Ugley Business (5 page)

“I was helping someone with a pushchair,” Angel said, as I climbed back up the escalator. “Lady all on her own with twins.”

“She went to Majorca on her own with twins?”

“I didn’t ask.”

I dropped my bag on the floor. “You scared the life out of me. From now on, we go down to meet planes together, and screw Air International guidelines.”

It was a sentiment often expressed.

There were two more planes to meet, one landing at ten and one at eleven, so we lounged around waiting for them. Angel tried to drag some more out of me about Luke, but I wasn’t biting. Instead I sat and thought about him.

So, he wasn’t my boyfriend. But why not?

Well, we hadn’t met each other’s parents or friends. I didn’t even know if Luke had any. The only friends of mine he’d ever met were Angel and Tom, the singer in my brother’s band who helped us out once with someone who tried to drug me. We told Tom it was date rape and I haven’t seen him since.

But not meeting friends and family wasn’t a very good reason. Romeo and Juliet never met each other’s mates, but they still got married and became fiction’s most famous and romantic lovers. Not that I wanted to marry Luke. God, the thought terrified me.

So what was it? The total and utter lack of emotional commitment?

Yeah. That was it. We had sex, and we had fun. There wasn’t even the thought of “I love you” hanging around to frighten us. I didn’t know where the relationship was going. Should I? Would that spoil it?

We wandered over to the domestic satellite where everything was utterly silent. There are no overnight domestic flights, in or outbound, and Angel said to me, “This is nap-time.”

“It’s what?”

“You didn’t think we were going to stay up all night, did you?”

The thought had crossed my mind. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Pick a seat,” she gestured to the rows of hard blue chairs, “and take a nap. The Fuerteventura is delayed so it’ll be in around three. Jo’s going to ring me when it’s approaching.” She held up her phone. Jo was in Ops and very helpful. “Sweet dreams.”

I lay awake on the uncomfortable chairs for what felt like hours after Angel had dropped off into instant, picturesque sleep. I thought about Angel and her parents, about the person who had flashed a camera through the window last night, about Karen Hanson and her new steel rule, and about Luke.

And then I must have fallen off to sleep, because I was suddenly woken up by a voice in my ear, “So this is what you get paid for.”

My eyes jolted open and I found myself staring at a pair of very amused baby blues.

“Luke?” I croaked. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve been thinking.” He was hunkered down in front of the row of chairs, his face level with mine.

“About?”

He brushed a strand of hair back from my face. “This isn’t going to work.”

Now I was fully awake. “What?” I said in alarm. Was he breaking up with me?

“This. You working nights. Me working days.”

Oh God, he was breaking up with me. Except that you had to have a relationship to break up. He was
cutting me off
.

“What are you saying?” I squeaked, trying to keep my voice down so Angel wouldn’t wake up. It was still only just past one in the morning.

“That something has to change. Either you stop shadowing Angel, or I do.”

I stared. He wasn’t breaking up with me. He was mutinying for me!

“But we can’t,” I said. “We can’t let her out of our sight.”

“I spoke to Karen,” Luke said. “She’s willing to employ outside agents.”

I frowned. “Meaning?”

“Meaning, sweetheart,” Luke smiled, “we can get someone else in. And I know someone.”

Harvey! He already had a thing for Angel. He’d stick to her like Bostick. I opened my mouth to suggest it, but Luke had other ideas. He cupped my face in his hands and kissed me.

“Mmm,” I said. “So who’s this ‘outside agent’?”

“Just someone I know. Very trustworthy. I’ll call him in the morning.”

I nodded. That sounded like a plan to me. “Have you found out any more about—” I began, but Luke put a finger over my lips, and then he slipped it into my mouth, and then he was kissing me again and then somehow my shirt came undone and I pushed Luke away.

“Not here,” I gasped, “not now.”

“Why not?”

“Angel,” I jerked my head at her. She was still sleeping peacefully.

