Deadly Pleasures Page 4

  I’m Shareen Manasseh. Sometimes I wish I had a plain name like Anna Lee which any fool can spell. Anna Lee is a good name – short, fits on a granite headstone in big gold letters. According to the date underneath she died two years ago. She’s remembered – there were two fresh vases of daffodils and jonquils and a spray of yellow roses.

  Rachel Silver said, ‘I should have come before now. I feel terrible.’ A slow tear rolled out from under her dark glasses and stuck quivering in the make-up on her left cheek. Her hands, in their beautiful suede gloves, fluttered. She seemed to be waiting for me to reassure her so I said, ‘It isn’t easy for you.’

  ‘No. I don’t come to the UK often. I was ill when she died – a basket case.’ Again she waited for me.

  ‘You’d been through a lot,’ I supplied.

  ‘No one gets it.’ She sighed. ‘When I first saw her … Anna … she was the first human being I’d actually seen … they told me … in nearly five months.’

  I said, ‘They told me that too.’

  ‘He kept me in total darkness. Can you imagine that, Shareen? I thought I was blind. You’ve no idea how badly light hurts the eyes.’

  Now her eyes were shielded by dark lenses. Her perfect hair was raked by a breath of early spring wind but it soon settled back into its smooth shape. She hunched her shoulders as if she were freezing. Why, I wondered, was she putting herself through this? It was like watching someone poke at an unhealed wound with a fork.

  ‘I almost forgot.’ She took a round white pebble out of her pocket. ‘From Atlantic City,’ she said and placed it on Anna’s black granite stone.

  I followed her example. Before leaving home I’d picked up a mundane grey pebble from the stock I keep for my grandmother’s grave. Even in the matter of stones this woman made me feel like a pauper.

  I said, ‘Shall we get out of the cold?’

  ‘It is pretty bleak,’ she agreed, surveying the grassy ground with its network of narrow paths – a crematorium at one end and a chapel at the other. There were no lichen-covered stones, no Victorian angels or whimsical mausoleums. All the trees and dead people had been planted less than a decade ago.

  ‘Soulless,’ I said without thinking.

  She let out a sharp gasp and a brittle laugh.

  We sat in her chauffeur-driven car with thick privacy glass between us and the driver. It embarrassed me. I wished my chief inspector had picked someone else to come to London for this assignment. I didn’t know why it was a police job anyway. All he said was, ‘You’ve heard of hush-hush? Well this is hush-hush-hush.’

  Rachel Silver said, ‘He kept me in the dark. I didn’t know what time it was. He fed me through a letterbox in the door, shoving food through like I was a dog.’

  The car had bulletproof glass, a bombproof chassis and a security driver. I’d been issued with a regulation Glock sidearm. But Ms Silver did not look like a woman who would ever feel safe.

  ‘First he gave me a ham sandwich.’ She shuddered. ‘I said, “I can’t eat this.” He said, “You’ll eat what I give you or you’ll starve.” I made up my mind to starve. But I’m weak.’

  ‘That’s not weakness. That’s survival.’ I felt she’d put me in the place of her therapist or someone whose responses she could rely on for comfort.

  But she rejected the comfort. ‘It was the thin end of the wedge. He said, “You’ve been here a week” and I said, “Okay,” even when I was sure it was only a couple of days. And then it got so I wasn’t sure. He’d shove a sandwich through the door and say, “Lunch,” waking me up from a sleep so long I thought it must be breakfast. I’d say, “Is it day or night?” just so I could hear a human voice. He said, “It’s what I say it is, stupid, dirty woman.” And that was better than when he said nothing at all.’

  Kept in the dark and lied to. A bit like what my last boyfriend did to me. He too was the kind of guy who could convince a woman that day was night. But he wasn’t a terrorist so I had no reason to believe he was torturing me.

  ‘He wouldn’t let me wash,’ Rachel Silver went on, her head bowed. She seemed to be giving a speech she’d returned to over and over again. Maybe her therapist said, ‘Keep telling the story till it loses its power.’ You’d think if that was going to work it would’ve worked after two years.

