He turned and looked at her, and Liz realised it was not his intention to stay at the hotel alone. Her heart began to beat a little faster but she waited until his meaning was absolutely clear. Not that she had many doubts.
Then Liz’s mobile phone rang.
It was a London number, which seemed familiar. The name came up on the screen: Charles. How funny that she hadn’t immediately remembered a number that she used to know so well.
‘Liz, it’s Charles. Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine, thanks. And so is Dave – or at least he’s going to be.’
‘So I gather. Michael Binding’s over here and he’s been keeping us informed. You’ve all had quite a time of it, I gather.’
‘Quite exciting,’ she said dryly. ‘Unfortunately there’s one loose end – Milraud the arms dealer seems to have got away.’
‘I wouldn’t worry much about that. Piggott was by far the greater threat, and you’ve taken care of him – and his organisation. As well as his Spanish hit man. A job well done by any standard.’
That was true, and she wished she could take more satisfaction from it. The cost had been high – and Dave was very lucky to have survived with his life. She knew that if she’d been more on the ball and had reported straight away from Paris instead of lunching with her mother and Edward, and forgetting to switch her phone back on, she could have stopped Dave from rushing in. They would in time have managed to put Piggott away.
He would never have given up peacefully, though. He’d have fought to the end, and more people might have been hurt, even killed, in trying to arrest him.
‘But that’s not the reason I’m calling,’ Wetherby was saying, jolting Liz out of these post-mortem thoughts.
‘Oh,’ she said cautiously, wondering what was up.
‘DG wants you to call in at Thames House before you go back to Belfast. He wants a full report on everything that’s happened.’
‘OK,’ she said, slightly puzzled. She’d expected to report back to Binding in Belfast.
Liz glanced at Seurat, and found his dark eyes watching her intently, appraisingly. She found herself starting to blush like a schoolgirl. How ridiculous, she thought furiously, which only made her blush more. ‘Am I needed immediately?’ she managed to say.
‘Are there things you have to do there?’ Wetherby paused. He sounded nervous, thought Liz. What about?
‘Because it would be very nice to see you over the weekend,’ he said suddenly. ‘I was thinking we could have lunch. Or dinner. You could come out to the house perhaps.’
Liz didn’t know what to say. What has happened to the everhelpful Alison? she wanted to ask. Another part of her was simply astonished. Pleased? Yes, of course: how could she not be, when for years she had hoped for just what she was getting now – a signal that he cared for her and was at last willing to show it.
But she didn’t feel as excited as she should have done. And that surprised her. She felt oddly detached. How strange, since here she was, hearing what she had wanted to hear for so long. Yet now it almost seemed unreal. Or, if not that, at least something removed from the present, something that belonged to the past. To the days before Gonzales had pointed a gun at her and she had known with certainty that she was about to die.
Was that what was making her feel so ambivalent, as Charles waited on the line for her reply? Perhaps, though, it was also a strong sense that she had to get on with life now, that there was no point in retreating yet again into the patchwork of code that had characterised her relationship with Charles for so long.
She looked up at Martin and smiled, then said to Charles, not unkindly, but in a voice that was entirely certain, ‘Actually Charles, I was thinking of staying on here for a few days. Spring is just about to start in the south.’
A Note on the Author
Stella Rimington joined the Security Service (MI5) in 1968. During her career she worked in all the main fields of the Service: counter-subversion, counter-espionage and counter-terrorism. She was appointed Director General in 1992, the first woman to hold the post. She has written her autobiography, Open Secret, and four Liz Carlyle novels. Present Danger is her fifth Liz Carlyle novel. She lives in London and Norfolk.
Also by Stella Rimington
Open Secret: The Autobiography of the Former Director-General of MI5
THE LIZ CARLYLE SERIES
At Risk
Secret Asset
Illegal Action
Dead Line
Praise for PRESENT DANGER
‘The sense of being inside one of the great secret services of the world leaps from every page… This is a thriller with emotional tension rather than endless Boy’s Own machismo – and all the better for it.’
‘For a pacey page-turner, she’s a safe bet… Rimington is particularly strong in her accounts of procedure, unsurprisingly, given her past role as Head of MI5… A guilty pleasure is the ongoing undercurrent of romance, and it’s hard not to wonder whether Carlyle will get her man out of office hours as well as in them.’
‘Stella Rimington is to political thrillers what Dick Francis is to race-horse ones, an expert in the field… she has carved out quite a niche exploring the post-Cold War landscape with lots of intelligence… racy stuff and gripping too.’
‘Stella Rimington has an easy style of writing that ensures you keep the pages turning… the plot is well-constructed, the characterization plausible and all threads of the story are neatly tied up. Plus the emotional angles of the various protagonists are explored in more depth than in many action thrillers.’
‘Full of absorbing spook-lore.’
‘Another fast, action-packed thriller form the former head of MI5… the quality of her writing is still very high and you know that you are going to have a very exciting read with her entertaining stories… the author did work for MI5 in Northern Ireland during her career and it adds an authenticity which is hard to ignore.’
Copyright
First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Quercus
This paperback edition published in 2010 by
Quercus
21 Bloomsbury Square
London
WC1A 2NS
Copyright © 2009 by Stella Rimington
The moral right of Stella Rimington to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 84916 194 7
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.