Reckless
If it irritated Jamie MacIntosh to be told his job by a subordinate, he hid it well.
“Don’t worry, General,” he replied smoothly. “It’s taken care of.”
JEFF STEVENS STEPPED OUT of his club onto Piccadilly and into the pouring rain. Water cascaded off his umbrella as he scanned the streets in vain for a cab with its light on. All around him people were diving for cover, scurrying into shops or cowering under bus shelters.
“Mr. Stevens?”
A sandy-haired man in a crumpled Macintosh appeared at his side, apparently out of nowhere.
“Might I have a word?” The man gestured towards a gleaming black Daimler with diplomatic plates that had pulled up to the curb. “In private.”
Jeff frowned suspiciously. “Do I know you?”
“Not yet.” Jamie MacIntosh smiled affably, adding, “It’s about Tracy Whitney.”
Without hesitation, Jeff closed his umbrella and climbed into the car.
LEAVING THE ICONIC MI6 building on Albert Embankment, Tracy decided to walk for a while to clear her head. Crossing Vauxhall Bridge she turned left towards Belgravia and Chelsea, her old stomping grounds. The rain began as a light drizzle, but was soon falling hard. Ducking into a newsstand, Tracy bought a cheap umbrella and kept going.
For an hour she walked aimlessly, thinking about Sally Faiers and how best to make her approach tomorrow. Sometimes Tracy panicked that she was no nearer finding Althea than she had been when she arrived. Was the interview with Sally a diversion? Had General Dorrien set it up deliberately as a red herring, to throw Tracy off the scent? She didn’t trust Frank Dorrien, that much she knew. On the other hand, as she’d told Cameron Crewe, she felt in her gut that Hunter Drexel was a crucial link in all of this. Hunter and the fracking industry, together, held the key to Althea’s identity and her connection to Group 99. If Sally Faiers could tell Tracy anything, anything at all, that shed light on Hunter Drexel and the mysterious story he was working on, then it was worth making the trip to see her. Whatever General Dorrien’s motives.
Tracy found herself wishing she had someone to talk to about all this. With a pang it struck her that all her life’s confidantes were gone, either dead or lost to her forever. Her beloved parents. Jeff. Blake Carter.
Then it came to her. I know where I need to go.
THE CEMETERY WAS JUST off the Fulham Road, on the border of Chelsea. By the time Tracy got there twilight had already fallen. Rain soaked graves glistened eerily beneath a silver moon. The rain was still beating down, as it had been all afternoon, pounding the gravel paths like a million angry bullets flung down by a spiteful heaven. Deep puddles forced mourners and dog walkers alike to veer off the paths onto the sodden grass, more mud than turf in places.
Gunther Hartog, Tracy and Jeff’s former mentor and a father figure to Tracy in her wild, con artist days, had always loved this place. Personally Tracy never understood it. To her the solid, Victorian graves cut from dour gray stone were deeply depressing. But not to Gunther. Tracy could hear his voice now as if he stood beside her.
“It’s the thrill of the Gothic, my darling! The kitschness of it all. One half expects Ebenezer Scrooge to jump out from behind a plinth and grab you. Muuuah ha ha ha haaa!”
His deep, melodramatic cackle used to make Tracy laugh.
She wondered if she would ever laugh like that again.
The night she’d had dinner with Cameron Crewe in Geneva, she’d felt some faint stirrings of happiness. But the guilt that followed was so profound and debilitating, she was in no hurry to repeat the experience.
I’m afraid to be happy, she realized. Afraid to live.
And yet she knew she must live. She must live to avenge Nick’s death.
Unexpectedly, a feeling of defeat swept over her. I’m never going to find Althea. I’m never going to know what really happened to my darling Nick.
Tracking somebody electronically was one thing. But it didn’t count for much in the real world. Trying to anticipate an invisible woman’s next move was like trying to play chess with a ghost.
Was that how the police felt, trying to catch me and Jeff all those years?
Was that frustration what turned Daniel Cooper mad?
No, Tracy reminded herself. Cooper was a homicidal lunatic long before he even met me.
It’s not you, Tracy. It’s not your fault.
At last she arrived at Gunther’s grave. For all his love of Gothic pastiche, in the end his good taste had won out and he’d gone for a simple, understated headstone, devoid of gargoyles or roses or crosses ringed with thorns.
The inscription read simply Gunther Hartog—Art Collector and the dates.
Tracy stood next to the stone, so that her umbrella covered both of them. She hadn’t brought flowers or anything. Now that she was here she wasn’t even really sure why she’d come. Only that she’d needed the comfort of an old friend. Of someone who had loved her.