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TWENTY
Last Updated:
2021-09-25 14:10:1620
Two detectives have turned up. One of them is Detective Chief Inspector Sandra Burton, and Inspector Brooks accompanies her; neither of them appears happy.
A paramedic flushes out my eyes with distilled water while I sit on the back ramp of the ambulance, head tilted, while she tapes cotton wool over my left eye.
"You should see an eye specialist," she says. "It takes a week before the full damage is clear."
"Permanent damage?"
"See the specialist."
Behind her, fire hoses snake across the gleaming road and firefighters in reflective vests are mopping up.
My left thigh corked; my knuckles scraped and raw. There are questions. Answers.
The name Mariella Novotny is fresh in their minds after the article.
"Explain to me how come you ended up breaking into the house."
"I came out of the pub and thought I saw a burglary in process."
"Why didn't you call the police?" Burton asks.
"I don't have a mobile p
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NO ONE ASKED TWENTY - ONE
21The most extraordinary faculty our minds possess is the ability to break apart and compartmentalise. It's how we juggle multiple demands and how we cope with pain and trauma. After my wife died, I saw a string of therapists and grief counsellors and psychologists. One of them suggested I take my memories, lock them in a chest using heavy chains and padlocks, and drop the trunk into the deepest part of the ocean, beneath millions of tons of water.I tried it for a while, but it didn't work. The memories are still with me. They are like wolves hunting me through the forest. I have hacked a clearing from the undergrowth and built a fire to keep them at bay, but I have to keep collecting wood, or the fire will burn down, and the wolves will creep closer.The newspaper arrived, and the headlines were full of the explosion—the cause given as a gas leak leading to journalist Mariella Novotny's untimely death. Other victims include a retired gay couple, a thirt
Last Updated : 2021-09-26NO ONE ASKED TWENTY - TWO
22The tower block has internal stairs and an out of order lift that serves all levels.The entrance smells of disembowelled bin bags, cat piss and wet newspapers. Victoria Usheava lives on the third floor.I watch as twelve officers in body armour climb the stairs. Four more use the lift. Their choreographed movements seem overblown and unnecessary, considering the suspect has no history of violence.Police no longer knock on doors. Nowadays, they dress up in body armour and break the doors down with battering rams. But, again, privacy and personal freedom are not as important as the safety of the public. I understand the reasons, but I miss the good old days.The lead officer reached the flat and pressed his ear against the door. He turns and nods, and Detective Chief Inspector Sandra Burton acknowledges. A battering ram swings in an arc. The door disappears. The arresting group halts. A snarling Alsatian lurches at the closest policeman, who ste
Last Updated : 2021-09-26NO ONE ASKED TWENTY - THREE
23DCI Burton organised six boxes delivered to my home address. They must be back at the police station by the following day. A courier will collect them just after six o'clock the next day.Inside the boxes were witness statements, timelines, phone calls and crime scene photographs relating to the eleven deaths.Closing my study door, I turn the key and take a seat before opening the first box. In the boxes stacked around my feet is evidence of eleven lives and eleven deaths. Nothing will bring these people back, and nothing can harm their feelings anymore.I feel like I am intruding, flicking through photographs, statements, timelines, videos, all different versions of their pasts.They say once is okay, twice is a coincidence and the third occasion is a pattern. But I possibly have eleven crimes to consider. Eleven victims. All involved in a business project in Moscow, except Mariella Novotny, the journalist.Ten men. Property developers,
Last Updated : 2021-09-26NO ONE ASKED TWENTY-FOUR
24The blue-and-white crime scene tape was a great deal further back than usual. But, to our surprise, DCI Burton was on this side, having aged about ten years by the time we arrived, forcing our way through the already gathering media."Thanks for coming," she says with sincerity. "I am really out of my depth with this one.Greater London's Metropolitan Police Service Terrorism Unit has taken over this investigation. The United Kingdom Government COBRA committee has already met to discuss the research, and the FBI will assist the analysis for their expertise on radioactive weapons.""Looks like you've got everything covered," I say."No, we haven't," Burton said, directing us away from the media so that no one would detect dissension in the ranks. "The police and Dr Baker, the Home Office Pathologist, declared it a suicide – concluding that Dr Brett had somehow managed to stab and slash himself repeatedly with two separate knives before succ
Last Updated : 2021-09-26NO ONE ASKED TWENTY-FIVE
25University College Hospital is a teaching hospital in London, England. It is part of the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is closely associated with University College London. The hospital is on the south side of Euston Road in the Bloomsbury area of the London Borough of Camden, adjacent to the main campus of UCL. Its tower faces Euston Square tube station. Not far away west is Warren Street tube station, and Euston station is beyond Euston Square Gardens, situated east.I put the money in the machine and got out two coffees. Blanche had driven me to the hospital to see if Jimmy Raistrick would say anything.The very least we would want was an ID of the shooter. I handed a coffee to Blanche."White, no sugar."Blanche took the coffee in both hands.Hospital waiting rooms are useless, helpless places, full of whispers and prayers. Nobody looks at us.Doctors and nurses wander in and out, never able to re
