He had half expected Kate to panic when he spoke those words, but she didn't. 'And if he suspects that I know anything about it, what then?'
'That won't happen,' Will replied, confidently. 'Because firstly, I'm not going to tell you any more; and secondly, he'll never find out. Nobody in the world knows I've ever met you and we're going to keep it that way.' He took her by the hand. 'I'm sorry, Kate. To lay this on you and everything. But I don't know who else to ask and you have to trust me. People have died because of what this man is doing and if I don't get this right, a lot more will follow. Will you help me?'
Kate thought for a moment. 'I suppose there's not even an exclusive in it for me at the end of the day,' she said a bit wistfully.
'No,' Will enunciated the word clearly. 'Kate, when this is done you have to forget all about it. Believe me, if you start snooping around, they'll kill you.'
His words seemed to echo around the room. Kate looked at him, her eyes wide and her lips pursed. 'What do I need to do?' she whispered.
'We're going to go to a public telephone,' he said. 'Somewhere well away from here. You're going to pretend to be a journalist.' He smiled. 'That's the easy bit. When you get Priestley on the phone, you're going to tell him that you know all about a thing called Operation Firefight. He'll tell you he doesn't know anything about it, but you need to be persistent. Tell him you'll be waiting for him beneath Nelson's Column tonight at seven o'clock. Then put the phone down.'
'I don't have to meet the guy, do I?'
'No,' Will replied, his face grim. 'You don't have to do anything else. I'll take it from there.'
Kate fell silent. She was thinking carefully about what Will had just explained to her. 'There's no way they'll know it's me, is there?'
Will shook his head. 'Trust me,' he said. 'I'm good at this sort of thing.'
She gave a weak smile. 'Not the only thing you're good at,' she replied in a half-hearted attempt to lighten the mood. 'All right.' She said it quickly, as if she wanted to get the word out before she changed her mind. 'I'll do it.'
Will closed his eyes. 'Good girl,' he said, softly. 'Thank you.'
They needed to make the phone call from somewhere a decent distance away from Kate's house, but that wasn't all. Priestley would have the capability to trace where the phone call came from, so the phone box they used needed to be out of the way of any CCTV cameras. That put lots of places out of bounds — shopping centres, Tube stations, even busy streets where any of the shops could have hidden cameras. The obvious solution would be to take Kate out into the countryside and find a phone box in some out of the way village, but that wouldn't do either. If Priestley knew that his anonymous caller had gone to such lengths not to be discovered, he would start to suspect that she was more than just a journalist: he'd know she was a pro.
'I need to see your wardrobe,' he told Kate. She nodded silently — numbly, almost, as though she couldn't quite believe what she had got herself into — and opened up the large, white built-in wardrobes at the end of her bedroom. Will browsed through the clothes, selecting a heavy winter coat with a high collar, a scarf and a woollen hat with flaps that covered the ears — not the sort of thing he would have expected to find in Kate's bedroom, but which he was glad of nonetheless. 'Put them on,' he said shortly.
Kate did as she was told.
'Do you have some sunglasses?'
She nodded and pulled a large pair of Jackie-O type shades from a drawer.
'Perfect,' Will said. He looked out of the window. It was still raining. 'Umbrella?' he asked.
'Two,' Kate told him, and she fetched them from the hallway.
'Take the biggest one,' he said. 'It'll give you more cover.'
'I thought you said no one was going to see me, Will.'
'I did,' he replied. 'But this is just to make sure. Come on, we need to go.'
They took the Tube down to South London. Will left the platform first, Kate following a few metres behind — he hoped that if anybody did clock them or go back and see them on CCTV, they would never think that they were together. Even if they did, Kate's features were sufficiently disguised for her to be unrecognisable.
Once they got up to street level, they started walking — Will on one side of the road, Kate on the other, a few steps behind. They had agreed that they would walk quite some distance — several Tube stops, at least, so that if anyone decided to check camera footage from the stations nearest the phone box they ended up using, they would be thrown off the scent. It didn't take long for Will to become wet through in the rain, but Kate at least had the large umbrella, which not only kept her dry but also kept her head out of sight.
After an hour walking, they came to a residential area. Terraced houses — no estates where CCTV would be all over the place. At the end of the road Will spotted a phone booth. It was just what he was looking for. He stopped and looked across the street at Kate, gave her a surreptitious nod, then watched as she walked on towards the phone box.
All he could do now was wait.
Christ, he thought to himself. He'd been doing a lot of waiting in the last few days, but for some reason this seemed more agonising than any of it. He was convinced that Kate would be safe — that wasn't the problem. The problem was that now he was on his own. What if his little plan didn't work? What if, by the end of the day, he was as much in the dark as ever? What would he do then?
It was only ten minutes later that Kate returned, but it seemed much longer. She was walking hurriedly away from the phone box with her head down. Will let her pass, then started to follow. They walked in a random direction for at least half an hour before he caught up with her.
'Well?' he asked.
Kate looked up at him with wide eyes. 'I'm frightened,' she told him. He took her hand. It was shaking.
'Did you speak to Priestley?'
She nodded her head. 'He wouldn't speak to me at first,' she said. 'I got his secretary. But I said the words Operation Firefight and he was on the phone almost immediately.'
I'll bet he was, Will thought to himself grimly. 'What did he say?'
'Just what you thought he'd say. That he didn't know what I was talking about. So I gave him your message about meeting at Trafalgar Square tonight and—' She faltered.
'And what, Kate?'
'And then I just hung up. I'm sorry, Will. I lost my nerve. I don't think he really thought I was a journalist.' She shrugged a little sadly. 'Truth is, I'm not much of one.'
Will smiled. 'You did just fine, Kate,' he said. 'Just fine.' He gave her a brief hug and she clung to him. 'I have to go now,' he whispered.
'I know.' She sounded like she was fighting back tears.
'I'm going to give you my number. If you ever get worried about—'
'No,' Kate interrupted him. She released herself from his embrace and looked seriously into his eyes. 'I don't know what all this is about, Will, but if what you tell me is true, it's best that I don't know anything more about you.'
There was a pause and Will felt uneasy. She was right, of course. The less she knew, the less she could tell. But he didn't like the idea. He didn't like it at all.
She was clearly determined, though. 'I'm going to walk away now,' she said, her voice cracking slightly. She stood up on tiptoes and kissed him rather chastely on the cheek. 'Good luck, Will.'
And with that, she turned and left. Will stood and watched her go, watched until she turned a distant corner and walked out of his sight.
It was with a sense of total certainty that he realised he would never see her again.
SEVENTEEN
Will had chosen Trafalgar Square for a reason.
If Priestley was worried, if he thought Kate's call was more than just a crank, there would be surveillance here tonight — snipers for his protection and someone to photograph whoever he met. Will had decided on Trafalgar Square because he knew he could put a pretty good bet on where the surveillance would be set up. The roof of the National Gallery offered a full vista over the square and if Will had been instructed to set up surveillance over the place, that's where he would have chosen.