Jameson made his way through the exit and managed to get a taxi. That was their first stroke of good fortune. If things went according to plan, the driver would be a DC; if not, then a taxi crawling through London traffic was easy enough for even a one-legged septuagenarian on foot to follow.
Banks opened the door of the next taxi, Hatchley beside him now. Banks was dying to jump in and say, “Follow that taxi!” but the driver didn’t want to let them in. He leaned over and tried to pull the door shut, holding up a police ID card. “Sorry, mate,” he said. “Police business. There’s another one behind.” Just in time, Banks managed to get his own card out. “Snap,” he said. “Now open the fucking door.”
“Sorry, sir,” said the driver, eyes on the road, following Jameson’s cab through the thick traffic on Marylebone Road. “I wasn’t to know. They never said to expect a DCI jumping in the cab.”
“Forget it,” said Banks. “I’m assuming it’s one of your men driving in the taxi ahead?”
“Yes, sir. DC Formby. He’s a good bloke. Don’t worry, we’re not going to lose the bastard.”
With excruciating slowness, the taxis edged their way south toward Kensington, along the busy High Street and down a side street of five- or six-story white buildings with black metal railings at the front. Jameson’s taxi stopped outside one that announced itself a HOTEL on the smoked glass over the huge shiny black doors. Across the street came the sound of drilling where workmen stood on scaffolding renovating the building opposite. The air was dry with drifting stone dust and thick with exhaust fumes. Jameson got out, looked around quickly, and went into the hotel. His taxi drove off.
“Right,” said Banks. “Looks like we’ve run the bastard to earth. Now we wait for the reinforcements.”
4
For gray, the hotel manager could have given John Major a good run for his money. His suit was gray; his hair was gray; his voice was gray. He also had one of those faces – receding chin, goofy teeth, stick-out ears – that attract such abusive and bullying attention at school. At the moment, his face was gray, too.
He reminded Banks of Parkinson, a rather unpleasant large-nosed boy who had been the butt of ridicule and recipient of the occasional thump in the fourth form. Banks had always felt sorry for Parkinson – had even defended him once or twice – until he had met him later in life, fully transformed into a self-serving, arrogant and humorless Labour MP. Then he felt Parkinson probably hadn’t been thumped enough.
The manager had obviously never seen so many rough-looking, badly dressed coppers gathered in one place since they stopped showing repeats of The Sweeney. Jeans abounded, as did leather jackets, anoraks, blousons, T-shirts and grubby trainers. There wasn’t a uniform, a tie or a well-polished shoe in sight, and the only suit was Sergeant Hatchley’s blue polyester one, which was so shiny you could see your face in it.
It was also obvious that a number of the officers were armed and that two of them wore bullet-proof vests over their T-shirts.
Short of the SAS, Police Support Units or half a dozen Armed Response Vehicles, none of which the police authorities wanted the public to see mounting a major offensive on a quiet Kensington hotel on a Thursday lunch-time, these two were probably the best you could get. Vest One, the tallest, was called Spike, probably because of his hair, and his smaller, more hirsute associate was called Shandy. Spike was doing all the talking.
“See, squire,” he said to the wide-eyed hotel manager, “our boss tells us we don’t want a lot of fuss about this. None of this evacuating the area bollocks you see on telly. We go in, we disarm him nice and quiet, then bob’s your uncle, we’re out of your hair for good. Okay? No problems for us and no bad publicity for the hotel.”
The manager, clearly not used to being called “squire,” swallowed, bobbing an oversize Adam’s apple, and nodded.
“But what we do need to do,” Spike went on, “is to clear the floor. Now, is there anyone else up there apart from this Jameson?”
The manager looked at the keys. “Only room 316,” he said. “It’s lunch-time. People usually go out for lunch.”
“What about the chambermaids?”
“Finished.”
“Good,” said Spike, then turned to one of the others in trainers, jeans and leather jacket. “Smiffy, go get number 316 out quietly, okay?”
“Right, boss,” said Smiffy, and headed for the stairs.
Spike tapped his long fingers on the desk and turned to Banks. “You know this bloke, this Jameson, right, sir?” he said.
Banks was surprised he had remembered the honorific. “Not personally,” he said, and filled Spike in.
“He’s shot a policeman, right?”
“Yes. Two of them. One’s dead and the other’s still in the operating room waiting to find out if he’s got a brain left.”
Spike slipped a stick of Wrigley’s spearmint gum from its wrapper and popped it in his mouth. “What do you suggest?” he asked between chews.
Banks didn’t know if Spike was being polite or deferential in asking an opinion, but he didn’t get a chance to find out. As Smiffy came down the stairs with a rather dazed old dear clutching a pink dressing-gown around her throat, the phone rang at the desk. The manager answered it, turned even more gray as he listened, then said, “Yes, sir. Of course, sir. At once, sir.”
“Well?” Spike asked when the manager had put the phone down. “What’s put the wind up you?”
“It was him. The man in room 324.”
“What’s he want?”
“He wants a roast beef sandwich and a bottle of beer sent up to his room.”
“How’d he sound?”
“Sound?”
“Yeah. You know, did he seem suspicious, nervous?”
“Oh. No, just ordinary.”
“Right on,” said Spike, grinning at Banks. “ Opportunity knocks.” He turned back to the manager. “Do the doors up there have those peep-hole things, so you can see who’s knocking?”
“No.”
“Chains?”
“Yes.”
“No problem. Right,” said Spike. “Come with me, Shandy. The rest of you stay here and make sure no one gets in or out. We got the back covered?”
“Yes, sir,” one of the blousons answered.
“Fire escape?”
“That, too, sir.”
“Good.” Spike looked at Banks. “I don’t suppose you’re armed?”