by Peter James
Although he thought of this booth as his own, he was careful not to come here too often. He didn't want staff starting to recognise him in places he went to. Doing that was like leaving tracks.
He sat quietly and unobtrusively, blending in fine, just one of the dozens of international businessmen with their laptops and palmtops and mobile phones who used this place the way they might use any transit watering-hole. That was the reason he favoured this booth, tucked away, darker than anywhere else in here. A discreet place to conduct his own business.
Spider had learned early in life that if he wanted respect, he had to work harder than most to earn it. If you had a badly repaired hare-lip and were only five feet four, with a weedy frame, you took a lot of shit from bigger boys at school.
Fighting hard and mean kept some of the bullies at bay, but that didn't earn you any friends. You had to develop other assets. You had to find something for people to admire in you. Spider found something.
He discovered long before his teens that he had a talent for climbing, and no fear of heights. He could climb just about anything. It impressed people. It even impressed some girls, who were repelled by his lip but curious about it too. He started with simple targets, like cranes, the Buckingham Palace wall, the lions in Trafalgar Square, the Albert Memorial, Marble Arch, and graduated slowly to bigger challenges. Anything that provided a crack or a ledge for a hand or a foot he could scale. He found he could win good money in bets by climbing any building, and often with nothing more than his bare hands and rubber-soled shoes. That was how he came to be called Spider.
By the time he was fifteen he had conquered Alexandra Palace, Battersea power station, the Centre Point Skyscraper and St Paul's Cathedral.
When he was a little older, he found a better way to earn respect: he graduated from climbing things to doing things. Taking on jobs that other people shied away from. There was a lot of money to be earned in handling these tasks. And there were friends to be made. Lasting friends, who paid well.
Spider was in a good mood. Trader Vic's always did that to him. He felt a somebody here, lounging back against the plush leather, drinking his exotic drink, smoking his cigarette, which he had tapped, first, on his silver case the way his boyhood hero Sean Connery had in Dr No. He was cool, eyeing his surroundings through tinted glasses, his lip camouflaged by a thin moustache he had cultivated over many years, and which he had originally modelled on Charles Bronson's.
He ordered the same again.
While he waited he took out his phone, flipped it open and checked his e-mail. Nothing new, but that didn't matter. There was one sitting in a secure file that was going to keep him occupied for a while, and in funds for longer than that.
It was from his good friend, Ronnie Milward.
Uncle Ronnie.
Ronnie lived on a boat in Spain mostly. Legal problems prevented him returning to England. He was one of the few people who had ever been decent to Spider as a kid. He was never sure why — whether it was because the old rogue had felt guilty for letting his dad take the fall in the armed robbery that jailed him for twenty years, or because he'd had a thing with his mum while his dad was locked away. Either way it was history now and both Spider's parents were dead. But Uncle Ronnie had always taken care of him and in return he took care of his uncle's business interests in England.
Mostly he collected bad debts for him, and ensured that the cash from Ronnie's drug-dealings ended up in the right accounts abroad. But occasionally he handled other matters, also. Once he had shot a man outside a pub for him. One bullet through the head. Clean. Another time he had shot a man in the groin for shagging one of Ronnie's girls.
He had plenty of trustworthy sources for guns. Clean guns, always imports, never previously used in the UK. Tonight he was waiting for a man he had done business with several times before. The man would be carrying a Heckler and Koch P9, a 9mm double-action pistol, stolen five years ago from the boot of a German police car, and ten rounds of ammunition.
Spider would pay the man two thousand pounds, four times the going rate for a handgun of this quality in London. But for the blue-chip provenance of the weapon it was cheap even at twice that price. He would use it just once, and then it would be discarded five miles out to sea in the Channel. Spider was thirty-nine, and had survived twenty years in his business. Not one weapon he had used had ever been found by the police.
