Through the rear window she watched the strange sight of Chris’s abandoned Corsa, a large van blocking its path and a small traffic jam behind of stationary vehicles. Two heavy-set guys stood there, one rubbing his groin and the other his eye, and both sporting the scowl of bad losers.

  She feared they might jump into their van and follow the bus, but their van looked boxed-in, not only by cars but with several irate drivers, arms gesticulating at the traffic mess all around them.

  ‘Who the hell were they?’ she hissed at Chris. He rubbed his neck, now bearing a large red mark from his assailant’s arm.

  ‘I didn’t get a good look,’ he replied, in a voice high on emotion. ‘Did you see the guy who grabbed me? He had a bloody gun under his jacket!’

  ‘I did, but keep your voice down. No sense in causing panic.’

  ‘Christ, I see it now!’ he said staring at her, his eyes popping wide. ‘They know I didn’t go on the balloon trip and now they’ve sent a team after me. What am I going to do?’

  ‘Calm down Chris,’ she said taking his hand like a priest comforting the bereaved. ‘Let’s forget the ‘I’ for the moment. Remember, they tried to grab me as well.’ She hoped she sounded composed and calm but inside her body her heart, adrenalin levels and overwrought brain refused to play ball.

  ‘Where does this bus go?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She leaned across the aisle and tapped the shoulder of a young woman playing a game on her smartphone. ‘Excuse me, can you tell me where this bus goes?’

  ‘The railway station,’ she said without looking up.

  Chapter 20

  ‘I’m getting used to this journey,’ Rosie said. ‘We’re seeing the Oxford countryside move from winter into spring.’

  ‘You do exaggerate,’ Matt said, ‘but you’re right, we’ve done it a few times now. I’m beginning to get fed up with it too.’

  ‘This is because of your low attention threshold.’

  ‘Where did you retrieve this little piece of home-spun psychobabble? Are you doing an Open University course you should be telling me about?’

  ‘No, I’m talking about observation. I notice you get jumpy in meetings if they go beyond about half an hour. The one we did with Superintendent Cousins in Oxford earlier in the week, you were about climbing the walls.’

  ‘If not for the coffee break, I think I would’ve been; I went to the gym the previous night and my muscles were seizing up. I don’t think I would say I have a low attention threshold, but I don’t tolerate fools.’

  ‘Present company excepted.’

  ‘Let’s just say, my bullshit monitor is set to a low threshold.’

  ‘I think my term sounded more scientific.’

  The next ten minutes were spent in silence except for the radio playing at low volume, Matt itching to drive faster which the heavy traffic wouldn’t allow, and Rosie looking at something on her phone.

  ‘Something I meant to ask you,’ Rosie said. ‘When you spoke to Gill yesterday, did he make any comments about all the driving we’re doing around the Oxfordshire countryside without a result?’

  ‘Is this how you see it, driving around?’

  ‘I think the case is building, bit by bit, but if I feel we’re about to hit a brick wall, so will he.’

  ‘Perhaps Gill takes the long view more than you or me. I told him we were interviewing Chris Anderson and he said to do whatever we think is necessary to find out what he’s not telling us.’

  ‘Whoa, that gives us a fair amount of wriggle room. Chris Anderson’s not by any stretch of the imagination someone you could call a seasoned criminal. Would you be happy chucking someone like him around the room?’

  ‘You think I wouldn’t if I believed he was holding back the key to all this?’

  ‘Matt, we’re talking men against boys. Where’s the fun in bashing up a middle-class university geek?’

  ‘He might not be as innocent as you paint him.’

  ‘True, there’s a lot you can do nowadays with a laptop and a knowledge of coding, as our good friends at GCHQ will testify.’

  ‘The answer must be there with Chris,’ Matt said. ‘It can’t be anywhere else.’

  ‘So you’ve said. Today you’re about to be proved right or wrong and I know which one my money’s on.’

  They arrived in Oxford at six-thirty and drove straight to Kevin Anderson’s house.

  ‘Oh, hello Matt, Rosie,’ Hannah Anderson said on opening the door.

