The Last Day by Andrew Hunter Murray

Author:Andrew Hunter Murray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-02-03T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

Hopper was back on the street. Leaving the office building was like hitting a wall of warmth; the external door handle was almost uncomfortably hot to touch. It was busy too; the streets were thronged.

She made her way back to the café she had sat in earlier, a cheerful place of orange walls and an elegant curved glass counter, and sat with a coffee. She couldn’t concentrate.

She offered money to the café manager: again was permitted the use of a phone, and rang the Times.

“David?”

“Yes?” He was terse.

“Do you have a minute?”

“Yes. But we’ve just finished conference. I have a lot to do.”

“Sorry to bother you. Is the line safe?”

“Nothing’s perfect. But it’s pretty reliable.”

“I need you to search for one other person.”

“Go on.”

“His name’s Thomas Gethin. He was in Home Affairs, Thorne’s old department. Then he moved to Security. But that was fifteen years ago.”

“Anything else?”

“He must be about forty-five now. He was one of Thorne’s assistants. Everyone else was sacked with Thorne; he’s the only one who wasn’t. I think he might be able to help.”

“They take rather a dim view of us ringing up and asking for the employment history of senior government officials. I’ll start with general population records. Then I guess I can start hunting elsewhere.”

“Thank you. Anything you can find. Why are you so busy anyway?”

“Oh, everything. There’s a big push happening in the Midlands. And there’s all sorts going on with the Americans. Davenport’s visited three times in the last month. And Harry’s missing.”

Her stomach lurched. “Missing?” She had had Harry’s notes for Thorne’s obituary in her bag when they searched it. He must have been arrested because of that. Oh Christ. Christ.

David continued. “He’s not at work, and his wife hasn’t seen him. He’s never done anything like this before. So we’re fucked for obituaries.” He sounded worried.

“Will he be all right?”

He must have heard the distress in her voice. “What do you mean?”

She couldn’t say it over the phone. It had been stupid even mentioning Gethin.

“Can we meet?”

“There’s so much to do here.”

“Please, David. This is important.”

A pause.

“All right. Meet me in Regent’s Park.” He gave her a time, a little gruffly, and rang off.

After a tussle with the operator over making a call outside the country, she managed to get through to the rig. Schwimmer answered. She asked for Harv, embarrassed at having to make the request to the senior officer. Coolly amused, he sent someone to fetch Harv from the deck.

“Hello, Hop. What’s new?”

She told him about the burglary at Thorne’s house and her arrest, glossing over the beating. Harv whistled.

“Jesus. Get back here, won’t you?”

“No, I’m staying.”

“Why?”

“I just am. For a few more days.” She didn’t want to tell him yet that she’d lost her job. She didn’t really want to believe it herself. “But I have a question. Are you alone in the office?”

“Yeah. Schwimmer’s wandered off somewhere.”

“Can you see the duty logs from where you are?”

“Let’s see . . .” She pictured him reaching up to the high shelf where Schwimmer kept the logs.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.