He opened the e-mail from Ronnie Milward once more and looked down at the tiny but crystal sharp picture on the handset of his telephone communicator. It showed a man with a lean, craggy face and a tangle of grey curls. This man had an intellectual air about him, different from the sleaze-ball types Uncle Ronnie normally asked him to deal with. But no matter. And no questions asked. The usual routine and the usual price.
First he needed the gun, then a suitable time and a place. There was some urgency — uncle Ronnie wanted the job done quickly, and that was good. Spider had his eye on a car, a rare Subaru Impreza in green with gold trim, double overhead cams, a sixteen-valve boxer engine that had been fitted with a rally-spec supercharger. It was an animal. He was five grand light of the asking price, and Uncle Ronnie's fee of ten grand would solve that problem neatly — even after deduction of expenses — and cover the insurance. And give him some over.
He looked down again at the picture on the screen. You're making me a very happy bunny, Dr Oliver Cabot.
58
'What did she throw in the bin?'
Hugh Caven, seated on a sofa by the fireplace in Ross's London flat, said, 'Bin?'
'The rubbish-bin on the garage forecourt. It says here in your report that at one o'clock today she sat in her Range Rover on the garage forecourt listening to her mobile phone. Then she got out of the car and threw something in the rubbish-bin.'
The detective handed him a sealed white envelope. 'My operative found only three items in it. Several sheets of oily paper, and these.'
Ross, with an unlit Montecristo in his mouth, tore open the envelope. Inside were two capsules he recognised instantly.
'The bitch is throwing her pills away — that bastard is persuading her to dump them. Jesus. Can you believe it? My wife is dying, these pills are the only chance she has and he's talking her out of taking them.' Choking with emotion, close to tears, Ross said, 'He's a murderer, Mr Caven.'
The detective sat in silence.
Ross looked down at the report again. 'I don't recognise that number. What the fuck number is he using?' He clicked his gold Dupont and held the flame to the end of his cigar and puffed several times, blowing out the rich blue smoke.
'It's a mobile phone.'
'It's not her phone,' Ross said. He pressed the play button and they both listened again.
'Faith, hi, wondering how you are. I should have the test results all back by tomorrow afternoon latest. I could see you Monday, or over the weekend if you could make it, but I guess you'd have problems getting away. Call me at the office, I've told them to put you straight through.'
'Where's he phoning from?'
'His office,' Caven said.
'No reply?'
'We have his office phone tapped, his mobile tapped and his flat covered by cameras. We haven't picked up any reply.'
'The bitch has got smart on me. She's using a phone I don't know about. I haven't picked up one conversation between her and this quack in ten days.'
'As I've said to you, Mr Ransome, I think you might find you're overreacting to this situation.'
'Overreacting? Is that how you'd feel if some charlatan was trying to kill your wife?'
Caven pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and shook one out.
'Put those away,' Ross said, glaring fiercely and taking a deep pull on his Montecristo.
Caven looked at him in surprise. 'But you're smoking.'
'I don't want that cheap cigarette polluting the smell of my Havana.'
Caven hesitated. His loathing of this man deepened each time they met. But he did a quick calculation.
He was employing three men on round-the-clock surveillance at Dr Oliver Cabot's flat, plus a further rota of three men on surveillance outside the Ransomes' country house, following Mrs Ransome wherever she went. Additionally he had rented time on a satellite, which picked up and relayed back to him all calls from Cabot's office and mobile phones. Ross Ransome was aware of the costs and happy to pay. He was making more profit from this case than ever before.
He pushed the cigarette back into the packet. 'Thank you for saving me from myself,' he said.
The irony was lost on the surgeon.
59
In bed, Faith closed her book, Wild Swans. After reading of how women had been treated in China, she was fortunate at least to have been born and brought up in this country, if nothing else. Her head was pounding. It was twenty past eleven.
She squeezed two paracetamols from their foil wrapping and swallowed them with a glass of water. Then she took out her contact lenses, put them in the solution in their containers and replaced the lids.
