Palmer froze, recognising the signals. It was the slow, careful scan of someone acutely aware of his surroundings, ticking off visual checkpoints in his mind. For a brief second, Palmer was sure the man was looking right at him, and felt a momentary chill of apprehension when the eyes appeared to dwell just a fraction too long on his location. But the young man turned away and, moments later, disappeared inside, closing the door behind him. Palmer allowed himself to breath again.
A cab swung into view at the end of the street and turned into the parking area. It was a cream Mercedes with a small pennant flapping from the radio aerial. On the roof was a white plastic pyramid with the words WHITE TOWER in black lettering. Private hire. Minutes later, a slim figure appeared at the rear door of the building, clutching a briefcase in one hand and the front of his lightweight coat in the other as a gust of wind threatened to snatch it away. The tanned skin looked even darker as the man scowled, and Palmer felt a renewed shock of recognition.
He hadn’t been mistaken.
The man turned and climbed into the cab, slamming the door behind him, and the vehicle drove out of the car park and turned down the street in Palmer’s direction.
He stayed where he was, his mind in free-fall, trying to work out the inexplicable. Just in time, as the cab approached, he remembered to snatch up his mobile and clamp it to his ear, hoping this small subterfuge and the dappled shadow of the tree would be all the camouflage he needed. He watched in his wing mirror as the cab disappeared down the street, before dropping his mobile on the seat beside him. Then he turned the ignition and drove away in the opposite direction, deliberately taking an easy pace. If his memory and instincts were correct, it was possible the man’s younger colleague might even now be watching from an office window to check vehicle movements in the area. A car pulling out and sitting on the older man’s tail would be noticed immediately; a vehicle moving the other way would not merit the same attention.
The moment he hit the end of the street, which was in a blind spot from the office building, Palmer floored the accelerator. He had an imprint of the street layout in his mind, and if he followed a simple box system, he should be able to catch up with the cab. As long as he didn’t run head-on into it or remain on its tail for too long, there was every chance he might find out more about the man he was after.
As he turned a corner onto a main through-road, he saw the cab ahead of him, pulling out of a side road, the triangle on the roof just visible. He settled in behind it three cars back, the pennant on the cab’s aerial a helpful marker in the shifting jumble of traffic.
The journey was shorter than he’d expected. After little more than a mile, the cab stopped outside Kenton underground station. Palmer hung back, watching as the man left the cab and disappeared into the station without looking back. He automatically noted the man’s gait and build, adding to the picture he already had, and wondered why he had chosen to come to this particular stop, when he could have walked from the office block to Harrow-on-the Hill station in two minutes. Maybe he didn’t like walking. Or maybe he was going somewhere specific to this station.
He gave it ten minutes, watching the entrance in case the man re-emerged, then called it a day and headed west.
Back at his office, he consulted his new Rolodex, finding comfort in the spin and clatter of the cards. He had begun filling it in a few days ago, starting with immediate and current acquaintances, like Riley and Donald Brask, then gradually trawling wider to include occasional and past contacts, people he might need to call sometime. He stopped at a name he had discovered in an old diary and almost rejected, then decided at the last minute to leave in. He hadn’t been sure that he would ever need to call on the Frankfurt offices of an international enquiries agency, but his work occasionally took him down some strange paths. Maybe the truth in that was about to be proven most aptly. He picked up the phone.
Five minutes later, he had a name and another phone number belonging to a man in a private office in a town called Schweinfurt, one hundred kilometres to the east of Frankfurt. He hoped the subscriber’s English was better than Palmer’s German, otherwise he was in for a hard time.
While he waited for the number to answer, he checked his watch. Six-fifteen. After this he would go home and grab an early night. He had a busy day tomorrow. He lit a fresh cigarette. Riley would have given him a hard time for smoking too much, but it helped him think. And thinking right now was all he had. Because unless there had been some astounding advances in medical science recently, dead men simply could not come back to life.
Chapter 6
As the rush-hour traffic leaving London’s westerly sprawl slowed to a trickle, a large saloon pulled into the kerb before a row of shops and offices in Uxbridge. The driver cut the engine and waited, eyes on the interior mirror, finger gently tapping out a rhythm on the wheel. The passenger in the rear was holding a mobile phone and keying in a number. After six rings an answer machine cut in, and a tinny voice asked the caller to leave a message.
The passenger switched off her phone and peered out of the window, then gave a brief nod to indicate all was clear. The driver slid out from behind the wheel and clicked the door shut. As he walked across the pavement, he rolled his shoulders to ease his muscles, cramped after an hour spent in the confines of the car.
The driver’s name was Szulu. He was tall and slim, with strong shoulders and powerful hands. A ring of shiny dreadlocks framed an ebony face and grey eyes. He walked with a loose-limbed grace, and this, coupled with an air of strength, meant he was often treated with caution among those who didn’t know him. The one thing Szulu was not accustomed to was acting as an errand boy, which was what he felt right now. But he needed the money to settle some outstanding debts. Failure to pay very soon meant he would receive a visit from men who knew little of his reputation and would care even less if they did.
He approached a single wooden door set between two anonymous glass-fronted commercial premises. Beyond these on one side was a dry-cleaning shop, which was still open, and on the other a bookmaker, which was not. He pushed open the door, which needed a paint job, he noticed, and stepped into a gloomy apology for a hallway, with just enough room for a hard chair and an empty waste bin. The air smelled damp. A narrow stairway covered in curling carpet tiles led upwards to a glass-panelled door at the top. A box of rubbish teetered on one of the middle treads, a clutch of yellowed newspapers spilling out from a gash in the side. Szulu listened, head cocked to one side. All he could hear was the hum of an occasional vehicle outside and the sound of a radio from somewhere nearby. He flexed his shoulders again and willed himself not to look back at the car; he didn’t need an imperious flap of the passenger’s hand urging him to get on with it; he’d had enough of that already and it did nothing to make him feel any better about himself.
He walked up the stairs, treading lightly, hands held loosely by his sides. All he had to do was go in, check the place, then give the passenger the all-clear signal. Easy enough. Unfortunately, as he knew from experience, it was the easy jobs that most often led to disappointment or pain.
There was no name on the frosted-glass panel. He already knew from the briefing his passenger had given him two days earlier that his main item of interest was a private investigator named Frank Palmer. And this was Palmer’s office. He tried the door, but it was locked. He took out a bunch of keys and selected a few, trying them one by one. The fourth worked with a smooth click and the door swung open. The dull atmosphere of the staircase gave way to the dark reaches of a small, stuffy room heavy with the fog of recent cigarette smoke and typical office smells.