The Company of Saints Read Online Free PDF Page B

with anything. But there wasn’t any reason why Franklyn shouldn’t take a private holiday with his daughter, using another name. Whoever got him has contacts at the highest level. Which rather answers my question, don’t you think?’
    â€˜Borisov,’ Johnson nodded. ‘If they had a go at the Pope through a Bulgarian terrorist outlet, why not this? Why not?’
    â€˜He’s very good at getting people killed,’ Davina said quietly.
    It was a long time ago, Johnson remembered, but she hadn’t forgotten. Her husband had been murdered in Australia. Igor Borisov had planned the assassination. He was a junior officer then; now he was the head of the KGB, exact counterpart to Davina Graham. What would happen, he wondered, if those two ever met?
    â€˜I don’t think we’ll get much help from their lab people,’ Tim said after a pause. ‘Or the forensic. I don’t think Secura’s going to share anything with anyone.’
    â€˜They aren’t.’ Davina lit a cigarette. She had tried to give up the habit, nagged by Walden; her resolution was forgotten now. ‘And if they don’t like us asking questions, I wish the buggers joy when the CIA gets here.’
    Johnson paused by the door. ‘Are you going back tomorrow?’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It’s supposed to be our holiday. I’ll have to see.’
    He went down the corridor, humming the gondoliers’ sugary serenade. ‘O Sole Mio’. She didn’t miss a trick and she didn’t give a damn what people thought. He admired her for it, but he didn’t find it attractive.
    Walden was sitting up reading when Davina came in. ‘How did it go, darling?’ There was no resentment at being left out, thank God. No macho nonsense. He understood the job and its demands upon them both. She went over and kissed him gratefully.
    â€˜You are a love,’ she said. ‘Sorry I was so long. I needn’t have bothered, actually.’
    â€˜Why not?’ He put his book aside. He knew that stubborn look and the set of her chin.
    â€˜The Italians aren’t going to give us anything,’ she said flatly. ‘I can see why, of course, but it doesn’t make it any easier in a case like this. They’re acutely embarrassed and on the defensive. They’ll protect their own reputation even if it means letting the killers off the hook. I could have hit that bastard tonight. All he was thinking of was his own side!’
    â€˜Wouldn’t that be true if it had happened in Britain?’ Walden asked her.
    Davina looked quickly at him. ‘You have a talent for saying the bloodiest things, don’t you? Yes, of course it would, but not if I could help it. If this is what I think it is, there’s no room for national pride or inter-service rivalries. We’re just cutting our own throats in the West if we don’t work together.’
    â€˜What do you think it is, or can’t you tell me?’
    She undressed and got into bed beside him. ‘I think we’re at the start of a chain of assassinations,’ she said after a moment. ‘I don’t know why I think so, but I do. I think Borisov is behind it, but it’ll be impossible to prove.’
    â€˜But what’s his motive?’ Walden asked her.
    â€˜I don’t know,’ Davina admitted. ‘And I won’t know till a pattern starts emerging. And that means another murder.’
    Italy had done well. It was interesting to consider, in the words of the Christian Bible, how many were called to do his kind of work, but how few chosen. A very special talent was needed to kill in this way. Take away the profit motive – there was no shortage of mercenaries – and substitute an ideal with which the killer could make his impulses respectable, and there was a deadly weapon in the right hands.
    There was a spectacular view from his window. He never tired