Bridget pushed the last of her hamburger into her mouth and chewed it slowly. Then she wiped her hands and leaned forward again. ‘I was thinking,’ she said, ‘that maybe we should make a move ourselves.’
CHAPTER FIVE
Losing the tail was as easy as ABC. It was the same guy as before, but with different clothes: black leather jacket, navy blue T-shirt, jeans and trainers — an unexceptional merge-into-the-crowd outfit. Watching him from inside Nico’s Café, Maggie sensed that he was already getting careless. He rarely looked across. It was hard not to conclude that he was getting used to the idea that she had a fixed routine and that she was unlikely to do a runner. That suited her fine. At half past three, she disappeared into the staff toilet in her black-and-white waitress costume. Four minutes later she emerged, dressed in a brown and white animal print dress, skin-coloured tights, calf-length tan boots and a red weave flat cap. Over this outfit she slipped on a knee-length red trench coat, before hoisting a brown bag over her shoulder and marching out the front door. Even Nico, who had agreed to her leaving half an hour early, seemed not to recognise her as she brushed past him. But that wasn’t just because of the radical change of clothes. Maggie Rogers was also now sporting a shoulder-length blonde wig. She swung right, marching boldly along the pavement before cutting left across the zebra crossing. A glance over her shoulder confirmed that leather-jacket man was still sitting with his paperback, sipping his latte as if he hadn’t a care in the world. She walked for some thirty seconds before striding across the road between the stationary vehicles. She plunged down Temple Street, then turned left up the Iffley Road, walking as fast as her heels would allow. A couple of times she paused and looked behind her, but there was no sign of her incompetent tail. She began to relax, but not to slow down.
She reckoned she was a bare five minutes from her father’s flat. And time was of the essence. She needed to get a start on whoever it was who was watching her before they realised that she had gone AWOL. She needed to get her father into the car, drop him off at St Botolph’s and then get the hell out of there before the alarm was raised. She had considered ringing Sister Mary at St Botolph’s the night before, but had decided against it. She would just drop him there and go. There was no way Sister Mary would not take him in. And there was no way that she herself could just leave him in his flat on his own now. It wouldn’t be safe. She had thought it through. This was the only alternative.
When she got to her father’s block of flats, the lift was conveniently on the ground floor. Seconds later she was outside his door. She checked her watch. By her reckoning, she had maybe thirty minutes before her shadow realised she hadn’t left the café at the usual time. Maybe a few more minutes while he checked inside and realised she wasn’t there. Then the shit would hit the fan. By which time she and her father needed to be long gone.
She slipped her key into the lock. ‘Dad!’ she called out as usual. He would be in the living room, but she turned first into his bedroom, pulled open the wardrobe and extracted a blue holdall. She had packed it herself the previous evening while he was engrossed in the TV. ‘Dad!’ she called out again urgently. She did hope he wasn’t going to be a trouble and insist he had to finish the TV programme he was watching. He could be such an awkward cuss when the mood was on him. She dropped the holdall in the hall and moved through to the living room, but her father wasn’t slumped there on his sofa or indeed anywhere else in the room. She stood still, bewildered. Then she went into the small kitchen. There was no sign of him there either. She went to the bathroom, but the door was open and the tiny space empty.
In all her planning, the one thing that hadn’t occurred to her was that he would forsake his afternoon TV and go out. He never went out at this time of day. He was always there when she arrived, waiting for her to make him a cup of tea and then his supper. She went back to the living room and looked around again. She couldn’t believe it. He had to be there somewhere. If he had decided to play some childish game of hide and seek, there weren’t many places he could easily hide. She went and checked behind the sofa, just in case, but of course he wasn’t there. Could he be hiding under the coffee table? The answer, she told herself irritably, was definitely ‘no.’
She looked again at her watch and then around the room. And then she saw the envelope, propped neatly against the TV screen. She was surprised she hadn’t noticed it when she first entered the room. She walked over and saw with a shock that it had her name on it. The ‘Ms Maggie Rogers’ was printed, not hand-written. She ripped open the envelope and pulled out a single white sheet of paper. She unfolded it. It too was printed, which ruled out any possibility of it being from her father. She felt herself go cold. Her legs wobbled beneath her. She grabbed the sideboard with her right hand.
We have your father, she read. He is safe. We will be in touch. Keep our mobile with you at all times.
Our mobile? For a moment her thoughts were scrambled. What were they talking about? Then she saw it — an unfamiliar handset half-hidden under the TV screen, behind where the letter had been propped, plus a phone charger and another charger for use in the car. Whoever they were, they were leaving nothing to chance. There was no name at the bottom of the letter and certainly no signature.
