“Be that as it may, you’re still more at ease with a bunch of politicians than I am.”
“I’m more at ease with most people than you are,” she replied with a half-smile. She paused outside her room. “Fancy a nightcap?”
“Yeah, OK,” came the indifferent reply.
“Are you sure you can spare the enthusiasm?” she said, opening the door to her room. “You know where the drinks are. I’ll have a diet Coke.”
“Where are you going?”
“To change out of this,” she replied, indicating her evening dress. “I’ve felt uncomfortable in it all night.”
“You’re still smarting because C.W. wouldn’t let you buy a new dress for tonight, aren’t you?”
“I don’t like hiring clothes, that’s all. It’s gross. I don’t know who’s worn this before me.” She shuddered at the thought then disappeared into the bathroom.
Graham took a diet Coke and a Perrier water from the mini-bar then noticed the red light flashing on the telephone. “There’s a message for you at reception,” he called through the bathroom door.
“Ring down and get it for me, will you?” she replied.
When she re-emerged from the bathroom she was wearing a white towelling robe. “Who was it from?”
“C.W.,” Graham replied, pouring the diet Coke into a glass and handing it to her. “He doesn’t know when he’ll get back to the hotel tonight. We’re not to wait up for him.”
“I didn’t know we were expected to,” she replied, sitting on the bed.
“Well now it’s official.” Graham sat down. He turned the bottle around slowly in his hands then looked across at her. “I guess I owe you an apology.”
“For what?” she replied, suddenly intrigued. It wasn’t often Mike Graham admitted he was wrong.
“I spoke to Melissa Scoby tonight.” He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “You were right, she did have the scope on me. And I didn’t believe you. But then I guess you know more about these things than I do.”
“Gee thanks, Mike,” came the bemused reply.
“You know I don’t mean it like that.” He frowned at her. “Was it really that obvious?”
“It was to me. I could hear it in her voice and in the way she kept glancing in your direction. Why do you think she took such an instant dislike to me when we were first introduced? Because she knew I’d seen through her. And that worried her.”
“You could hear it in her voice? And in the way she kept looking at me? You’re way ahead of me here, Sabrina.” Graham stared disconsolately at the bottle in his hand. “And I didn’t notice a damn thing.”
“And neither did Scoby.”
“Isn’t it great? A woman flirts with you and you don’t even know she’s doing it.” Graham managed a wry smile. “I guess I’ve been out of circulation too long.”
“She isn’t your type anyway.”
“Damn right.” He noticed a faint smile touch the corners of her mouth. “What is it?”
“I was just thinking.”
Graham waited for her to continue and when she didn’t asked, “Is that it? You were just thinking?”
“It was something Fabio said when I went to see him at the hospital this afternoon. He reckons you and I would make a good couple.”
“I think he’s been overdoing the tranquilizers. We work well together as a team. But that’s purely on a professional level.”
“And it’s only been in the last few months that we’ve actually clicked as a team. I can remember the days when we used to be at each other’s throats over every little thing.”
“Banging heads at every turn. We were too independent for our own good in those days.”
“You were,” she corrected him.
“You weren’t exactly blameless yourself.” He took a sip of the Perrier water. “What gets me is this idea that a man and a woman can’t work together without there being some sexual stigma attached to it.”
“I know,” she replied with a shrug.
“It’s not even as if we’ve got anything in common.”
“Apart from a love of jazz,” she was quick to point out.
“Well, yeah,” he conceded.
“I had a great time at Sweet Basil’s the other night.”
“Me too. The band was great. Perhaps we can do it again sometime?”
“I’d like that,” she said softly.
“But just as long as you don’t go shouting your mouth off again to everyone at work like you did the last time.”
She rolled her eyes. “Sarah and Fabio hardly constitute everyone.”
“It’s sure to get around.”
“Why does that worry you so much, Mike?”
“It doesn’t worry me. I just don’t like to fuel any rumors. Especially amongst the other Strike Force teams. They’d have a field day if they thought for a moment that there was something going on between us.” He quaffed the last of the Perrier water then stood up and put the empty bottle on the table beside him. “Well, I’d better be off.”
“Before you fuel any more rumors?” she said with a smile, then got to her feet and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Night, Mike.”
He reached out and brushed a strand of loose hair back over her shoulder. She tried to read something, anything, in his eyes as he held her gaze. But she couldn’t. She had never known anyone capable of masking their emotions better than Mike Graham. Then the moment was gone.
“See you in the morning,” he said softly.
She stared at the door for some time after he’d gone. “Don’t even think it, girl,” she suddenly snapped to herself then went through to the bathroom to run herself a bath.
It had just gone midnight when the motorbike pulled up outside the house on the outskirts of Warrenpoint. The rider, dressed in a pair of jeans and a black leather jacket, switched off the engine and hurried to the front door. The door opened before he could press the bell. Sammy Kane held out his hand. The man removed a package from inside his jacket and gave it to Kane. The door closed again and the man returned to his bike. He kick-started it and drove off into the night.
Neither he nor Kane had noticed the Mercedes which had been parked beside a tangle of undergrowth thirty yards away from the house for the past two hours. All four men inside the car were dressed in black. Three of them climbed out of the car, disappeared into the undergrowth and came out at the back of the house. Their faces were now hidden under black balaclavas. They paused to survey the house. A single light came from behind the drawn curtains in the lounge. They knew Kane was alone.
One of the men was carrying a holdall. He opened it and three sawed-off shotguns were produced. He then ghosted around to the back of the house to disable the security system. When he returned a few minutes later the job was done. A glass-cutter was used to remove one of the panes and a hand snaked through the hole and unlatched the window. They clambered silently into the house, closed the window again behind them, then made for the lounge.
The door was kicked open with such force that the bottom hinges were torn from the frame. Kane made a desperate grab for the automatic in the desk drawer in front of him.
“Don’t even think it, Sammy!” one of the men commanded in a strong Belfast accent, the shotgun aimed at Kane’s head.