Breaking the Rules (2009)

by Barbara Taylor Bradford

  ‘Yes, my dear, it’s over there.’ He indicated a door on the left side of the living room.

  ‘I’ll only be a moment,’ she murmured and glided across the carpet. She turned and looked at the sofa and mentally measured the distance between it and the coffee table. Once inside the bathroom, Galina took the revolver out of her trouser pocket, clicked off the safety catch, and put it back in the pocket. She was careful not to touch anything as she peered in the mirror, wasting time, waiting until she heard the music. A moment after Celine Dion began to sing, Galina heard the clatter of the ice in the bucket.

  Using a tissue, Galina opened the door carefully, wiped the knob on the outside, then stuffed the tissue in her other pocket and quietly left the bathroom. Creeping across the floor, she stationed herself near the white sofa, immediately behind Jonathan. He was fiddling with the metal top of the champagne bottle, and he had not heard her approach. Celine’s voice filled the room.

  Taking out the gun, Galina aimed it at the back of his head and fired. She hit her target with accuracy.

  There was a strangled cry, and Jonathan Ainsley slumped forward onto the coffee table. Galina walked over to him, stared down at him, and she knew he had died instantly. To be absolutely certain, she shot him again in the side of the head, pocketed the gun and left the yali on silent feet. Following her training, she again used the tissue when she opened the door and then closed it on the outside.

  Without glancing back, she walked calmly down the path through the garden, went along the jetty and into the arms of Lebedev, who was waiting for her. Without a word, he helped her down into the speedboat. One of his other bodyguards took her hand as she stepped into the Chris-Craft.

  Lebedev followed her, and nodded to Boris, who went back to the wheel, turned on the ignition and sped away down the Bosphorus, heading for the Çirag? an Palace Hotel Kempinski.

  Lebedev had one arm around Galina, holding her close to him. Finally, he spoke. ‘You followed my instructions?’

  ‘I did. He’s dead. Two shots to the head.’

  ‘Where’s the gun, Galina?’

  She gave it to him.

  ‘Do you have the tissues?’

  ‘Yes. Here they are.’

  He wiped the gun clean of prints and then threw it overboard into the Bosphorus. Looking at her, realizing he hadn’t needed to wipe the gun, he gave her a wry smile, and shrugged. ‘Training,’ he muttered.

  She nodded, reminding herself that, like Putin, he had been with the KGB for years before going into the oil business.

  ‘Everything is packed,’ he now said. ‘After we pick up the luggage we’re heading to the airport. My plane is waiting…the G-IV. We’re going back to Moscow tonight. I’ve arranged for us to be married tomorrow, and the next day, Monday, we leave for New York.’

  Startled but happy, she gazed at him adoringly. ‘New York? Why New York?’ she asked.

  ‘You told me you wanted to go there on your honeymoon, Galina. You aimed to kill, I aim to please.’ Lebedev took her in his arms and kissed her. Against her cheek, he whispered, ‘You’re safe now. You’ll always be safe, you’re with me.’

  On the other side of Istanbul, in a comfortable flat not far from the Grand Bazaar, Patrick Dalton, one of Jack Figg’s operatives at Figg International, was fast asleep. It was his wife, Fatima, who answered the ringing phone.

  ‘Hello,’ she whispered, not wanting to wake Patrick.

  ‘Ima, it’s me, Ismet,’ her brother said. ‘Put Patrick on the phone. It’s urgent.’

  She knew better than to argue with her brother, and did as he said, shaking Patrick, then handing him the phone. ‘It’s Ismet. He says it’s urgent.’

  Patrick took the phone, mumbled hello, then asked, ‘What’s up, Ismet?’

  ‘There’s been a murder. It’s that Englishman. The one you spoke to me about, yesterday.’

  Sitting bolt upright, now wide awake, Patrick exclaimed, ‘Jonathan Ainsley? He’s dead?’ His surprise echoed down the phone.

  ‘He is. Shot in the head. You’d better come down to police headquarters. Immediately. I’ll give you the information. Foreign press are going to be on it before you can say…’ Ismet, an inspector with the Istanbul police, paused, then went on, ‘What’s that stupid English expression you’re always using?’

