Private London (Private 4)

‘They hurt you, Hannah,’ I said softly. ‘They can’t be allowed to get away with that. They can’t be allowed to hurt your father.’

‘My father hurt me.’ The voice was almost a whisper. Under all the make-up and the clothes and the womanliness she presented to the world, she was still a small frightened girl at heart. A girl I had promised – and failed – to look after.

‘I know he did,’ I said. ‘And he’s sorry – he put his life on the line today for you. If he could go back to that other time he would do everything differently.’

‘I’m not talking about him not paying the ransom, Mister Carter. I’m not talking about him letting my mother be raped and butchered.’

Hannah’s voice had gone hard again and I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck.

‘He used to come to my room, Mister Carter,’ she said. ‘At night. We had to comfort each other, he said. There were just the two of us now … And he hurt me.’

I gripped the phone tight in my hand.

Seemed I had been wrong about pretty much everything.

Chapter 94

I GOT ADRIAN to hack into the personnel records for Chancellors.

It seemed that Annabelle Weston had done her original degree at Cambridge University but had studied for her Master’s at Harvard.

I phoned Jack again. He was still holed up in a hotel and being babysat by the FBI. But he had his phone and he had his people standing by round the clock. I filled him in and ten minutes later he phoned me back. I hadn’t thought that the case had anything to do with America. But I was wrong. It had everything to do with it.

‘I got my contact in Homeland Security to run Annabelle Weston’s name through their system,’ he said. ‘And he got a hit. She’s on their watch list.’

‘Why?’

‘She had a relationship with a guy called Jesus Ferdinand. His mother is Kareema Ferdinand, an exiled Palestinian poet and political activist. Kareema was visiting relatives in the Gaza Strip in 1987 when the First Intifada kicked off. She stayed behind to protest against armed action. Urging the Palestinians to protest peacefully. On Christmas Eve 1987 she was murdered for her pains. The masked gunmen who shot her down as she walked home were never identified.’

‘Israelis?’

‘That’s what the Palestinians claimed. But most people think she was murdered by her own people for collaborating with the Israeli forces.’

‘Ironic.’

‘Isn’t it? But her son Jesus back in America puts the blame squarely on the Israelis. He converts to Islam, becomes highly radicalised. Over the years he has been the prime suspect in a number of incidents. Never been proven.’

‘And Professor Weston kept up her relationship with him?’

‘Yes. He was killed last year when Israeli marines boarded a ship trying to break the blockade and run humanitarian aid into Gaza.’

‘So she’s out for revenge?’

‘She found out who Hannah was, who her father was and, yeah … it looks like payback time.’

‘She operating on her own?’

‘Our intel says Jesus Ferdinand had links with Hamas and other paramilitary organisations.’

‘Shit.’

‘You need to get Harlan Shapiro back, Dan.’

Chapter 95

PROFESSOR ANNABELLE WESTON lived in an expensive mews-style two-bedroomed house not far from Ma

rylebone High Street – and she hadn’t paid for it with her earnings from Chancellors.