Page 45 of Nobody's Hero

‘We could smoke her out,’ Draper said. ‘Smash a window and throw in some burning wood.’

Koenig glanced at her. ‘Why not call in a drone strike while you’re at it?’ he said. ‘Plus, everything around here is wetter than an otter’s pocket.’ He turned back to his monocular. ‘Anyway, this is her home, I’m not setting fire to it.’

‘OK, smart ass, what’s your idea?’

Koenig didn’t immediately answer. For the last two minutes he’d been staring at the door. To be more accurate, he was staring at the keyhole. It was a big one. Wouldn’t have looked out of place on a church door. He could see light shining through it, which meant the key wasn’t in the other side. If he could get up to the door without being seen, he’d be able to see inside. Find out why Jane Doe hadn’t moved in six hours.

‘I’m going to look through the keyhole,’ he said.

‘I’ll do it.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you’re a clumsy asshole and I’m not. She’ll hear you. Anyway, I’m always point.’

Koenig nodded. Draper was right. Back in their SOG days, shehadalways been the first person in when they’d breached a room. She’d insisted on it. Back then it had seemed like she had a death wish. It was only later that Koenig discovered she’d been seeking redemption.

‘OK,’ he agreed. ‘You go first, and I’ll watch the heat signature. Make sure it doesn’t move. If it does, I’ll tell you to abort.’

‘Make sure you do,’ she replied. ‘I don’t want a knitting needle in the eye because you were staring at my butt instead of the target.’

She crawled out of the gorse bush, giving him a filthy look as she got scratched on the face. As carefully as she could, she made her way to the front of the cottage. Koenig tried not to look at her butt. She reached the door and put her eye to the keyhole. She turned to face Koenig. She was frowning. She gestured for him to join her. When he did, she stepped back so he could see for himself what was on the other side of the door. Koenig bent down and put his eye to it. The room was well lit. The door was so thick it was as if he were looking through the wrong end of a telescope.

He saw what had alarmed Draper so much. He turned to stare at her. She shrugged.

‘I have no fucking idea what’s going on,’ she whispered.

Koenig looked through the keyhole again. He didn’t know either. Because the heat signature they’d been watching all afternoon wasn’t the person they’d seen walk through the door of the cottage.

It was Margaret Wexmore, the academic abducted from Speakers’ Corner.

And Margaret wasn’t dead; she was very much alive. She was also tied up.

Jane Doe had vanished into thin air.

Chapter 44

It didn’t add up. They had followed Jane Doe all the way from Manchester to her cottage. They had seen her face. The only way in and out of the cottage was via the front door or one of the two windows and Koenig hadn’t taken his eyes off them. Heknewshe hadn’t left. But heat signatures didn’t lie. Jane Doe wasn’t in there. Not unless she was ectothermic. Like a lizard. Or a fish.

‘She’s not sitting underneath her, is she?’ Draper said, not bothering to keep her voice down any more. ‘Using Margaret to hide her heat signature.’

‘For six hours?’

Nevertheless, Koenig bent down and looked through the keyhole again. Margaret wasn’t a sturdy woman, looked like she weighed no more than ninety pounds. Maybe she’d always been like that; maybe it was the cancer. She was gagged with duct tape, and her grey hair was in a bun but coming loose. Dishevelled. Otherwise, she looked unharmed. No one was hiding underneath her. He told Draper.

‘She wasn’t being rescued from Speakers’ Corner then,’ Draper said. ‘The Brits were right all along; shewasbeing abducted.’

Koenig didn’t respond. He couldn’t get his head around it. Everything he knew about Jane Doe said she was one of the good guys. But the evidence was overwhelming. The evidence was also old and frail and no doubt very cold.

‘We can’t leave her like this,’ Koenig said. ‘She’s going to need medical attention.’

Draper scowled. Koenig knew she’d have preferred to sit on the cottage and wait. To use Margaret Wexmore like a tethered goat. But he was in charge, and he was going inside. He reached for the door handle.

‘Wait!’ Draper whispered.

‘What?’

‘How do we know this isn’t a trap?’

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