  ‘Before you can say Jack Robinson,’ Patrick answered with a dry laugh. ‘See you in half an hour.’ He clicked off the phone and, jumping out of bed, he said to Ima, ‘Go back to sleep, it’s only four o’clock in the morning. I’m going to headquarters. The man Jack was interested in, the one with that humongous yacht anchored on the Bosphorus, is dead. Apparently murdered.’

  Ima simply gaped at him in astonishment.

  Jack Figg always slept with half an ear listening, and when his phone began to ring on Sunday morning, he reached for it automatically, glancing at his electric clock. It was five in the morning. The time surprised him, and when he said, ‘Hello?’ he sounded snappish.

  ‘Jack, it’s Pat Dalton. Sorry to call this early but I’ve got some extraordinary news.’

  ‘It’d better be at this hour,’ Jack answered.

  ‘Jonathan Ainsley’s dead.’

  ‘What?‘ Jack was out of bed in an instant, moving across the room to the small desk, his mobile pressed to his ear. Sitting down at the desk, he said, ‘Are you absolutely sure about this, Pat? I was told that five years ago, only to discover it wasn’t true. Much to my disappointment and aggravation of late.’

  ‘You can believe it this time, I’ve seen the body. He was shot in the head twice. From behind and then from the side. His brains were blown out, not to mince words.’

  ‘And you have seen the body?’ Jack pressed. He was taut inside, anxious and also wary.

  ‘Yes. At the morgue in Istanbul. If you recall, my brother-in-law, Ismet, is an inspector with the Istanbul police. He phoned me at four o’clock in the morning to tell me. Oddly enough, I’d had lunch with him yesterday, and I asked him to let me know if he ever heard anything peculiar about Ainsley. Whatever it was, I needed to know. As I told you during this past week, Ainsley’s yacht suddenly showed up about a week ago, moored on the Bosphorus. Ismet was still on duty last night when the body was discovered—’

  ‘Where was that?’ Jack interrupted.

  ‘At his yali on the shores of the Bosphorus. Ismet immediately went out there with some of his officers. Ainsley’s body was slumped over the coffee table in the living room. Blood everywhere, apparently. The coroner said death was instant, and that it occurred around six fifteen last night.’

  ‘Who found the body?’

  ‘His wife, Angharad Ainsley. She became alarmed when he hadn’t returned for dinner by nine, so she went on one of the tenders over to the villa, looking for Ainsley, taking the chief steward with her.’

  ‘I presume your brother-in-law interviewed her?’

  ‘Extensively. Ismet said she’s not a suspect, since she was on the yacht all day and all evening, and obviously she was seen by the various staff members that entire time.’

  ‘It sounds to me like a contract killing. An assassination.’

  ‘I tend to agree, Jack,’ Patrick said. ‘No trace of evidence, no evidence at all, and no fingerprints. It was a professional job. A hit man, in my opinion.’

  ‘You’re right. And he’ll never be caught. What about staff at the villa? What did they know?’

  ‘Just a housekeeper there, and a gardener. Neither saw anything; in fact, they didn’t even know Ainsley was coming until the last minute. Apparently he went in to say hello to the housekeeper, he said he had a meeting in the summerhouse—that’s a small house on the property. He made it clear he didn’t want to be disturbed.’

  ‘Did the wife know why he had gone ashore?’

  ‘Yes, she said he went to meet one of his partners from Hong Kong. That’s all she knew. And that’s all I know.’

  ‘I see. Stay in close touch with me, Pat. I’ll be on my mobile all day.
And thanks for calling me so promptly.’ There was a pause, and Jack finished, ‘He got what was coming to him.’

  FORTY-SIX

  At eleven o’clock that morning, Jack Figg sat in the living room of Linnet’s house with M and Larry, Simon Baron and James Cardigan. M and Linnet were in the kitchen making coffee.

  Jack had called them all together to tell them what had happened the night before in Istanbul. Paula, Shane and Desmond were still in Paris, needed and wanted to be there for Tessa and Lorne, who were both being treated in the burns unit at the American Hospital. And they were both doing well, much to everyone’s relief. He had phoned Paula and Shane to give them the news, and the rest of the family also now knew that Jonathan Ainsley was dead.

