The Alex King Series, A BATEMAN [good books for high schoolers .TXT] 📗

“Why are you at a hotel? I thought you were staying at the cottage.”

“Look, I’ve had problems too,” he said. “The cottage was compromised. Call me when it’s all in hand and you are safe. I’ve got to go back to Snell’s house and check some things out. Mereweather will need to speak to you before he requests MI6’s help. Take care, goodbye.” He waited, but she hung up without another word.

He cursed inwardly at not telling her that he loved her. It had noticeably irked her that he was in the close proximately of another woman. At a hotel. He knew he should have put her mind at rest, but hadn’t wanted Amanda Cunningham listening in. The woman hadn’t given him much space, and certainly no privacy. It had surprised him that Caroline had asked who he had been with, as he hadn’t thought her possessive before. They had worked together for much of the time since King had been drafted into MI5 just over a year ago. He had served his country in MI6 for most of his adult life, recruited from a very different existence and trained to operate in a different sphere from that of his current role. He was a better man now. He could look in the mirror for longer these days.

“Trouble?” Amanda asked.

“It’s nothing,” he replied irritably. He walked out into the carpark, searched for Amanda’s silver hire car. He had parked his at the rear of the hotel, as instructed by the receptionist when he had told her the hire company would be sending the windscreen repair company out to replace both front and rear screens. The receptionist had made arrangement for an end space so that the company could work alongside the vehicle. He had found the reception staff exceptionally accommodating.

“So, they’ll fix your windscreen here?” she asked. She pressed the fob and the lights on one of three identical cars flashed. “That’s a great service.”

“Can’t complain,” King said. He watched her closely. She was an attractive young woman. Five-seven, slim and shapely. She had glossy blonde hair and it was tied back in a ponytail. She was similar in appearance to Caroline, but a little younger. At least six or seven years. If he wasn’t in love, he would naturally be attracted to her. If he was honest with himself, he would say she was his type. But looks can be deceptive. There was none of the warmth that Caroline could exude. Amanda Cunningham was driven, but he imagined her treading on people’s toes to get where she was. He had already experienced a few different facets to her character, and he had not liked what he had seen. The drinking aside, she was quick to rise. King’s work had required him to calculate his options carefully, search for the opening, the angle, and devise the best strategy. He had no time for anger and over-reaction, and nor did he have time for this in the people he worked with.

Amanda was an erratic driver with neither the gift of anticipation or humility. She gave no quarter and saw every gap as an opportunity and something she had to swerve the car into. King was starting to wear the mat with his right foot in anticipation of her braking, or rather, lack of it. She also worked the accelerator hard and together with the excessive braking, it made for an uncomfortable ride.

She took the road through Truro. King had thought about telling her of a quicker route, via the King Harry Ferry from Trellisick to the Roseland, but thought better of it. The roads were narrow and driven swiftly by the locals. Tourists tended to hug the white line somewhat nervously, when the secret to driving in Cornwall was to hug the hedge. Not great for negotiating cyclists, but better than meeting a caravan with nowhere to go. At least the city traffic was routed in wide lanes and as he pondered the ferry waiting times along with loading and unloading, it was probably a dead heat for time.

They hadn’t spoken much, and the silence would have been awkward if King had reason to care. He didn’t, but he was curious about her. Her behaviour was beyond what he would have imagined of a pathologist at the top of her game. A young woman who would have had to work twice as hard due both to gender and age, to reach the higher echelons of the Home Office register of forensic pathologists. To be tasked with such an investigation meant she would have been the very best. For all his beliefs in equality, King could just not see it in her.

“I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t agreed to work on this,” she said, as if reading his thoughts. Perhaps she had been doing a great deal of thinking of her own in the long, drawn-out silence.

“Why not?” King asked.

“Well, it’s like you,” she said. “You’ve obviously pissed off enough people that they have given you something like this. I mean, you have been tasked with finding out who has been killing the richest people on the planet, but in doing so, risk cutting off the money the rich have donated to keep themselves off the death list. Charities have never been better off. People at the most basic economic level are actually feeling the benefits, something no government and no country has ever done before, nor likely ever will.”

King had mulled it over enough. He had his detractors, and was sure he had ruffled a few feathers during his brief time with MI5. But nothing unforgivable, nothing drastic. He’d had worse. Some of his own people at MI6 had come after him before, used him, betrayed him and hung him out to dry. Another time, another life.

They were all dead now.

But it wasn’t until she said it out loud, had