‘What do you want me to do, stay with her? What if she gets a flight from Lanarka to Heathrow?’
‘Let me know. I think she probably will – nothing in Cyprus to interest her. Just let me know and I’ll pick her up at Heathrow and see where she goes, and then you get a later flight back here.’
‘Okay. Do you think Nicholas Rambart knows about the twin?’
‘I don’t know, I really don’t – I don’t even know if they are working together. He was in the Purley warehouse with the missiles and she was on the boat with them to Turkey, and yet they want each other killed. Something’s not right. Get back and we’ll dig a bit more.’
‘Okay.’
I closed my phone. What the hell was going on? There was only one way to find out.
I weaved my way through the slow traffic across the road to the leather shop, looking out for anybody that might be one of Woodward’s people; nobody stood out, but surveillance operatives are bloody good at their job so you can’t be sure. I knew what I was going to do next – an old ploy that I’d used before to clear a building. The door to Rambart’s apartment block was open, so I went in and stood quietly in the ground floor hallway and listened for any movement on the upper landings. All was quiet. I soon changed that with one hit at the fire alarm glass with my elbow. The siren wailed out as I left the building and waited at the leather shop doorway.
‘What’s going on?’ asked the sales assistant as two of them came out.
‘Fire alarm I think,’ I shrugged. ‘Can’t see any smoke though.’
A small crowd was gathering fast and residents were coming out of the building looking worried and asking each other what was happening, some clutching bags of treasured possessions.
And there she was: Eve Rambart came down the entrance steps and joined the increasing throng. Only she wasn’t Eve Rambart; she looked enough like Rambart to be mistaken from a short distance away, but she wasn’t Eve Rambart – or was she? I edged into the crowd and got nearer to her; I wanted to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks. I moved to her left and got the view I wanted. There was no big diamond wedding ring on the finger on the left hand – this wasn’t Eve Rambart. So who are you then lady, and what game are you playing?
The fire brigade arrived and caused traffic chaos parking in the road – must have been a quiet day for them, three tenders and a car? Pretty soon they had checked out the building and a rumour had spread through the crowd that it must have been ‘bloody kids smashing the alarm again.’
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CHAPTER 19
Nothing I could do now, except wait for the real Eve Rambart to get back and see what happens. Gold checked back later and said Rambart had bought a ticket for a Heathrow flight the next morning and booked into a hotel near the airport; she would wait for a later one so Rambart didn’t clock her on both flights, and she would also book a different hotel. I decided not to go to Heathrow and follow Eve Rambart from there; I was far more interested in the lady in the apartment. Who was she, and why was she there?
I went back to my office; if Nicholas Rambart suspected me of being involved in the warehouse raid at Purley he would surely have come after me by now? No reason why he should think I was involved, but with people like him suspicion is the best defence.
I checked the times of the flights from Cyprus the next day; first one got in about 11.30am, so give Eve Rambart an hour to go through customs and get to Knightsbridge, which means she should be there about 12.30.
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I had a slow breakfast, checked the flight was on time – it was – and made my way back to the empty Knightsbridge office.
There was some movement and voices from the same floor as I started up the stairs; I stopped and prayed in my mind that the landlord hadn’t let the place. A door shut and the voices stopped – must have been another office. I carried on and settled on an old chair to wait for Eve Rambart to arrive opposite.
The doppelganger was there. I watched through my binoculars; she seemed to be tidying the place up – no, hang on, she was packing the place up. Drawers were being emptied into archive-size boxes and clothes being brought through from the bedroom and stacked on the sofa and chairs. Whoever this lady was she was getting ready to move out.
