‘In this dump, maybe. No way would you get through my locks that quick.’
The sideways look Palmer gave him made Szulu instantly uncomfortable. ‘What makes you think I haven’t already?’ he said. Then he turned and led the way up a ratty set of stairs covered in mildewed paper and fallen plaster, leaving Szulu with his mouth open.
While the front of the building housed the shops, the rest seemed to have been abandoned to the elements and a slow, relentless decay. The treads were gritty and sounded hollow beneath their feet, and Palmer hoped the shopkeepers below were concentrating on cashing up and not listening for sounds of intruders overhead.
He stopped on the third floor. This was as high as the main floors went, but from the doorway across the street, he’d noticed small attic windows sunk into the roof. There had to be another staircase somewhere, narrower than the main one and probably accessible through a single door. He found it at the end of the landing, nearly invisible behind a layer of ancient wallpaper and grime. A small number 13 in grubby plastic had been tacked to the door. Hoping it wouldn’t be unlucky for them, he tugged it open.
A wave of damp, mouldy air hit them as they climbed a short flight of stairs into an open space with a ceiling angled downwards from the apex. Two attic windows looked out over the street, with another one at the far end of the room.
Palmer checked this last one. They were in luck: they had an unobstructed view of Pantile House, barely eighty yards away.
The room they were in was long and narrow, probably a servant’s quarters many years ago. It was stripped bare, the rough wooden floor echoing with creaks and groans as the two men shifted their weight.
‘Is this safe?’ Szulu whispered, testing the boards. ‘This place is rotten as old grapefruit.’
‘It’ll do fine,’ Palmer assured him, studying the building across the way through the binoculars. ‘Just breathe in and don’t do any break-dancing.’
He located the fourth floor and immediately saw Varley. He was standing at the desk, talking on a mobile phone. The glow of the desk lamp threw his shadow across the room, highlighting the strong features and athletic build. A second man was standing nearby. Smaller and balding, he had a pale, almost anaemic look. He was staring at the floor, waiting for Varley to finish his call.
Palmer lowered the binoculars to scan the building at ground level. Two men were walking around the outside. They looked solid and determined, and as they passed beneath the soft glow of a street lamp, he recognised the two security men from the hotel at Lancaster Gate.
‘How many did you say left the hotel?’
‘Four,’ said Szulu. ‘Why?’
Palmer shook his head. He’d have felt easier if he’d known where the third man was – the one who had checked the 4WD. He shook off his disquiet; maybe they had a rota system and it was his night off.
Szulu moved up alongside him, breathing nervously.
‘What you said about this thing,’ he murmured softly, as if the men across the way might hear him. ‘You said it was personal, right?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘So what did they do, these guys?’ He nodded towards the light on the fourth floor. ‘It was something serious?’
Palmer didn’t respond for a few moments. Then he said, ‘Somebody murdered a friend of mine. I can’t prove it was the men over there. But if they didn’t, they might know who did.’
‘Man, that’s bad.’ Bad for the men across the way, Palmer’s tone suggested. ‘Who was she, this friend – someone special?’
‘You could say that. They tied her up, snapped her neck and dumped her body in a ditch.’ The words dropped into the silent room like slivers of ice, and Szulu felt the hairs move on the back of his neck.
‘And you’re going after them.’
‘That’s the general idea.’ Palmer turned and looked at Szulu with a frown.
‘What?’ Szulu stepped back a pace. ‘What’s up?’
‘You said ‘she’.’
‘So?’
‘Did I say my friend was a woman?’
Szulu looked away, unable to meet Palmer’s gaze. ‘Man, the way you talkin’ right now, you didn’t have to.’
For once, the cat was being halfway amenable. It had allowed Riley to scoop it up and hold it while she stared into the street outside, watching as car and foot traffic gradually dwindled with the passing evening. Late commuters looking for a parking space, shoppers with carrier bags hurrying home from the supermarket, and even an early drunk - a short, squat man in a tight suit - holding up a lamp post across the way.
