Double Agent saw Kate retire from the Service, but it won't last long...
From the bestselling author of Secret Service, Tom Bradby, comes the final instalment in the bestselling Kate Henderson series.
“NOW KATE HENDERSON WAS SURE. She had seen the clean-shaven man with faded jeans, olive T-shirt and fawn trainers while she waited in line at the butcher’s shop on the square. And the woman with dark glasses, a lime sundress and what looked like a blue Chloé handbag had been paying for parking just in front of them when they arrived in the centre of town an hour ago.
Kate put down the giant aubergines she was about to buy, nodded regretfully at the wizened Frenchman behind the trestle table and wandered nonchalantly back along the market stalls until she was standing beneath the entrance to the Grand Cathedral, the Église Notre Dame de Bergerac. She glanced up at the clock and wove her way across the road and into the pedestrian zone beyond.
It was the kind of day the South of France had been invented for, perhaps 23 or 24 degrees in the sun, and she was grateful for the patches of shade as she turned left and wandered along a side street, gazing unhurriedly into the shop windows. She went into a store selling the most expensive stationery she’d ever seen and spent a few minutes trying out fountain pens at the counter.
When she emerged again, she didn’t look back and was careful to move with the same relaxed gait and rhythm. She walked on through a covered market, stopping to buy some pastries, and finally got back to find her husband and children still at the table in the little square, lingering over the dregs of their coffee.
‘Success?’ Stuart asked, noticing that his wife was carrying little in the way of groceries.
‘Yes. We need to go.’
‘Take a seat. I’ll order you a café au lait.’
‘We need to go now. Don’t make a fuss. Don’t argue. Don’t look surprised or shocked. Just get up, go in and pay, and then we’ll leave.’
They looked at her, dumbfounded. ‘What’s going on?’ Stuart asked.
She gave him a broad smile, swinging her back towards the cathedral, so that there was no chance any of her watchers could read her lips. ‘Just do as I say, Stuart. And please don’t ask any more questions.’
All three looked like they wanted to argue with her, to fight against this intrusion of the past into their fragile idyll, but they knew better than to try. Fiona and Gus stood at either side of their mother as they waited for their father to pay.
‘It’s getting hot,’ Kate said. Neither answered. ‘Even I might have a swim later,’ she added.
Stuart returned. ‘Most expensive coffee in history,’ he said easily. ‘Almost as bad as bloody Venice.’
Kate smiled at him and they turned down the cobbled street in the direction of the quay and the river.
And now she spotted a third shadow: she’d seen the young woman with a nose piercing and Crocs by the fig stall at the market around the cathedral. Or was she imagining things?
Kate moved faster. She took Fiona and Gus’s hands and they held on to her willingly. ‘Come on,’ she said. She wanted to run and was starting to pull along both her children.
‘What is it?’ Stuart whispered again. ‘What’s spooked you?’
“As they passed the château, Gus turned to look back down the hill. ‘They’re still behind us, Mum!’”
Kate shepherded them across the road, which ran alongside the Dordogne river, sparkling now in the midday sun. The quay doubled as a car park. ‘Get in,’ Kate said, as they reached their rented Renault Clio. She took the keys from Stuart.
‘You’re not insured,’ he said, but she ignored him. She slid in behind the wheel, pulled the driver’s seat forward, glanced in the rear-view and side mirrors.
The man in the olive T-shirt was forty or fifty yards behind her, but moving fast.
‘What the hell is going on?’ Fiona’s voice was shrill with fear.
Kate reversed steadily, ignoring her daughter. As she turned on to the road, she watched the man get into a black Volkswagen Golf, the girl with the pierced nose joining him. ‘Damn,’ she said.
‘What is it, Kate?’ Stuart asked, as she spun around the corner, accelerated to the top of the slope and swung right on to the narrow old bridge that led away from the town.
‘I don’t know yet.’
‘Are we being followed?’
‘I think so.’ She glanced in the rear-view mirror at the Golf on their tail. ‘Yes, we are.’
‘Why?’ Fiona asked, fear in her voice.
‘Please, just give me a minute. I need to work out what’s going on here.’
Kate drove through the tiny hamlet across the bridge, then accelerated up towards the cemetery. She barely touched the brakes at the crossroads, prompting Fiona to squeal in terror, then hammered up the hill towards the vineyards that criss-crossed the slopes beneath the Grand Château of Monbazillac.
She was touching 120 kilometres an hour on the straight section of the narrow road and still at sixty or more in the tight chicane beneath the village, but the Golf stayed with her. As they passed the château, Gus turned to look back down the hill. ‘They’re still behind us, Mum!’
‘It’s all right,’ Stuart said calmly. ‘Your mother knows what she’s doing.’
Does she? Kate thought. It’s starting to feel like a really long time since I knew what I was doing.
She slowed to a crawl through the village, past the pretty church, the elaborate new mairie and what looked like a wine shop-cum-restaurant. Then she floored the pedal on the long, gentle slope beyond it.
Halfway down through the vineyards, the speedometer nudged 140. She hit the next set of tight turns a shade more slowly, but it was all she could do to keep the Clio on the road. Fiona screamed. Gus’s knuckles whitened as he clutched the grab handle just below the roof. Even Stuart’s face was draining of colour.
As she rounded the final corner, Kate yanked the wheel left. The Renault shot up a gravel track and flew off the crest. She hit the brakes as it landed and skidded to a halt beneath the cover of the trees.
The Renault’s dust cloud drifted away into the wood as they waited, Kate’s heart pounding.
They listened.
The Golf roared into sight on the road below them, slowed for the curves and accelerated again as it emerged from the stretch of woodland into the valley.
Kate finally exhaled.
‘Fucking hell,’ Fiona exclaimed. ‘You nearly killed us.’
‘Jesus, Mum,’ Gus said. ‘You are the man.’
‘Woman, I think you mean,’ Stuart corrected. ‘And, yes, your mum does know what she’s doing.’ He looked at Fiona. ‘Mind your language.’
Kate had closed her eyes. She would not, could not, go through all this again.”
Extracted from Triple Cross, out now.
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by Tom Bradby
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