Flight Risk (An Ingrid Skyberg Mystery Book 7) Read online

  FLIGHT RISK

  EVA HUDSON

  VENATRIX

  1

  The man in the Miami Dolphins cap was going to be a problem. He had been shouting on his cell at the champagne and oyster bar in the departure lounge, and he was still on his phone in the gate. He was still shouting. Alcohol and anger had reddened his face to the point of sunburn. Ingrid wondered if the staff would actually let him board.

  Her fellow passengers gripped finely wrapped Christmas presents too precious for the hold. Duty-free bags bulging with festive tipples nestled between their feet. Ingrid clutched her only piece of luggage; a small backpack containing her phone, wallet, passport, FBI badge and embassy ID, plus some lip balm and a copy of The Motorcycle Diaries she’d hastily bought in the airport bookstore. She’d been more attracted to the word “motorcycle” than the prospect of reading Che Guevara’s life story, but she was on a search for meaning and in the mood for adventure. The book promised both. She had failed to find a gift for her mother—she guessed she’d end up going home for the holidays—but it didn’t really matter because whatever she bought her mom would either end up in a bottom drawer or the goodwill. Unless it was cigarettes or vodka.

  Realistically, Ingrid was not going to read on the plane. She had far too much on her mind to concentrate on a book. She had a resignation letter to draft, an explanation to come up with for her unexpected arrival in the States, and an entire future to figure out. The only thing she knew for sure was it was time to leave London. She now had seven hours in the air to decide whether to ask for a transfer to another field office or walk away from the FBI altogether. Unless leaving London without authorization had already taken the choice out of her hands. She could well be fired before the end of the day.

  “We would like to invite Premium Economy and passengers with children or special needs to come forward for boarding.”

  The man in the cap grunted. He gave the impression of someone used to flying business, and traveling with the horde insulted his status. The man was either a Grade-A jerk or the one person on the flight whose life was a bigger mess than her own. Ingrid knew the rates of suicide among middle-aged men spiked around Christmas, and she sensed his rage––though currently outwardly directed––was really for himself. She’d overheard enough of his conversations to know his children were spending their first Christmas with his ex-wife and her new partner. A classic trigger for both homicidal and suicidal behavior.

  The gate staff called for the first rows of economy passengers to board, and almost everyone got to their feet. Ingrid had an aisle seat. She would wait till the end to get up. The people who leaped to their feet weren’t going to cross the Atlantic any quicker than she was. When the final call for “all remaining passengers” was made, Ingrid approached the desk and offered the clerk her passport and boarding pass.

  The woman scanned the documents then scanned them again. Her features puckered before she raised her gaze to Ingrid. “Hmm.” She grabbed a roll of blue paper towels from under the counter and wiped the scanner before holding the documents over the laser again.

  “Is there a problem?” Ingrid asked.

  “Um.” The woman, early twenties and heavily made up for the time of day, made Ingrid excruciatingly aware she hadn’t bathed and was looking decidedly crumpled. “I just need to get my colleague. Benita?”

  Benita––older, even more elegant––joined from the other desk, looked at something on the screen, then scrutinized Ingrid. She scanned the passport herself.

  “What’s the problem?” Ingrid asked, her heartbeat now fractionally elevated. A gaggle of last-minute travelers lined up behind her and murmured their impatience.

  Benita pursed her lips and stood a little straighter. “It’s probably nothing, but I need to call airport security. It won’t take long. Please take a seat, madam.”

  Ingrid was not about to sit down. She stepped to one side for the other passengers to board while Benita radioed for backup.

  “What’ve you done, love?” one of the travelers asked. “You on the FBI’s most-wanted list or something?”

  When the passengers had gone through the doors, the younger woman closed them.

  “What are you doing?” Ingrid asked. Anxiety constricted her throat. Had purchasing a ticket without Bureau approval triggered something in a database? Did they know she was planning to walk away from her job and throw her life off a cliff?

  “They were the last passengers.” The attendant gripped the door handle.

  “I am the last passenger.”

