Chameleon

“I think I may be damaged goods.” She paused to gather herself. “When I was in that car and the couple were paralysed I could see something in their eyes and I knew they weren’t bad people, but I did it anyway. I’ve relived that moment a thousand times and only recently did I recognise what it was I saw in their eyes.” She paused and sobbed. “It was forgiveness.” She sobbed some more, and Dee handed her a tissue.

“You, and everyone else, will think, she’s seeing what she wants to see. She’s placating herself. But I’m not. I believe I saw acceptance and forgiveness in those kindly eyes.” By now her knees were up on the sofa and she buried her head between her knees and cried.

“It was my job to keep the Hokobus safe, and I failed,” Dee said. This was a revelation to Gil.

“What about that tall Geordie man?”

“He’s my partner. Don’t ever go near him. I guarantee he’ll snap you like a twig before you ever get to say sorry. We’d known that couple for just a few days but you were right about their eyes. They saw everything and they condemned nothing. We felt as though they were long lost friends. If I hate you, and I’m not sure whether I do or not, it should be because you killed a lovely couple, but it will actually be because I didn’t save them.” Dee’s eyes also welled up. “I guess we’re both conflicted.”

“Dee, what I did was heinous, unforgivable. I know that. But what you did, well, it was heroic. I might have killed your clients but you wouldn’t let their dream die with them. I watched that black actress standing at that podium, reducing some people to tears and stirring others to action. I saw the news of the uprising. Marat is free. The President is going to be tried for crimes against humanity and the Hokobus did it all, thanks to you.”

Dee turned away quickly. She didn’t want the Chameleon to see tears flowing freely down her cheeks.

“I have to be going,” she said, her voice shaky.

“Don’t be crazy. You can hardly walk. You’re almost as battered as I am. Stay the night in the spare bedroom. Go when you like in the morning, but don’t go out in this state. Please.”

“How do I know you won’t kill me in my sleep?” Dee asked, only half seriously.

“Ditto,” Gil replied. “Should you decide to stay there is more I need to tell you, but for now I’m just too tired.”

Dee’s weary body made the decision for her, and she asked if she could have a hot bath before she retired.

“Of course, and I’ll put some Ibuprofen by your bed. After I’ve swallowed a few myself.”

Chapter 6 6

72b The Green, Richmond, London, Saturday 2am.

Maureen Lassiter was dead on her feet. She just wanted to lay her head on her pillow and allow herself to drift off to sleep. She was so tired that she would doze off at the computer, hallucinate and wake up, all in the order of a few seconds. She sipped her strong tepid coffee in the losing battle against fatigue.

The last piece of information she had been pursuing arrived in her inbox; a voice proclaimed “you have mail” and she opened it. Summarising its contents, she added it to her notes for Barry. He was in her bedroom, making yet more calls to people who were distancing themselves from him and his spectacular plummet into oblivion but who were afraid of what he might reveal about them on his way down.

Maureen read her notes:

‘CIA, MI5 and the law enforcement agencies either side of the Atlantic unable, or unwilling to say where Gillian Davis is living. Scotland Yard met with her, as did the FBI but both met her at offices in Richmond, Virginia and her lawyer would not disclose her address, if indeed he knew it.

Amazingly enough the authorities could not find Davis with all of their resources but a private security operative, Dee Hammond did find her, and is probably the only person who does know where she is living.

It was assumed she was living in the Miles home, her Father’s home, but this appears not to be the case; see Gerry’s note.’ Maureen flicked over two pages and found the email from Gerry, MI5’s local contact in Richmond, Virginia.

“Mo. Good to hear from you after such a long while. No-one at Thames House speaks to me anymore – cutbacks? Remind them I’m cheaper than an airfare! Anyway, here we go. All Senators have government approved fast response security systems operated by Wells Fargo and so I rang the control center and assuming the role of the Lynchburg Police Department asked them if an alarm was going off as a neighbour though they heard something as they drove by. Wells Fargo said the house was secure, as far as they could see on their monitors, and that the Senator was away until Tuesday and the house was empty. They reminded me that the Lynchburg PD should be driving by every ninety minutes anyway. So, if your girl is in the area she isn’t staying in the Senator’s house.

Just a thought, if she talked to the Feds in Richmond and her lawyer is in Richmond, well maybe she is in Richmond too. Do you want me to run a credit card check? Let me know, sweetcheeks.

Gerry”

Maureen went back to the notes.

‘Davis is not using any known account or credit cards but this means nothing. She probably has unknown accounts under several aliases, or at least she will have if she learned anything at all in her special services training.

Our only lead to her whereabouts, therefore, is the unlikely Dee Hammond. A Google search showed lots of YouTube hits for the same piece of video, Hammond leading Rob Donkin by the ear to the police. He must be one angry man. Also numerous press reports including the front page of the Sun newspaper reporting that Hammond had partially blinded Donkin when his attack on her backfired. The lunatic had tried to squirt undiluted bleach in Hammond’s eyes. Sick boy.

The night duty operative at Vastrick Security helpfully gave Maureen an emergency number for Hammond which rang through to an answer phone for her Orange Mobile phone number.’

A hack of her mobile phone, courtesy of Sandra in the ‘electronic interception section’ at Thames house, proved most helpful. Maureen owed Sandra di

“Outgoing text message to Josh Hammond: Know it’s stupid. Outside Chameleon’s place. Need to face her. Can’t settle til I do.”

“Incoming text message from Josh Hammond: Yes it is stupid. She is a killer. I am flying out. Be there Weds’day. Got to finish report. U still at Richmond Downtown Crowne Plaza?”

“No more traffic, D Hammond phone off or out of range.”

At least Maureen had something. If they could persuade Dee Hammond to tell them the whereabouts of Davis, Barry could track her down and force her to make good their loss. After all, she’d had almost three million pounds in her account before it had been moved. She could afford it.

That money in the Isle of Man had been their nest egg; they could get away together if they had that cash. Maureen shuddered involuntarily at the thought of Barry’s behaviour towards her earlier. He had brutalised her - rape wouldn’t be too strong a word. But he was under extreme pressure. When they were together, relaxing, having retired from this madness, he would be OK. He wouldn’t hurt her then. No, it was just the circumstances, she convinced herself. She hadn’t seen the signs, and so it was partially her fault, anyway. She would have to be more careful.

***

Barry sat alone in the living room of the small garden flat which overlooked the green. Maureen had gone to bed. This tiny space in a Victorian building in Richmond would raise almost three hundred thousand pounds when it was sold, and even in a depressed housing market it would be sold within a week. Maureen had furnished it well; it was light and airy, the furniture modern and the artwork colourful. The pale deep pile carpet offered a soft contrast to the hard edges of the stainless steel and glass coffee table and bookshelves. The irony was that the flat could have been designed by his wife. Everything in it was exactly to her taste. Barry wondered for a moment whether the decor said anything about his taste in women.