I held the rod handle firmly in my left hand, rested my head against the door and pulled hard on the line. It pushed down on the handle and the door sprang open.
I slipped quickly inside, closed the door and activated the deadlock. I collapsed the deformed rod as best I could and shoved it inside my jeans.
All the Hamas lad had needed to do before he went out was roll up a towel and place it between the handle and the door. Mossad would have been fucked. Rudy and his boys also had a lot to learn.
The room still stank of cigarette smoke, and the mini-bar had been raided. Empty miniatures and beer bottles and chocolate wrappers were scattered on the table by the window. At least the bed had been made. Beyond it, the Kremlin son et lumière was in full swing.
I lifted out the holdall and unzipped it to discover not very much at all. There was a passport for the boy; a new one, of course. A carton of 20 °Camel. Some socks, still in their cardboard packaging, and a few pairs of Speedo-type briefs. And a memory stick.
I headed for the B&O and hit the space-age remote. It took me a minute to work out how to persuade it to do what I wanted. I finally inserted the USB end plug into a port in the side of the TV. There was only one icon on the stick. I clicked on it and got a picture but no sound.
I was glad there wasn’t.
Tracy’s face filled the TV screen.
Her skin was red and flushed; her face screwed up.
A pair of male hands came into shot from behind her and around her naked shoulders, pulling her away from the lens. I was dreading what I was about to see.
As the hands turned her and pushed her towards the bed, I could see that BB was still inside her from behind.
I watched for about five minutes, then sat there in shock. I thought about the pain in Tracy’s eyes. I thought about BB being an arsehole. And I thought about my promise to Mong.
I threw the stick back into the bag, zipped it up and replaced it under the bed. I wasn’t about to take it with me. Frank was obviously a generous employer, but I already knew you didn’t want to fuck him over.
I closed the door carefully behind me and headed for the lift.
22
Back at the apartment, I had a shower and changed. I stank like I used to when I had to hang around pubs as a kid, waiting for my mum and stepdad to stop drinking and take me home. The smoke from Player’s No. 6 or whatever knocked-off cigarettes they’d bought from the market that week used to soak into my clothes, hair and skin even when I sat under the table. In the morning, the stench made me feel like throwing up.
I felt like throwing up now.
I grabbed my passport and threw a few things into a day sack. It felt good to be back in that routine, getting on with a job — even though it wasn’t a job until I knew they were alive.
I looked up Frank Timis online. Nothing. I even tried Wikipedia and Wikileaks. I couldn’t find a thing.
I sat on the sofa and looked out over the river and the downtown lights. Steam billowed out of every building. I speed-dialled Anna. I usually called her every other day after the three p.m. broadcast. She always wanted to know what footage they’d used, and if there was anything she’d done wrong.
There seldom was. She was an old hand at reporting foreign conflicts. A lot of journos turned up in war zones without a clue. A picture of one unwittingly wearing Gaddafi green, for instance, could be valuable propaganda. It could also get you killed.
The only thing I’d commented on so far this trip was the state of her hair. Apart from that, she looked perfect. I couldn’t wait to see her again. It was turning ugly out there. She’d been in Tunisia and Egypt earlier in the year, then moved to Libya. With the whole Middle East jumping up and down, she’d probably want to cover the fuck-up that was unfolding in Bahrain. Protesters had been shot and Saudi troops had moved into the country to back the government. Big drama ahead for all. Especially me, as she’d want to be in the thick of it.
The phone buzzed and crackled in my ear as it tried to get cell contact. Eventually it opened up. She sounded concerned. ‘Nicholas — is everything all right?’
There were screams and chants in the background as the rebels gave Gaddafi’s name a hard time.
‘Shouldn’t I be asking you that?’
She laughed. ‘I got held up, that’s all.’
She must have found a quieter spot because the noise went down a couple of decibels.
‘Anna, I need a favour. Can you find out about a guy called Francis Timis? I think he’s Ukrainian. He says he changed his name to Francis so it sounds more Western. He’s loaded, but I can’t find anything about him on the Net. There’s a Romanian mining guy, but that’s definitely not him.’
‘Maybe he’s rich enough to buy anonymity. Spell it for me?’
I heard gunfire and some scuffling as she took cover.
‘How old is he?’
‘Mid-forties, maybe. No older than fifty. Anything you can get.’
There was more rustling. She had to shout to make herself heard. ‘Why do you want to know?’
‘I’ll tell you another time. You sound a bit busy. Have you got your date yet?’
She was due to be replaced by a colleague. At first she’d been looking forward to some leave. But this past week she’d started to sound less keen. It didn’t make me worried, exactly, but I was concerned.
‘I’m going to have to go.’
‘I’ll call you tomorrow, usual time.’
‘Nicholas?’
‘Anna?’
‘Look after yourself.’
I started to laugh as the phone went dead.
My next call was to a London number. This time the line was a lot clearer.
23
I left the flat and crossed the street to the Metro. One change would get me to Paveletskaya, and from there the Aeroexpress to Domodedovo took just under an hour. That was the quick bit. Security at the airport had been a nightmare since the suicide bombing in January. The queues could snake around for miles inside the building. Passengers were missing their flights. It was going to mean I couldn’t just try and grab a seat on the next Heathrow plane. I’d have to factor in at least a couple of hours of downtime before I could get airside.
As I neared the entrance, something registered in my peripheral vision. I didn’t turn my head. I carried on until I was nearly inside, then stopped, checked my watch and looked around like I was weighing up my options.
About fifty metres down the road was a vehicle. I couldn’t see the driver, but it was either Ant and Dec’s Audi from outside the hotel or one that looked exactly like it, right down to the half-moons carved out of the grime on the windscreen and the two shapes filling the front seats inside.
PART FOUR
1
Coffee shops are like London buses. You don’t see one for ages, then three come along at once. I sat with my frothy cappuccino and stack of Danishes as more and more people lined up like lemmings for their pre-work caffeine fix. Nearly all of them had headphones or mobiles stuck to their ears.
This branch of Starbucks was on the north side of London Bridge, by Monument tube. Jules had decided he didn’t want me to come to the office. His syndicate dealt with kidnap and ransom. K&R was a private, secretive world. His bosses wouldn’t want him bringing somebody in to tread across their turf — especially when Jules knew that that somebody wouldn’t be wearing a suit.