by Tom Marcus
Just to be on the safe side.
He pulled into the car park and looked for the silver Lexus. That could be it, in the far corner, under the billboard advertising a payday loans company, just like they’d said. He wasn’t sure if that was meant as a joke. But otherwise they were true to their word: no cameras. He was surprised the place was so empty, even as late as this, and not full of people selling drugs, racing stolen motors and having gang fights, seeing as none of it would be recorded for posterity.
Some people just didn’t have the gumption to grab life’s opportunities. Another thing that was wrong with this country.
Still, he wasn’t complaining.
He drove in a wide arc, approaching the Lexus head to head, then eased in beside it so the driver’s windows were next to each other. He powered down the window and the other driver did the same.
She hadn’t changed from the last time he’d seen her: the same navy-blue suit and white blouse. She looked like an accountant.
And was that what she was? An accountant? Someone who did the books, looked after the money and occasionally handed over envelopes full of cash in out-of-the-way car parks?
You could never tell with people. That was another of his mottoes. And a bloody good thing, too. It meant people looked at him – the sharp suit, the monogrammed cufflinks, the expensive haircut – and saw a modestly successful entrepreneur with their own consultancy business in sales or marketing.
Not a man who killed people for a living.
‘Is he happy with things then?’ he asked.
‘Is who happy with things?’
‘Your boss.’
‘What makes you so sure my boss isn’t a woman?’ she asked.
Jesus, this isn’t twenty questions, he thought. If I wanted to know who your boss was, male or bloody female, I’d stick the barrel of a gun up your arse and count to ten. But of course he was intrigued. You couldn’t help being curious about why one person would pay a lot of money to have another person killed. There had to be an interesting story there. Just think of all the dramas he’d played a part in without ever knowing the plot, or even who the main characters were.
But he was never going to ask who and why. That was information it was better not to have. Better for people to think you didn’t have it, anyway. Unless, of course, you fucked up or were just unlucky, and you ended up in an interview room with the cameras rolling. That was when you needed a bit of leverage: when you were looking at fifteen to life, and that was if the judge had had his jollies the night before and woke up in a good mood.
‘Anyway, to answer your question, the person I represent is quite satisfied.’
He nodded. ‘No comeback, then?’
‘Not so far.’
‘What the fuck does that mean?’
The woman in the Lexus shrugged. ‘You never know.’
She opened a steel briefcase on the passenger seat and took out a fat manila envelope. She held it out of the window and he reached out and took it.
He raised an eyebrow. It weighed a little heavy.
‘Think of it as an advance. On your next job.’
9
I didn’t mention the girl. I don’t know why, really. It’s not as if it would have made any difference to anything. But I suppose they might have wondered what sort of person would happily spend time in an empty, shut-up, decaying mansion with a corpse.
‘Happily’ wasn’t exactly the word, but it was true I didn’t really mind the idea as much as perhaps I ought to. And what did that say about me?
I liked to think it said I took people as I found them, dead or alive, but they probably wouldn’t have understood.
Mrs Allenby wouldn’t have approved; I was sure about that. She was sitting at one of the desks with a notepad on her lap and a fountain pen in her hand, peering over her specs at us like a conductor waiting to begin a concert. The notepad made me nervous, but I suppose she wasn’t going to change the habit of a lifetime just because she was now running Blindeye.
I explained the set-up at the mansion and what I thought we needed for the surveillance.
Mrs Allenby scribbled away on her pad for a bit, nodding to herself, then turned to Alan. ‘So, what have you got for us?’
He pushed an SLR with a telephoto lens across the table. I picked it up and had a squint through the viewfinder. ‘I hope it comes with a tripod. This thing weighs a ton.’
Alan looked as if his professional pride had been hurt. ‘Of course.’
Mrs Allenby made a note. ‘Fine. Once we get a sense of Mr Shlovsky’s routine, who comes and goes, etcetera, then we can take the next step.’
