‘Thank you, Lexy darling,’ said Guy, in a voice that was louder than was strictly necessary. ‘That was terrific. See you again some time. Call me if you like.’
As she stepped back inside her apartment, she found herself trying to work out what been happening for the twelve hours that had just elapsed. She had been vulnerable and he had been there and usefuclass="underline" at least that was how it had seemed to her the day before. But who had been using whom?
She drew back the living-room curtains: it was winter-morning dark, and the Water of Leith still reflected the sodium street-lamps. ‘You know what, Alex?’ she murmured to herself eventually. ‘Someone got fucked in here. . all one minute and twenty-four seconds of it. . then brushed off, and I rather think it was you.’
Forty-seven
Ray Wilding hung up the phone. He had been in for forty minutes, since eight thirty, but there was still no sign of Mackenzie. He had checked with the switchboard to see if a call or a message had come in from Spain; there had been nothing and so he had decided to ring Gary Starr’s ex-wife, to make sure that she would be at home when he and the chief inspector visited her that morning.
Kitty Philips had been terse, but not downright rude. She had told him that she worked afternoons only in a DIY store, and had shopping to do that morning, but that she would be ready for them at ten o’clock. He glanced at his watch. The traffic could be a bitch across town; before long they would be tight for time.
When his phone rang, his first thought was that it might be the chief inspector, calling in to say that he had been delayed. He almost sighed as he answered. ‘Wilding.’
‘Call for you, Sergeant,’ said the operator. ‘A Mr Smith: James Smith.’
He had to think for a second before it clicked: Big Ming. ‘Put him through.’
‘Hullo.’ The voice was gruff, but clearer than it had sounded across the desk in the interview room.
‘Mr Smith, what can I do for you?’
‘Ah’ve been thinkin’, ye ken. Aboot that lad. The one wi’ the finger.’
‘Or, rather, without it.’
‘Whit? Oh, aye. Ah see whit ye mean. Onyway, I telt you Ah thought Ah might hae seen him: well, Ah remember where.’
Suddenly Wilding’s morning was more interesting. ‘Oh, yes? Where?’
‘Ah dae a bit o’ door work sometimes, helpin’ oot a guy Ah know; bouncin’ ken. There’s a place Ah’ve been tae sometimes, an’ that’s where Ah’ve saw him.’
‘What’s this place called?’
‘Ah cannae remember; a lot o’ they clubs dinnae hae big signs outside, but Ah kin take ye there.’
‘Okay. Have you seen this man in the queue?’
‘Naw, naw, naw, naw, naw. He wisnae a punter; it wis his place, like, or at least he wis one o’ the lads that ran it. He wisnae dressed like he wis in Evesham Street either. He wis smart, like, no’ a scruff.’
‘What makes you so sure it was him?’
‘Ah’m no certain. Ah jist think it wis; the lad at the shop looked awfy like him.’
Wilding glanced at his watch. ‘Let’s check it out, then. You come here, to Queen Charlotte Street, at twelve o’clock this morning. You can show me where this place is, and we’ll take it from there.’
‘Twelve?’
‘Are you doing anything else?’
‘Naw.’
‘Just as well, or you’d miss it. See you at midday; do not be one minute later.’
He rang off, and looked up to see Bandit Mackenzie approaching; he looked tired, heavy-lidded. ‘Morning,’ he growled. ‘How’s your day been so far?’
Wilding grinned, and nodded towards the phone. ‘I think it just got better.’
Forty-eight
‘I’m sorry it’s taken so long, Bob,’ Amanda Dennis said, ‘but I wanted to preserve security. Our internal monitoring is reviewed at regular intervals. If I had broken the sequence it would have been noticed.’
‘Won’t it be noticed now?’
‘No, because when it was done I patched in and put a copy on to my computer. The period you want to look at is here.’ She moved her mouse and clicked: within a few seconds, the entrance hall of the Surrey safe-house appeared on her monitor.
As Skinner and Shannon watched, they saw the big figure of Winston Chalmers move quickly and jerkily across the screen, greeting two men. ‘Pause there,’ the DCC instructed, leaning closer. One of the newcomers was instantly recognisable: Piers Frame, immaculate in a single-breasted suit that was probably Savile Row. The other presented a complete contrast: he was stocky, shorter than his companion, and he wore a three-quarter-length country coat, with a hood, pulled forward so that it was hiding his face.
‘Either it’s raining inside,’ said Shannon, ‘or he doesn’t want to be recognised.’
‘Indeed,’ Skinner murmured, ‘and I wonder why that is. He obviously knew he’d be under surveillance in there; maybe he’s the guy who was going to take Hassett into the woods and put one in the back of his head, and maybe he was sensitive about it.’ He felt the inspector shudder beside him. ‘But maybe there’s a better reason. Go on, Amanda.’
Dennis hit the play icon and the recording resumed, showing Frame and the hooded stranger waiting in the hall, until Chalmers reappeared, with a second minder, escorting Miles Hassett. ‘Can you slow it here?’ Skinner asked. With another click, the playback went into slow motion. As they watched, the traitor seemed to draw back, startled, as he saw Frame and his companion.
‘No sound?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ Dennis replied. ‘Not that it would have done any good. Winston told me that they didn’t say anything when they met. The other fellow didn’t speak at all.’
‘Bugger.’
‘Wait a minute, though. Let me roll on.’
She resumed playback at the normal speed. They watched as Hassett stepped forward and allowed himself to be escorted from the building. Once again, the hall was empty. And then the scene changed, to feed from another source, outside, overlooking the car park to the side of the building. The area was poorly lit, but the camera was light-enhancing, and the figures were still recognisable. As Frame opened the driver’s door of the waiting car, he turned to Hassett, and spoke; to their surprise, the newly released prisoner seemed to laugh. Then he stepped into the vehicle, not into the back as a prisoner would have done, but into the front.
It was the third man who opened one of the rear doors. As he bent to slide inside, his hood seemed to slip further forward, obscuring his vision. With an irritable gesture he threw it back, giving the camera a brief, but clear view of his face. Without being asked, Dennis reversed the recording and froze on his image. He looked much older than his MI6 companions, from another generation, but from the evidence of his furtive expression, of the same world.
‘Now who the hell is that?’ Skinner murmured. ‘He doesn’t look like SIS muscle, that’s for sure.’
‘He isn’t, Bob,’ Amanda Dennis told him. ‘Very far from it indeed. That’s Ormond Hassett MP, Miles’s daddy.’
‘Jeez! What the hell is all that about?’
‘That’s what I’ve been asking myself. The best I can come up with is that the DG of Six has decided that the best thing to do with Miles is to release him into his father’s care, with instructions that he disappears into the family business, to live out a long and boring life.’
‘But why would Ormond be taken to pick him up? He thinks his son’s a civil servant, remember.’
‘Clearly, he knows different now. Could it be that Frame decided that Miles wouldn’t go with him unless there was someone there that he could trust?’
‘How big a surprise did he get when he saw who it was? Take another look at the playback and you’ll see: about a second’s worth, that was all.’ He focused on Dennis. ‘Who knows about this, Amanda, apart from Winston and his team and the three of us?’
‘Nobody.’