Last Updated : 2021-09-26NO ONE ASKED TWENTY-SIX
26It wasn't until we left the University College Hospital that a wave of panic suddenly overwhelmed me. My thoughts send chills rolling down my spine, like a cube of ice is being dragged over each vertebra, bringing my skin to life. I've seen that nurse some before. She has haunted my dreams and hunted for my hiding places.Blanche looked at me, concerned. "Are you okay?"My head was spinning, and my heart was thumping like mad in my chest. I felt short of breath. Sweat breaking out everywhere."The nurse," I just managed to say."What about her?""Why would she be so worried about his call-bed equipment when there is a policeman on duty outside?"Realisation flashed over Blanche's face. "And where was the policeman when we left?"We stumbled back out of the car. The car park is underground and accessible only by a staircase that brings you up in the street opposite the A&E of the hospital. So, we cut across the street, we
Last Updated : 2021-09-26NO ONE ASKED TWENTY-SEVEN
27The traffic meanders at an agonisingly slow pace, shuffling and pausing. I can only see the back of the driver's head. He has a soldier's haircut and wrap-around sunglasses, looking ridiculous as he is wearing them at night."Where are you taking me?""To see someone important.""Who?""You'll find out when we get there.""And where is there, by the way?""There is where we are going.""There must be some mistake.""You are Quintus Andrew Noone. You are sixty-three years of age. You worked for MI5 for nearly forty years. You are the youngest of five children, with one brother and three sisters.Your brother passed away suddenly seven years ago. You went to Littlegrove School in East Barnet and then Challoner School for Boys in Woodside Park. You lived in East Barnet, to begin with, followed by Whetstone for fourteen years and then moved to Suffolk. You graduated from Homerton College, Cambridge, with a degree i
Last Updated : 2021-09-26NO ONE ASKED TWENTY-EIGHT
28I try not to react."Can you explain?" Patterson asks."No.""Not even a vague notion."My mind was racing through the possibilities, but I couldn't think of any."Do you know this woman?""I met her in Moscow when I went there with Amber Chase. Her name is Elmira. She was General Ozdoyev's, the Russian Deputy Prosecutor's escort for the night. She tried to take Mrs Chase's handbag, but Mrs Chase slapped her around the face to stop her."Numbness rather than shock seeps through me. I felt like someone had walked up and hit me in the back of the head with a piece of wood, with the noise still ringing in my ears."Why weren't they found sooner?""The five MI6 operatives went off the grid five days ago. General Ozdoyev's girlfriend went missing the day after. Felixstowe has nearly four thousand lorries passing through every day.If Customs searched everyone, there'd be ships queued back to Rotterdam."
Last Updated : 2021-09-26
Latest chapter
NO ONE ASKED THIRTY-FIVE
35 I had a perfect firing position, with the rifle positioned on a wood and metal stand erected against the broad windowsill. All the equipment had been painted a dull black and laid out on the bed like sinister evening clothes, with the black velvet hood stitched to a shirt, made from the same material. The hood had wide slits for the eyes and mouth, reminding me of pictures I had seen of the executioner of Anne Boleyn. Switching off the attic lights, I took off my coat, put a stick of chewing gum into my mouth and donned the hood. I lay along the bed and got my eye to the rubberised eyepiece of the telescopic sight, and gently lifted the curtain over my shoulders. The grounds of the house were like a well-worn photograph. I scanned it all slowly, moving the 'scope with the rifle, adjusting the precision screws on the base. It was all the same except the headlights of an approaching car in the far distance probed the darkness like two pointing index fingers.
NO ONE ASKED THIRTY-FOUR
34The Gala glittered with titles, diamonds, champagne, and talent.Later it might curl around the edges into spilt drinks, glassy eyes, raddled make-up, and slurring voices, but the gloss wouldn't entirely disappear.I handed over my invitation and walked along the wide passage where the lights were dimmed low, the music loud, and the air thick with scent.Around the dancing area, there were large circular tables with chairs for ten or twelve around each, most of them already occupied. According to the seating chart in the hall, at table thirty-two, I would find the place reserved for Ian Ure. My false name for the night. Nobody should recognise me with a false beard and glasses, but that didn't prevent a battery of curious eyes swivel my way. Many people raised hello, but none could work out who I was or hide their shock surprise that they didn't know me.A voice behind me said incredulously, "Ian!"I knew the voice and turned around with
NO ONE ASKED THIRTY-THREE
33A1 Shooting-Range was just off the Barnet By-Pass. I lay at the five hundred metre firing point at the range. The white peg in the grass beside said 4.4, and the same number was recurrent high up on the distance but above the single six-foot square target that looked no larger than a postage stamp to the human eye and in the May dusk. But my lens, an infrared scope fixed above my rifle, covered the whole canvas. So, I could easily differentiate the pale-blue and beige colours into which the target separated. The six-inch semi-circular bull looked as big as the half-moon that started to show low down in the blackening sky above the A1.My last shot, an inner left – had been shit. I took another glance at the yellow-and-blue wind flags. They were coursing across the range from the east rather more firmly than I had begun my shoot half an hour before. I set two clicks to the right of the wind gauge and navigated the cross wires on the telescopic sight back to the