  The woman looked sheepish. “Oh, um. Right, okay.” She turned to Benita for reassurance, but Benita was still on the radio, nodding as her eyes bored into Ingrid.

  A necklace of heat encircled Ingrid’s throat. She felt like she was standing outside the principal’s office, unfairly accused of cheating on a test.

  Benita looked up and over Ingrid’s shoulder. “Yup, I can see you now. She is still here.”

  Ingrid turned to see two uniformed police officers running toward the gate. Both held MK5s across their chests. They were male, one older and white and the other younger and south Asian. Ingrid held out her FBI badge as they approached. “Special Agent Ingrid Skyberg.”

  “Oh.” The older cop looked surprised.

  “Are her bags off the plane?” the other one asked.

  The younger woman picked up her radio.

  Ingrid wasn’t about to tell her she didn’t have a bag in the hold and speed up the process. “Can you tell me what’s going on?” Ingrid asked.

  The older cop took a step toward her, his palm extended at waist height. “If you could step this way.” He ushered her away from the gate and took her ID. “I take it this is genuine?”

  “I take it that was an attempt at humor?”

  He sucked his teeth. “Fair point. Listen, take a seat. I’m sure I can sort this out.”

  Ingrid remained standing as he and his colleague looked at the same error code that had triggered the gate crew’s concern. His face adopted a similar expression. He then examined her passport and conferred with Benita who shook her head. His colleague also looked at the screen, then at Ingrid’s passport. He grimaced. The younger woman locked the gate door, making Ingrid’s stomach twist.

  The older cop strode over to her. His sideburns were graying, and the skin around his sea-blue eyes was weathered and lined. “Ingrid Skyberg?”

  “You know that’s my name.”

  “I have to inform you that there is a warrant out for your arrest—”

  “What? You’re kidding me.” Ingrid blinked hard.

  “You will not be boarding your flight. You will not be leaving the United Kingdom. You need to come with us.”

  “This is a joke, right?” But somehow Ingrid knew it wasn’t. “What the hell are you arresting me for?” Her pitch wavered.

  “Ingrid Skyberg, I am arresting you on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving. You do not have to say anything. But, it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”

  Ingrid was momentarily speechless. The departure gate slowly revolved at the edges of her vision, and the floor rolled beneath her feet. This wasn’t happening. This was a joke. A prank. Had to be. The past few days had been chaotic, traumatic even, but she was damn sure she hadn’t killed anyone.

  The cop bit the inside of his lip. “You need to come with us.”

  2

  Ingrid stood up when the detective from Thames Valley Police stepped into the interview room.

  “Miss Skyberg.”

  “Special
Agent Skyberg. FBI.”

  “Yeah, the Heathrow team mentioned as much.” She dropped a folder onto the table. “Detective Sergeant Hayes. And this”—she turned to introduce a skinny colleague bundling through the door with a broad grin—“is Detective Constable Berryman.”

  “Hi,” Berryman said. She was so strikingly beautiful Ingrid wondered if she was an actress researching a role. “Are you really FBI?”

  Before Ingrid could answer, her duty solicitor grunted. He didn’t get up.

  “Hello, Norman,” Hayes said. “Always a pleasure.”

  “Likewise.” Norman Middleton shuffled in his seat, a roll of belly fat pressing his diamond-patterned sweater outward. He was one roast dinner away from a heart attack.

  Hayes scraped back a plastic chair and sat down. She was broad-shouldered and thick-necked and looked like she played rugby for Samoa or New Zealand. It was unusual to see someone with South Pacific features in the UK. “I take it Norman here has told you why you’ve been arrested.”

  “We’ve both read the warrant.” Ingrid’s anxiety at the departure gate had morphed into righteous anger in the ninety minutes she’d been waiting. Her plane was somewhere over Ireland, yet she was stuck in a windowless room in Heathrow’s Terminal 3.

  “Okay then.” Hayes leaned over and switched on the recording. “Detective Sergeant Hayes and Detective Constable Berryman commence the interview with Ingrid Anna Skyberg at eleven oh-two. Duty solicitor Norman Middleton also present.” Hayes stared at Ingrid. “So, Ingrid Skyberg, you have been arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving––”

  “This much I already know.”

