Page 52 of Tell No One
“What’s that?” Tag asked. “Metal spider?” He put his finger on it.
“It’s a tracking device. It was in the bag I took to Harborne House.”
Tag yanked back his hand. “Oh shit. Though not with us when we went to the crematorium. That’s good, right?”
“Yes.”
“So how long has it been there?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you’ve been thinking this through.”
“It could have been put there in my London flat, though knowing my security system, I think that’s unlikely. I took the bag from there to Harborne House. It was left in the room they allocated me. Plenty of opportunity for a tracker to have been planted then.”
“I didn’t do it,” Tag blurted.
“I know.” This was all too elaborate to be a con. The thing that staggered him was that he trusted Tag. Probably more than he should, because it went against everything he’d been taught or learned. Delaneydidn’ttrust. The thought of it made him feel angry and a little scared, and yet…
“Someone I gave a lift to, the reason I had to keep you in the trunk, put his bag on the back seat with mine. At one point in the journey, he needed his inhaler from his bag and when he reached over, he had the chance to plant that.”
“I heard you mumble something about golf clubs.”
“That was to stop him finding you.”
“But if he’d put his bag in the boot, he could still have gone through the same excuse over the inhaler. It was just riskier to lean over and do it while you were watching. It was the Middle-Eastern guy, right?”
“Yes. I can’t rule him out, though I don’t think it’s him. After I’d dropped you off, I stayed in a hotel in Greenwich. The driver for the Kirby Street job picked me up from there. He had the chance to plant it when the other man and I went into the diamond dealers. Since then, it’s been with me.”
“Are you going to destroy it?”
“I’d prefer to transfer it to someone else.”
“You’re not going to burn the house down?”
“Not now you’ve taken the trouble to repair my window.”
Tag chuckled. “So what now?”
“Clothes out of the drier. Whether they’re dry or not, we need to leave.”
Dry enough.Delaney packed his into the backpack and put his gun in there too. This house was compromised. So was the car. Damn, and he liked the M4 too. Maybe he ought to leave the tracker. Let them think he was still here. In an ideal world, he’d have watched to see who else was going to come for him, but not while Tag was with him.
He ran upstairs with the tracker, stuck it back in the place where he’d found it and put his bag in the closet. Let them think he was still here. He grabbed his phones and laptop and did a final check of the room. The sooner the two of them were on a train the better.
They set off for the village with Delaney checking the train times as they walked. They’d just missed the fast train, the next to London was in thirty minutes. Not a fast train but it couldn’t be helped. Delaney had his backpack on his shoulder and a bag of rubbish in his hand. Tag carried the perishable food. Both needed to be dumped. He didn’t want his dustbin searched and all the blood-soaked paper discovered.I should get rid of Tag too.But he didn’t want to. Delaney left a message with the maintenance service that took care of his lawn and asked them to find someone to fix the broken window.
Tag dumped the bag of rubbish outside the village shop. Delaney put his in a different bin. He paid in cash at the machine on the platform for two singles and they sat waiting for the train. No cameras at this station, but there would be in London and in the stations before the city. Whether anyone would be looking for them, depended on who was looking.
“Have you thought any more about who’s behind this?” Tag whispered. “Is it a really long list of people who don’t like you?”
Delaney sighed.
“What’s your actual job title?” Tag asked. “Though if it’s one of those—if I tell you I’ll have to kill you—then don’t tell me.”
When Delaney didn’t say anything, Tag whimpered.
“Don’t you think two brains are better than one?” Tag asked. “Even my little one?”
