One old man survives, another dies, thought Patrick. It had begun with the young men buried in the iceberg of unredacted documents – the executed, the disappeared, the tortured. But the chase had changed. Two deaths, one near death in the here and now. A secret killer still on the prowl, a foetid conspiracy still in play. To end it, they would have to find and destroy its still beating heart.

Chapter 27

27

6 a.m. Sara slid into the passenger seat of the black Audi Patrick had hired.

The rest of the previous day, he’d prepared too. They’d agreed to involve Sylvia, no one else. Knowing their phones might be used to track their movements, he’d bought pay-as-you-go burner phones for the day – including one for Sylvia for any urgent communication. They left their own phones in Sara’s house.

Leaving early, the journey should be doable in under four hours. That would allow nearly ten hours to search before nightfall.

‘It always rains in Wales,’ Patrick had said. ‘Don’t forget your wellies.’ Each saw the other trying to make light of the trip, all the while thinking of the ‘accidents’ that had befallen others. J’s drowning would never be legally provable as anything but an accident, Morahan’s ugly end likewise. Tariq Shah’s recovery and Sara’s certainty that it was too professional an operation to have left evidence would deter police interest – unless her father remembered what had happened. It was better for him, and maybe her, if he didn’t.

Each knew the trip was probably the last roll of the dice.

At traffic lights Patrick plugged in his iPod. The first track was Mendelssohn’s ‘O for the Wings of a Dove’.

‘What’s this?’ she asked.

‘I sang it as a chorister,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, this playlist is what they call eclectic. Next Led Zeppelin. Then the great Roy Orbison.’ As the third track built to its crescendo of the repeating ‘It’s over,’ he tried to cheer her by joining in.

She listened, eyes alight. ‘You really can sing. How do you reach those top notes?’

For a few seconds, he smiled with a joyful innocence, then darkened. ‘I wish today was over.’

Beating the morning rush-hour, they were on the M4 within twenty-five minutes, past Bristol in good time, then saw signs leading to Abergavenny. The single-teated breast of the Sugar Loaf mountain came into view.

‘The land of Mother Earth,’ Sara said.

‘These hills and mountains paint so many different pictures.’ She inspected him; the trip was providing further glimpses into Patrick’s soul. ‘I once had to do a yomp here with that ridiculous school’s corps. Masters acting out SAS fantasies, eager teenagers licking their boots. None of that could hide the magic of the place.’