Eve Rambart got out of a taxi outside the leather shop at 12.45 and made her way into the building. Through the windows I could see the look-a-like was having a drink at the breakfast bar; she rose and went into the bedroom, half closing the door behind her. A few moments later Eve Rambart came into view; she stood still, looking around, too far away for me to see her expression, but the body language said she wasn’t expecting the apartment to be packed up and ready to go. The bedroom door opened and the look-a-like came in, raised her hand and shot Eve Rambart, who crumpled to the floor out of my sight. Look-a-like stepped over and shot again at where the hidden body would be. This lady, whoever she was, was a pro, this was planned; one to the body to bring the target down, and probably one to the head to finish the job.
I was stunned, my mind was blank. If I didn’t know what was going on before, my head was now in a brain maze; nothing was making sense.
The look-a-like made a mobile call and within minutes a large removal van had pulled up outside, half on, half off the pavement, and four men in overalls were on their way up to the apartment; a fifth stayed with the van, opened the rear doors and let the ramp down. This was professional, very professional.
It took twenty minutes at the outside before everything that was to be removed from the apartment had been put in the lorry, it was everything except the furniture. Maybe the rental agreement was for ‘furnished accommodation’, so that had to stay – everything else, all reference to the person who had rented it, which I presume was Eve Rambart, was gone. The last thing out was Eve herself – or I presume it was, inside a large rolled rug tied at both end and carried out by three of the men. A professional job, very professional. I made my way down to the street; the lorry had no markings on the side or back, and I took the number as it drove off – it would be false. I could follow in a cab but any pro would soon suss that. That’s why Ubers are so useful – ordinary cars don’t stand out like cabs; but by the time I ordered one and it got to me through the London traffic, the lorry would be well gone.
I rang Clancy at the Yard. Dick Clancy and I had worked together on many cases when I with the OC Unit at the Yard; he was pretty high up now and would have unfettered access to surveillance programmes.
‘Nevis, long time no contact. I thought you’d retired to the coast like you always said you would?’
‘Nah, not yet, Dick – not old enough for that yet. I thought you’d be an AC by now, office on the fifth floor and spend the day pushing paper clips around the desk, and choosing between a custard cream or a digestive with you coffee.’
He laughed. ‘Bollocks, when they offer me that I’ll be round to you for a job. Anyway, what do you want?’
‘Got a pen?’
‘Yes.’
‘See if you can do an ANPR on a vehicle for me, just today’s journey.’ I gave him the lorry number.
‘Person of interest?’ he asked.
‘Most definitely. It’s on a lorry but probably false plates.’
That was the great benefit of ANPR, it traced the plate whatever it was on.
‘When do you want the info?’ asked Clancy.
‘Tomorrow morning will do fine.’
‘Okay, I’ll give you a bell.’
‘Thanks Dick, I owe you.’
‘Yeah, you say that every time. I reckon my credit with you must be pretty high by now. Talk tomorrow.’
And he rang off.
The lorry’s route and where it took the deceased Eve Rambart would hopefully provide a few answers as to what and who I was dealing with. Whoever it was had just cost me one million pounds, or eight hundred thousand pounds, or both. I couldn’t claim the eight hundred thousand from Eve if I kille
d Nicholas, and I couldn’t claim the million from Nicholas for killing Eve.
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Clancy woke me at seven the next morning. He always was the first in the office and the last to leave; it’s a habit you can fall into if you’ve no family – work becomes your family. He told me what I thought he would: the lorry ended up at a warehouse on an industrial estate in Purley. I took the postcode from Clancy to check it, just to make sure Nicholas Rambart hadn’t got two warehouses in Purley; he hadn’t, the code checked to the one I’d been in.
Gold arrived back early afternoon and travelled into London on the Piccadilly Line, changing onto the Bakerloo Line at Piccadilly Circus for Charing Cross and met me in our usual station cafe. I brought her up to speed.
‘We need to know who that lady in Rambart’s apartment is – she’s the key to all this. If she can handle a hit then she’s a pro,’ Gold said.
‘Yes, but working for who?’