“She won’t—”

“She might,” I said firmly. “And I’m not big on discovery fantasies.”

Luke sighed and looked around for inspiration. “The bathroom,” he said, and before I could protest, he dragged me to my cramped feet and pulled me into the ladies. He pushed me back against the bank of sinks and started kissing me again, working on getting more than my shirt undone. And I, uncomplaining, happily joined in, popping all the buttons on his shirt and running my hands over all those lovely muscles. And then running my hands over—never mind. Luke found the handcuffs and got pretty excited, locking my wrists behind his neck.

We were getting along very well, in fact, until we heard the scream.

“
Angel
,” I said, and Luke pulled his jeans back up, grabbed the gun he’d left in one of the sinks and dashed out. I followed, limping on one shoe, terrified because I’d left my bag and my gun and everything out there with Angel, all unguarded, and anything could have happened.

Angel was sitting huddled up on the hard blue chairs, a large envelope in her hands, staring at some large, glossy photos. And Luke was crouched in front of her, trying to wipe away the tears that were falling down her face.

“I didn’t know what they were but now I know,” she mumbled. “Now I know.”

“Know what?” I asked Luke quietly, but he shook his head. I held out my wrists and he unlocked the cuffs.

“Angel, where did you find these?”

She rubbed the seat beside her as I hastily rearranged my clothing. “When I woke up. You weren’t here but these were…”

She was sucking in deep breaths and I thought she was going to hyperventilate. I quickly sat down beside her and put my arms around her.

“We’re here now,” I said, shaking myself, horrified that she’d been left alone long enough for someone to plant these things beside her. Or had they been there before? Had Luke and I just not noticed?

Angel cried against my shoulder and Luke gently took the photos from her. I looked up at him, but he was concentrating on the pictures, flicking through them fast.

“Jesus,” he said, and when he looked at me, his face was pale. I’d never seen him like that before. I’d never seen him look so shaken.

“What?” I held my hands out for them, and Luke handed them over, taking Angel into his arms while I tried not to mind that his shirt was undone and she was cuddling up to that fine naked torso.

And then I looked at the photos, slowly at first but then quicker like Luke had done, making a moving sequence out of them. And what I saw was this: a man on a motorbike, moorland around him, the sun just about to come up over the horizon. The pictures were from behind, but getting closer, and then they came to a little bridge over a crack in the moor, and suddenly the biker slewed off the road, through the dry stone wall, and down into the hollow, which was deeper than it looked. I knew this because there were pictures taken looking down at the body as it lay crumpled in the ditch, then pictures taken close up. Of the head in its helmet, the white neck stubbled and dirty, and then suddenly twisted at an unnatural angle, and then there was a close-up of the face.

I’d know that face anywhere.

It was Greg Winter.

Luke fastened his shirt up and took Angel home and I waited around, nervous and guilty, to meet the Fuerteventura flight. And when I’d seen them all off, I grabbed my bag, which had been no more than six inches from me at all times, and raced down to the car park. So my shift wasn’t over yet, so what? There wasn’t anything else to do. Angel’s Mini was where she’d left it, and I’d got the keys that Luke had remembered to take off her. I drove the little car home, not appreciating it at all.

I got home and threw my clothes on the floor and cuddled Tammy to me, but I couldn’t sleep at all. The sky got lighter and I lay there thinking about Greg Winter. He hadn’t died in a motorbike accident. He’d been forced off that bike, but I couldn’t tell how.

And someone had documented the whole thing. And that someone had been in the domestic satellite, waiting for me to leave Angel.

By five o’clock I couldn’t stand it any more. I threw on jeans, T-shirt and fleece and stomped out to the Mini. I’d been meaning to take it back in the morning—but hey, it was morning now, right?

Nearly.

The sky was lightening, just like it had been when Greg was killed, as I drove up to Angel’s chapel and parked the Mini next to Ted. Luke’s Vectra was there, too, and I felt a surge of relief. I picked up my phone and called his number.