Ross, naked, carried his suit jacket across the room and disappeared into the walk-in wardrobe. Moments later he emerged, strode across the room and placed his trousers in the wooden press. She knew exactly what he would do next. He would pick up his tie, examine it in the light for any marks, then carry that into the wardrobe and carefully hang it in its colour-coded slot on the rack. Then he would emerge again, check his shoes, carry them into the wardrobe, and put them in their places on the shoe shelves. After that, he would fold his underpants and place them on the chaise-longue. Next to them he would lay each of his socks, neatly smoothed out. And finally, he would fold his handkerchief and place that beside the socks. In the morning he would pick them all up and drop them into the laundry basket. She had never understood why he didn't just drop them straight into the basket.
His penis wasn't erect, but looked as if he was starting to get aroused.
Please let me sleep. I don't want you inside me, I don't want you coming remotely near me.
She turned off her bedside light, leaned back against the pillow and closed her eyes.
'You OK?' he said.
'I have a bad headache.'
'You took some pills?'
'Paracetamol.'
'How are you doing with the Moliou-Orelan capsules? You still have plenty left?'
'Yes, plenty.'
'How many days' supply left?'
'About a week.'
'I've got more coming. And you've been taking them three times a day, every day?'
'Ross, I have a headache.'
Downstairs in the kitchen Rasputin began barking. Probably a rabbit, she thought, or a fox.
'How's the nausea? Are the pills helping it?'
'No, not so far.'
Rasputin barked again then fell silent.
'You are taking them, aren't you, darling?'
'Of course I'm bloody taking them.'
She felt the bed sag slightly. Then his hand on her stomach, sliding down, his fingers working through her pubic hair. She squirmed away. 'Ross, I really don't feel well.'
'You had a headache on Wednesday.'
'I'm ill, OK? I'm sorry.'
His fingers persisted, working their way inside her.
'Please, Ross.'
'We haven't made love since last Saturday.'
She didn't reply.
To her relief, Ross removed his fingers. He leaned over and kissed her cheek. 'Goodnight, darling.'
Ross picked up the British Journal of Plastic Surgery from his bedside table, opened it and began to read. But he wasn't concentrating, he was listening to Faith's breathing, which was steadily deepening.
Then he turned and watched her eyelids. Waiting for the fluttering that signalled she was moving into REM sleep. He waited patiently, turning the pages of the magazine, glancing at her, listening.
Patience.
At ten past twelve he said, softly, 'Faith?'
She didn't respond.
Again, 'Darling?'
Still no response.
Good.
He turned out the light and lay still, eyes wide open, waiting for them to adjust to the darkness. Out beyond the closed curtains the night sky was clear, and it was almost a full moon. Within five minutes he could see all the shapes in the room clearly. Outside he heard a terrible high-pitched screeching sound. Rasputin barked a couple of times, half-heartedly. Faith did not stir. The screeching again, briefly, then silence. A fox had taken a rabbit.
Slowly, carefully, he slid out of bed and stood, motionless. In a whisper, he said, 'Faith?'
No response.
He walked round to her side of the bed, then stood still. She was breathing heavily, mouth open.
He closed his fingers around the glass jar containing her contact lenses, lifted it and backed away from the bed to the bathroom. Then he closed the door and locked it.
In darkness he walked over to the twin washbasins, and pulled the toggle for the shaving light above his basin. He opened the hinged mirror of his cabinet, took out a box of Calvin Klein Obsession For Men eau de toilette, and opened the lid.
Inside was the vial of ketamine he had put there earlier, with a small hypodermic syringe. He broke the seal on the ketamine, unwrapped it and dropped the seal into the lavatory bowl. Then he pierced the top of the vial with the needle, pushed it down into the fluid, and drew up a minuscule amount.
He had no idea how much was needed, or what effect the lens solution would have on the anaesthetic. This was going to be trial and error. He would start with just the smallest drop and see how that went.