‘Oh God!’ she said, not in prayer or supplication, but in horror. She sat down on the arm of the sofa and tried to think. She had assumed that the idiot watching her at the café was from some section of the police, a detective constable working for Reid probably. Another possibility was that it was Special Branch, which was altogether more serious. But even Special Branch would hardly have abducted her father. Or would they? Someone had abducted him, someone buried deep in the security services she guessed, and they had done it for a reason. She was that reason. But if they wanted to talk to her, they could have picked her up at any time. Whoever it was that was watching her wanted to see where she went or who she met. Which meant — what?
She could feel panic welling up. There was no doubt now. Her past was catching up with her. But not just with her, with her father too. Another emotion swept through her now, anger. How dare they involve him! Who the hell did they think they were? He was an old man, innocent and confused. Bastards!
* * *
Arthur Rogers was used to playing the old fool. It was very effective when you were out and wanted help in the supermarket or attention from the waitress in the restaurant. Act a bit gaga and it was remarkable how kind people could be. Latterly, however, things had changed. It had become not so much a case of acting the fool as being one. This had happened quite suddenly. The first time it was as if half the day had been wiped from his memory. He remembered leaving the flat just as the cuckoo clock in his living room chirruped ten o’clock, but after that — nothing. The next thing he knew he was sitting in front of the TV watching Murder She Wrote. The front door had opened and Maggie’s voice had sung out a cheery greeting. She had come through and flung her coat over the chair. ‘That’s a nice mug, Dad,’ she had said. ‘Is it new?’ He had looked at the yellow mug in question, sitting half full on the coffee table, and for the life of him he couldn’t remember where on earth it had come from.
A thought had flashed through his brain, like a comet across the skies. Perhaps Maggie had begun to suspect something. Recently he had noticed that her face would crease with worry if he didn’t respond to a question or couldn’t tell her what he had been watching on TV when she asked him. Her visits were becoming more regular now too. He knew that because as soon as she went home he would open up his diary and write the letter ‘M’ in the top right-hand corner of that day. And then there was all the extra questions she asked him — where had he been that day, what had he been watching on the TV, quizzing him on the news. He didn’t like it. He was fond of her, she was the only daughter he had. But she shouldn’t try and catch him out. So he had tried to hide his occasional confusion from her. Senility, dementia,
Alzheimer’s . . . whatever it was he wanted to pretend that it wasn’t happening to him.
When the two Jehovah’s Witnesses had appeared at his door, he had instantly turned on the senility act. As well as being a means of getting help from people, it was also his protection against unwanted visitors. He hadn’t wanted to let them in, but just as he was shutting the door in their faces, the woman had asked him if she could possibly use his toilet. She had such a friendly smile that he hadn’t had the heart to refuse.
While she was in the toilet, the man had asked him if he wanted to be saved.
‘No,’ he had said very firmly. He really didn’t want to get into a discussion about that. He’d never get rid of them then.
The man had shrugged. An awkward silence followed. Eventually the woman reappeared from the toilet. She was holding a photograph in her hand, a small one of Maggie at about twenty-five. ‘Is this your daughter?’
‘You’ve been in my bedroom!’
‘We know this is your daughter,’ the woman said.
Arthur felt his chest tighten. ‘I’d like you to go,’ he had said, but the woman had just smiled.
‘We know Maggie Rogers is your daughter.’
That was when he had begun to get scared. How could they possibly know? And who were they? Because they sure as heck weren’t Jehovah’s Witnesses. So Arthur had retreated into senility. When they said he would have to come with them, he had thought of resisting or shouting, but the look on the man’s face convinced him it wouldn’t be a good idea. So he had gone along with them without making a fuss and had continued to play the going-gaga card ever since. That way he would be safer and Maggie would be too, because he wasn’t so senile that he hadn’t realised that it was her they were interested in. He couldn’t help but wonder — and worry — if her past might not be catching up with her.
* * *
Sam had met her here once before. A bit more than four years ago, at this very same godforsaken spot. It had been a miserable day in mid-October, rain lashing down, no wind, heavy black cloud. She had waited in the car for several minutes, wondering where the hell he had got to. Then there had been a sudden bang on the passenger window and she had almost jumped out of her skin.
‘Unlock the bloody door!’ he had shouted. When he had clambered in, he was wetter than the proverbial drowned rat and yet bubbling with excitement. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here, darling,’ he said, ‘before the pigs come looking.’
Today it was dry. Still no blue sky, but no sign of rain either. She got out of the car and stretched her back. She was pretty damned sure she hadn’t been followed, but she left the driver’s door open and the engine running as she scoped the location. It was the sort of lay-by that gives lay-bys a bad name, a crazy jigsaw of holes and ruts, where no sane person would choose to stop. That, of course, was probably its attraction for Sam. There was a dense coppice of bushes and trees that separated it from the main road and screened the car from passing vehicles. She turned a full circle. Where had he got to?
‘Hey, doll!’ The voice took her back several years.