Ugley Business Page 9

  There was no car anywhere visible. I checked for about half a mile in either direction, then the fields around the house, and I was about to give in to the cold and go home when I saw something glinting under the hedgerow.

  Around here there were very few hedgerows left. Farmers have pulled them all up top make bigger fields that are easier to plough, and then edge their land with fences or rows of regular hedge. There weren’t many thick, micro-environment, proper hedgerows left, and I’d bet my last fiver that there was only one with a motorbike under it.

  And that hedgerow was right here in front of me.

  Now, I know naff-all about bikes, but I could tell this one was cheap and nasty just looking at it. It wasn’t very heavy and it was very simple—if rather wet and muddy—to pick up and carry to my car. The very best thing about having a Defender is that you can fit a motorbike in the back. Well, okay, not the very best thing, but a damn useful feature.

  I was just shutting up the back of the car when a torch flashed on my face and a voice said, “I don’t think that’s yours.”

  I turned, my hand shielding my eyes, and began, “Yes, but—”

  Then my ears kick-started my brain, and my eyes got in motion too, and I realised the man with the torch was Harvey.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He looked confused. “What are you doing here?”

  “I live here. Well, used to. That’s my parents’ house. The owner of this bike ambushed me this evening. So I’m impounding it.”

  “Impounding?”

  “Well, confiscating, really. I could learn to ride a bike.”

  “More of a scooter, really,” Harvey said, peering through the back window. He swung the beam of the torch back on me. “Ambushed, you said? Are you okay?”

  “Better than him. What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting.”

  “Waiting?”

  “I followed a guy on a scooter up here hours ago.” He gestured to a car parked in one of the neighbours’ drives. How thick was I? How didn’t I notice there was actually someone in that car? “He went up the drive but didn’t come back down.”

  “He came with me. Why were you following him?”

  “He works for a guy I’ve been tracking. Dmitri Janulevic.”

  I shook my head. “What’d he do?”

  Harvey made a face. “Nothing yet. But he has before, and he’s gonna this time. I’ve been all over after him.”

  “All over?”

  “China. Russia. Czech Republic. And now here.”

  Aw. I was touched we’d been included in such an exotic list.

  “Well, the biker’s name is Petr Staszic,” I said. “However you pronounce it. I don’t speak Czech.”

  “I do,” Harvey said.

  Hello.

  Five minutes later, I had him blindfolded in the back of the car—the passenger seat still being a little bloody—and on the way to the office. I took him down to the lab and pulled off the blindfold.

  “Ta-da.”

  “This is the SO17 headquarters?”

  “Well, it’s sort of just quarters. We’re very small.”

  Harvey gave me a lightning once-over, a slight smile on his face.

  “Don’t,” I warned. “My ego’s already had quite a bashing today.”

  “I wasn’t gonna say anything uncomplimentary.”

  “Hmm.” I went over to the cage and unlocked the shutters. They clanged back and Harvey stared at Petr.

  “What did you do to him?”

  “Nothing! Well, apart from shooting. But he had a gun on me.”

  “Fair enough.” Harvey, from the Land of the Free, shrugged.

  “Maria knocked him unconscious. We were planning on coming back in the morning.”

  “Is this standard hostage procedure?”

  “It’s standard procedure for people who attack me.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind,” Harvey said, and walked over. “Is there an intercom?”

  I nodded and switched it on. Then I set up the vid camera I’d brought down with me, and said loudly to Petr, “Wake up.”

  He did, with a jolt, and babbled something in Czech.

  “What did he say?”

  “He’s not Czech.”

  “He said that?”

  “No, he said, ‘What’s going on?’ But he said it in Russian.”

  “You speak Russian?”

  “Of course.” Harvey, old-school CIA, gave me a bewildered look.

  “It’s on my to-do list,” I said. “Ask him where he’s from.”

  The answer came back as, “Russia.”

  “So why did he have a Czech passport?”

  “He’s a Czech citizen.”