  ‘Hello Mrs Anderson,’ Rosie said. ‘Is Chris around?’

  ‘No, he’s not. Come in and Kevin will explain. He knows more about it than I do.’

  She guided them into the lounge.

  ‘We’re having our evening meal at the moment. Kevin will come in and see you both when he’s finished. In the meantime, I’ll bring in a cup of tea.’ She disappeared out of the room.

  Rosie took a seat on the settee while Matt wandered around the room, looking at the many photographs. Pictures of young Kevin, lithe and tanned and squinting at the sun as he stood on a white, sandy beach; Hannah and her two boys riding bikes in a forest; a staged picture of the whole family with hair neatly brushed and wearing smart clothes and one with Kevin standing beside his brother, Stephen.

  It was taken a couple of years ago and from what Matt knew about the personalities of the two men, it captured them accurately. They were outside a bar and the heavy, solid stone construction of the building, the sweeping vista of the rolling hills behind and the dark, foreboding skies suggested Cornwall or the Lake District. Stephen displayed an easy smile, reflecting the character portrayed in newspaper biographies of an open, caring personality and a man comfortable in his own skin. Kevin wore the merest trace of a sneer, hinting at hidden ruthlessness and arrogance, or perhaps the wild rebellious streak of his youth still un-sated.

  He was about to take a look through the bookcase when the door opened and Mrs Anderson walked in bearing two cups of tea and some biscuits.

  ‘Help yourself to these. My husband will be through in a minute.’

  Matt sat, although still restless after sitting in a car for two-and-a-half-hours and eager to speak to Kevin and find out where Chris might be.

  Half-way through his cup of tea, Matt was about to explore the Anderson lounge once again when Kevin walked in. He headed towards the armchair and put his cup down on a small table. He turned to the two HSA agents and shook their hands. He then sat down heavily in the armchair.

  ‘Did you have an accident, Mr Anderson?’ Matt asked, noticing the angry, red lesions, recent bruising and the tape across his nose.

  ‘Aye, I had a bit of a smack in the car a few days back. Lack of concentration on my part. And call me Kevin. Mr Anderson reminds me too much of work.’

  Matt was intrigued. He liked cars and before coming into the house, had good look at Kevin’s BMW 4 Series in the driveway. It was an ‘M Sport’ variant, heavily modified with darkened windows, lowered suspension and smart sports wheels. If there had been any sign of crash damage or a body-shop repair, he didn’t see it. ‘Was anyone else involved?’

  ‘No, only me and a fence. How was your journey down to Oxford?’

  ‘The traffic was heavy, as usual,’ Matt said.

  ‘Maybe next time we’ll come by train,’ Rosie said.

  ‘You might not fare any better there. They’ve been redeveloping the station and surrounding area for a few years now and there’s always something going wrong and causing major disruption.’

  His speech was slurred suggesting a problem with his jaw but Matt felt he’d asked enough about his injuries, he didn’t want to give the guy a complex.

  ‘We came to see Chris,’ Rosie said, ‘but understand from your wife that he isn’t around. Seeing as we’ve got you here, Mr Anderson, I understand the ownership of the business is settled.’

  Kevin moved uncomfortably in his seat, maybe the result of a back problem to add to his list of woes.

  ‘It is. I knew about it in any case, I just needed the legal bods to confirm. My brother left all his shares and assets to his wife and in the event of their simultaneous demise, to be divided equally between their two children. In summary, it now means Chris is the owner of seventy per cent of the business his father started.’

  ‘Does he intend being a sleeping partner or will he take up a position within the company?’

  Kevin laughed, wincing at the same time. ‘I’m not sure I could find anything useful for him to do. You see, defence electronics is a specialised field, especially at the technical end where we are. From a sales perspective, the area I specialise in, it’s all about who you know.’

  Matt didn’t yet have a clear picture of Kevin in his head. Research done by Sikandar Khosa discovered he had been the wild child of the family in his younger days. He’d flunked school, didn’t go to university like his brother, and spent five years in Thailand where he got busted for possessing drugs.

