Blow up, p.1
Blow Up, page 1
Contents
Cover
Also by Ellen Crosby
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Acknowledgments
Also by Ellen Crosby
The Wine Country mysteries
THE MERLOT MURDERS
THE CHARDONNAY CHARADE
THE BORDEAUX BETRAYAL
THE RIESLING RETRIBUTION
THE VIOGNIER VENDETTA
THE SAUVIGNON SECRET
THE CHAMPAGNE CONSPIRACY
THE VINEYARD VICTIMS
HARVEST OF SECRETS
THE ANGELS’ SHARE
THE FRENCH PARADOX *
BITTER ROOTS *
The Sophie Medina mysteries
MULTIPLE EXPOSURE *
GHOST IMAGE *
Other titles
MOSCOW NIGHTS
* available from Severn House
BLOW UP
Ellen Crosby
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
First world edition published in Great Britain and the USA in 2023
by Severn House, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd,
14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE.
Trade paperback edition first published in Great Britain and the USA in 2023
by Severn House, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd.
This eBook edition first published in 2023 by Severn House,
an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd.
severnhouse.com
Copyright © Ellen Crosby, 2023
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. The right of Ellen Crosby to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0803-3 (cased)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0805-7 (trade paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0804-0 (e-book)
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.
This eBook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland
To Donna Andrews, John Gilstrap, Alan Orloff, and Art Taylor – my critique group friends and fellow writers, affectionately known as the Rumpus Writers. Thanks for twelve amazing years – and counting – of meeting every month without fail during which we’ve collectively written fifty-three books (eighty-five, in total) and more than a hundred short stories, and won or been nominated for too many awards to count.
‘I am a kind of spy.’
– Vivian Meier, American street photographer who worked as a nanny for many years in suburban Chicago. Meier took over 150,000 photographs of daily street life in Chicago and New York and traveled worldwide. Her unusual background and keen photographic eye caused her to become an international celebrity after her work was discovered by accident posthumously.
‘I mean, it’s very subtle and a little embarrassing to me, but I really believe there are things which nobody would see unless I photographed them.’
– Diane Arbus, American photographer whose photographs helped normalize marginalized groups and individuals.
PROLOGUE
I was standing on a hilltop surrounded by twenty-two Corinthian columns that had once graced the US Capitol when Quill Russell finally told me the truth about my husband’s death – or at least he told me part of the story. What I wasn’t going to hear – and this I knew – was a detailed account of what exactly did happen. Especially when Quill said Nick’s death could never be officially acknowledged because he had been working undercover for the CIA. Nick had left the Agency a few years ago, but something, some assignment, had lured him back one last time.
It had been three agonizing weeks since Nick’s funeral. Quill and Vicki Russell had been there. Quill had seen the depth of my grief, my heartache, my numb disbelief. He also understood that I hadn’t bought the made-up story the American Embassy in Vienna had put together: that Nick had been killed by a hit-and-run driver as he was leaving a bar in the Austrian capital late at night.
I knew Quill had picked this particular place to have our tough, unvarnished conversation partially for its panoramic view of the surrounding countryside but mostly because it was practically guaranteed that on a scorching August midweek afternoon no one else would be here.
The Capitol columns are arranged like a ruined Greek temple with a tumbling waterfall that leads down to a reflecting pool in a peaceful twenty-acre garden known as the National Arboretum. It is among Washington, DC’s less well-known tourist attractions, but the Arboretum is a jewel. It is most popular in spring when anyone who knew just how breathtaking it would be made the pilgrimage through one of DC’s more blighted, rundown areas to visit it; first for the cherry blossoms and later when the azaleas were flowering. Same thing in autumn when the foliage was at its loveliest. But now, on this late-August day, Quill and I literally had the place to ourselves – the kids were already back in school, summer vacation was over, folks had returned to work. The weather, however, was still hotter than the inside of hell, one of DC’s notorious dog days when the hammering heat and withering humidity were so intense you worried that if you stayed outside too long, your insides would liquify.
Right off the bat, Quill told me no one at the CIA could ever admit Nick had been working for them – again – and that was how it had to be. The account the American Embassy had concocted was the official – and only – version of what happened. No one had seen the car that struck him. He had been pronounced dead at the scene.
‘That’s not true,’ I said. ‘You know it, Quill. Someone at the Agency should at least tell me what really happened. You could tell me. I’m his wife.’
‘I know, sweetheart, I know. But other people are involved – other officers, people in the field. We can’t afford to compromise them – you know that. Or the asset he was supposed to meet.’
‘Supposed to meet,’ I said. ‘You mean they never met?’