  “On November nineteenth,” Hayes continued, “at around eight in the morning, Matthew Harding was out for his daily jog on Greenacre Lane on the outskirts of the village of Burnt Oak in Buckinghamshire.”

  Ingrid resisted the urge to interrupt. She had never heard of Matthew Harding or Burnt Oak.

  “His injuries suggest he was hit by a motorcycle. An eyewitness reported seeing a bike riding erratically nearby at the time of the incident, and forensics from the scene recovered flakes of paint thought to have been deposited when the bike that hit Harding skidded fifty yards along the road surface.” Hayes paused and looked up. Ingrid detected a glint of delight in her eyes. “Analysis shows this particular shade of petrol blue is a custom paint that has only been used on a few hundred vehicles in the UK, one of which is a Triumph Thunderbird registered in your name.”

  A tiny wingbeat of doubt flapped at the edge of Ingrid’s mind.

  “We have ANPR data—that’s our number plate recognition system––”

  “I work in law enforcement. I know what ANPR is.” Ingrid realized a fraction too late the cop was baiting her.

  Hayes pressed her lips together before continuing. “The ANPR logs show your motorcycle being ridden on the M40 motorway on the night of November the eighteenth, leaving at junction five, which is the turnoff for Burnt Oak.” Hayes leaned back in her seat and smirked. “Where were you at eight a.m. on November nineteenth?”

  Ingrid looked at her solicitor who shrugged. He was about as much help as a steak in a vegan restaurant. “Off the top of my head, no idea. It was nearly a month ago.”

  Berryman smiled at her. She was trying a little too hard to be the good cop. Hayes, whose low center of gravity and confrontational demeanor suggested a second career as a pro wrestler, was more than happy to be the bad cop.

  “I’d have to look at my diary,” Ingrid said.

  “Do you have your diary on your phone?” Hayes asked.

  Ingrid answered cautiously. “I do.”

  “You want to get it out?”

  “The officers who arrested me took it away.” Ingrid raised an eyebrow for emphasis.

  In return Hayes wrinkled her nose; a gesture that said ‘yes of course they did, I knew that’. “Tess, you want to grab it?” she asked Berryman.

  The red-haired rookie blinked rapidly. “Yes. Sure.”

  When she came back into the room, Berryman offered the phone to her boss who inspected it. A beaten-up iPhone 6 with a cracked screen and a dent in one corner. The solicitor cleared his throat. They would need either his client’s permission or the court’s permission to unlock it. Hayes passed it over to Ingrid without comment.

  Ingrid unlocked it and opened the iCal app. “Eighteenth of November, right?”

  “You need to put the phone on the table,” Hayes said. “We need to see what you’re seeing.”

  Ingrid placed it face up on the melamine surface and scrolled. Then scrolled the other way. Her chest dropped, her posture slumped. There was absolutely nothing in her diary for the Eighteenth. Or the nineteenth. This was going to take longer than she’d hoped.

  “Well?” Hayes asked.

  “This is my personal phone,” Ingrid said, her voice already a little unsteady. “You see, until recently I was undercover, so I had a second phone for my alias. That’s why this one is so blank.”

  Hayes flared her nostrils. Berryman’s eyebrows arched.

  “And where is your UC phone?” Hayes asked.

  “At the embassy. Where I work.” It was a guess. Ingrid wasn’t sure what had happened to the possessions belonging to her alias.

  Hayes looked up from her notes. “So, you don’t know where you were on November eighteenth?”

  “No. But my assistant will be able to tell you. You just need to call her. Her name’s Jen. Jennifer Rocharde.”

  Berryman wrote down the name.

  Hayes wasn’t going to be told how to conduct an investigation. She squared her paperwork. “Can you confirm you are the owner of a Triumph Thunderbird 1600 with a blue petrol tank, registration number AG03 PFA?”

  Ingrid’s eyebrows lowered. “I am,” she said carefully. “Do you ride?”

  “No.”

