Getting out

Chapter 31

Getting Out

Dan was still on the phone when Judith came back into the living room with the bag.

Ethan was at the table with the folder open, going through the documents one more time. He looked up when she walked in and his eyes went to the bag in her hand. Then back to her face.

“Lily is getting Mr. Bear,” she said.

He nodded and looked back down at the folder.

Judith set the bag by the door and went to the kitchen to get Lily’s juice bottle from the counter. She rinsed it and filled it and put the lid on and dropped it into the side pocket of the bag. Small automatic things. The kind of things a mother’s hands did without being told.

Dan ended his call and came toward her. “Robert’s property is ready. There is a woman there who manages it, her name is Grace, she is expecting us. Robert says she has been with him for twenty years and she is completely trustworthy.”

“How do we get there without being followed,” Judith asked.

“Two cars,” Dan said. “We leave separately. Different routes. Ethan goes first as a decoy, my father’s people will follow him. We leave ten minutes after in a different car that is not registered to any of us.”

“Whose car,” Judith said.

“A contact of mine,” Dan said. “It is already on its way here.”

Judith looked at him. “You have been busy.”

“I have been trying to be useful,” he said.

Lily came running back down the hallway with Mr. Bear tucked under one arm and her small backpack bouncing on her shoulders. She had put it on herself, the straps twisted, one side hanging lower than the other. She stopped in front of Judith and looked up.

“I packed my own things,” she announced.

Judith crouched down and straightened the straps. “What did you pack.”

“Mr. Bear. My blue socks. My drawing book. And the purple crayon because it is my best one.”

“Perfect,” Judith said seriously. “That is exactly right.”

Lily beamed.

Ethan closed the folder and stood up. He picked it up along with the USB drive from the table and put both inside his jacket. He looked around the apartment once. At the notepad still open on the table, the cups, the lamp they had turned on last night when it got dark.

He picked up the notepad and put it in the inside pocket of his coat.

“Right,” he said. “I am leaving now. Give me ten minutes then you go.”

Dan nodded.

Ethan looked at Judith. She was still crouched in front of Lily, fixing the second strap on the small backpack. He watched her for a moment.

“Judith,” he said.

She looked up.

“When this is over,” he said. “I want to talk. Properly. Just us.”

She held his gaze for a moment. Then she looked back at Lily’s strap and straightened it.

“When this is over,” she said.

It was not a yes. It was not a no. Ethan took it for what it was and walked to the front door.

He paused with his hand on the handle and looked at Dan. “Do not leave until you are sure the car outside has followed me.”

“I know,” Dan said.

Ethan opened the door and left.

The apartment felt quieter after he was gone. Judith stood up and went to the window. She stood to the side of it, not directly in front, and looked down at the street below.

The black car was still there.

A minute passed. Then Ethan appeared on the street below, walking toward his own car parked further down. He did not look up. He got in and started the engine and pulled out into the road.

Judith watched the black car.

For a moment nothing happened.

Then it pulled away from the curb and followed him.

She let out a slow breath.

“They took the bait,” she said.

Dan appeared beside her and looked down at the now empty curb. “Good.” He checked his phone. “Our car will be here in three minutes. We go downstairs, straight out, straight in. No stopping.”

Judith nodded. She went to Lily and took her hand.

“We are going now sweetheart,” she said. “We are going to walk very quickly to the car outside. Can you do that for me.”

“Like a race,” Lily said.

“Exactly like a race,” Judith said.

Dan picked up the main bag from beside the door and slung it over his shoulder. He looked at Judith. She looked back at him. Neither of them said anything. There was nothing that needed saying.

He opened the door.

They went out into the hallway and took the stairs instead of the lift, moving quickly and quietly down each flight. Lily gripped Judith’s hand and kept up without being told, her little legs moving fast, Mr. Bear bouncing under her other arm.

The ground floor door opened into the lobby.

The security guard looked up when they came through. Dan gave him a short nod. The guard stepped forward and pushed the main entrance door open from the inside, holding it for them.

Outside the street was quiet.

A dark grey car was waiting at the curb, engine running, a man Judith did not recognise at the wheel. Dan went around to the passenger side and opened the back door. Judith guided Lily in first and climbed in after her. Dan got in the front.

The door closed.

The car pulled away smoothly and joined the morning traffic heading out of the city.

Lily pressed her face against the window and watched London go past.

“Is the garden far,” she asked.

“Not too far,” Judith said.

“Will there be flowers.”

“I do not know. Maybe.”

Lily considered this seriously. “I hope there are yellow ones,” she said. “Yellow ones are the best ones.”

Judith looked out of her own window at the city moving past.

She thought about Robert Ashby sitting in a police station right now. About Elena securing camera footage. About Sarah Okafor writing a story that had Charles Whitmore’s name in it. About three newspapers already running a version of the truth that Richard Blackwood had spent years making sure nobody ever printed.

She thought about her father.

She held Lily’s hand in her lap and watched London disappear behind them.