Chapter Thirteen
Haze
The problem with killing bad men, especially well-connected ones, was that when a carefully orchestrated hit was made on you, it was difficult working out exactly who was behind it. This was the problem we’d found in the aftermath of Ivrea.
We wanted names and addresses. But all Jenny and her extensive police resources were able to dig up was an alias: The Chameleon. One of the men caught alive had a text message on his phone showing off to a friend that he was doing a job for him.
The Chameleon was a somewhat infamous shadowy figure in the criminal underworld: a violent assassin who had not only managed to evade capture, but had also done so without leaving behind any hint as to his identity.
Not even his nationality. We automatically referred to The Chameleon as a “he”: an assumption, but in our experience more often a correct one than not.
According to Jenny’s many reputable sources, including Interpol, The Chameleon worked almost exclusively for The Corporation, a powerful secretive group with confirmed ties to high-profile Albanian and Italian gangs and a monopoly on organized crime throughout Europe.
“The Corporation” moniker came from the fact that they had big money behind them, and also operated more like a tightly run business than a shady criminal enterprise.
The way Jenny described it had made me imagine criminals approaching them for a Dragons’ Den–type pitch where they outlined why their illegal start-ups were deserving of their investment.
Despite repeated attempts by European police forces working with Interpol, no one had got any closer to understanding who The Corporation were.
Any violent activity they were involved in happened behind closed doors—no tacky shootouts in the street, no bodies branded with their gang sign.
They kept under the radar through fear, respect, and paying incredibly well.
The Corporation had links to two victims we’d killed before Ivrea.
Their deaths were clearly what had attracted attention to our little enterprise, and explained why they’d enlisted The Chameleon to engineer our assassination.
How could we possibly defend ourselves against an enemy about whom we knew nothing?
They could be anyone. This was really not helping my trust issues.
I wasn’t one to assign blame, but really, it was clear Fox had fucked up.
He had got too male with his aspirations of taking down big shots, forgetting that in the grand scheme of the big bad criminal underworld, we were just small fry.
We might be a pretty efficient, exceptionally well-organized team of three, but we had no backup, no network, no allies. It was just us.
The last year had been a blur. We were playing catch-up. If we were to be free from the threat of The Chameleon and The Corporation, we had to find them. We needed more than the alias of a shadow. We needed more than the name of a gang of individuals unknown.
We had spent yesterday finding our own individual ways to cope with the news that The Chameleon was back in our lives.
Jenny had spent the day at the station using every contact and database she could think of to get more information.
Fox had slunk off to see Stupid Sally. And I’d sharpened our knives while enjoying a particularly good bottle of Malbec.
This morning, the three of us had reconvened at our kitchen table.
Bibi and Felix were transfixed by the television in the next room, and Reggie was gurgling on the floor in his bouncy chair.
Our French bulldog, Sausage, was lying alongside him.
A pile of both dog and baby toys lay between them.
This life was real enough; it didn’t seem like there could be a space in it for international gangs and assassination threats. But here we were.
I watched Fox as he took a sip of coffee. He looked wiped out. Although recently, we both looked wiped out—all the time.
“Interpol are the ones that flagged The Chameleon. Now rumored to be in the UK,” said Jenny.
“Interpol? You mean Alain Drake?” I thought of the man I’d met in Italy. Sharp eyes and softly spoken. He was trouble.
Jenny nodded. “Drake’s received intelligence that The Chameleon is retiring after this UK visit. He’s spent decades trying to find him, and he wants to bring him to justice before the trail goes cold.”
We had to escape both the assassin who was trying to get to us, and the Interpol agent who was trying to catch the assassin. It was going to be the biggest challenge we’d ever faced—and I had a husband in therapy and a baby that wouldn’t sleep.
Was it too early to start drinking? Champagne breakfasts were socially acceptable but belonged at five-star hotels with the thrill of being away. Not for drowning out sorrows with a bowl of Shreddies at a kitchen table in Berkshire.
“The postcard implies The Chameleon is here for us.” Fox was gripping his coffee mug so hard his knuckles were white.
I nodded. “We need to find him before he gets to us.” I could feel it bubbling up within me: this desperate need to find this man or woman. If there was ever someone I’d break our “no women” rule for, it’d be this bitch.
“I’ve got one lead. Balgray Hall.” Jenny looked between our blank faces. “It’s a National Trust house in Oxfordshire.”
Fox frowned. “The Chameleon has an interest in English heritage?”
“My contact at Interpol said they had been monitoring online chatter and had found two mentions to it in association with The Chameleon before they were quickly deleted.”
I tried to process this. We finally had a lead. And it made no sense.
“No police force here has any interest in Balgray,” Jenny said. “I’ll do more digging when I get into the office.”
