The Death Messenger (Matthew Ryan Book 2)(36)

She burst out laughing.

They heard the access door open and close, a heated exchange in low whispers between O’Neil and their visitor. When she returned to the room, Newman was in tow. He shook hands with Ryan, a friendly exchange between brothers in arms. Grace strode across the room, kissed her husband and over-egged her soft Geordie accent.

‘Were you missing me, pet?’

Newman stepped away from her embrace, ice-blue eyes on O’Neil.

She scowled at him. ‘I assume you followed her here.’

Grace bridled: ‘What do you take me for?’

Newman’s expression was unmoving. He was in work mode and nothing would deter him from what he’d come to say. ‘What would your response be if I told you that your offenders began their antics in Copenhagen. The victim was the British Ambassador to Denmark. The woman you’ve been listening to sent a DVD there too.’

‘Fuck!’ Grace raised her hands in the air. ‘Eloise, I didn’t know this, I swear.’

The death of an ambassador, a person holding the most senior diplomatic rank, was about as serious as it could get.

‘Hang on. That was in the papers,’ Ryan frowned, ‘but it happened months ago.’

‘July twenty-eighth, to be precise,’ Newman said. ‘At least that’s the date on the DVD, the same day he went missing.’

‘Wasn’t it reported as a robbery?’ O’Neil said.

‘It was.’

‘What day of the week was that?’

‘Sunday. Danish police were on it immediately. His body was found in an abandoned warehouse two days later.’

‘Any witnesses?’

‘One. A local woman. She’d seen a male and a female acting suspiciously near the Ambassador’s official residence in Kastelsvej a couple of days before he went missing. She didn’t raise the alarm at the time, but came forward when the case was reported in the press. The Foreign Secretary consulted at the highest level, imposing a news embargo on anything more than basic information.’

‘Which makes Trevathan the second victim, not the first,’ Ryan said. There was a deathly hush as the full impact of his statement sank in. He could see his guv’nor’s brain working overtime. If she had any doubt that Newman was required, it was gone.

‘OK, you’re in,’ she said. ‘I seem to have been outvoted.’

‘Yes!’ Grace punched the air. ‘Just don’t go adding his name to the payroll.’

‘I’m sure Eloise and I can come to an untraceable arrangement,’ Newman said. ‘As far as this unit goes, I’m the invisible man.’ He eyeballed O’Neil, keen to get going, asking for the lowdown on the enquiry to date. She told the former spook and Grace to read up on the case and be ready for a full briefing by six o’clock. Her unit had doubled in just two days.





20


She sought to obliterate any light. Covering the windows of her living room with thick newspaper to conceal her whereabouts was the way to go, cancelling out any reflection that might give away her location, creating a proper darkroom. Placing a simple wooden chair facing the camera – one of few props – she set up the tripod, inviting her accomplice to sit so she could adjust both focus and lighting.

He grinned at the lens, begging her to let him do it. That was out of the question. SHE was to be the live subject of this transmission, not him. He was the grunt. She’d been forced to remind him, time and again, that she was the brains behind their operation, the driver of their mission.

She’d brook no argument.

He was sulking now, trying to convince her that it would be more menacing coming from a man. Idiot. Gender didn’t come into it. He was a vicious little shit who took pleasure in hurting people but had absolutely no composure. No style. She would bring the shoot to life in a way that he could not. Her eye was trained to stage the beauty of the moment.

She peered through the lens.

Smoke from his cigarette danced with dust mites in the air, adding to the drama. Never before had she been this rapt. It wasn’t perfect, but she’d get there if she persevered. As always, patience was key.

She took her time. The camera angle didn’t please her. He was partially obscuring the message she’d carefully painted thick and black on a crisp white bed sheet, allowing time for it to dry before pinning it to the wall – the perfect backdrop.

Fail to plan, plan to fail. That was her mantra.

Modifications complete, she stepped back to observe her handiwork with her naked eye, then dimmed the lights a touch, adding just enough shadow to create a chilling atmosphere for her film debut. Already scripted and rehearsed, her message was more than a communiqué. It was a tribute to her people. She’d learned the words by heart and would deliver them with clarity and profound passion, as was fitting for such a just cause.

She wasn’t in the business of churning out propaganda. She’d hate viewers to accuse her of that. There was nothing misleading in her message. No hype. This was truth. Her truth. They’d had their say; now it was her turn, an opportunity to redress the balance and set the record straight. It was high time they took her seriously.

She felt proud.

As the self-appointed leader of her group, it was her responsibility to make the world sit up and take notice. She relished the prospect of spelling out her motivation, knowing that in doing so she would strike fear into the hearts of her audience, remind them that there would be more deaths, that no one was safe. And when the chosen were all dead, she’d upload her masterpiece to her favourite channel and explain herself.