Riley wondered where Palmer was. She could have done with his steadying presence here. Maybe she would have to make do with the cat, purring like a small tractor and enjoying the rare occasion of shared comfort.
She still couldn’t explain why she had shied away from telling Varley that she no longer wanted the Al-Bashir job, especially now she was certain that she wasn’t the first person to have been hired to do it. That brought dark, unwelcome thoughts about who that might have been. But she wasn’t ready to face them just yet. For now, all she knew was that on a professional level, going ahead with the assignment based on unverified information would rightfully incur Al-Bashir’s anger. And that could be dangerous.
As she turned away from the window, the drunk in the street below let go of his lamp post and lurched away into the darkness. As he did so, his face turned up to Riley’s window and gave it a last, searching look.
**********
34
The pavement outside the hotel in Bloomsbury was awash with a coachload of Italian tourists when Riley arrived just before noon. They scurried around like minnows, resplendent in dark glasses and immaculate clothes, eagerly grabbing their bags as the driver slid them out from the luggage compartment.
Riley eased her way through and entered the hotel, walking past the reception desk. There was no sign of Varley in the front lounge. She walked through to the room at the rear, where they had first met. The corner table was empty.
As she turned awat, she came face to face with a familiar figure.
‘Miss Gavin?’ It was Varley’s colourless associate, the man who had met her here last time. He was dressed in a plain grey suit and standing with his hands by his side, the image of a functionary waiting for orders.
Riley stepped back involuntarily, startled by a glint of steel in the way the man was looking at her. It was probably the coldest pair of eyes she had ever seen. ‘Where’s Richard?’
‘He has been detained.’ He spoke with deliberate care, his accent more obvious than before. Riley noticed beads of perspiration on his forehead, although the atmosphere in the hotel was cool. He gestured to the corner chairs. ‘But I can speak… on his behalf. ‘ He gave a ghost of a smile and led the way, sitting down without waiting for her.
‘And you are?’
‘My name is of no importance.’
‘Well, man of no importance,’ Riley replied curtly, ‘I’ve decided not to proceed with the assignment.’ She took out the cheque Richard had given her and placed it on the table. ‘Under the circumstances, I’m returning this. I don’t feel I’ve earned it. Please pass on my apologies to Richard, but I’m sure he’ll understand.’ She felt a sudden sense of relief at having voiced her decision, and of being free of any obligation by returning the cheque.
He showed neither dismay nor anger at her news. Neither did he attempt to pick up the cheque. Instead, he placed both hands together, resting his elbows on the arms of the chair. A buzz of traffic outside and a burst of laughter from the reception area sounded very distant, and alien.
‘That is disappointing, Miss Gavin,’ he said softly. ‘You see, we need someone of proven… credibility to complete this assignment. You realise how important this is? How late you have left it to tell us?’
‘I can’t help that.’ Riley’s heart began thumping at the coldly dispassionate way the man was looking at her, as if she were an unusual and mildly interesting spec
imen in a Petrie dish. ‘I told Richard I wasn’t prepared to put my name to an article based on someone else’s data. Neither do I like the slant of what he wants me to write. I thought he understood that.’
‘Perhaps. But I am not Richard.’ He reached in his jacket pocket and took out a square of thin, white card. He placed it on the table between them, reminding Riley of a similar move by Al-Bashir in his boardroom. ‘Is that your final word? You do not wish to re-consider?’ He looked at her and waited, head cocked to one side.
‘No. Why should I?’ Riley began to rise, eager to be away from this man and his penetrating gaze.
As she did so, he flipped the card over.
Riley stopped dead, suddenly wishing more than anything that Frank Palmer was in the room.