  A little thought passed through Matt’s head in the middle of the night, suggesting the balloon incident had nothing to do with a teenage computer hacker and everything to do with sibling greed and ambition. He dismissed it, despite Kevin looking like a rough character and talking as if he carried a large chip on his shoulder. While Matt believed he wouldn’t be averse to pocketing the odd backhander or taking a free seat at Lords during a test match, he didn’t think he’d engineered the death of his brother, sister-in-law and his beloved niece, to take sole charge of a small defence company.

  ‘Where’s Chris?’ Matt asked.

  ‘He’s gone away for a few days.’

  ‘Has he? When your wife said he wasn’t here, I assumed he’d gone down the pub with his mates or gone out for something to eat. Was this a planned trip or a spur of the moment thing?’

  ‘Spur of moment, I think. I mean he’s a man now, he can do whatever the hell he wants.’

  ‘I realise that but did you consider he might be running away to escape some psychological trauma he’s trying to come to terms with?’

  ‘I’m sure he is, we all are. Who can lose a large slice of their family in one fell swoop and not be affected? But, I ask you, with the best will in the world what can I do? I’m a businessman not a psychiatrist.’

  ‘Did he go alone or with a friend?’

  ‘He went out this afternoon to meet a journalist and decided to get away after the meeting.’

  ‘Did he take a car or public transport?’

  ‘Public transport, I assume. The copper who came to the door told me I had to go along later this evening to the police compound and retrieve his car. I said to Hannah, I’m not happy doing it. Getting a car out of those sorts of places can be expensive. The bit I don’t get is why Chris would leave it where it might block other traffic. He’s not usually so cavalier.’

  Matt was confused. ‘What’s this all about? Did something happen before he left Oxford?’

  Kevin sighed and moved again, trying to get comfortable. ‘Late this afternoon, a copper came to the door and asked if we were aware that Chris had abandoned his car on Abingdon Road in Oxford after a traffic incident.’

  ‘What sort of incident?’

  ‘I don’t know. The copper said he wanted to speak to him, I think to test him for drink or drugs, but I told him to behave. The boy’s more sensible than a lot of lads around here who drink, drive and take drugs. The copper didn’t seem too concerned as no one got hurt and so I wasn’t either.’

  ‘Do you have any idea where he went?’

  ‘No. He phoned about half an hour before you guys arrived and said he was fine. He said he would be back in a few days.’

  ‘Do you know the name of the journalist he met today?’ Rosie asked. ‘Perhaps she knows his whereabouts.’

  ‘No, I don’t, but Hannah might. I’ll go and ask her.’

  Kevin gingerly got out of the chair and walked to the kitchen.

  ‘I don’t like the sound of this, Matt. We need to speak to this journalist and get some idea of his frame of mind. We should also talk to the local cops and find out what happened to his car.’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘Louise Walker,’ Kevin said, walking back into the room. ‘She’s with one of the nationals.’

  ‘Her name rings a bell,’ Rosie said. ‘I think she used to cover the crime beat when I worked at the Met.’

  ‘She did a piece on the family a couple of days after the balloon accident,’ Kevin said, resuming his seat, ‘and the whole world got to know about my conviction for possessing five ounces of grass when I was twenty-two. Bloody cheek of it. I get ribbed about it every time I meet a customer so I tell you, I’d like to meet her too and give her a piece of my mind.’

  ‘Mr Anderson,’ Matt said, ‘I don’t think you’re treating the disappearance of your nephew seriously.’

  ‘Why should I? He’s a big boy who’s buggered off to Spain or somewhere to get some peace. I just wish he’d left his bloody car in a car park like everybody else.’

  ‘You should have called us or the police when you realised he was missing.’

  ‘What for? He’s not missing. He’s gone away for a few days, nothing more. He’s a grown boy, he can do what the hell he likes. When I was his age, I went backpacking to India and Thailand.’

  ‘Maybe you’re judging him by your own standards, but Chris is a different person. Has he ever done anything like this before?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘Now you mention it, no, but then he hasn’t seen his parents killed before either, has he?’