  I was uncomfortable sitting so close to a woman who’d been brainwashed and tortured. But the chief inspector said, ‘Do whatever it takes. The deputy commissioner in London doesn’t want the Americans complaining we can’t do a simple job right.’

  I tried to change the subject. ‘How did an English private detective get involved with this?’

  ‘Anna Lee?’ Rachel sounded as if she’d forgotten that she’d come all this way to visit her rescuer’s grave. ‘She was working in the States and I guess my dad had her on salary. He likes the British. Maybe Military Intelligence kinda seconded her because she was an outsider. I don’t know. The operation’s still classified. Even from me. They think I’m a security risk.’

  ‘That’s a bit unfair.’

  ‘They think I was “turned”. They still monitor my calls in case he gets in touch. But he wasn’t just one person. I think there were five of them but only one mattered. I had to call all of them “Friend”. The real Friend escaped in the gunfire. They say he shot Anna Lee the next day. She was gunned down in the street, you know. It was like a regular LA gang drive-by, but they insist it was Friend because she was the only one who saw him and he was the only one who could possibly recognise her. He’s still out there.’

  She was beginning to sound like a tired little girl. I said, ‘Do you want to go back to the hotel?’

  ‘I’m exhausted.’ She took off her dark glasses and I turned to look out of the window.

  I knew, because it was in the notes I’d been given, that when she was rescued, Rachel had an eye infection so bad that she lost the sight of one of her eyes and eventually it was removed. I didn’t want to see what was left.

  I couldn’t understand the resentment I felt – the toxic twin emotions of pity and impatience. ‘Get over it,’ I wanted to say. ‘Your daddy’s a senator. You’re rich. You can afford all the therapy, all the security you’ll ever need. What about the woman who got tangled up in US politics almost by mistake and lost her whole life? Is that what you rich important people do – hire someone to stand between you and the bullet that’s meant just for you?’ Because today it was me and my stupid little sidearm that I’d never actually used outside a firing range. We’d been chosen to stand between Rachel Silver and her own personal bullet.

  I spent the night at her hotel in London because she wanted an escort to the airport the next day. Then she was gone.

  After that, to my surprise, I was sent to a newly built office in South London to talk to a quiet man who called himself Mr Franklin. I was warned that he would want to see my case notes. He stood with his back to the window reading and turning pages. I sat on a hard chair embarrassed about my spelling and handwriting which I’m sometimes told is ‘chaotic’. He didn’t comment on either. Nor did he give me back my notebook.

  All he said was, ‘Thank you so much for your help on this one, Ms Manasseh. In the unlikely event that anyone should ever approach you about this matter I’d appreciate it if you’d report back instantly to Deputy Commissioner Mead in the Met – not anyone from your home station. Is that clear?’

  He pushed some papers across the desk, and that’s how I found out that the previous day’s assignment was an Official Secret.

  I don’t know how it happened – I never said anything to anyone about my trip to London – but word spread all the way back to Bristol.

  A few nights later I was in the Cat-Man-Do bar with a couple of women from work. Teresa said, ‘We saw your ex last night, Shareen.’

  ‘Al?’

  ‘How many exes you got?’ Jude said. ‘You ain’t that popular.’

  ‘Yes, Al,’ Teresa said. ‘He said you were on Special Assignment to MI5 in London.’

/>   I didn’t know quiet Mr Franklin was MI5, so unless Al was bullshitting Teresa, he knew more than me.

  I said, ‘He’s shitting you, Teresa. It’s what he does.’

  Jude said, ‘He was with Norm and Kill-Bill from the armoury. They said you were issued a sidearm.’

  How did they know that? The Glock was issued in London, not locally.

  ‘It’s a joke,’ I said. ‘I passed the basic course, that’s all. You’re both more qualified and experienced than I am.’

  Teresa said, ‘They told us it was ’cos you were babysitting that Jewish senator’s daughter who was taken hostage by terrorists, remember? Because no one knows you in London.’

  ‘Al said they always pick an “exotic” for a job like that,’ Jude added.

  ‘Exotic?’

  ‘Don’t get all huffy,’ Teresa said. ‘It doesn’t mean you’re more expendable.’