‘Meaning?’ Alex asked. I could tell she was itching to get into the action.
‘We need a way in,’ Mrs Allenby said. ‘A chink in his armour. He’ll assume he’s being watched, so it won’t be easy.’
‘But there’ll be something,’ I said. ‘There always is.’
Mrs Allenby turned to Ryan. ‘What do we know about the security arrangements?’
‘Not much. Shlovsky’s a bit of a man about town, so there are one or two snaps coming out of nightclubs and casinos, always with a bodyguard in tow, and another guy hovering around who could be his security chief. Always the same driver too, so we’ll assume he’s on the firm.’
‘And we don’t know who they are?’
‘Not a private firm, that’s for sure, or we’d have been able to identify them. I’m assuming they’ve been flown in from the motherland. The usual motley crew.’
‘What else?’
‘Well, there’s the staff. Cooks, maids, butlers . . .’
‘Very Downton Abbey,’ Alex said.
‘Maybe we could send you in as the new scullery maid,’ I suggested.
‘Fuck off.’
‘You never did like hard work,’ I smirked.
‘If we could get back to the subject in hand,’ Mrs Allenby said, giving us both a look. ‘That’s the downstairs, as it were; what about upstairs?’
‘Just the wife, Ekaterina,’ Ryan said. ‘The son, Mikhail, is doing a masters in business at NYU.’
‘So he can look squeaky clean when he takes over Daddy’s dirty business, presumably,’ Alex said.
‘Not sure he’s got the brains, actually, judging by his school reports,’ Ryan said.
‘What about the daughter?’ Mrs Allenby asked.
‘She seems to be the one with all the smarts. Currently at the Sorbonne doing a degree in something fancy with the word “literature” in it.’
‘So Mr and Mrs Shlovsky have the place all to themselves.’
Ryan nodded. ‘Apart from the hundred and fifty staff, yes.’
‘Anything else?’
‘I tried to find out something about the previous marriage. Ancient history, I know, but it was niggling at me.’
Alex nudged him. ‘Plus you like showing off.’
‘It’s bad enough with the unknown unknowns,’ Mrs Allenby said. ‘We don’t want to leave any known unknowns unexplored, if we can help it.’
It took me a moment to work out what she was talking about. A fancy way of saying loose ends, I suppose.
Ryan continued. ‘Anyway, the first wife seems to have been a childhood sweetheart from his home town. All I can tell you is that she died in childbirth.’
‘So Shlovsky didn’t just get rid of her when he wanted to trade her in for a newer model?’ I said.
‘Doesn’t look like it.’
‘What a gent,’ Alex said, rolling her eyes.
‘What about audio?’ Mrs Allenby asked, looking at Alan again.
He started riffling through what looked like a technical manual. ‘I think we can rustle up something you can use in the OP. I don’t think a parabolic mike is going to be much use to you. Too conspicuous apart from anything else.’
‘Quite,’ Mrs Allenby said. ‘In which case?’
‘Worth giving a laser set-up a go, I think. They can be bulky, but it sounds like Logan might be able to handle it.
’
I nodded. Aiming a laser beam at a window meant you could pick up the minute vibrations in the glass caused by the sound of people speaking in the room, bounce it back and turn it back into sound. It was amazing what you could get, and from a serious distance too.
Alan turned to me. ‘I should be able to source that sometime tomorrow. I’ll just need to tinker around with it a bit first. And we’ll just have to hope he doesn’t have triple glazing.’
‘Or bulletproof glass,’ I added.
Alan grinned. ‘Yeah, that can be a bitch.’
Mrs Allenby closed her notebook and stood up. ‘Well, it sounds as if we’re ready for the next phase. I’ll leave you to it.’
She put her notebook in her handbag, along with her fountain pen, took her jacket from the back of the chair and gave us a brisk nod before walking out. I wondered who those notes were for. The DG? Leyton-Hughes had kept him out of the loop, to put it mildly, so maybe this time he wanted to make sure he knew what we were doing every step of the way. Or was there someone else she was reporting to?