  ‘Does he strike you as someone who’s resourceful, who could find his way around a big city like, say, London without getting lost?’

  ‘When you put it in such bald terms, I would say no, he wouldn’t know where to start. His father mollycoddled him ever since childhood, organising family holidays, helping him settle into university and fixing him up with a summer job in the holidays, the whole nine yards. I said to him, you should let the boy get on with things himself. I did with my two.’

  ‘Let me have Chris’s mobile number and if he calls you again, let me know right away,’ Matt said handing him his business card. ‘You might think he’s all right Mr Anderson, but I think your nephew could be in grave danger.’

  Chapter 21

  Chris returned from the hotel buffet carrying a tray bearing the Full English, a plate replete with sausages, eggs, beans, bacon and everything else on offer. Louise made do with a bowl of porridge.

  Now and again Louise made porridge at home and would like to do so more often as it tended to fill her up until lunchtime, but there was never enough time in the morning for cooking hot food. Filling up was an important consideration for a girl battling with her weight. In her office someone would usually bring in doughnuts or cakes a couple of times a week, and if not feeling hungry, she could show more resilience when they placed the hard-to-resist snacks on the spare desk behind her.

  ‘I don’t know where you put it,’ Louise said when Chris laid his tray on the table. ‘You’re so skinny. All I need to do is look at a cooked breakfast and I can’t get into some of my skirts.’

  ‘Oh, is that what it is?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I thought you going for the porridge was, you know, a Scottish thing.’

  ‘How do you work that out?’

  ‘I’m talking about all the anti-English sentiment in Scotland, newspapers banging on about independence and television programmes about the Battle of Bannockburn.’

  ‘Am I hearing you right? You think I eat porridge and ignore food with ‘English’ in the title because I’m Scottish? It’s the daftest thing I’ve ever heard. You need to get out more and spend time with other people instead of looking at computers all day.’

  ‘Ha, ha, nice one when we’re holed up in this place.’

  Their current abode was a budget hotel in Paddington. She still wasn’t sure how they’d ended up there as Chris, on paper at least, was rich and could stay anywhere he fancied, and London wasn’t short of good hotels. In truth, they’d entered the first hotel they’d come to after leaving Paddington Station, the place where the Oxford train terminated. With no idea what was waiting for them back in Oxford, the Hotel Mercure was as good a place to hide as any.

  ‘For the first time today and not for the last,’ she said, ‘I’m going to ask the sixty-four-million-dollar question. What are we going to do now?’

  He put down his knife and fork for a moment, allowing his poor stomach a welcome rest. ‘You’re expecting me to say I don’t have a clue, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I’ve been giving the subject a great deal of thought.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  He picked up his cutlery again and resumed eating, forcing her to listen to his ideas in between mouthfuls. Watching someone eat was not one of her top ten things to do when visiting London. ‘Its obvious I can’t go back to Oxford or uni until…well I don’t know when because I can’t be sure they’re not still spying on me, and who knows, they might try and stage another kidnap attempt.’

  ‘Ok, a sensible start.’

  ‘We therefore need to keep moving forward, try and keep one step ahead of whoever is chasing us until we find someone who can help us. Someone who believes the downing of the balloon was aimed at me and not an accident as everybody else believes, and hope they can do something about it.’

  ‘Hold it right there, I don’t like the sound of us always moving. To where? You need to remember, I have a job, another life.’

  He nodded but said nothing and continued to eat.

  ‘I saw those two gorillas back in Oxford with my own eyes,’ Louise said, ‘and I don’t want to meet them again, so in a way, I do like the idea of keeping one step ahead of them. What I don’t understand is how a bit of bribery and corruption in a big military contract, no matter how sordid and deceitful, is enough for the folks at Dragon to try and wipe out you and your family.’

  ‘Why not? If those documents were published they would show Dragon up for the fraudulent company they are, and the MPs and military personnel who took the money and the holidays, as greedy, self-serving pigs. It would cause a huge stink in Parliament and the cancellation of the UK and NATO’s purchase of Pulsar. It’s a multi-million-dollar contract, don’t forget.’

 

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