows. Beside her is a girl, young, at estimate under ten years old, the same hair as the older woman, same features, just softer, plumper, the sharpness to her cheeks not yet defined, still hidden under an infantile cushion of baby milk and bread.
‘Who are they?’ I ask before I can stop myself.
He does not respond, seeming, at first, as if he will not say anything at all, but then he sniffs, takes a breath and traces one thin finger over the printed faces. ‘They are – were – my family.’ He swallows; the pointed triangle of his Adam’s apple juts out, then sinks in. ‘They passed away a long time ago.’
Returning the frame to its allocated slot on the desk, Black Eyes picks up the file from the table, clutches it to his chest, then stands and stares at the grey blind where Patricia once was. For a few seconds time is suspended, the air swinging in silence around us. I steal a glance at the photograph on the desk.
Ten seconds pass, until, raising his chin, Black Eyes strides to the door and, unlocking it, gestures to the white-washed gleam of the walkways beyond.
‘Come. It’s time I showed you something.’
Zurich Airport, Switzerland.
Time remaining to Project re-initiation: 28 hours and 30 minutes
From: Harriet Alexander (Secretary of State for the Home Department)
To: Maria Martinez
Subject: Re: The Project
Dear Dr Martinez,
Thank you for your email. I’ve had your message decrypted and have verified the details contained within it. This information now is for our eyes only and has been seen by only the most trustworthy members of my immediate staff. You managed to find my private email address, so I am responding directly from that – given the nature of the situation you have brought to my attention, I believe it’s our most secure method of communication at this time.
Firstly, you have my gratitude for informing me of the true cause of death of my husband, Balthazar. Balthus was a dear husband and, while I did not know of your existence, I am sorry for the sadness I am sure you must be feeling at this moment.
I have reviewed your files on this organisation called Project Callidus. Please be assured that I was unaware that this group existed. I am currently seeking to set up talks with the Chief of MI5 with a view to beginning an investigation, but, as I am sure you understand, timing with these things is everything and I have to be very careful and measured with what we do next. Your safety, Dr Martinez, is paramount.
To that end, I would be grateful if we could meet. I understand this may be a complicated request. However, I strongly believe that, after reviewing the initial data you relayed to me, a meeting between us would aid in the investigation in the Project and MI5’s involvement in it.
Please do consider my suggestion. In the meantime, there is one more thing. After hearing of Balthus’s status as your biological father, I was naturally curious about the woman he had a baby – you – with. You asked in your email about her grave and its location. I thought it only right and fair to share the information with you as to her status.
Her name, as you know, is Isabella Bidarte. She is from Bilbao, Spain. The last known location of her is Weisshorn Psychiatric Hospital in Geneva, Switzerland. She was born in May, 1968. I, first, after your grave location request, also assumed she was dead. However, after a confidential investigation by my closest team, I can tell you that Ms Bidarte is indeed still alive, her residence understood still to be the Weisshorn Hospital in Geneva.
I trust this news is of value to you. This has been difficult for me, as I am certain it has been for you. I am sorry for the distress you have, over the years, I am sure, been caused at the hand of our security services. I hope this news of your mother contributes in some way to atoning for that.
Please do consider strongly my request to meet with you in order to aid our vital investigations and put an end to Project Callidus’ operations. Let us keep secure lines of communication open.
Yours truly,
Harriet Alexander
I look up from Chris’s computer tablet at Patricia, my hands shaking at the shock, yet my brain curious and elated at the email.
‘She is alive,’ I say. ‘She is alive.’
Patricia comes close to my side, the milk of her skin and the warm bath of her scent reaching my brain. ‘I’m right here.’
She touches my fingers and my mind becomes a little calmer, small clouds of our breath billowing in the frozen air.
We are hidden by a wall outside Zurich Airport. Close by, the external glass façade of the busy building glistens by a freezing taxi rank and the pencil-straight road washed in paint strokes of sunshine, leaving weak yellow lines across fine snow-covered pavements. I pull out my notebook and the photograph Papa had hidden in Ines’s Madrid cellar. I gaze at Isabella’s face, at her river of hair, her flowing skirt, her baby – me – swaddled and held in arms so smooth and melodic they sing like swans. Could she really be alive? Could it be true? Or is the whole thing a fabrication? Quickly, I begin to write down the email contents, cross match for any patterns, hidden codes or messages, but no matter how hard I look, there is nothing secret to find.
Chris hurries over, cupping his hands and blowing on his fingers. ‘I thought spring was supposed to be warmer here.’
Patricia rolls her eyes. ‘Wimp.’
He stares at her, shudders, then looks to me. ‘Okay, so—’ He sneezes.
‘Bless you.’
He tilts his head at Patricia and raises one eyebrow; I have no idea why.
‘Okay, so,’ he continues, ‘I’ve double-tracked the email on my system and it’s from her alright – it’s from Harriet Alexander.’
I clutch the sepia-tone photograph in my fingers. ‘Are you certain?’
‘Yep. The thing is, she said what she said, you know, about investigating the Project, but if MI5 are tracking her then they’ll know she’s talking to you.’ He points to the email. ‘They’ll know now she’s planning to investigate it all.’