A rare slip of the tongue for Quill. I caught the flash of surprise in his eyes when he realized he’d just said something I hadn’t known. ‘No,’ he said. ‘They didn’t.’
‘What happened?’
He compressed his lips into a thin line and shook his head. ‘Nothing went according to plan. We figure Nick walked into a trap.’
I closed my eyes. I hadn’t had a full night’s sleep since Nick died, imagining what might have happened to him, especially after what I’d been through the last time. Three years ago, he had disappeared from our home in London – an apparent kidnapping after Crowne Energy, the British oil and gas exploration company he’d been working for, had unexpectedly discovered oil in a poor, remote part of Russia. Nick and his boss, Colin Crowne, were the only two people on the planet who knew the location and details of that reserve, and there were people who would – and did – kill for the information. It was months before I learned the kidnapping had been staged and that Nick was on the run. But in that awful interval, I had mourned my husband’s death and it had taken a toll on me.
Now, here we were again, but this time it was for real. My grief cut new wounds over barely healed scar tissue.
A trap, Quill said. Had my husband suffered? Had his death been quick or prolonged?
‘Where?’
‘In one of the underground tunnels in the city. Those places have been there since the Cold War.’
‘So he was murdered? My God, how? By whom?’
Quill took me by my shoulders. I thought he was going to shake me, but he just held me tight. His grip was painful. He looked into my eyes. ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Just don’t.’
Which is when I knew.
‘It was the Russians,’ I said as the realization of what that meant swept over me like a rising panic attack. ‘Who else would it be if Nick was involved? And it was Vienna? At least tell me that much.’
Nick spoke fluent Russi an thanks to a Russian grandmother. And his former job in Russia with Crowne Energy had been the perfect post for an undercover CIA agent. Also, Vienna, where Nick had been killed, was, among other things, the headquarters of OPEC. The puzzle pieces were starting to fit together. Of course it was the Russians.
‘I’m sorry,’ Quill said.
Sorry.
The Russians were known for torture and brutal execution-style deaths. Quill wasn’t going to say another word about how Nick died. Sorry was bad enough.
‘He shouldn’t have gone. He shouldn’t have done it.’
‘Sophie.’
‘What?’ I asked. But the look in his eyes told me everything. ‘He volunteered, didn’t he?’
‘Yes.’ He wrapped me in his arms then and let me cry it out. At one point, he pressed something into my hand. A linen handkerchief. Quill was an old-school gentleman.
I took it and wiped my eyes. After a few minutes, I hiccupped and said, ‘There’s mascara and eyeliner all over your handkerchief now. And snot.’
He chuckled. ‘Keep it. I’ve got more.’
I hiccupped again and took another swipe at my eyes.
‘Nick died a hero,’ he added. ‘He was a good man, trying to do a good thing.’
And no one could ever know about it. No posthumous award, no American flag folded into tight triangle points after being draped over his coffin and then handed ever so carefully and respectfully to the grieving widow, no nothing.
I wondered what the CIA definition of a good thing was.
‘Are we going to retaliate for what they did to him?’ I asked.
His smile was sad. He clamped an arm around my shoulder and guided me down the steps to the reflecting pool. It was so hot that even the birds had gone silent. Except for the burbling of the stream that ran through a channel in the middle of the steps and emptied into the pool, the silence felt oppressive and eerie. Plus, it was starting to creep me out that no one else was here and we were entirely alone in this huge park. Had the CIA orchestrated that as well?
‘My need-to-know on this goes only so far,’ Quill said to me. ‘You know how it is.’
I did. Sensitive compartmented information. If you were supposed to know, you’d know. Nick had explained to me how it worked. No little chats among fellow CIA colleagues around the coffeepot and snack machine in the break room or the cafeteria because you didn’t know who else was privy to whatever project you were working on.
But I also knew Quill, a former Secretary of State, hadn’t lost his security clearance for a very good reason: he was part of a group of éminences grises – graybeards – comprised of individuals whose deep knowledge and decades of experience could help the President, the successors in their jobs, and others in the intelligence, military, or diplomatic world. In short, anyone who sought the advice and expertise of people like Quill when it was their turn to make the hard decisions, which could often mean choosing between bad and worse. So I knew Quill knew about Nick. He would have been talking to others in that sacred, secret, need-to-know-only elite circle.
What’s more, Nick had been working for Quillen O. Russell & Associates, Quill’s high-powered consulting firm, advisor to governments, companies, and nonprofits on global issues involving finance, security, and geopolitical strategic planning. QUORA, as it was known, also fixed ‘problems’ they couldn’t really talk about – which was ostensibly what Nick was doing when he went to Vienna.