  ‘Don’t count on it,’ Jude said with a malicious grin. She tipped the last of her pint down her throat. She still looked thirsty.

  ‘Never mind her,’ Teresa said, while Jude was at the bar getting the next round in. ‘Al was talking about you and she hates that. You’re supposed to be history.’

  ‘I am history,’ I said sadly.

  ‘That’s not how Al sounded last night.’

  ‘Well, he’s history,’ I said even more sadly, because he’d been gone for six weeks and I was lonely. It was dark in the bar, and ‘Fix You’ was playing on the sound system.

  Al used to like me. Now he likes Jude. Or maybe it was exclusively about sex, and liking had nothing to do with it. I don’t understand men at all.

  Deputy Commissioner Mead told me that when Anna Lee freed Rachel Silver she ran into the underground bunker while a fire fight was going on around her. He said that she had to dress Rachel in Kevlar and carry her out in her arms – not because Rachel was too weak to walk but because she didn’t want to go.

  As well as the eye infection, she was treated for multiple STDs. But according to the debriefing reports, she never once, even to this day, described a rape. Deputy Commissioner Mead doesn’t understand women at all.

  Sitting in the Cat-Man-Do bar, listening to ‘Fix You’ and waiting for Jude, who hates me, to bring more drinks, I knew I should leave, phone Mead and tell him that the Official Secret wasn’t a secret – that my colleagues, the men and women I’d been trained to protect and rely on, were asking questions.

  Jude came back with a pint for Teresa, a pint for herself and nothing for me.

  ‘Jude!’ Teresa protested, laughing.

  ‘She get’s stupid and slutty when she’s rat-arsed,’ Jude explained sweetly. ‘That’s what Al told me.’

  ‘Al would never lie to you,’ I said. ‘You remind him too much of his mother.’

  Jude threw knives with her eyes. Clearly she knew as well as I did what Al thinks of his mother.

  ‘We used to be mates,’ Teresa said. ‘There’s way more interesting stuff to talk about than some twat-faced bloke.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like what Shar was doing in London. Like, how does Rachel Silver look now? She used to be one of the Ten Best Dressed Women in Washington. Like were the terrorists really behind that private eye’s murder or is it just another conspiracy theory?’

  ‘Is she even dead?’ Jude said. ‘Kill-Bill says she’s prob’ly in some witness protection programme somewhere. She’s the only one who actually saw the leader. He was long gone by the time the military stormed the bunker.’

  ‘They killed the other four,’ Teresa said. ‘Anna Whatsername can’t be protected twenty-four-seven. Unless they fake her death and give her a new identity.’

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ I said because they were both waiting for me to comment.

  ‘You’re involved.’

  ‘I’m so not involved. Where on earth are you getting your gossip from?’

  ‘Already told you,’ Jude sighed impatiently. ‘Al said you never listen.’

  ‘Oh do shut up,’ Teresa said, but added, ‘Don’t go, Shar. She’s just trying to wind you up.’

  ‘Failing,’ I said. ‘I’m bored.’ And I left.

  I should’ve rung Deputy Commissioner Mead. I should’ve said, ‘Teresa, Jude, Norm, Al and Kill-Bill know where I was last week. Everyone’s speculating. No sir, I never said a word. I’m not trying to call attention to myself by implying I’m part of an international operation. Possibly the leak started in the armoury. Am I an exotic?’

  I work with these men and women every day of the week. On duty, they watch my back and I watch theirs. Even Jude and Al. Rule number one – you don’t rat on your mates. Never.

  But a week later, at three-thirty in the morning, the phone rang. I wasn’t even awake when I put the receiver to my ear.

  A man’s voice said, ‘Shareen Manasseh? This is a friend.’

  ‘Who?’ I mumbled.

  ‘A friend.’ He sounded angry. ‘We’ve got your number. We know your family. Believe that we can reach any of you any time we want. Your phones are monitored. We’ll know if you contact anyone. Wait for our instructions.’

  ‘Al?’ I mumbled. But he rang off.