  “Dual nationality?”

  Harvey paused to remember the word, and when he did there was another pause, this time from Petr.

  “Da,” he said cautiously, and Harvey and I looked at each other and shook our heads.

  “Ask him something in Czech,” I said. “Something complex.”

  Harvey rolled out a question and Petr gave a hopeful smile. “Da?”

  “He doesn’t speak a word of it,” Harvey said. “I asked him if he was into sado-masochistic sex with foreign lesbians in the basements of Bavarian castles.”

  I couldn’t help laughing. “Well, maybe he is.”

  We looked at Petr, huddled there looking afraid.

  “Maybe not. Okay, ask him why he was following me.”

  “Orders.”

  “What orders?”

  Harvey frowned as he listened to the reply. “To take you to his boss.”

  “Who is…?”

  I didn’t need a translation. “Dmitri Janulevic. Well, you were right. What does Janulevic want with me?”

  Petr kept looking up at me like an abused puppy as he explained. Maybe he thought I’d be a soft touch.

  Ha!

  “Well?” I asked Harvey.

  “Janulevic wanted you,” he said. “That’s pretty much all he’ll say.”

  “Why?” I insisted.

  Harvey repeated the question, but Petr shook his head.

  “Is it to do with Angel?” I said, and Harvey said, “Who’s Angel?”

  “The blonde. Lakeside?”

  His eyes lit up. “Her name is Angel?”

  “Yup. Ask him.”

  He did, and Petr looked confused. “IC Winter?” I asked. “Greg Winter?”

  Petr shook his head, but he did it a fraction too late. I grabbed Harvey’s arm. “It’s about Angel.”

  “What? How come? What’s going on?”

  I shook my head, glancing at Petr. “I still don’t trust that he’s not listening in. Come on. We can come back later if we think of anything else.”

  “We?”

  “Your case, my case. Is this coincidence or are you following me?”

  “Coincidence,” Harvey said, but I wasn’t sure I believed him.

  Back in the car, I let him pull off his blindfold after a couple of miles. “You really don’t want me to know where that was, do you?”

  “Can’t take any chances,” I said. “Sorry.” Was I like a real secret agent, or what?

  Don’t answer that.

  “Well, yeah, I guess.” Harvey looked out of the window. “Isn’t that the school where we caught those guys a couple months ago?”

  “We? You disappeared and I had to do it all by myself.”

  “I went for back-up.”

  “I nearly got killed.”

  “Hey, we got there in time. Calm down.”

  I rolled my eyes at him through the rear-view. “I’m calm. I’m just saying.”

  “Me too. If you hadn’t gone off without your partner—”

  “He’s not my partner,” I said, perhaps a little more violently than I needed to.

  Harvey raised an eyebrow. “From what your friend said at Lakeside—”

  “Well, she was wrong. It was wrong. He’s not my partner. He’s just my colleague. End of.”
>
  Harvey had the good sense to keep quiet.

  We went back to my house. It was still the middle of the night and, despite my daytime nap, I was knackered. All I wanted to do was go to bed.

  “Nice place,” Harvey said, looking around my habitat. It was a tip, but then it always was. I was never into the tidy thing. Don’t see the point. I have a good memory for where things are. Usually they’re just under some other things. “You live here by yourself?”

  Loaded question.

  “No, I share with Tammy.”

  He looked surprised. “And who’s Tammy?”

  “My flatmate.”

  Harvey looked around. Open-plan living room, bedroom, bathroom. One double bed.

  “Erm…”

  I grinned. “She’s a cat. Very small. Hardly takes up any space.”

  He looked relieved. “For a second there I thought—but then the thing with Luke…”

  “There is no thing with Luke.”

  Harvey bit his lip. “There was on Sunday.”

  “No,” I kicked off my trainers, “apparently there wasn’t. I don’t want to talk about it. I want to go to bed.” I grabbed my sleeping bag from under the bed and dumped it on the sofa for him. “Have a nice night.”