NO ONE ASKED THIRTY-TWO
32By the time I returned to London, my unquenchable thirst for revenge knew no limits. The first few weeks were nothing but funerals. I even managed to attend the funeral of Pierre Clavell; Madame Charlotte Julien's absence did not go unnoticed, but what the congregation didn't know was that the day after the explosion, she passed away peacefully in her sleep.Another link in the chain, broken.Blanche's funeral was a sad affair, with her twins, the mirror image of their mother, stood solemnly in the front row, heads bowed, while the heavy rain battered the roof of the church. The burial took place in Highgate Cemetery, with the priest barely making himself heard above the shower.Everybody remained silent as the coffin was lowered into the ground by the pallbearers, and the twin daughters took it in turns to throw their handful of dirt onto the wooden lid. Usually, that moment echoed around the graveyard, but the rain drowned out even this poignant gest
NO ONE ASKED THIRTY-ONE
31Oh my God, what the fuck do I do now?I naively looked around me to locate her missing limbs and put them back where they belonged. Only then did I see the other casualties. Those who had not only lost limbs but their lives. Like Pierre Duvall, whose head had separated from the rest of his body. Customers, tourists, and people passing by had all been caught up in Katrin Cajthamlova's collateral damage.A fireman says something in my ear in French, and when I tell him that I am English and my French is limited, he immediately talks to me in embarrassingly good English.He holds my shoulders as he guides me away from Blanche. "Come on, Monsieur. Let's get you out of here.Are you in any pain?"My tongue felt huge in my mouth, choking me. "No," I rasped before pointing at Blanche. "My friend." I am unable to say anything further."Don't worry, Monsieur," he said to me, "we'll do our best to look after her."He helped me to my f
NO ONE ASKED THIRTY
30I am on my second beer when Blanche gets to the restaurant. I am watching the pizza chef spin a disc of dough in the air and draping it over his knuckles before relaunching it.The waiters are young.Two of them are watching Blanche, commenting to each other. They're trying to fathom our relationship. What is a beautiful, slender, blonde woman doing with me who is a great deal younger?She is either my mail order bride or my mistress, they are guessing.The café is nearly empty.Nobody eats this early in Paris. An older man with a dog sits near the front door.He slips his hand beneath the table with morsels of food."She could be anywhere by now," I say with reluctance. "She played us like a violin, and I didn't see it. I am getting too old for this cloak and dagger shit. I should retire."Blanche becomes angry. "She has fuelled a lot more people than just you. She is very good at her job, but you are better."
NO ONE ASKED TWENTY-NINE
29Blanche has scarcely said a word since our flight left Heathrow. Her silences can be so eloquent.I told her that she didn't have to come. "I'm sure you've got enough on work-wise.""I have," she replied, "but how am I going to keep you out of trouble if I don't go with you." The faintest of smiles wrinkles the corners of her eyes.It's incredible how little I know about her. She has children – twins – but doesn't talk about them. Her mother is in a retirement home. Her stepfather is dead. I don't know about her birth father as she's never mentioned it before.Blanche is the most self-sufficient woman I have ever met. She doesn't appear for human contact or needs anyone. You can those survival shows on TV where people are separated into competing tribes and try to win immunity. Blanche would be a tribe of one, all on her own, and would come out on top every time.Paris. It makes me think of finance, diplomacy, commerce, fashio
NO ONE ASKED TWENTY-EIGHT
28I try not to react."Can you explain?" Patterson asks."No.""Not even a vague notion."My mind was racing through the possibilities, but I couldn't think of any."Do you know this woman?""I met her in Moscow when I went there with Amber Chase. Her name is Elmira. She was General Ozdoyev's, the Russian Deputy Prosecutor's escort for the night. She tried to take Mrs Chase's handbag, but Mrs Chase slapped her around the face to stop her."Numbness rather than shock seeps through me. I felt like someone had walked up and hit me in the back of the head with a piece of wood, with the noise still ringing in my ears."Why weren't they found sooner?""The five MI6 operatives went off the grid five days ago. General Ozdoyev's girlfriend went missing the day after. Felixstowe has nearly four thousand lorries passing through every day.If Customs searched everyone, there'd be ships queued back to Rotterdam."
NO ONE ASKED TWENTY-SEVEN
27The traffic meanders at an agonisingly slow pace, shuffling and pausing. I can only see the back of the driver's head. He has a soldier's haircut and wrap-around sunglasses, looking ridiculous as he is wearing them at night."Where are you taking me?""To see someone important.""Who?""You'll find out when we get there.""And where is there, by the way?""There is where we are going.""There must be some mistake.""You are Quintus Andrew Noone. You are sixty-three years of age. You worked for MI5 for nearly forty years. You are the youngest of five children, with one brother and three sisters.Your brother passed away suddenly seven years ago. You went to Littlegrove School in East Barnet and then Challoner School for Boys in Woodside Park. You lived in East Barnet, to begin with, followed by Whetstone for fourteen years and then moved to Suffolk. You graduated from Homerton College, Cambridge, with a degree i