“I’m outside,” I said when he picked up, not waiting for him to say anything. “Let me in.”

Many keys turned in the locks on the big, thick oak doors, there was a bleep from one of the gargoyles, and then the door opened and Luke stood there, his face sharp with tiredness, his clothes crumpled, and I fell into his arms.

I woke alone in the guest bed where I’d fallen asleep as the sky got light. Luke was gone, and for a moment I panicked, until I heard his voice through the thick velvet curtain that cut off the gallery from the rest of the church.

I got up, my body protesting as I stretched my muscles, and then smiled as I remembered how Luke had sent me to sleep. I peeked through the gap in the curtains and saw Luke sitting at the computer in the south transept, frowning at the screen, looking as sexy this morning as he had last night.

Or maybe, earlier this morning. I looked at my watch. It was now late afternoon. I’d slept through most of the day.

I pulled my clothes on and padded downstairs, and was just about to step out of the tiny stone stairwell when I heard Luke say, “Seriously, not even one?”

“Nope,” Angel replied. “Not since I’ve known her.”

I ducked back behind the pillar at the corner of the stairwell. Were they talking about me? What were they saying? What hadn’t I had or done since Angel knew me?

“Well,” Angel went on, “she sort of had a thing going with Sven—you remember him? But then he went back to Norway and…”

She trailed off, and I imagined Luke shaking his head. Sven had been a plant, an impostor, not Norwegian at all, and he hadn’t left. He’d been shot. By me.

“Oh,” Angel was saying. “Oh.”

“And before the thing with Sven there was nothing?”

“I don’t even think she went on a date.”

“Jesus,” Luke said. “I’m sleeping with a nun.”

I blinked. Sleeping with. Not dating, not going out with. Just sleeping with. That put me in my place.

“I’m not a nun,” I said, stepping out of my hiding place and walking up the nave to where Angel was washing tomatoes in the font.

“Thought you were asleep,” Luke said, no trace of embarrassment or contrition in his voice.

“I was. I woke up.” I went to the computer. “Whatcha doin’?”

“Trying to get into the MI5 file on Greg Winter. Having no luck. There’s a fucking encryption on it and I can’t get through.”

“Well,” I glanced over at Angel, “it’s a wild idea, but maybe Angel could tell you about him? Being his daughter and all.”

“Smartarse,” Luke said.

“Yes, my arse is very smart.”

“She’s told me everything she knows. What I really want to know is where those pictures came from and how the hell he fell off his bike.”

“He was a great biker,” Angel said, slicing up mozzarella in the kitchen. “He knew what he was doing. Could ride for hours without his concentration fading. It wouldn’t have been like him to just come off like that.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Those moors looked pretty empty. Middle of nowhere stuff. Could have been riding for hours. Maybe he did just get tired.”

“And maybe there just happened to be someone following him who had a full film in his camera and just didn’t feel like reporting it to the coppers,” Luke stretched back in his chair and glared up at me lazily.

I made a face and looked around for my bag, which I’d thrown in the direction of the sofa last night—damn, I mean this morning. It was on the coffee table, and I checked my phone for messages from Maria. None.

“Listen, Sophie.” Angel came over, looking nervous. “I’m not going to be going into work tonight. Maybe not tomorrow, either. I’ve called it in. Family emergency.”

I nodded. Just because it had happened fifteen years ago didn’t make it any less of an emergency.

“Can you access the files on IC?” I asked Luke, and he shook his head. “Why are they blocking them? Shouldn’t you have, you know, access?”

“Yep,” he said. “But not to these. You need certain levels of clearance.”

“And you don’t have them?” I was both amazed and cheered that there was something Luke couldn’t do.

He scowled at me. “Angel,” he said, “look, there’s something we need to talk to you about.”

She looked wary. In fact, ever since she’d come to SO17 yesterday she’d looked wary.