‘Got to be Nicholas if the body ended up at Purley, must be. This coffee is crap compared to the stuff in Turkey,’ she said, putting her cup down and pulling a face. Subtlety isn’t in Gold’s dictionary.
‘So Nicholas kills his own wife?’
‘He offered you a million to do it, perhaps he couldn’t wait any longer?’
‘Why bother with a look-a-like? Just do the job and that’s that?’
‘He obviously needs to create the impression Eve’s still around maybe?’
‘I think I need to try and get a meet with Nicholas.’
‘Dangerous.’ She pushed the coffee cup aside. ‘Not as dangerous as British Rail coffee, but dangerous.’
***********************************
I tried contacting Rambart at the Hilton, pretending to be a financial journalist wanting to do a piece on his success. It was always an answer phone and my recorded messages were never replied to. I tried for two days and then decided to go full frontal.
‘I nearly didn’t recognise you, you look quite the rich boy about town,’ Gold laughed. She was in the Podium Bar at the Hilton as I came and sat opposite her on the third day at lunch time. If I was going to wander around the Hilton’s corridors I had to look the part: the dark blue Savile Row suit and matching shirt and tie hadn’t been out of the wardrobe since a protection job for an opera diva who was being bombarded with death threats a couple of years ago; you can’t work in the Opera Houses of Europe in faded jeans, a Status Quo T-shirt and Skechers.
I laughed. ‘You think I fit in then?’
‘Oh yes, eyes turned when you came in the Bar – especially the female ones.’
‘Well that’s no good then – I’m supposed to fit in, not stand out.’
‘You’ll do. What’s the plan?’
‘The plan is to get into Nicholas Rambart’s suite and bug it.’
‘How?’
‘No idea, but I noticed at the reception desk his room number key card is in the pigeonhole, so it’s empty at the moment.’
Gold’s mind flicked into operational mode; I knew she would be able to find a way in. She stood and buttoned her coat. ‘I’ll see you on the third floor.’
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CHAPTER 20
Major hotels are always busy – always people arriving and leaving, always a queue at reception, always a lack of porters – and with over four hundred and fifty rooms the Hilton foyer is always a mini traffic jam.
Gold gave a cursory glance at the pigeon holes behind the reception desk – 324’s keycard was still there. She walked around the outside of the crowd to the main doors and stood to one side of them, pretending to look at the display of tourist places to visit leaflets; she knew what she was looking for and it wasn’t a tourist leaflet, it was a tourist. She and waited and watched. Pretty soon the mark arrived: a family in a taxi overloaded with cases who declined the offer of help from the doorman to call a porter to carry anything. Gold waited until the family had dumped their first cases inside the doors and had gone out for more. She moved through the jostling crowd, seized the biggest, heaviest looking case and struggled with it away through the crush to the side. She tapped a doorman on the arm.
‘Could I have some help with this please? I’m just getting over a knee replacement and have to be a bit careful. It’s not very heavy.’
The doorman leapt into action, chastising himself for not noticing this young lady struggling with her case and beckoned a porter over. ‘Take this for the lady.’
The porter picked up the case. ‘Room number, madam?’
‘324, third floor suite.’ Gold made a limping move towards the desk. ‘I’ll get my key.’
The doorman halted her.
‘You go to the lift, madam – I’ll get your key or you’ll be queuing for ages.’ And he did just that, dodging through the crowd to the head of the reception queue, asking for and getting suite 324’s key card and hurrying back to the lift where Gold and the porter were waiting.
‘There we are, madam. Is there anything else I can help you with?’
‘No, no, thank you so much.’ Gold smiled as she pressed a five pound note into his hand and took the keycard, ‘Thank you so much, so helpful.’
The lift doors closed and it ascended, disgorging residents on the first and second floors and Gold and the porter on the third. The porter walked along to 324 and waited at the door as Gold ‘limped’ to join him.
‘I can manage from here.’ Another five pound note was gratefully received. ‘Thank you so much.’