But Palmer wasn’t going anywhere fast. Stuck in an Underground tunnel near Tottenham Court Road with a few dozen other passengers, he felt the heat closing in around him like a stifling blanket. Any trace of cool air drifting through the carriage was obliterated by the increasing body heat as passengers fought a rising sense of panic at the delay. Most tried to hide their feelings by fanning themselves with whatever came to hand. Others fiddled vainly with their mobile phones, frustrated at finding the networks unavailable.
Palmer breathed easily and stared at the ceiling, mentally distancing himself from the discomfort around him. He’d already scanned every advertising panel in sight, along with the backs of people’s newspapers and magazines, and was now shifting his attention to somewhere within himself, satisfied to wait until the train moved on. They had been stationary for twenty minutes, earning only a blandly insincere apology from a voice over the intercom system. Instinct told him that a delay of this length meant something serious had happened further along the line. A jumper, perhaps, or a bomb alert, it didn’t matter which. They were stuck until someone got them out.
He’d rung Riley before boarding, hoping to catch her before she left for her meeting with Varley, but without luck. He’d wanted to fill her in on what he and Szulu had been up to the previous evening. Seeing Varley in Pantile House – the building Helen had photographed - still wasn’t concrete evidence, but it was as close as he needed to proving that there was a connection between them. Unless it was a massive coincidence.
But Palmer didn’t believe that. The one thing he had learned over the years was that where two or more even vaguely related points of information came together, coincidence could usually be ruled out.
Riley blinked in disbelief as she saw the reverse side of the card Varley’s associate had dropped on the table.
It was a photograph of Mr Grobowski.
Why was he showing her this? The photo had been taken on the pavement near the house. The elderly Pole was walking along the street clutching a plastic bag and a large saucepan. He was probably returning home from the community centre where he served meals for his Polish compatriots.
‘You know this man.’ The voice was flat, disinterested, a perfunctory question to which he already knew the answer.
‘You know I do.’ Riley fought to clamp down on a rising sense of panic. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Miss Gavin, where I come from, if someone does not do what they have agreed, there are not many options open.’ His voice was calm and compellingly soft, his gaze intense and unsettling. ‘Here, you have your lawyers and your courts and the police. We have them, too, but they are not so… quick to help.’ He toyed with the photo, spinning it round and round on the polished surface. ‘Always they need paying. Sometimes lots of money. And they are not very efficient. So, we have been forced to develop other ways… a custom, you might say, of persuading people to do what they have promised. You understand what I am saying? It is simple. And it works.’
Riley felt a tremor go through her. Was she really hearing this? Here, in this elegant London hotel, where tourists were excitedly rushing to their rooms, this… man with the coldest eyes she’d ever seen was quietly threatening her? Worse, he was threatening her through a lovely, harmless old man who wouldn’t hurt a fly.
‘Perhaps you do not believe me,’ he continued, in the same soft, flat tone. ‘That, I have to say, would be a mistake.’ He reached in his pocket and produced another photo, which he tossed on the table. It skidded towards Riley. She reached down instinctively to stop it falling off the edge.
This one was of Donald Brask.
‘Why are you doing this?’ Riley’s voice sounded strange, even to her. She desperately wanted to pick up the photo and hurl it back in the man’s face. But she couldn’t.
‘Why? Because I can, Miss Gavin. And because I have need of your services. Of your name on the article that you agreed to write.’ He studied his fingertips. ‘It is what I think you might call the law of supply and demand. I demand and you supply.’ He gave a brief smile, as if demonstrating that while he might have an accent, he clearly understood the subtleties of language. ‘You may resist. You may choose not to believe I will do anything. But in the end, you will do as I wish.’
‘Or what?’ The words forced their way out through cotton wool.
‘Or your friends will suffer.’
Before Riley could say anything, he stood up and moved to stand close to her. He smelled of lavender, and Riley knew she would never come across the smell again without thinking of this man.
‘If you doubt me, Miss Gavin, you should call home. You young people today – you are so careless with things. Especially your pets.’