“It’s just that we’re not sure this set-up is going to work. All this handing over and shadowing at work—especially if you’re not going to be at work. It’s not that you’re any trouble to guard,” he added, and Angel gave him a small smile for it. “But Sophie is still sort of learning the ropes and I need to keep an eye on her too. I just think our time could be better spent investigating things.”

“Like each other?” Angel said, and Luke grinned.

“Well, on our off-hours,” he said, and I thought,
Liar.
We’d “investigated” all over the office in the weeks before Karen Hanson’s arrival. “We need to try and trace those e-mails you’ve been getting, analyse the handwriting on all these letters—” he waved at a pile that I hadn’t even noticed, “—we need to find out the truth about how your father died and what it is this person wants. So what we’re going to do is get someone in who’s more experienced at this bodyguarding thing. Twenty-four-seven.”

“Who?” Angel asked nervously, and I didn’t blame her. God only knew who Luke had in his address book.

“A friend of mine. We trained together. He’s very trustworthy.” Luke looked up at me. “I got a call from Maria this morning,” he said. “She wanted me to tell you she hadn’t been able to access the report you wanted.”

Well, duh.

“Also that she’s going down to MI5 to try and get something on it. If we can’t reason with the computer—and who bloody can,” he slammed the screen with his palm, “then maybe we can reason with them.”

Fat chance.

It was dark when I left Luke with Angel so I could go home and get some clean clothes and feed Tammy, who was crying out with hunger. Poor baby. I made a mental note to buy her one of those automated feeders so she wouldn’t starve when I got stuck at work.

I’d promised to go straight back and wait with Luke and Angel until this person Luke knew turned up, but I wanted to take a shower first. As I was leaving Luke had said to me, “Angel’s single, right?”, and I’d glowered at him until he laughed and said, “I’m not interested, I’m just checking. Docherty has been accused of home-wrecking before now.”

“Docherty?” I repeated, liking the way the hard H clicked at the back of my throat.

“Yeah. Her new bodyguard. I gave him a call earlier. He’s on his way over.”

Over from where?
I wanted to ask, but didn’t, and rushed to Ted to drive home and make myself prettier. Poor Ted was absolutely baking, and he’d only just cooled down by the time we got home. I left his windows open a crack for some air and went in.

There was a time when I’d have walked straight into my flat without looking around at all, but I knew differently now. It was roasting and I ran around opening all the shutters and windows and chugging cold water. Then I got in the shower, turning the water to cold, washing the sweat and the tension away, or at least trying. At the back of my mind and in the knots on my shoulders I felt horribly guilty for leaving Angel like that. And for what? A man who defined our relationship as “sleeping with” not “being with” or even “going out with”.

“He’s a bastard,” I said to myself as I switched the water off and pushed back the shower curtain. “He’s a sexy, irresistible bastard.”

Then I nearly had a heart attack, because a voice replied, “That’s very nice of you to say, but you don’t really know me all that well yet.”

There was a man in my bathroom—a dark-haired, dark-eyed, dark-clothed brooding man, a Heathcliff template—eyeing me with an expression that really could only be described as sardonic.

I stared at him for about a full minute before his eyes flickered downwards, and I remembered I was naked and pulled the shower curtain across me.

“Here,” he said, and his voice was accented heavily. Irish, although I couldn’t clearly tell what part of Ireland. Could have been Boston for how clearly I was thinking. He held out the towel I’d left on the rail, and I grabbed it and held it against myself while I looked for my voice. I’d had it a minute ago, where had it gone?

“Who the hell are you?” I managed eventually.

“Docherty.”

Of course he was. He held out a hand, which I declined to shake for reasons of modesty.

“What are you doing in my bathroom?”

“Your door was open,” he said, and I blinked.

“No, it wasn’t.” Was it?

“Well,” Docherty gave me a slow wolf-grin, “maybe I helped it a little.”