  “Sophie, wait.”

  I turned, but I didn’t want to. The Luke thing had upset me more than I’d bargained for. I needed to go somewhere quiet and bawl into my pillow.

  “I’m sorry if I upset you. I thought you and Luke were an item.”

  “Yes, well, so did I. Apparently I was mistaken. But the mistake has been cleared up.”

  “So…you’re not together?”

  I don’t think we ever were. “No.”

  “And this is a recent thing?”

  I looked at the clock. “About six hours.”

  “Ah. Okay. Sorry I brought it up.” He yawned. “That girl—Angel?”

  “Yes?”

  “She single?”

  I smiled. How cute would that be? “As far as I know.”

  “Excellent. You can tell me all about her in the morning.”

  Chapter Six

  Morning came all too quickly, and I’d forgotten there was anyone else in the flat until I pounced on Harvey in the kitchen. He looked surprised, then he took my SIG and weighed it in his hands.

  “Nice piece. You always greet guests like this?”

  “Only when I forget about them.”

  The thought crossed my mind that he was probably thinking this was exactly why Luke and I had broken up. Which was ironic, because Luke got turned on by me with my gun. He said it was the ultimate danger.

  Come to think of it, that’s not much of a compliment.

  I made a lot of strong coffee and drank most of it myself. Harvey seemed surprised that I was drinking instant, not filter, but I suppose that’s Americans for you. He went for orange juice. Purist.

  “So what’s your plan for today?” he asked. “Apart from telling me all about Angel.” He looked off into the distance—or at least, an imaginary distance, the wall being about four feet away.

  “Ah, yes, Angel.”

  “What does she have to do with Janulevic?”

  I shrugged. “Beats me.” I had another agenda. “What do you have to do with Janulevic?”

  Harvey drained his orange juice. He looked good in the morning, his shiny hair all tousled, a little bit of stubble humanising the total perfection of his American Idol face. He’d been wearing only boxers when I happened upon him nosing through my kitchen cupboards, but he’d quickly got dressed again in his black jeans and T-shirt. I was beginning to realise that people like us (doesn’t that sound cool?) had a lot of black in their wardrobes. This suited me fine, because black is very slimming and it goes with everything. Except summer.

  “Janulevic is after something,” Harvey said. “He’s an Indiana Jones without the coolness. We don’t know what it is, only that he’s talked to a lot of ancient historians about it. Archaeologists. Antiques men. Museums—he’s broken into a few.”

  “Anything taken?”

  “Archives. Records. He’s looking for something specific, but we still can’t tell what. He’s taken records of ancient Chinese, Egyptian, and Romany artefacts.”

  “Then how do you know it’s something specific?”

  “Because he’s come across plenty of Chinese, Egyptian and Romany artefacts and left them all alone. Not even touched them.”

  “You’ve talked to the people he’s talked to?”

  Harvey made a face. “Slight problem there.”

  I knew what it was. “They’re all dead?”

  “Every last one. And the few we thought we might pre-empt are denying all knowledge of anything ancient at all.”

  I folded my arms. “I don’t get it. Why is the CIA interested in him?”

  “A tip-off. Head of Ancient History at Michigan told us there was something coming. He said it was like a plague—like Tutankhamun’s curse. Professors dropping dead all over the globe. But we smelled a rat—or more to the point, my boss, who is a buddy of the aforementioned professor, did. Not to mention that if this thing is real… Well, we don’t want it in the wrong hands.”

  I wondered privately who got to decide whose hands were the right ones, but kept my mouth shut. “The Michigan professor?”

  “He’s under protection—they all are. Oxford and Cambridge too. We spoke to the people at the British Museum—told them not to speak to anyone. But one girl said a few rumours had reached her. She heard a whisper about some Mongol artefact called the Xe La. But no one knows what it is. Just some reference in a book—”

  “Which has now disappeared?”

  “Right. And the only people who could have told us about it…”

  “Are dead.”

  “You’re smart.”

