Dangerous Liaisons

Revelations

He stood looking at the door, his heart racing, his mouth dry. It had quite obviously been forced. Scratches on the paintwork and splinters of missing wood testified to the force used. They'd closed it again after them, but Jonathan knew it would no longer be locked.

Gently he pushed it open, steeling himself for the sight he was sure would greet him. He wasn't wrong. Furniture overturned, a smashed vase, broken pictures and burst cushions. Ripped down curtains and a smashed coffee table testified to the fight she'd put up. What did take him by surprise was the blood. So much blood. Sickened, he sank onto what remained of the sofa. Head wounds bled copiously, he knew that, but this? This was like... he actually didn't want to think what it was like, especially when he saw the trail that led into the bedroom. A broad stripe, once scarlet now oxidised over the last couple of days to a sickening brown. Slowly, he stood. The photo hadn't shown her to be THAT badly injured. Yes, a headwound but nothing that would explain this, this carnage.

Macabre curiosity took over. He walked through to the bedroom and instantly got his answer. The smell made him retch, hardened soldier though he was. It hadn't been human blood. It had been her dog. A dog that obviously tried to protect her. With it's life. It seemed inordinately cruel, shooting her dog and leaving it to bleed to death. It appeared to have dragged itself through to die, riddled with bullets. If he knew Kate at all, shooting her dog would have traumatised her far more than any injury to herself.

It only served to make him more determined to make them suffer.

In a small way, guilty though he felt, he was glad it wasn't her blood. She'd spilled more than enough already. There was one last thing the dog could do for her, wincing and wrinkling his nose, he stuck a finger in a bullet hole and felt the lead of the bullet. Searching her dressing table, he found a pair of tweezers and extracted it. All the while, the smell making him dry heave. Throwing the tweezers away and wiping his hands on the dog's fur he placed the mangled lead in his pocket. It might help, it might not. Nothing could be overlooked.

In a surprisingly sentimental move, he covered the dog in a spare throw he found then turned to leave. As he did so, his eye was caught by two photos on her bedside table. One was of her and her father, obviously taken recently, a calendar in the background showing the date to be a couple of months ago. Automatically he lifted it, broke the frame and extracted the photo, sliding it into his jacket pocket beside the bullet. He might need it. The other though, made him stop dead. It was as familiar to him as his own face, it WAS his own face. A man and a woman, sitting on a log on a beach. Windswept and smiling. She'd kept it beside her, all this time.

He closed his eyes and swallowed. Never a religious man, in this line of work, the existence of a God, any God, was more than sketchy, he instinctively offered up a silent plea. Keep her safe till I get there. Running a finger over the frame as if to connect with her, he took a deep breath and turned away. Emotion would be his downfall - again - if he let it.

He closed the bedroom door and went back into the living room. Clues, he needed clues. He began to search. At first, the room appeared to be clean, blood and damage aside. He carefully rifled the drawers looking for any correspondence, he looked behind photos and pictures for anything taped there. Nothing. Her mobile was gone and so was her laptop if she had one. she probably had a secure drawer for them, but to be honest there would be little on them. She had been trained well. No evidence of who she was or where she'd been. Even her daily newspaper was run of the mill. No political allegiance. He was just about to walk into the kitchen when, half under the sofa, he saw it. Small and squashed, but plainly not hers.

A cigarette butt.

Carefully picking it up, he examined it. It was strong and unfiltered, a serviceman's choice. The brand familiar. Scarily familiar. It had been smoked almost to the end, someone's fingers would be stained with nicotine for sure. Someone who had smoked a cigarette as he watched them bind and gag her unconscious body. It had been dropped in a hurry as the wooden floor, too well protected to burn, was still singed slightly by the heat of the end. He knew with dreadful certainty who was behind it. It wasn't coincidence. Jonathan didn't believe in coincidences. The man who had smoked this cigarette worked for Roper. The man who killed her dog, beat and bound her, was Frisky. He really wished he'd killed him instead of Corky that night in Spain. He only hoped he would get a second chance.

Anger surged through him and he lifted a mug, one of the few still intact, and hurled it with a yell at the wall. It smashed with a satisfying crunch and the contents, what remained, stained the wall dark brown. Pine looked at it and smiled. Better.

Angela turned and looked at him when he walked into the office an hour after leaving Kate's flat. He looked like hell. Determined hell though, and for that she was thankful.

He hadn't gone straight back, he needed to process things. Sitting by the Thames, drinking strong coffee, he'd watched London carry on round him. He recalled days when the two of them had sat here, watching the world go about it's business unaware of the scheming and the cheating and the horrors going on elsewhere. Things they had tried to stamp out. Things they had tried to change. Nothing it seemed, had changed. Despite their efforts and their sacrifices, people like Roper persisted.

He watched a couple standing hand in hand at the wall next to the river. She was looking up at him, obviously very much in love with him. He was pointing and explaining things across the water. As Jonathan watched, the man turned and looked down at his girlfriend. They smiled at each other and said nothing. They didn't need to. He bent and kissed her slowly, carefully. Jonathan felt his own heart sink and looked away.

He stood and gave himself a mental shake, he would deal with the implications of the photo later. Right now he had a job to do. He had to acquire the missing asset and return it to safety. If he thought of her in these terms, he might just about come out the other side intact. If he even gave an inch to the way he REALLY felt, they were doomed. Throwing his coffee cup in the bin he walked away towards River House.

Now as he came as sat in front of Angela, he placed the bullet and the cigarette butt on the desk.

"Roper." He looked at her and she nodded. "Did you know? Before I went?" he added quietly, almost threateningly.

"No, yes, well kind of." she admitted "but I needed your take to be sure."

They looked at each other in silence. This wasn't just a personal attack, this was cold blooded revenge.