The porter bowed. ‘You’re welcome, madam.’ Then he made his way to the staff stairs at the end of the corridor, pocketing the fiver.
I arrived, having watched Gold’s subterfuge and then taken the public stairs. Gold had the door open and I lifted in the suitcase and joined her inside, closing the door behind me. It was a luxurious suite; the furniture was modern and looked brand new, a ninety-inch plasma TV screen was on the wall, fresh flowers in an array of vases on all the side tables, and a quick scout round showed housekeeping had replenished the bathroom toiletries and bed coverings. No kitchen, all food was ordered from a menu on the main table and delivered from the hotel’s kitchens. I could settle into this life quite nicely.
Gold broke into my dreams of luxurious living. ‘I’m going down to keep a watch on the reception desk. I’ll give them back the key card so as not to cause a panic if Rambart comes asking for it. If they do, I’ll text your mobile.’
‘Right.’
She left and I slipped the security chain on the door, just in case. I took out my mobile and put it on the table; I didn’t want to miss the text if it came – Nicholas Rambart wouldn’t take too kindly to finding me in his suite. I slipped on a pair of thin latex gloves and began looking.
I started at the desk, pulling out the papers from its drawers one by one and skipping through them, looking for anything that might refer to arms. The third drawer down was the one: business papers filed in coloured manila envelopes similar to the ones I’d found at the Purley warehouse. They held invoices for millions of pounds from various arms producers in the UK, for weapons from pistols to missiles; a blue envelope had financial information photocopied from various money and financial journals and newspapers about companies that I recognised as other ordnance manufacturers, with notes scribbled on them in various places. The contents of a red envelope set me back on my heels: it was obituary notices cut from newspapers. I knew a couple of the names and pictures, they were CEOs of multinational conglomerates when they were alive – why would Rambart have those in a file?
I took pictures of them, four in all, and then a few of the invoices. The last file was plain but the content wasn’t: a black-and-white photo of our look-a-like lady was stapled to a copy of a sheet of typed paper; it was in a foreign language but the large heading and official hand stamp made it quite obvious where it was from: Turkey.
My phone buzzed. I looked at the text from Gold: ‘Look-a-like coming up.’
I took
a photo of the page and taking a last look around the room to make sure everything was where it was when I came in I hurried out, closed the door behind me and took the stairs down.
‘Anything?’ Gold was a lady of few words.
‘Yes, I think so. Do you like doner kebab?’
Gold gave me a quizzical look but didn’t ask me to clarify my seemingly irrelevant question.
‘I’ve got a load of pics of company papers and what look like invoices, plus some peculiar obituaries and what I hope is an answer to who our look-a-like lady is. Where’s your car?’
‘Up the road in the underground car park.’
We made our way out of the crowded foyer, Gold remembering to limp a little in case the doorman was around and recognised her, and then across the pedestrian crossing to the Hyde Park side of Park Lane and along to the car park. Parking your motor nearby or inside the car park of the place you are targeting is a basic no-no, as the Hatton Garden safe deposit thieves found out to their cost with Kenny’s white Mercedes!
We pulled out onto Park Lane.
‘Where to?’
‘The office, I want to scan these pics and print them off.’
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At the Borough she parked in her space in the basement and we went up to the office. I switched on the printer; it’s one of those that scans, prints, copies, does the washing up, hoovers the flat and orders a take away – I wish.
I plugged my phone in and scanned the photos picking out the ones from the Hilton to print. I did the Turkish paper one first, enlarging it to A4 size which made it easy to read. I took it out of the tray as the other page photos started to come through.
Gold picked up the others and laid them out on the desk.
‘Interesting,’ she said.
‘What is?’ I asked.
She waved a hand to silence me and opened up my desk laptop. ‘There’s a pattern – give me some time, I’m going to dig around. Don’t interrupt. Pen.’
TURKISH DELIGHT: Ben Nevis and the Gold Digger book 1 Page 11