The door closed behind her. We listened for a few seconds and heard the sound of another door closing, then the clack of her heels on the stairs going down to the street.
I imagined her returning to a little flat in a nice Victorian block in Pimlico, taking off her shoes, then putting on Radio Three before feeding the cat and watering the plants. Twenty minutes later she’d be deep in the Times crossword, or Skyping the grandchildren in Australia.
Or was she actually on her way back to Thames House? Or somewhere else? I felt like asking Alex to get on her bike and follow. We’d quickly see if Mrs Allenby had the sort of skill set that went beyond shorthand and efficient diary management. But we had enough on our plates.
Now that she was gone, Ryan was looking at me expectantly.
‘Go ahead. What have you got?’
‘Not much,’ he admitted. ‘As far as Claire’s concerned, it’s a bit early to say, but as of now it’s definitely being treated as an accident. Autopsy won’t be for a while yet. The initial report doesn’t mention any other vehicles. Unless there’s a surprise with the toxicology or a witness pops up out of nowhere, it’s hard to see the story changing.’
Was that what I wanted to hear? You couldn’t call a tragic accident good news, especially when there was a kid left without a mother, but I suppose it was better than the alternative.
‘What about Craig?’
‘That was a bit longer ago, so in theory there should be more information, but the cupboard is a bit bare.’
‘Curiously bare?’ Alex asked.
Ryan adjusted his ponytail. ‘Hard to say. Definitely a heart attack. No previous in the medical records, no mention of any family history.’
‘And he was on his own when it happened?’
‘Looks like it. At least, he was when they found him.’
‘And let’s say it wasn’t natural causes. How could it have been done?’
‘Still working on that.’
‘OK.’ I put my hands behind my head and rocked back in my chair, thinking. ‘Either it’s all just what it looks like, including my bit of bother outside the pub, or there’s a bloody sophisticated operation going on: someone putting a lot of effort into covering their tracks.’ I looked at Ryan. ‘If you start to see signs of an online clean-up, information disappearing, that’ll be the tell.’
‘Meaning what?’ Alex asked.
I looked at all of them. ‘That we’re up against the big boys.’
10
I thought I’d better give her a name, seeing as how we were going to be spending a bit of time together. I saw her as a bit of a hippy, a flowerchild, for some reason. Then, of course, there was the hair. And half hidden by a stray wisp, something I hadn’t noticed first time round: a tiny brooch pinned to what was left of her top. A yellow flower with white petals.
‘Daisy,’ I said. ‘Sorry if it’s not your real name.’
Daisy didn’t say anything.
‘Daisy it is, then.’
It had been a bit of a slog, lugging all my stuff into the house. Finding my way had been no problem – no need for Mr Fox this time. But I wanted to be extra careful about leaving any traces, so made sure I didn’t disturb the foliage too much when I left the fairway and stepped into the woods. I didn’t want anyone else following in my footsteps.
I took my time climbing up to the window, too. The wonky drainpipe had stood out to me, so it might to someone else. I pushed it back to the vertical as best I could. And I brought a slab of builder’s putty with me so I could fix the metal sheet over the window more securely behind me.
Inside the house, too, it wasn’t just that I didn’t want anyone to know I was here; I didn’t want anyone to know I had been.
Everything I brought in, I was planning to take out. And that meant everything: along with the energy bars and the water, I’d packed a couple of empty two-litre plastic bottles and a handful of polythene bags. Daisy would just have to avert her eyes.
I turned on the torch and set it on the floor, then brushed the broken glass away from a section of the floorboards under the window and put my daysack down. That was going to be my bed, not that I was planning on doing much sleeping.
I took out the collapsible tripod and the SLR and set them up in front of the window. With a piece of cloth, I wiped a layer of dust and grime from the window pane, then crouched down and looked through the viewfinder.
All set. I looked at my watch. Another couple of hours until dawn.