  Berryman almost giggled before shaking her head.

  “Trust me,” Ingrid said. “You hit a pot hole at forty miles an hour and you end up on the deck. If I had hit someone hard enough to kill them, I think I would have noticed.” Saying it out loud made her realize how preposterous their allegations were. The dark wing fluttering on the periphery of her thoughts could damn well fly off. There was just no way this had anything to do with her.

  Hayes pushed up the sleeves of her taupe jacket. “I’m not saying you didn’t notice. I’m saying you didn’t stop.” She pressed her palms into the table. “Why were in you in Burnt Oak in Buckinghamshire last month, Miss Skyberg?”

  Ingrid stopped herself from insisting they call her ‘agent’. “I wasn’t.”

  The solicitor coughed into his fist, and Ingrid turned hopefully. He indicated they should continue. He didn’t have a point to make, he just needed to clear his throat.

  “At approximately eight twenty a.m. on November nineteen, a witness saw a bike matching your description riding erratically through the main street of Burnt Oak.” Hayes paused. “At nine a.m., the wife of Matthew Harding started to worry her husband hadn’t returned from his morning jog and used the Find My Phone app to locate him. She drove to a location on the B3562, known locally as Greenacre Lane, where she found her husband dead in a ditch at the side of the road. When the paramedics arrived, they estimated he had been dead for over an hour.”

  Ingrid had sat on the other side of the table enough times to know that the surest way to bring this to a close, and to get on the next flight to DC, was to remain calm, answer their questions and hold on to her temper. Deep breath, kiddo.

  “I’m very sorry to hear that, but I don’t even know where Burnt Oak is.”

  Hayes sniffed. “Just because you don’t know where it is, it doesn’t mean you haven’t been there.”

  There was a knock at the door and one of the uniformed officers who’d arrested her popped his head into the room. “Got those documents you were after,” he said.

  Hayes accounted for the interruption on the recording while Berryman took the folder from him. The uniformed c
op didn’t make eye contact with Ingrid in breach of the code. Normally, when one cop arrests another, the code says you treat them like a distant family member. You put the kettle on. You go out of your way to make sure their stay is as pleasant as possible. No one apart from Berryman was playing by the rules.

  Suck it up. This will be over soon.

  Berryman placed the recently delivered notes in front of Hayes and pointed to a particular paragraph. Hayes nodded. “When was the last time you were at Heathrow Airport, Miss Skyberg?”

  Something inside Ingrid deflated. She came close to letting out a groan because she knew her answers to the next few questions were not going to paint her in a good light. “Three days ago.”

  “That was a short visit,” Hayes said, pointedly. “And what was the purpose of your flight three days ago?”

  Ingrid inhaled deeply. “I was returning home.”

  “You live in London?”

  “I have lived in London for the past five years.”

  “And what was the purpose of your flight today?”

  Ingrid tapped her index finger as she considered fabricating a family emergency. But the risk of her mother contradicting anything she said was too high. The truth wasn’t convenient, but a lie could make things worse. “I was also returning home. This weekend I decided to move back to the States.”

  Hayes and Berryman both looked surprised. “Just like that?” Berryman asked, sounding almost impressed. “You must have had a really rubbish three days.”

  “Actually, the past three days haven’t been too bad.” Ingrid ran a hand through her unwashed hair. “But the weeks beforehand were, as you say, rubbish. Life has been a little… difficult lately. It felt like it was time to move on.”

  Hayes jutted out her bottom lip and narrowed her eyes. “Difficult how?”

  There was no point in lying. Ingrid knew they thought she was fleeing the country to escape prosecution, so it was important everything she told them checked out. “Number one,” she extended her thumb. “My apartment burned down. Two, the undercover work I’ve been involved in for the past two years got nixed. And three,” she uncurled her middle finger, “my ex-fiancé was murdered. Oh, and I saw a colleague killed right in front of me.” She eyeballed them. “Like I say. Difficult.” She hadn’t even mentioned the funerals she’d attended, or the week she’d spent in her childhood home being berated by her formidable mother for not producing any grandchildren.