  ‘By the way, James, I want to thank you for your help, you’ve been invaluable,’ Jack said, genuinely meaning this. ‘I’d like to add that I phoned Richie on his mobile earlier, expecting to find him in Istanbul, but he’d already gone back to Hong Kong. I reached him there, and I also spoke to Wen Li. They were both startled by the news of Jonathan Ainsley’s death. But there was great relief all around, even though they hadn’t anticipated an assassination. Like us, they just wanted to render him penniless.’

  James nodded and, looking across at Simon, he said, ‘And you have had a load lifted off your shoulders, haven’t you?’

  ‘And how! Watching somebody’s back is always bloody tough, but when it’s somebody you love it’s even harder,’ Simon replied.

  M and Linnet came in with the coffee.

  Larry said, ‘M and I haven’t really been able to take it all in, Jack. In a sense it’s quite a shock.’

  ‘I know. It was sudden, came as a big surprise,’ Jack replied.

  After taking a sip of the coffee, Jack told them everything else he knew, and in precise detail, knowing nothing less would do, stopping the flow of his story to answer questions. These were mostly posed by M, and occasionally by James Cardigan.

  Finally, Jack finished, ‘And so you can be damned sure that Ainsley is dead. Patrick saw the body in the morgue.’

  ‘I always told you we should get a hit man,’ M said, staring hard at Jack. ‘And I was right, wasn’t I? Because obviously somebody else did.’

  ‘You were right,’ Jack conceded, giving her a little salute. ‘From the details, or should I say from the lack of evidence, it does sound like an assassination to me, as I just said.’

  ‘And Angharad had nothing to do with it?’ Linnet asked, her head on one side, giving Jack a curious look.

  Before Jack could answer, M said, ‘She might have had a hand in it! I mean, she’s as bad as he was. Maybe she has a lover whom she persuaded to bump him off.’

  Linnet looked at Jack. ‘What do you think about that scenario?’

  ‘It’s clever, but it doesn’t quite fly for me,’ he answered. ‘I believe that Ainsley was killed because of money, and by someone in business with him.’

  M said, ‘I don’t want to move away from Ainsley just yet, Jack, but there’s something I don’t quite understand. You told Linnet and me that your old friend Wen Li was helping you, and us, as was his grandson. But why? I mean, why would they do that?’

  ‘Here’s the story,’ Jack said. ‘And I’ll try to give it to you in simple terms. Many years ago, Zhèng Wen Li acquired a mistress. He had a wife but she had been left paralysed when she fell down a flight of stairs, and he was still young, needed female companionship. Later, his mistress became pregnant, had the child, but sadly, she died just after the birth. Wen Li gave his son to his favourite cousin, another banker who was childless. His name was Chiu Wan Chin. He was wealthy, brought up his child like his own son. Wen Li was happy because his child was remaining within the family and he could see him all the time. He was the favourite uncle, in fact.’

  Linnet exclaimed, ‘Jack, I know that name Chiu! But why do I know it?’

  ‘You probably heard it from your mother,’ Jack answered. ‘Just listen for a few more minutes and you’ll understand everything. Wen Li always took an interest in his son. But he became disenchanted with him just after his adopted father, Chiu Wan Chin, died. That was in the Nineteen eighties. By this time Wen Li’s illegitimate son was a grown man. He had taken over his adopted father’s bank, and he was a partner of Jonathan Ainsley.’

  ‘After Mummy threw Ainsley out of the family!’ Linnet said, nodding, remembering everything now.

  ‘That’s correct. As it turned out, Tony Chiu, Wen Li’s biological son, was crooked. He was a drug dealer, a money launderer in the Golden Triangle, and, thanks to Paula, he was sent to jail in Hong Kong. However, Jonathan Ainsley somehow managed to evade conviction. And Tony Chiu took the fall.’ Leaning back, settling himself more comfortably in the chair, Jack continued.

  ‘Jonathan Ainsley was married to a beautiful Englishwoman whom he met in Hong Kong, Arabella Sutton. When she became pregnant he was overjoyed. But the son and heir turned out to be a Chinese baby, or rather Eurasian. Tony Chiu was the biological father. And Richie Zhèng, as we know him, is the child of Tony Chiu and Arabella Sutton.’

  ‘What a story,’ Linnet exclaimed, staring at Jack. ‘Mummy never told me any of that.’