  “One of my many good qualities.” I yawned. “I’m going to go and have a shower.” I needed to think about this.

  “No,” Harvey said, “you’re going to play fair and tell me what you know. Why did you think this involved Angel? What does she have to do with the Xe La?”

  I raised my palms. “I have no idea.”

  “Greg and IC Winter? They’re both dead.”

  “Yep.”

  “You think they knew about the Xe La?”

  Ding. I nearly looked up to see if there was, indeed, a light bulb over my head.

  “I can ask.”

  Harvey looked confused. “You’re a psychic?”

  Ooh, wouldn’t that be fun. But he’d never believe me. “No, but I know someone who used to know Greg and IC.”

  “Who?”

  “I’ll tell you when I’m clean,” I said, and handed him my coffee cup.

  So, I said to myself in the shower, Janulevic is probably after the Xe La. Petr is working for Janulevic. Janulevic sent Petr to get me. Why me? Because I’m a friend of Angel’s.

  I hoped it was just because I was her friend. Not because I was her protector. Not because of SO17. Else we were in big trouble.

  Why was he after Angel? Because of who her parents were? Because they knew something about the Xe La?

  Was that why Greg was killed?

  I got out of the shower and dried off thoughtfully, grateful there was no one watching me this time. I needed to see the files on Greg and IC. Maybe if I knew what Greg was working on when he died then I might get another jigsaw piece.

  I picked up my Nokia and called Karen Hanson.

  “I have a question,” I said. “How secret is SO17?”

  “You cannot tell your boyfriend.”

  Clearly she hadn’t been paying full attention. “Good, because I don’t have one. How about CIA?”

  “Keep talking.”

  I told her about Harvey and Janulevic, and she said she’d been down to see Petr this morning. She spoke a few words of Russian but hadn’t understood anything he’d babbled. It was amazing how incoherent people became when they were chained up in a lab. Probably we should think of a new way of
detaining people, but there were other things to be done first.

  “We can deal with this,” Karen said when I’d finished. “We can trade off. Work together. He sounds like he might have something for us.”

  “Doesn’t a trade involve giving him something too?”

  “We’ll work something out. There must be something.”

  Angel, I thought, but said nothing. I hung up and got dressed and went out to see Harvey.

  “So, do you have a home to go to?” I asked.

  “I have a hotel.”

  “The Hilton?”

  “A B&B in the village. You know, I’d like to get my car back.”

  “Can do. And after that, I have some people for you to meet.”

  We picked up his car, a dark blue rented Mondeo, and he followed me up to the office. “I know this,” he said when we got out. “This is where you tried to catch that guy…”

  How does the CIA get anything done when its operatives call everyone “that guy”?

  “This is our office,” I said. “We came here yesterday.”

  He didn’t look impressed. “It looks kinda normal.”

  “That’s the idea.” I swiped us in and we went through to Hanson’s office. She smiled when she saw us.

  “Karen Hanson, SO17,” I said, “James Harvard, CIA.”

  Harvey held out his hand. “Ma’am.”

  Suck-up.

  “First of all, Four,” Hanson said, “tell me about our guest downstairs?”

  “He’s working for Janulevic.”

  “Good for him. Who’s Janulevic?”

  Harvey and I explained about the dead professors and the Xe La. “Have you heard of it?” I asked. Probably she had a degree in Ancient Chinese or something. But she shook her head.

  “I’d heard about the missing professors. Ten so far, and five leading archaeologists. Speculation is rife. The tabloid press is calling it an ancient curse, which is absurd as they were all involved in very different fields.”

  “The most credible theory is some sort of vendetta,” Harvey said, and suddenly I remembered the newspaper headline in the Lakeside toilets.

  “Revenge of the uneducated,” I said, and a voice from behind me said, “You’re not that uneducated.”

  I felt the air in the room thicken and chill rapidly. So SO17 wouldn’t have to invest in air-conditioning; just get me, Luke and Harvey in a room together.