‘She’s a Messenger,’ Kennedy said. ‘They studied you for years.’ And you share a whole lot of DNA. Maybe that gave her a little bit of an edge, too.
Tillman nodded. ‘Makes sense, I suppose. A little bit of sense. But I’ve still got a feeling that there’s something else going on — and that it might be the something you said you’d tell me about later. Is it maybe time you came clean, Heather?’
‘There’s … I think …’ She came to the brink, then hesitated. When she’d first met Tillman, he’d seemed to be on the edge of some kind of breakdown, worn down by years of searching for his lost family. He was doing a lot better now, but if she told him about Diema, and it turned out she was wrong, the harm she might do him was beyond any reasonable calculation. It was almost exactly balanced by the harm she could do if she was right, and Tillman found out from his daughter what had happened to his sons. There were so many reasons for Kennedy to keep quiet, and only one reason to talk. But it was a big reason: it was that she had no right to stand between Tillman and his daughter — the only living person he truly loved.
She shook her head, as much to clear it as anything. Tillman waited patiently for her to speak, but before she could, her phone went off. Grateful for the interruption, she took it out of her pocket. It was Rush again.
‘I have to take this,’ she lied.
‘Okay,’ Tillman said. ‘I’ll still be here when you’re done.’
Putting the phone to her ear, Kennedy turned slightly away from him, not so much for the sake of privacy as because she still felt the impulse to hide and the phone gave her the excuse.
‘Go ahead, Rush,’ she said.
‘Kennedy.’ His voice was strained. ‘How was your trip?’
‘It was productive. Did you find out anything useful about Toller?’
‘Well, I was going to do some homework on …’ Rush began. But a second voice in the background made him pause. ‘I’m not supposed to talk about that,’ he muttered. ‘She says it will keep for later.’
‘She says? Who says? Rush—’
‘I’m sorry, Kennedy. I’m supposed to stick to the script. Listen to me.’ The tremor in his voice was much more evident now, making it hard to understand what he was saying. ‘This is an invitation from Diema Beit Yudas. She wants both of you to come and meet her.’
‘Both of us?’ Kennedy repeated stupidly. Tillman looked like he was about to speak so she held up a hand to stop him and at the same time flicked the phone to speaker. Leo probably had to hear this first-hand. And it hadn’t escaped her notice that the girl was going under a different surname from Tillman’s former wife, Rebecca Beit Evrom. ‘Both of us are to meet her? Ask her who she means by that, Ben.’
Rush’s voice sounded out, thin and strained.
‘She wants to talk to you, but she wants it to be on her terms. She says she thinks you probably know enough about her by now not to do anything stupid, but in case she’s wrong about that, she wants you to know that any move you make against her will mean … will get me killed. Is that understood?’
‘It’s understood,’ Kennedy said, her heartbeat loud in her own ears. ‘Rush, don’t panic. We’ll come and get you. Give me the address.’
‘No, wait. There’s more. She says you should bring the book and Tillman should bring the truck. And it’s got to be just the two of you. Nobody else.’
‘Can I talk to her?’ Kennedy asked. ‘To … Diema?’ Tillman said nothing, but his eyebrows rose and his lips tightened.
The other voice murmured in the background.
‘Yes.’
‘Then put her—’
‘You can talk to her here. She wants you to come here, so all three of you can talk.’
Kennedy breathed out slowly, finding some stratum of calm. ‘And where’s here, Ben?’
‘A farm. Dovecote Farm. The address is—’
‘We know the address,’ Kennedy said. ‘We’re coming. We’ll be there soon.’
‘Great.’
‘Rush, you’ll be okay. We’re coming right now. She won’t hurt you.’
‘You think?’ His voice crackled with bleak sarcasm. ‘She’s got me wired up with a bloody—’ The phone went dead.
Kennedy turned to Tillman. He was already heading for the cab of the truck. ‘I’ll drive,’ he said over his shoulder.
42
When Ben Rush thought about farmyards — which admittedly wasn’t all that much — he tended to think in terms of a big house with a whole lot of barns and stables all around it, chickens scratching at the dirt and a horse looking over a hedge.
Dovecote Farm was basically just a ruin. There must have been an actual farmhouse once, but it looked like it had burned down, leaving only a massive patch of scorched earth where nothing grew. The barns and stables were still standing, but there were holes in the walls where planks had been taken out or kicked in, and the spavined, sagging roofs seemed close to final surrender. Insects buzzed and chirped in the weeds and bullrushes between the outbuildings, but nothing was moving that was big enough for Rush to see.
From his vantage point on the upper level of one of the barns, with the hayloft doors thrown open in front of him, he could look out across the ruined ground towards the road — and be seen from it in his turn, which was probably the point. He was sitting in a wheelback chair, his ankles tied to the front legs and his arms handcuffed together around the back. The chair was rickety, so every time he shifted his weight it lurched either forward and to the left or back and to the right. He was afraid that if he tipped forward too suddenly, he’d fall right out of the hayloft and break his neck. Or maybe he wouldn’t break his neck, but the explosives or whatever it was in the package that the girl had strapped to his chest would detonate and blow him apart.
The girl was sitting a few feet away, behind him, with her back against one of the beams. She had her arms folded in her lap and she was looking out at the road. Whatever thoughts were going through her mind, they left no footprints: the girl’s face was completely inexpressive.
They’d been like this for a while now, and clearly the girl could keep the silence up for however long it took. So if anyone was going to speak, it was going to have to be him.
He screwed up his courage and went for it.
‘You like Courage, the Cowardly Dog?’ he asked her.
The girl didn’t move, but her gaze flicked round and her eyes focused on him. ‘No,’ was all she said. She said it with a warning emphasis, as though that was fighting talk where she came from.
‘You were watching it.’
No answer.
‘I prefer the golden oldies,’ Rush said. ‘The Flintstones. The Jetsons. Yogi Bear.’ Since the girl didn’t react, he went on listing old cartoon shows as a mental exercise. At least it passed the time. ‘Huckleberry Hound. Hector Heathcote. Funky Phantom. The Hair Bear Bunch. Josie and the Pussycats. Deputy Dawg. Top Cat. Foghorn Leghorn. Tom and Jerry.’
Still no reaction from the girl. Well, maybe a flicker of interest on Tom and Jerry, but nothing you could take to the bank.
‘You want to play a game?’ he asked her.
‘No.’
‘Come on. I bet I can read your mind.’
She stared at him for a long time. Eventually, she said, ‘Be quiet.’
‘You don’t think I can read your mind?’ Rush persisted.
This time she didn’t bother to speak.