“I remember reading an article about that in a magazine.”
“Oh God, yes, I remember. It was awful, as they got the story all wrong. Anyway, I really got cross with him, telling him he was a small-minded fool and a lot of things that were much worse. I know a chap, he has an estate down here, on the other side of the village, and he is high up in a big company called the Maxim Group. I happened to mention to him that Hugh might be interested and let him do the rest. I think Hugh met someone from Maxim in London a few months ago.
“It was all set. He’d announce the project had failed, so the British would shut down their research facility. Then, he’d go over to Maxim, which has a facility in Dubai, to which he could finish the work, sell the finished product and retire here on a very nice pension, with no one the wiser.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. He disappeared from the British facility, amid rumours of murders and spying, he never told them the system had failed, and never turned up at Dubai. I haven’t heard from him or anyone else, except a very angry British government and confused Maxim director.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Have you ever been alone?”
I thought back to the desert.
“Yes, I have.”
“Horrid, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“For the first time in my life, I’ve met someone who appears as strong as I am, and who cares about my child. I know we’ve been bloody stupid, but right now, I just don’t know which way to turn.”
I was feeling a real heel. I was here on false pretences, yet she was suddenly confiding in me.
“You said you rode?” she said, surprising me with the change in subject.
“Yes, but not for ages.”
“Come on, we’ve a lot to talk about,” she said, leading me out to the back kitchen.
“What size feet have you?”
“Sevens.”
She gave me a pair of riding boots and a hard hat.
I spent the entire morning with her. We took out a pair of horses from the stable, and rode for miles over the lovely Hampshire countryside. I hadn’t ridden for ages, as I had told her, but the exhilaration of my new body and the wonderful feeling of working in harmony with such a beautiful animal made my spirits soar.
Sarah told me about her family, past and present. She went into some detail over the various bad moments when fortunes were lost and times became hard. She told me of her husband and his idiosyncrasies, of how they met and the events leading up to their marriage.
“He was so brilliant and he had a daft sense of humour. God knows where it went, though.”
I shared little, as my history was fictional in any case, but I shared a bit about my relationship with my mother and made up the rest.
We stopped on a hill overlooking a superb view towards the south coast. I could just see the sea shimmering in the distance.
“You’re not just a temp, exactly what are you?” she asked, taking me off guard.
“I work as a PA in London. I’ve only been there weeks.”
“Rebecca, I’ve shared things with you that I’ve never shared with anyone. Hugh isn’t a traitor, and neither am I. We’ve been bloody silly, but we’d never deliberately sell our country down the river. Please be decent enough to be honest with me.”
I smiled and shook my head. I recalled Hugh encouraging Harrison to get rid of what he thought was my body.
“People do desperate things in desperate moments,” I said.
“Only when pushed to the limit.”
“Okay, I’m employed by the security services to protect your son and to locate your husband, who, incidentally, is an accessory to murder.”
She laughed at the outrageous sound of that statement, and then stopped abruptly.
“My God, you really are?”
“I met Jon in Paris by accident, actually exactly as we said. I was on holiday and it was pure chance, except I knew who he was. The department in which I work has been trying to locate your husband, and I identified some men who attempted to kidnap Jon with a view to forcing your husband to do something, or go somewhere that he wasn’t inclined to do.”
“Go on.”
“As I said, they tried to kidnap him. I stopped them and was wounded in the attempt.”
“But the coach crash?”
“It happened, except I wasn’t on the coach.”
“I knew you and Jon didn’t have a thing going!”
“How?”
She smiled. “A mother knows.”
“Ah. I do like him, but we aren’t lovers.”
“So, the government have been watching us all along?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve nothing to hide, you know?”
“Nothing?”
“The CIA wanted Hugh, but I put a stop to it. I felt Maxim would pay better and probably be more sensible with the product. The CIA has a very poor reputation for that sort of thing, as do Americans generally. I made a simple suggestion to my husband. So, I’m guilty of a little greed. Is that so wrong?”
“I’m not in the business of proportioning blame, Sarah, I leave that to the appropriate authority. I do, however, take exception to people who try to kill me and those I like. You may be his mother, but contrary to what you believe, I do care for Jon, so I will not stand by and allow him to be used as a pawn by some very dangerous people.”
“He loves you. I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
“He thinks he does, I know.”
“Does he know the truth?”
“Yes, he’s been helping us for some time now.”
“What can I do to help?”
I breathed a sigh of relief.
“What can you tell me about Maxim?”
Chapter Fifteen.
The dampness of the soil seeped through my wetsuit and made me shiver slightly. I didn’t move, as I’d spent ages getting into this position, I was damned if I was going to ruin it all by moving now.
The two men who were supposed to be guarding the boat weren’t professionals, and they were bored. The kidnappers had been professionals, but these were probably from a different stable. The problem with bored amateurs is that they often do unpredictable things, like walk into the woods and have a piss, or start throwing rocks around, just for the sheer hell of it. I was only sixteen yards away from them, and if they decided they wanted to piss in the bushes, they’d probably piss all over me.
It started to rain. I cursed silently, why couldn’t they have a retreat somewhere warm and sunny? I mean, Scotland, I ask you, who but a bunch of Arabs would use a Scottish Island as a classified base of operations?
Maxim wasn’t the simple business consortium we had all been led to believe. While we suspected that Maxim was behind the professor’s disappearance, it seems we hadn’t taken individuals into account.
Sarah had told me of her meeting with Sir Richard Brimble at a point-to-point event, held locally. Sir Richard was a non-executive director of Maxim, used, one must assume, for his prominence within the British business establishment.