A Matter of Loyalty by Sandra Howard

Author:Sandra Howard [Sandra Howard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781847378408
Publisher: Pocket Books

CHAPTER 18

Four days and nothing: Victoria gazed out of the Edwardian bay window at a drab rain-soaked Southampton backstreet. She was in the constituency office doing her Saturday morning ‘surgery’ and had one last person to see. No canister, no leads, no arrests, it was like speeding at night in fog with no signposts. They were blundering along in the dark and heading for a calamity.

Four days, too, since Quentin’s news about Nattie and Ahmed. Victoria felt beside herself with worry, desperate to talk to her daughter. How, though? How could she possibly, plausibly, know about the relationship without planting the idea that it was through phone tapping? And giving such a clue risked inhibiting Ahmed’s calls and hindering MI5.

There was a timid knock, the door opening. ‘Hello, Mrs . ’ Victoria looked quickly at the list ‘. Higgs.’ She smiled, trying to force her mind back. ‘Come on in.’

Mrs Higgs’s operation had been cancelled yet again, a third time, and the hospital had only told her on the day. The poor woman’s daughter had taken a morning off work, Mrs Higgs’s cat was delivered to the cattery, the fridge cleared, newspaper cancelled. Victoria promised to write to the Hospital Trust and agreed it wasn’t on – which it wasn’t. Why couldn’t things be better run?

‘You’ve got your problems, too,’ Mrs Higgs conceded, then compressed her lips and narrowed bright angry eyes. ‘I know what I’d like to do to these effing terrorists . But they’ll get the kid glove treatment for sure – and I thought we was meant to live in a fair society!’ She was a small bird-like woman, tinted and tidy, bristling with indignation.

Victoria smiled patiently and saw her to the door. You have to catch your terrorist first, she thought, find missing High Level Waste, foil a catastrophic disaster.

‘Well, we got through the list.’ Jason, her agent, came in beaming.

‘Only because you’re more skilful at moving them on than the Queen!’

Jason was pure gold; he collected jumble, soothed warring helpers, smooth-talked the local press. ‘Have a good rest of weekend,’ she called, going out to the reception area where Rodney was waiting, her sharp-eyed, patient protection officer.

They went down the office’s steep run of steps, out into the wet grey street where he steered her round a puddled pothole and into the car. They set off for home. She was thinking of dirty bombs, staring out of her rear window at raindrops beading on a strip of polished car. They glistened like drops of sweat on skin.

William called as she walked in. ‘I’m minutes away with two excited hungry girls,’ he announced cheerily. God, lunch, she thought, wishing she felt half as breezy.

‘Just shoving in the shepherds pie.’ She was opening the oven door with her free hand as she spoke, hoping it was properly thawed.

Nattie cooked for the freezer whenever she came, the greatest help she could give. She stocked it with fruit from the garden too, and in a fit of good intentions

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