He removed the top lid, marked 'L', from the jar containing the contact lenses, squirted in the ketamine, then screwed the lid back on. Then he did the same with the bottom lid, marked 'R'. Working quickly now, he put the vial and the syringe back in the Calvin Klein box and replaced it in the cupboard. Then he snapped off the light and, as quietly as he could, replaced the lenses on Faith's bedside table.
Silently, he returned to the bathroom, switched on the light once more and flushed the lavatory.
Faith slept on, undisturbed.
60
Nice neighbourhood. Plenty of flash wheels parked around here, no one about and the street-lighting wasn't that good. Nice one. Spider made a mental note that this would be a good place to trawl on his next shopping spree.
Uncle Ronnie had a lucrative business supplying luxury cars to export customers, mostly in the Middle East, and increasingly in Russia and in the growing Balkan market. Serbia was particularly good for fully loaded Grand Cherokees. Ronnie sent the shopping list to Spider, who picked up most of the cars himself, to avoid involving other people and to earn the maximum from each deal.
Spider had plenty of reasons to be grateful for Eurotunnel: it had really helped this business. Late at night, he could steal a Range Rover, a top-of-the-range Jag or even an Aston or a Ferrari to order, and have it in a lock-up fifty miles south of Calais with a brand new registration document and set of numbers long before the owner had woken up to find it missing.
Ronnie's lists came with detailed specifications on colour, trim, mileage, extras, and sometimes it took a while to find the right vehicle. Spider invested a lot of time in finding new hunting grounds and tonight he reckoned he'd lucked into one. He didn't know why he hadn't thought of this area before.
But tonight, cruising this quiet backwater of Notting Hill Gate in an unobtrusive rented Ford Mondeo, it wasn't motors that were on his mind. It was invasion of privacy. There were a lot of pressure groups about this, and Spider was right there with them, in spirit at least. There was too much fucking invasion of privacy, these days. Surveillance cameras were a big hazard. Every city had them now, perched high up in places where you didn't notice them, silently recording everyone beneath them on tape — and they could zoom in close. Two hundred yards away they could tell what wristwatch you were wearing.
You couldn't be too careful.
There might be cameras watching him now, the
registration number of this Ford being checked against a computer file on stolen vehicles, then filed away on a digital memory, ready for instant retrieval at the tap of a few computer keys. If the police wanted to, they could log the progress of this car through the whole city.
But it wouldn't help them much. He had rented it in a false name, with a false licence. That was the beauty of any system. Once you understood it, you could outwit it. No one was going to look at this vehicle twice tonight. Not even a computer.
Ignoring the no-smoking sticker on the dash board, Spider lit a Marlboro, sucked the smoke in deep, blew it out. A man was walking two large black dogs on a leash. Shit factories. Spider didn't like dogs, except greyhounds: they were just about acceptable if they won for you. For a time, as a kid, he'd said that a dog had bitten him in the mouth. Sometimes when he was younger, as an act of bravado in front of the lads, he'd go up to a dog, kick it and say, 'That's for you and all your fucking friends for ruining my mouth.'
But now he had his moustache and he wasn't angry about his mouth any more. He rarely thought about it. Some girls even found it sexy. Sevroula was turned on by it.
Gotcha!
Parked just four doors past number thirty-seven.
Impossible to tell the colour, but the licence plate on the Jeep Cherokee told him all he needed to know. Dr Oliver Cabot was at home tonight.
Sweet dreams, Doctor, he thought, driving past, leaning forward and turning up the volume on Heart Radio as Jamiroquai came on.
At the end of the street there were railed gardens. He made a right turn in front of them, then another right turn, and now he was driving along the terrace that backed on to Dr Oliver Cabot's. It was another similar terrace, the same height houses, the same architecture. Probably some kind of alley running behind, separating them. He would check that out later, not now.