He stepped past her, patting her on the shoulder as he did so. The touch made her recoil, but he appeared not to notice. ‘Call when you are ready to submit the copy, Miss Gavin. You have the number. We will tell you where to email it. But hurry. Time is running out.’
Riley watched him walk out of the lounge, a colourless little man in a plain suit, possessed of a manner that made her blood run cold.
What did he mean, she should call home? There was nobody there. So why-?
Her phone rang. She snatched it out and put it to her ear.
‘Miss Riley!’ It was Mr Grobowski. She had given him her number in case of emergencies, but this was the first time he had ever used it. He sounded distraught, and her thoughts went instantly to the man who had just left. ‘Miss Riley… you have to come urgent! Please to hurry! I so sorry!’
‘Mr Grobowski?’ Riley was shocked by the agony in the Pole’s voice. His words were little more than a mad jumble, made worse by his heavy breathing, as if he had just run a marathon. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Is Lipinski, Miss Riley.’
‘Cat?’ The old Pole loved the cat just as much as she did. But at least her neighbour was safe. ‘What’s happened?’
‘I so sorry to tell you this things, Miss Riley. But someone, he has shot Lipinski…!’
********
35
Riley ran outside and saw a taxi depositing a fare. She jumped in and told the driver her address, then sat in mute impatience while he explained cheerfully about a problem on the Underground which had made taxis as scarce as hens’ teeth. Riley ignored him, watching as each street sign and landmark reeled by in horribly grinding slow-motion.
She checked her watch, although time was unimportant, and was surprised to find that it was already past one o’clock. Had the meeting lasted so long?
She dialled Palmer’s number repeatedly, each time getting an unobtainable message. He was either out of reach or his phone was dead. Thinking that word made her cringe inwardly, remembering the threats made at the hotel. But she told herself that the man didn’t know about Palmer, otherwise he would have produced a photo of him, too.
When the taxi arrived at the house, Riley thrust some money in the driver’s lap, and was out and running before he had stopped.
Inside, she found Mr Grobowski sitting on the stairs, cradling his head in his hands. The elderly Pole was moaning softly, rocking gently from side to side.
‘Mr G?’ She knelt down beside him, her heart flipping. ‘Where’s Cat?’
Riley grabbed him by both arms. ‘You did the right thing, Mr G,’ she told him firmly. ‘I wouldn’t have been able to do it, either. Tell me what happened.’
‘This man, he comes to the door. I think he is salesmans, or maybe a religious persons. I tell him we are not interested. But he a buhaj - a bull - and push past me like I not exist and ask where is animals. Without thinking, I say cat is in my flat, but why? He don’t say nothing and go inside.’ He shuddered and took a deep gulp of air. ‘I follow, telling him to get out… and then I see he has a gun. Black and shiny… not very big. I can’t believe it. Then he see Lipinski.’ He moaned softly. ‘Lipinski know he bad mans and show a fierce face. But the mans, he… he just shoot him and walk away. No words… just walking away. And Lipinski-’
Riley turned away and stepped through Mr Grobowski’s front door.
The first thing she saw was a woman in slacks and a blue jacket, kneeling on the floor. Beside her was a black case with the lid thrown open. It contained a variety of instruments, boxes and sterile packs, and a roll of medical gauze, ripped open with one end hanging loose.
But it was the cat which drew Riley’s gaze. Stretched out on the floor with its mouth open, it had a sticky-looking wet patch showing on its neck, the fur spiky and disturbed. There was no sign of breathing.
Riley dropped to her knees, a sob gathering in her throat. How could this animal be so long… and so thin, she thought distractedly, noting the length from battered nose to tabby tail. He’d always been such a bruiser. And with everything Mr Grobowski fed him, he should have died of over-eating, of a diet enriched by too many meatballs and other Polish delights, not… not this horror. She reached out to cradle him, certain her heart was going to tear its way out of her ribs. What evil bastard could have done this?
NO KISS FOR THE DEVIL (Gavin & Palmer) Page 17