Fox huffed. “We can’t just sit here waiting for news, we need to—”
Jenny stood up. “You know what families like to do for fun on Saturdays? They go and look around National Trust houses. Expand young minds. Appreciate the architecture. Enjoy the landscaped gardens and fresh air. Try and find out what interest a master criminal might have in such a place.”
Fox and I looked at each other. I nodded.
He drained his mug of coffee. “Let’s get the kids and pack up the van.”
Last year, my Range Rover had been written off for the greater good—that is, disposing of Jenny’s ex, Bill Grundy’s body.
I had presumed I’d just go down to the dealership and choose a brand sparkling new one, but Fox had insisted we use this opportunity to rethink our choices.
He’d found a Volvo minivan with an impeccable safety record and declared it the perfect family car, considering we would often be transporting two children, a dog, a pram, and the occasional body.
The boot space of a family van was very much underrated.
For Fox, it was the missing piece of the perfect-suburban-life jigsaw. For me, it was the final nail in the old-life coffin.
—
An hour and a half later, we arrived at Balgray Hall.
Reggie was asleep in his car seat, while Bibi was plugged into Fox’s old iPad and her eighteenth episode of Bluey. I turned to Fox. Bibi had headphones on, but I still spoke softly.
“Are we making a mistake? What if he’s here and he spots us?”
The car park was busy. Fox pulled into one of the last remaining slots.
“He clearly doesn’t want us dead right now.” Fox turned off the engine. “If he did, he wouldn’t have announced his arrival with a postcard. He’d have killed us in our sleep.”
I nodded. That made sense. “Good pep talk. Thanks.”
We made slow progress from the car park to the entrance, with Bibi walking at a snail’s pace and repeatedly changing her mind over which stick she wanted to pick up.
The overenthusiastic lady at the counter asked if we wanted a National Trust membership.
My response of “God, no,” made her face fall, and Fox elbowed me.
According to her advice, we should start with a walk around the grounds before we headed into the turreted Jacobean hall.
“I don’t get why somewhere like this would catch the attention of The Chameleon.” Fox looked at the crowd of people exclaiming over an ancient oak tree. “Jenny said the family who own it have no criminal ties. Boring broke aristocrats.”
“Is it bad that I don’t give a shit about trees?” I watched as several fawning people took photos of the oak. I fingered the small device in my pocket.
We walked slowly, painfully slowly, toward the Estate Office, which, we’d learned from the leaflet handed over with our tickets, was part of the Stable Block. I handed Fox the assortment of sticks I’d been instructed by Bibi to look after. “Give me five minutes.”
I sidestepped the “Private” notice hanging in front of a small courtyard and walked alongside the wall.
The office had a large window. I peered inside.
It was empty. The benefit of getting here at lunchtime.
I opened the door and stepped in. A large whiteboard hung at the back of the room, covered with scrawled writing describing where they were with a fundraising target.
It wasn’t going well—which would explain the threadbare carpet.
There were three desks, all with computers that looked at least ten years old.
They should prove no problem for Jenny’s hacking skills.
At the back of the room was another door next to a huge printer.
I had never worked in an office. I looked around, trying to imagine coming in here every day, sitting at a well-worn office chair, the place silent except for the batting of keyboards. I shuddered.
The largest desk up against the wall held several photos of a large black Labrador. Underneath it, I could see the flashing lights of the router. I reached down and, taking the small device out of my pocket, placed it just behind the router. Mission accomplished.
The desk next to it held a half-eaten sandwich. I needed to move. I walked back toward the main door just as the rear one by the printer opened.
“What are you doing here?” A short lady with a bob and thickset glasses was staring at me.
“I’m so sorry! I’m looking for my daughter; she came running through here.”
“There’s a sign.”
“I know, I know. I’m—”
“Mama!”
We both turned to look. There was Bibi, out in the courtyard. She stood next to Fox, who was gripping the pram, the nappy bag slung over his shoulder.
“There you are!” I smiled at Bibi and turned back to the woman. “I really am so sorry.”
“Yes, so sorry!” Fox called. “We’ve told her, no more hide-and-seek!”
The woman’s shoulders loosened as she looked between us. “Just keep an eye on your children.”
“Of course!” I rushed back toward my family. I took Bibi’s hand as we returned to the authorized area of the grounds.
Bibi looked up at me. “Why did you say I ran off? I didn’t run off.”
“I took a wrong turn and thought it was better to give a little excuse like that rather than getting into trouble.”
“It’s bad to lie,” said Bibi as she chewed her lip.
“Yes, it is. But sometimes a small little lie is okay.”
Fox gave me a look. Shit. Why didn’t kids come with a handbook?
“So, I can lie?” Bibi smiled.
“No,” Fox said, at the same time as I said, “Yes.”