So, of course, Quill was the first person I went to – on my knees – and said, Please. Tell me. Nick was dead and buried, but I needed to know what had happened to him.
I needed some way to smooth the ragged edges of my grief. I needed closure. The CIA could at least give me that much, couldn’t they, after what they had taken from me?
And here we were, the Arboretum in the middle of a sweltering August afternoon.
We had reached the Bonsai and Penjing Museum at the bottom of the hill. The grass was so dry it crackled under our feet.
‘I’m going to stick around for a while, check out the bonsai and ikebana,’ he said. ‘See what’s new since they rotate the displays.’
‘I didn’t know you were into Japanese flower arranging.’
He grinned. ‘You’d be surprised.’
Our meeting was over. He didn’t want our cars to be seen driving out of here at the same time. On the off chance that anybody was watching.
‘Will you let me know if you learn anything new?’ I asked.
‘If I can.’ He bussed me on the cheek and said, ‘Take care of yourself. I’ll call you soon. Let’s have lunch, OK?’
I nodded and turned to go. A few steps down the path to the parking lot, I whirled around to ask him something I’d forgotten.
But he was gone.
As if he’d never been there.
It didn’t take long for Quill to invite me to lunch. At the Cosmos Club, no less. Washington, DC’s oldest and most erudite club, whose members were men and women who had done something amazing in science, literature, or the arts. During the rare times I’d been invited there, I always wanted to see the awards hall with its walls of photos of the many individuals who’d won Pulitzers, Nobel Prizes, or the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The Cosmos Club sat on the edge of Embassy Row in a magnificent nineteenth-century Beaux Arts mansion – a relic of ‘Old Washington,’ with its sumptuous, almost over-the-top decor that could make you believe you were in a European palace in another century.
Over lunch – crab cakes (me) and rack of lamb (Quill) – Quill entertained me with amusing stories of some of the club’s more memorable events and illustrious members – they were fiercely private – which I was pretty sure was a distraction until he got around to the real reason he had asked me here. Of course, I thought it had to do with Nick.
He waited until dessert – buttermilk panna cotta with preserved fruit, which we were sharing – before he told me.
‘I want to hire you,’ he said. ‘I want to put together a coffee-table book of photographs of Fernway – the interior, the gardens, the greenhouse, the guesthouse, the pool, all of it – in every season. Aerial shots, too. There’s no budget for this project.’
Fernway was his magnificent weekend retreat in Middleburg, a horsey, tweedy village in the heart of Virginia hunt country. Quill and his wife, Victoria, spent most weekends and every holiday there; they were neighbors of my mother and stepfather.
‘I’ll write the text,’ he said and his cheeks unexpectedly turned pink. ‘I was planning to include some of the poetry I’ve written Vicki over the years, excerpts of our love letters, the notes we’ve left each other.’
In other words, it would be an intensely personal book. I hadn’t realized Quill wrote romantic poetry and love letters. I’d only known that he’d written several well-received historical biographies and two books on Russian history.
‘I’m flattered you thought of me for this project, but you know I don’t do that sort of photography,’ I said. ‘However, I know people who do and I’ll find you someone – a really terrific photographer – who, I promise, will take exactly the kind of photos you want so you’ll be thrilled with the final results.’
Because what he wanted were the photos you see in upscale shelter magazines with sweeping views of manicured gardens and sweet interior vignettes that made you feel wistful and a bit envious. Made you wish you lived in that beautiful home, where you just knew from the art on the walls, the antiques, the eclectic furniture, and the intriguing personal items the owners had collected that they lived fascinating fairytale lives.
I’m a photojournalist. Before Nick and I moved to Washington, DC three years ago, we lived in London where I worked for International Press Service, traveling at the drop of a hat to war zones, refugee camps, natural disaster sites, and remote at-the-end-of-the-world places that weren’t on anybody’s bucket list of must-visit-before-you-die. Before I went anywhere, though, my boss sent me to Scotland for a two-week intensive course in hostile environment training where a team of former British Special Forces operatives taught a bunch of inexperienced and naive journalists such useful skills as basic battlefield triage in case we accidentally ended up in the middle of a firefight or what to do if we were kidnapped. (Rule #1: Try not to find yourself in either of these situations.) I’d photographed the rubble and appalling poverty of post-war Afghanistan, the squalor of migrant camps on the Turkish–Syrian border, searched for the nearly extinct black rhino in Namibia. I’d taken pictures of presidents, prime ministers, dictators, royalty, Nobel Peace Prize winners, the Pope.