  ‘She didn’t know, Linny. I only learned about it when I saw Wen Li in Hong Kong recently. When he found out Jonathan was still alive, his rage knew no bounds. You see, Wen Li blamed Jonathan for Tony’s downfall. He believed Ainsley had corrupted his son. Also, he felt Tony had been made the fall guy, because Ainsley was never in jail, and he considered Ainsley to be as guilty as Tony.’

  M said, ‘But why wasn’t Ainsley punished too, Jack? I mean, if he was in cahoots with Tony Chiu, he should have gone to jail as well.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right, but he somehow managed to evade conviction. Tony contacted Zhèng Wen Li when he was in jail, informed him that he had known for some years that Zhèng was his biological father. Apparently Chiu Wan Chin had told Tony the truth on his death bed.’

  ‘I bet Tony wanted Wen Li to know he had a grandson floating around out there,’ M said in a knowing voice. ‘And most probably Wen Li was angry about Ainsley’s treatment of Arabella and the baby.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Jack said. ‘The problem was, Tony didn’t know where Arabella Sutton was.’

  ‘So how did Richie Zhèng appear on the horizon?’ M asked, her curiosity aroused.

  ‘He didn’t suddenly appear. Just before he died of cancer in jail, Tony unexpectedly received a letter from Arabella Sutton, telling him she had gone to Toronto with a man called Christopher Swanson, and had subsequently married him. And that’s how Wen Li found his grandson. They met several times, took a liking to each other. When Richie was ten, his mother Arabella died. Wen Li went to Toronto to get him because his stepfather was also dead by then. So Richard Thomas Sutton became Richie Zhèng when he was ten years old and went to live in Hong Kong with his biological grandfather.’

  ‘Voilà,’ M said, staring at Jack. ‘And why would Richie be on our side in our fight with Ainsley?’

  ‘Because he still blames Ainsley for his mother’s ill health, their hard life during his early years. Thrown out by Ainsley, divorced by him, she had quite a struggle when Richie was a little boy. She might even have resorted to prostitution to help them survive. Richie has never forgotten any of that.’

  M nodded, asked Jack, ‘I understand why Richie would hate Ainsley, and I’m glad we’ve had his help.’

  ‘Yes. We needed to keep track of Ainsley, his movements, know what he was up to. We were hoping it was something illegal that we could report to the police—fraud, embezzlement, money laundering…something like that—’

  ‘But Ainsley was killed last night,’ M cut in, eyeing Jack carefully. ‘And now we don’t need to “shop him”, do we, Jack? The drama is all over, isn’t it?’

  Looking across at her, Jack said, ‘You’re absolutely right, M. Ainsley is dead. He surely can’t rise from his coffin a second time—’

  ‘Or can he?’ M inte
rrupted, adopting a deep, overly melodramatic voice.

  She sounded so comical that everyone laughed, relieving the tension in the room. Jack exclaimed, ‘Well, to hell with this coffee! Why don’t we crack open a bottle of champagne?’

  ‘Make it pink,’ M said, and jumped up, rushed over to her sister. Hugging her tightly, then sweeping her around the room in a jig, she paused dramatically all of a sudden. ‘Linnet, you and Simon should get engaged. Immediately. Right now. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?’

  ‘I’m all for it,’ Simon said, looking across at Linnet, smiling hugely. ‘Come on, darling, say yes in front of all these witnesses.’

  ‘I think it would be perfectly wonderful to get engaged to you now, Simon. Absolutely, positively I say YES.’

  The champagne was opened and served, everyone toasted the newly engaged couple and M invited everyone to Sunday lunch at the Dorchester Grill. They all accepted and she went off to the den to make the reservation. The others moved around the sitting room, sipping their champagne and chatting. Their relief was enormous. Knowing they no longer had any need to look over their shoulders ever again seemed to make them giddy.

  At one moment, James drew Jack to one side, and said, sotto voce, ‘Did Richie mention anything more about the plan?’

  Jack looked James right in the eye, gave a slight nod. ‘Of course. He put it into action on Friday. The first thing he had the hackers do was to transfer his grandfather’s investment back to him. So the hundred million was moved to Hong Kong.’

  ‘Just one other question. When would someone have known peculiar things were happening?’

  ‘Hard to tell. Richie purposely set everything in motion late on Friday and over the weekend. However, somebody constantly watching their computer very closely might possibly have noticed oddities in the early hours of Saturday morning,’ Jack said.

  ‘Somebody like a suspicious Russian?’