‘Such a lovely girl.’
I turned. Sarah was crouched on the floor next to Daisy, stroking her hair. I could see that Daisy had her eyes closed. Her skin was very pale in the torchlight. I thought I could see blood seeping down one side of her face, but she looked peaceful: asleep, not dead.
‘You know what happened to her?’ I asked.
‘Of course.’
I waited for her to say more but she just smiled and carried on stroking her hair.
‘She should have stayed at home,’ I said.
‘Home’s not always the safest place, Logan. You know that.’
True, I thought: some people spend their lives running away from home; others spend their lives trying to find it. I suppose I was somewhere in between.
‘Where’s Joseph?’
‘Oh, he’s around. But I didn’t want him to see Daisy like this.’
I nodded. ‘You’re right. This isn’t a good place. Not for a child.’
‘Not for Daisy, either,’ she said sadly.
I noticed a little vase, with a spray of yellow flowers, on the floor.
‘I thought she’d like them,’ Sarah said. ‘Brighten the place up a little.’
‘That was thoughtful,’ I said.
‘And she’s got you. Some company. At least for a little while.’
‘Company for me too.’
I stepped closer. Daisy was very thin. Her wrists were like sticks. But you could see how pretty she’d been before she’d got sick.
‘Will she stay like this? After you’ve gone?’ I asked.
‘I’m afraid not, Logan. You’ll just have to remember her the way she was. A beautiful young girl with her whole life ahead of her.’
‘I’ll try.’
Sarah got to her feet and brushed herself off. ‘I’d better go now. See what mischief Joseph’s getting into.’
‘Give him my love.’
‘Of course.’
I closed my eyes, knowing that when I opened them again she’d be gone.
I woke up just after dawn. I wasn’t hungry, but I had an energy bar anyway. From now on it was going to be all about staying focused.
Daisy was back to being a heap of bones and gristle. I said good morning to her anyway.
I gently eased the shutter open an inch or two then put my eye to the viewfinder. ‘Right, Mr Shlovsky. Let’s see what’s going on in your world.’
Three hours later I was beginning to seriously won
der if he wasn’t on his yacht after all. To call The Bishops Avenue a quiet street was an understatement. No one came, no one went. It seemed as pointless as watching Buckingham Palace hoping to catch a glimpse of the Queen letting herself in at the front door with her trusty Yale.
But maybe that was the point. When the tennis court and the gym and the swimming pool and the cinema were all on site, not to mention the restaurant-grade kitchen and wine cellar, why bother going anywhere? Especially when you’d forked out forty-seven million for the privilege – plus another couple of mil making sure the carpets all matched the wallpaper just the way the missus liked.
Daisy thought I was being a bit sexist there.
‘Sorry, Daisy.’
At 10.07 I was just thinking of doing a few stretches to keep my back loose when finally there was a bit of action. A black SUV pulled up to the gates, a young guy in a dark suit spoke into the intercom, and the gates slowly swung open. He drove in, but instead of pulling up in front of the pillars, stopped halfway down the drive, the engine idling. Suddenly there were three more men in dark suits: one at the front door, one at the gate and one leaning into the driver’s window of the SUV. Maybe I was losing my touch, but they seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.
The one at the gate stepped into the road and scanned the avenue in both directions for a good thirty seconds. Then, satisfied that all was well, he stepped back into the property and the gates swung closed behind him. By this time the SUV was moving again, waved on by the second guy. It crept round to the left and I could just see it disappearing under a roller door built into the brick facade.
An underground car park. Natch.
I waited to see what the guy by the door would do but he stayed where he was. So did the guy by the gate. Then a minute later the SUV reappeared. I was expecting to see passengers now, but no: just the driver. The second guy trotted behind, then put his hand on the roof and said something to the driver. He added a quick hand gesture I couldn’t interpret. The driver kept looking straight ahead, pretending not to be interested. Then the second guy walked away, nodding in the direction of the guy by the gate as he went.