Ross turned back and scanned the beach about half a mile away. It didn’t take him long to spot a lone figure lying flat on his stomach, his long-lens camera focused on two swimmers splashing around by the side of the yacht, who appeared blissfully unaware of his presence.
Like a fisherman, the photographer would wait patiently for Diana to return to the yacht and embrace her lover. He knew it was only a matter of time before he landed the picture he wanted. An embrace would be worth several thousand pounds, a kiss — not on the cheek — twenty-five thousand. How Ross despised him.
‘I’m going to have a word with Mr Chalabi,’ said Ross.
‘Rather you than me,’ said the captain. Ross left the bridge and made his way down to the main deck, where he found Chalabi lying on a lounger, a pair of dark glasses shielding his eyes from the midday sun. An abandoned paperback had fallen by his side while he snoozed.
‘I’m sorry to bother you, Mr Chalabi,’ he said.
Chalabi slowly came to, removed his glasses and looked up at the intruder.
‘I thought you would want to know that there’s a photographer on the beach taking pictures of the Princess and Lady Victoria swimming.’
‘Perhaps I should join them,’ he said, glancing over the side and not bothering to suppress a grin.
‘It might be wiser, sir,’ suggested Ross, ‘if we were to move to a more secluded spot, where he won’t bother you.’
‘He’s not bothering me. And as you can see, the Princess is clearly enjoying herself, so why don’t we leave her in peace?’
‘But that’s the point, sir. She’s not being left in peace.’
‘That’s for me to decide, Inspector, not you, and this time you won’t be able to stop him.’
Ross clenched a fist.
‘I may have to tolerate you being on my yacht, but you’d do well to remember you’re nothing more than a butler with a gun.’
As the Volvo pulled into the parking lot beside a warehouse in Lambeth, Miles was relieved to see the removal van had already arrived, and half a dozen appropriately clad men were unloading its contents. However, he still had to hang around for another hour, and sign even more forms, before the last painting was safely deposited in its rack and the doors to his collection’s new abode had been double-locked.
Another £500 changed hands before the storage manager was willing to hand over two large keys, which would allow Miles to enter his own private code and ensure that no one else could remove the paintings without his knowledge.
Once Miles had pocketed the keys, he joined the storage manager who was dividing the spoils among his crew, and said, ‘If anyone should ask—’
‘My boys never saw nothin’. Nice to have done business with you, Mr...’ he hesitated, ‘Booth Watson.’
Miles joined Lamont in the car, its engine already turning over. ‘We’re going to have to get a move on,’ he said as he took off his jacket and checked his watch, ‘if we’re going to be back in under two hours and eleven minutes.’
Lamont took off, but the rush-hour traffic prevented him reaching the motorway for another forty-two minutes.
‘To hell with the speed limit,’ said Miles, finally giving in.
Although the speedometer rarely dipped below 90 mph, Lamont only managed to reach the layby near the prison with seventeen minutes to spare.
Miles, who had already changed back into his gym kit and trainers in the car, jumped out and set off at a pace that barely raised a sweat. Gone were the days when he could run a mile in under five minutes. By the time he reached the copse just outside the prison grounds, he was exhausted. He quickly retrieved his jeans and sweater from under the bramble bush and hurriedly pulled them on. He checked carefully in every direction before venturing out into no man’s land, relieved to find some friendly clouds were masking a full moon that would have alerted a patrolling officer to a moving figure on the wrong side of the demarcation zone.
An anxious cleaner was waiting for him by the fire escape door, and quickly pushed up the bar to let him in. Miles wearily climbed the stone steps to the second floor, and when he was only a few yards from his room, the lights went out. He fumbled with several keys before he managed to find the right one to open the door. When the lock finally turned, he almost fell inside.
Before he had time to undress, he heard the night officer advancing along the corridor on his round to check that every prisoner was safely tucked up after lights out.
Miles slipped into bed, pulled the blanket up to his neck and closed his eyes.
There was a gentle tap at the door. The duty officer looked inside and flashed his torch over the bed. ‘Hope you’re feeling better, Mr Faulkner,’ he said, before quickly switching off the torch.
‘A lot better, thank you, officer.’ Miles waited for the door to close before he got back out of bed, took off his clothes and hid four keys under his pillow, before falling asleep.
Superintendent Warwick and DS Adaja sat in an unmarked car in a layby a hundred yards from the prison.
‘Are we going to give him a wake-up call?’ asked Paul when the lights in C block went out.
‘No. We owe him one,’ replied William. ‘But if he hadn’t come back, I would have happily arrested him.’
‘And if he tries it on again?’
‘He won’t need to. But I’d love to see Booth Watson’s face next time he turns up at the bank.’
Chapter 32
Two rigid inflatable boats drifted into the bay. They were only doing two knots, so their engines wouldn’t be heard on a still, windless night as they headed towards the stationary yacht silhouetted in the moonlight. Nasreen Hassan, sitting in the bow of the lead boat, raised her binoculars and focused on the only light coming from Lowlander.
A man sitting on the bridge of the yacht was playing a game of chess against himself to while away the long hours on anchor watch. So powerful were her binoculars that she could see him make his next move: queen to knight four.
Her next move had been planned some weeks ago. Once they knew the dates the target would be going on holiday with her boyfriend, they had begun preparations for their unheralded arrival.
They already knew the yacht Chalabi had hired was anchored in Palma, Mallorca. A small bribe to the assistant harbourmaster was all it took to find out when it would be leaving port. They were even in possession of an architect’s plan of the yacht. They had spent the past two days secreted in a small inlet further up the coast, putting the finishing touches to their plans.
Hassan checked her watch — 03.17 — confident that the only person on board still awake would be the young man on the bridge. Rook to bishop’s four. He removed a knight from the board.
She looked back to check on the tiny flotilla and her nine-man team, each one chosen for their particular area of expertise. Sitting around her in the lead boat were five hired killers, none of whom was on his first mission. They all wore black from head to foot, and their faces were smeared with burnt cork so they wouldn’t be spotted in the moonlight. Each one of them could go thirty-six hours without sleep — not that this part of the operation should take them more than a few minutes. It was disappearing without trace that would take time — and time, or the lack of it, was their only enemy.
Slung loosely over Hassan’s shoulder was a Dragunov sniper rifle that she kept at her side even in bed. She had made her name killing a British soldier in Libya with a single bullet, from six hundred yards away. The other five carried Kalashnikovs, purchased on the open market. One of them had his cocked, the first round in the chamber. He only expected to fire one bullet.
The second boat was piloted by a ‘for hire’ captain with twenty years’ experience of serving various cartels as a drug runner, and his number two, who’d spent more time in jail than on the high seas. Behind them sat the engineer, whose pale, lined complexion suggested years of heaving and sweating deep in the bowels of ships. The final member of the team was a doctor who’d been struck off, although for what Hassan had in mind, they would have been better off with an undertaker.