He switched on the overhead light. Two minutes later, he heard the downstairs door open and slow footsteps on the stairs. He cut the main light and pulled the blinds, then switched on the desk lamp. It didn’t do much to improve the scenery, but was sufficient for what they needed.
The passenger appeared in the doorway and Szulu stepped over to the window where he could watch the street through a crack in the blinds. It also meant he didn’t have to look the woman — his temporary employer — in the eye.
‘Have you touched anything?’ Her voice was soft, with signs of wheezy breathlessness after the stairs, and awoke in Szulu unhappy memories of a particularly malevolent and asthmatic nun who’d taught him maths when he was eight.
‘No.’ he said curtly. ‘You said not to.’
The woman nodded and stepped into the room, her nose twitching at the smell. She looked gaunt in the throw of the desk light, and moved carefully, as if she was trying to keep herself upright in spite of a particularly bad back. She wore expensive shoes and jewellery, and was wrapped in a heavy coat tightly belted at the waist in spite of the generally warm weather. Szulu thought the coat was hideously dated, but since he knew nothing of fashion and the woman was no longer remotely young, he assumed his views would count for little. His mother wore a coat all year round, but he put that down to her coming from Antigua and because she, too, was as old as the hills. Old people felt the cold.
The woman pulled open a filing cabinet and rustled through the contents, her wrinkled hand with its bright red fingernails racing across the tops of the drop-files like a large, gaudy spider. She selected two or three, briefly scanning the sheets within, then replaced them carefully where she had found them. The drawers closed with a thunk. From there she moved over to the desk and worked her way through its contents. It didn’t take long, and she gave a small sigh of irritation. Next she turned her attention to a notepad on the top of the desk, covered in meaningless squiggles. She picked it up, scanned it, then dropped it back on the desk.
‘You want me to help?’ Szulu offered finally. She was staring at a battered PC monitor sitting on the desk. The tower was beneath the desk, the green power light glowing in the shadow. He wasn’t great with computers, but he could generally find his way around them. It would be better than standing here like a lemon — and quicker.
‘Are you an IT specialist?’ she asked, eyes swivelling towards him. It was like coming under the gaze of a bad-tempered rat, and he could feel the tension coming off her in waves. He couldn’t help it: he flinched. And shook his head.
‘Then you can’t help.’ She reached across and pulled at a Rolodex sitting alongside the PC monitor. She spun it round like a dealer shuffling a pack of cards. When it stopped, she stabbed a long fingernail at a point in the index and unclipped a card. She studied it for a few seconds before dropping it on the desk. ‘Remember the details then put the card back.’
She moved away to the window, where a small pot plant stood on a coffee table. The plant looked neglected and close to death, with the tips of the heavy leaves yellowed and beginning to curl. The soil around the base was dry and cracked, and edged with a white fuzz. Alongside the plant was a small plastic watering can with a long spout. It was empty, and still had a sales ticket stuck to the base. The woman took the can to where a kettle sat on a tray, and transferred water from the kettle, then carefully poured a trickle around the plant, using the handle of a teaspoon to turn over the soil and help the moisture penetrate.
Szulu watched in astonishment as she tidied up some spilled soil, and wondered whether this woman was for real. Didn’t she realise they’d get caught if the owner came back? Yet here she was playing Gardeners’ World. Maybe she was nuts.
She finished what she was doing and wiped off the spoon with a tissue from her coat pocket. Replacing the spoon near the kettle, she walked out of the office and down the stairs, leaving Szulu half hoping she might trip on the way down.
He checked the card she had dropped on the desk. The surface bore the indent from one of her chisel-like nails. There wasn’t much on it; a name, address and a phone number. He slid it back into the pack, then turned his attention to the PC. He touched the tower, which felt warm from recent use. He wondered if he should take a quick look, anyway, then dismissed the idea. The woman hadn’t told him what she was looking for, and hanging around here too long was asking for trouble. Without thinking, he reached down and flicked off the power button.
He pulled the door shut behind him, instinctively reaching for the keys to lock it, then changed his mind. He liked the idea of this Palmer person knowing someone was watching him; that someone had entered his domain because they felt like it. And, what the hell, the old woman didn’t own every decision he made, in spite of her money and her evil eye. As he walked back down the stairs, he found himself thinking about the Rolodex card, and wondering who Riley Gavin was.
Chapter 7
Early next morning, Palmer was once more outside the office block in Harrow. This time he was facing the opposite way down the street, and parked close to the rear entrance, within sight of the loading bay. The cover here wasn’t ideal, but it was likely he’d only need to be here for a short while. After his revelation the previous day, he needed one more look; one more sighting of that face to confirm that he wasn’t losing his entire sense of perspective.
Fifteen minutes later, after watching a procession of early workers, deliveries and the usual comings and goings related to an office building girding itself for the day’s business, he saw a White Tower cab turn the corner and slide into the kerb. One passenger got out, closing the door without looking back, and the cab pulled away. No goodbyes, no indication that money had changed hands in the usual way. A regular user, then — most likely an account-customer.
The tanned skin and gaunt look confirmed it was the man from the lift.
Palmer took a digital camera from the glove box and fired off a couple of shots. With the face already imprinted on his memory, he wouldn’t need to refer to the camera again. The photos were purely for backup, a hangover from his days in the Special Investigations Branch of the RMP.
The man approached the rear of the building and punched in a security code on a small black box to one side of the door. There was no audible click from this distance, but by the way the man barely checked his step, the time delay was brief and the procedure something of a habit. It showed he had been coming here for some time, and had settled into the comfortable routine of a regular.
As soon as the door closed behind him, Palmer dialled a number he’d stored in his phone the previous evening. He hadn’t been confident enough to make this call yesterday, but now he had no hesitation.
Reg Paris had come from a small village near Trowbridge in Wiltshire. It was the seat, the tall NCO had once joked, of the Paris family ever since they had first been discovered living under a rock. Coming from a family of farm labourers, Reg had displayed the raw-boned strength and build of his forebears, a fact, Palmer recalled, that had proven useful in promoting an air of calm among troublesome squaddies around the pubs and clubs.
With no current information to go on, Palmer had, the previous evening, dialled up his account with a directory search engine and keyed in the name and the largest town, Swindon. The first result had produced a blank. He’d tried other county towns, wondering whether he was being over-optimistic, before finally hitting on three references and phone numbers. The first two had been unhelpful. The Paris family, it seemed, was no longer as close as it had once been. The third number, however, had led to gold in the form of a younger brother. Although wary at first, the man had finally given Palmer a phone number for Reg’s widow, Marjorie. She had answered after three rings. By now long remarried, she was surprised to hear from anyone about her former husband’s death.