He called and held the phone where Grace could hear what was being said. It was answered.
‘Elena. It’s Daniel. Yes, I know it’s early. Sorry. I can’t get out to Campbelltown today. I’m not well enough. Are you going to be there? If you are, could you check with my staff? Their latest test results should be through this morning.’
‘No, I won’t be out there today. I’m too busy here,’ she replied. ‘I won’t be able to help with that, I’m sorry. Goodbye.’
‘She was very formal,’ Grace said.
‘She always is with me now. She’s changed these last few years. She’s closed up like her father. Go via the M5. Once we get to Campbelltown, I’ll direct you.’
At this time on a Saturday morning, most people were still in bed. The traffic was light. Brinsmead leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. ‘A bit of pain,’ he said. He wasn’t acting; it was all too obviously real. They drove in silence until they reached the motorway. The air conditioning in the car was set to high. Finally he opened his eyes.
‘What do you want to know?’ he asked.
‘You’re an agent for Falcon. You were with Beck and du Plessis on an undercover operation. They were your targets.’
‘That’s right. Falcon was interested in DP because they had evidence he was involved in a diamond-smuggling racket. That business was financing arms trading to various radical insurgent groups in Africa. DP led them to Beck. They wanted to know what that connection involved. I was drafted in because I had the scientific skills they needed. My brief was to get close enough to Jerome to find out what he was up to. What I told you before was true. I’d gamble with him. That’s how I got my invitation to Africa. I kept losing. I said I needed money, I didn’t care how I got it. He told me he knew a way I could make some very easy money and a lot of it. Then one night, just days before we were leaving, I had to take him out of a casino before he got thrown out. He was drunk as usual. I took him home, he was so angry. He started to rant. Didn’t they know who he was? He was Jean Calvo’s son. Calvo was the man and he was his son, somebody important, while everybody else at that casino was shit. He didn’t just work for some cheap nobody. He was working for Calvo right now. He knew things about Calvo no one else did. He went on and on. The interesting thing is, I reported all that back to Falcon. But when I was looking over Edwards’ dossier on the net this morning, I found that the particular report with that information in it was gone. It’d been pulled from the file, probably shredded. I wish I knew who did that and why.’
‘Don’t you trust your agency?’ Grace asked.
‘I trust Falcon. I don’t necessarily trust the politicians it answers to. Jean Calvo has a lot of clout in government circles. But I wasn’t the best agent Falcon could have had either. For one thing, I was involved with Elena. I shouldn’t have been, but at the time I really cared for her.’
‘Your minders should have known that,’ Grace said after a pause. ‘They should have pulled you out.’
‘I kept it from them. I’m not a professional-I’ve been told that before in no uncertain terms. I didn’t want to believe Elena could know what Jerome was doing. But she did. She knew it all.’
‘How did Beck react to seeing you out here?’
‘It was the other way around, Grace. They worked really hard at keeping him out of my way.’
‘How did you take that video?’
‘I always used to wear a gold locket. It was part of my look. Falcon converted it into a camera.’
‘How did you survive the fire?’ Grace asked.
‘I can thank the villager who spoke English. He pushed me into that storeroom, threw us both against that grille and covered me with his body. I could breathe through the grille but I still almost died of smoke inhalation. I think my heart just kept beating. No one bothered to check the dead. Once Jerome and his mercenaries were gone, some of the local people came and found me. The wall beside me had collapsed and I’d dragged myself away from the remains of the building. I don’t remember that at all. They took me to a local aid hospital, where the people took me to Kinshasa. I was conscious enough to give the doctor the emergency phone number Falcon gave to all its agents. The embassy flew me back to London; they chartered a flight to get me out.’ He laughed. ‘They didn’t realise the doctor had taken my locket off me. The chain melted in the fire but I was holding it in my right hand. I’d fallen on that side and it didn’t burn like my left. The doctor had to prise my hand open. She kept the locket for me; she was worried it would get stolen. Then a year later, she tracked me down in London. She’d finished her tour of duty and she wanted to give me back my locket and see how I was. By that time, Falcon had closed down the operation and pensioned me off.’
‘Didn’t you show them that video once you got it back?’
‘I did. It was on that basis they reopened the operation. We viewed the video together and then they asked me if I was prepared to put myself on the line again. I said I was. I overestimated myself. Something I haven’t told you. I’d been rumbled by Jerome before I left for Africa. I didn’t realise that until I was there. I overheard DP and Jerome talking one night. It was what the old man and his daughter wanted, they said. Elena had thought I was using her. I wasn’t. Then I had to realise she knew as much about what was going on as her father did. Everything seemed to implode at once. To be completely honest, it’s another reason I ran when I did.’
‘Did Falcon debrief you?’
‘In depth. For them, the operation had been a complete failure. There was no firm evidence they could use and they were worried their secrecy had been compromised. It wasn’t until I got the video back that we had the key we needed and they were prepared to move forward. I was still suspicious enough to take a copy. I’m glad I did now.’
‘What’s Elena doing out here?’
‘Trying to shake off her father. It was supposed to be a new start after the African debacle. He didn’t let her get away completely. He insisted she take Jerome on whether she liked it or not.’
‘Why should she agree to taking you on after what happened in Africa? She must have known you knew about her.’
‘Guilt, pure and simple. That’s why she put my project in the public domain. I didn’t want Abaris to own it. It’s her way of assuaging her conscience.’
‘Are you sure you didn’t blackmail her with that video?’ Grace asked.
‘I know too much, Grace. It was as simple as that. I knew too much and I was still alive. She couldn’t lock me out.’
‘If she and her father are the sort of people you say they are, why didn’t they have you killed?’
He smiled.
‘I often wonder how they reacted when they heard I was back in London, still alive if barely. There must have been panic. We had no real proof at the time that would stand up in court, but there was enough information to bring pressure to bear on Jean. I’m pretty sure Falcon would have made it clear to him they didn’t want one of their ex-agents being executed. He knew not to push his credit too far.’
‘Did they also ask him to shut down the biological weapons program?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know. That would have depended on who his clients were. That was something we never found out. What he did was move it offshore.’
They sped down the motorway in silence. Brinsmead was staring at the road. Grace weighed the alternatives. In the first, Daniel Brinsmead was the murderer Harrigan said he was and this was some kind of trap, the reason for which she did not know. But why would he want to harm her? If he wanted a witness, she was a reliable witness. She had given him no reason to hurt her. She glanced quickly at him. He was too frail and in too much pain to threaten her physically. Harrigan had told her that no guns were allowed in the LPS building. She remembered his description of a place full of people and activity.
In the second alternative, there were the dead. The people she had seen on the net, murdered and then buried in a makeshift grave. She could see this as the kind of operation she did in her own work. Staying with the target, calling in backup when she needed it. But in this case, the man she would have called her target, Brinsmead, clearly wanted to die. Maybe that was the most merciful thing to let happen.