  He wasn’t Al, he rang on my landline, he sounded English – not like my idea of a terrorist, he …

  I got up and dressed like a spook or a burglar, all in black. I left the flat, got in my car and drove randomly through Bristol streets for five minutes the way they taught us on the Security Driving course. I hardly needed to – it’s easy to see if anyone’s following you in a residential area at three-thirty in the morning. The streets were empty and dead.

  What made me think the voice on the phone was Al’s? Maybe I’d been dreaming about him. Maybe it was because he used to ring at odd hours, sometimes pretending he was talking to a sex line. I miss him.

  I drove out to the motorway and kept driving till I reached Leigh Delamere Services. Then I stopped and, from a payphone, called the number on the card the deputy commissioner had given me. It connected to voicemail. I left a message.

  I went home and waited. And waited.

  No one called or came so I drove to work at the usual time and spent the day in the usual way, rushed off my feet, dealing with urgent trivia and writing it up afterwards.

  ‘Come for a drink?’ Teresa said as we went off shift.

  I didn’t want to go home alone so I accepted even though Jude and Al were among the crowd going to the Cat-Man-Do.

  But when I got to my car I found Mr Franklin waiting quietly in the shadows.

  We drove to the underground car park behind the Watershed near the docks. He didn’t speak until we were facing the water. Then he said, ‘Tell me everything, Shareen – verbatim if you can.’

  When I’d finished, he said, ‘Is that all?’

  I was offended.

  He said, ‘I know, he told you he was a friend and threatened you and your family in very few words – I mean, what else has been happening?’

  I’d thought about this question all day and prepared an answer. I said, ‘Everyone at my station and everyone at the armoury knows about me escorting Rachel Silver in London. Everyone’s speculating.’

  ‘Everyone? I’ll need names.’ He looked at me. I looked at him.

  He sighed and said, ‘Ms Silver is still emotionally attached to the leader of the cell who kidnapped her. She was half blinded and so messed up inside that she will never be able to have children, but she’s still loyal to him.’

  ‘She’s frightened.’

  ‘So are you. Rightly. But because she persists in a bad choice there are some very dangerous people still out there. One of whom you spoke to last night.’

  ‘She didn’t have a fair choice.’

  ‘Agreed. But the choice about who you’re loyal to should be reassessed in the light of new information. Mindless fidelity to a person, a group, a policy or a nation … well, you, Shareen Manasseh, should know better than most what that can lead to.’

  I was grateful to h
im for not naming the fascistic, extremist groups I might be afraid of. He gave me time to think.

  In the end I said, ‘Is this why you always choose “exotics”?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Because we don’t quite feel we belong? And so it’s easier to persuade us that our friends aren’t our friends?’

  He looked me straight in the eye, holding contact till I looked away. His eyes were pale grey and his gaze was as frank and honest as Al’s.

  In the end I chose the family I’d left behind and I gave him the names he wanted. I gave up my friends.

  As far as I know nothing at all happened to Teresa, Jude, Al, Norm or Kill-Bill. But I was transferred from Bristol to South London by the end of the month. I was given no choice.

  I never heard another word from the so-called Friend. Why had I thought the caller was Al? It wasn’t Al but it might have been a voice I’d heard recently. An English voice. Like quiet Mr Franklin’s. So I began to wonder how ‘friendly’ he was. Could the threat have been made just to manipulate me – to expose a leak? Was Mr Franklin another man who could convince a woman that day was night? I wondered about this for quite a long time.

  I never saw or heard from him again. And I still don’t know who to be loyal to, unless it’s to family – even though I left them behind long ago.

  ZOUNDS!

  Lindsey Davis

  Lindsey Davis is a former civil servant whose first novel set in Ancient Rome, The Silver Pigs, introduced Marcus Didius Falco, and launched a highly successful career. She was the first winner of the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, and received the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for a crime-writing career of sustained achievement. She too has chaired the CWA.

  ‘Zounds!’ exclaimed Sir Mawdesley. ‘You look as if you had seen a—’

  He stopped. He was a gentleman, Sir Philip Sidney’s friend. He accounted some words uncouth in company. Among his present companions it was polite to exclude ‘ghost’.