Free In the Company of Ghosts by Stephen A Hunt

and reading the computer manuals that had brought him here, to this slab, to this unanticipated end. Not much different from her two boys, Harry and Carl. Had they looked as pale and as dead as this, floating in the dark waters of the Atlantic? Bobbing amidst the wreckage of the jetliner that hadn’t yet been claimed. The sea took everything. Everything but Agatha Witchley and the cold knot of anger eating, eroding and biting into the pit of her desiccated womb. She who the waters had washed up, bitter and distrustful, leaving only justice and vengeance and the hope she might one day understand the difference between the two. Simon Werks was cold. So cold. She could feel his pain, his pain that had passed, gathering inside her, like the company of ghosts. She looked up and noticed the doctor holding a paper bag out to her, holding only air.
    ‘Are you alright?’
    Agatha shook her head. ‘I believe I’m completely empty.’
    ‘It takes you that way, sometimes. I’m holding this one in cold storage as a John Doe, rotating the paperwork until you want me to declare,’ said the doctor. ‘Any idea how long that’s going to be?’
    ‘Until Simon Werks’ absence is noted or the news is leaked – either by someone at his company, or ourselves in a more controlled manner, I suspect,’ said Agatha. ‘If our hand is forced early, we’ll go with suicide on the death certificate, thank you. Wouldn’t do to tip off his killers that we’re onto their trail. Hopefully we’ll discover who slipped the noose around his neck before that comes to pass.’
    ‘You know, if Gary Doyle keeps on asking this kind of favour from me in the name of queen and country, I’m going to ask to be put on retainer with you people.’
    ‘I wouldn’t bother,’ said Thorson. ‘Our kind of money won’t change your life.’
    Agatha looked at Simon Werks. But his had . And like most money, not for the better.
     
     
    CHAPTER FIVE – THE MIRROR MAN
     
    ‘Who are the bullet catchers?’ asked Agatha. Their car had drawn up outside the imposing walls of a country estate. There was a gaggle of tall young men and a woman outside the wrought iron gates, the greens of Hunter boots and Barbour jackets to indicate that they were only estate staff. Layers of tweed to cover the bulges where their concealed guns were carefully strapped away. An hour away from the motorway exit, this was the kind of isolation that money could buy when you were rich enough. Every view, every secluded Surrey field and furrow on the way in belonging to Werks.
    ‘They’re with MI5,’ said Doyle, his fingers tapping the wheel of the steering wheel as he waited. ‘The Home Office didn’t want to take any chances with the last of the dynamic duo. As long as Curtis Werks stays in the country, he’s going to have more bodies on him than the Italian PM in a swinger’s club for his birthday.’
    Serenely professional, the agent who came to the car’s window walked away with Doyle’s passport, discreetly checking the chip inside the booklet against his admittance list with an RFID reader he pulled out from the back of a quad bike. While he was doing that, a woman strolled over and casually examined the underside of their car with a mirror on the end of a long steel rod, one of her colleagues running a wand-sized scanner in his hand across the chassis of the car as if he were airport security. Agatha suspected that Doyle was disappointed the agents weren’t showing more interest in his hoodlum Chevy Nova’s supersport’s package. What was the point of tooling around in a boy’s toy if it wasn’t admired? They’re all young enough to have never driven anything other than hybrid cars. The first man returned and delivered the passport back through the open window, passing no comment as the large gates opened automatically on rollers.
    ‘We’re on the list. We’re coming in,’ growled Doyle. He nudged the car over a cattle grid, jouncing briefly, before all four tires