I nodded. This was insane. This was the man Luke thought could guard Angel? Was he mad?

“Why are you here?” I asked, trying to wrap the towel around me without flashing him.

“Thought I’d come and see the girl who’s keeping Luke from personally protecting IC Winter’s daughter.”

The way he said it made me sound like one of those uptight girlfriends who get the screaming hab-dabs if their bloke so much as looks at another woman.

“Hey, this was Luke’s choice—” I began, and Docherty smiled again.

“I’m not surprised.”

I narrowed my eyes. I felt like he could see right through my towel.

“Could you just leave the room for a sec while I slip into something less comfortable?” I asked as politely as I could, and he smiled and walked out. I crept into the bedroom, pulled on my bathrobe and got dressed under it, just in case Docherty decided to come back in. I tied back my wet hair—very attractive, Sophie—and went out into the living room.

And nearly had another heart attack. Docherty had my SIG in his hands and was sighting at Tammy, who was looking curiously at the strange man with the strange metal thing, probably hoping it was going to dispense food.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” I leapt at him before I realised the gun was half-cocked. “Don’t bloody do that. Jesus.” My heart was hammering. Who sent this maniac? “Don’t shoot at my cat.”

“I wasn’t going so shoot her.” Docherty calmly handed the gun back. “I was checking the sights. That’s a nice piece you’ve got there.”

“Thank you.” I put it back in my bag, yanked out the Nokia and called Luke, my eyes on Docherty.

“I’m getting old here,” he said.

“So am I. I think I just lost ten years. Luke, can you just tell me what this Docherty guy looks like, please?”

There was a pause, then, sounding confused, Luke said, “About my height but heavier built, dark hair, very Irish and brooding. Strong accent. Why?”

“No reason,” I said. “I’m on my way.” I ended the call, still looking at Docherty. “Why are you here?”

He shrugged. “IC Winter was a real catch. I’ve seen the pictures of her daughter. She’s even better. If I was Luke I’d never let her out of my sight. Unless I had something better.”

He regarded me with his head on one side, and I felt like a piece of meat. “Can we go now?”

“Where?”

“Erm, Angel’s?”

“Grand plan. We’ll take my car. No offence, but yours is a rust bucket.”

Rule number one: you don’t insult my car.

“And what do you drive?” I asked archly. Another undercover car like Luke’s Vectra? Maria had an old Peugeot 205 and Macbeth usually drove whatever fell off the back of the lorry. All quiet, invisible cars.

“You’ll see,” he said, showing me a hint of a smile, and opened the door for me. “Ladies first.”

I took my time pulling down all the shutters and locking the door and saying goodbye to Tammy, who looked heartbroken that I was leaving her all alone without even the consolation of a big heap of food, and eventually turned to Docherty, who was looking around the small courtyard that came between my flat and the car park.

“Your flowers are dying,” he said without looking at me, and swung through the gate. Arrogant bastard. My flowers were fine.

I opened my mouth to tell him that I’d changed my mind and I would be going in my car, fuck whatever he’d got, when I walked around the corner and saw him opening the passenger door of an Aston Martin Vanquish.

A fucking
Vanquish
.

An Aston. A Bond car. A machine so beautiful I’d have given Luke up for it. I wanted that car. I lusted after it. I wanted to have its babies.

“You’re shitting me,” I said, and my mouth went on temporary strike in disgust.

“Would you like a ride?” Docherty asked, standing there looking cool in black, unaffected by the dying heat of the day, his eyes inviting, the devil asking for my soul.

And I said, “Yes,” and got in.

The car—well, it was hardly a car, they should sell this thing as a marital aid. I have never ever been turned on by something as much as I was by this car. The seats were red leather and there were big sexy switches and dials all over. Docherty turned the key, flicked the F1-style gear paddles and pressed the great big red starter button and I nearly had an orgasm. The car roared and purred and shuddered, and I was right there with it.