The Marriage Act(95)
‘I don’t want to hurt you, Noah,’ threatened Jeffrey. ‘But I will.’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ said Noah. He continued to shout Luca’s name as he struggled to loosen himself from Jeffrey’s grip. But his efforts to kick, elbow and headbutt Jeffrey were in vain. His opponent was well-schooled in all manoeuvres.
‘This is your last chance,’ snarled Jeffrey. ‘Get out.’
‘Not without my husband,’ protested Noah.
My husband. It only took those two words to trigger Jeffrey. He was not going to allow Noah to ruin everything. He yanked Noah’s head backwards then pushed it with all his force against the wall. It was powerful enough to stun his victim because the man’s body perceptibly weakened. Jeffrey took advantage of his debilitated state and repeated the manoeuvre, again and again until he heard a crunching sound inside Noah’s head. Only when he glanced at the wall did he see smears of blood that had seeped from a gaping wound above Noah’s eye. Two more blows against the wall and he dropped the man’s body to the floor.
Noah was dead.
The strength required to kill a man with his bare hands had left Jeffrey’s arms weak and his lungs breathless. Noah hadn’t been the first person to take on Jeffrey, but he hoped he would be the last.
Now wasn’t the time for reflection, though. He must gather himself fast and clear up his mess.
79
Corrine
Corrine had been waiting on a bench by the River Nene outside Eleanor Harrison’s apartment for much of the day. On her arrival she had tried the passcode to the door but, as she suspected, it had been changed after her last visit.
Corrine’s hacker contact had searched the MP’s online diary and found a gap in her schedule but Corrine couldn’t be sure when she would be returning home until Harrison’s vehicle entered the gated community and the underground parking. Corrine only just squeezed through the closing gates before hurrying down a steep slope until she reached Harrison’s car.
She was an arm’s-length away from the driver’s door when it opened, but she was taken by surprise when a burly man in a dark suit exited first. He launched himself at her, grabbing her by the shoulders and turning her around, then pushing her face first against the rear passenger window. Corrine howled in pain when her collarbone jarred as if ready to jump out of its socket.
‘Get off me!’ she yelled as Harrison left the car and glared at her from the safety of the other side.
‘What do you want?’ Harrison asked sharply.
‘You know why I’m here. Tell him to let me go.’
‘I repeat, what do you want?’
‘You bankrupted my husband and you’ve left my family with nothing.’
‘Search her,’ she told her bodyguard. Keeping a firm grip on Corrine, the man scanned her body with a metal object and removed a phone from her trouser pocket. There was a second, a burner phone, tucked into a jacket pocket. ‘Ensure they’re not recording.’
The man examined them closely then shook his head. Then he grabbed Corrine’s wrist and checked her watch. ‘Rec-tech,’ he said in a gruff Eastern European accent.
‘Use the signal jammer.’ He removed something from his pocket and held it against the watch. ‘Now give us a moment please.’
The man moved a few metres away but kept both women in his line of sight.
‘You’ll have to forgive Andrei but I’m sure you understand that I need to protect myself after my last brutal attack.’ She gave Corrine a sly grin.
‘You’ve taken everything away from us,’ Corrine complained. ‘Every single penny.’
‘I didn’t think terrorists cared about money, only equality? Regardless, I did as you asked. Well, you didn’t quite ask, did you? You blackmailed.’
‘I didn’t ask you to destroy my whole family.’
‘You told me to get my colleagues to “put pressure” on your husband to make him “rethink his choices”. So that’s what I did. It’s not my fault that by putting all his eggs in one basket he’s left you with nothing.’
‘You must know that now I’ve got nothing to lose, I’m going to use that video against you. To hell with how it might damage me.’
‘Funny, you’re not the first person to make that threat against me today. Your husband contacted me earlier this morning saying the very same thing. He told me he had the video and that he’d make it public if I didn’t help him.’
‘Mitchell?’
‘Uhuh. And I’ll tell you what I told him. Check your Cloud.’
Corrine grabbed both devices from the roof of the car but there was something different about the screen of her regular phone. The screensaver photograph of her children had vanished. Inside, her contacts and call list were empty and there were no Apps. The phone had been returned to its factory settings. So had the burner. Corrine glared at Andrei. He must have erased their contents with his scanner.
‘You can delete as many devices as you like, but you can’t delete the Cloud,’ Corrine argued.
‘You’re right, but under the Domestic Counter Terrorism Act, we can force a service provider to allow us access into any account we believe might be a danger to the public. And as my assault has been categorized by the police as an Act of Terror, everything on your computer, every device in your household and each and every person listed in your contacts have had their Clouds scanned and searched and that video removed.’