I looked down as Ashleigh Roughton got to his feet, breathing deeply, moisture in his eyes.
‘You’re only winded,’ I said to him. ‘I sucker-punched you.’
He nodded. I hadn’t done any such thing, of course, but I figured it might help defuse the situation if I gave him some of his face back. I wasn’t going to be doing much good finding Chloe’s attackers if I was in an intensive-care bed myself.
Another guy stepped forward, five nine but enormous. I figured him for a hooker. Rugbywise that was. He had the kind of face that even a mother would find hard to love.
‘You the Riddler?’ he asked, ignoring me and looking straight at Sam.
‘I never liked that nickname much,’ he replied.
The ugly man’s face broke into a grin. ‘My dad took me to see you fight once. Years ago. You were awesome. Met Police against the RAF. You won.’
‘I remember. Who was your dad?’
‘Chief Superintendent Patrick Connolley. He’s retired now.’
‘He was a good man.’
The guy nodded, still grinning. ‘Awesome,’ he said again.
I sensed a shift in mood. I held my hands out. ‘What say we just ask you all a few questions? Then you can channel your aggression into kicking ten shades of crap out of UCL this afternoon.’
Half an hour later we had spoken to each member of the team and were heading out of the sports ground, back to Sam’s car.
‘Well, we didn’t learn much from that,’ he said.
I jumped in the car and pulled my seat belt across. But Sam was wrong, I figured we had learned something. Something important.
The guy I’d floored, Ashleigh Roughton, had something to hide or my name wasn’t Dan Carter. I was very far from smiling but things were starting to get shifting now. The opposition had the next move but I could feel the tide turning. So far they’d been calling all the shots. I intended to change that.
Chapter 51
Mister Alistair Lloyd gestured to his assistant, a thirty-year-old Canadian woman.
‘Close her up, Michaela,’ he said.
As he walked out of the theatre he was surprised to see a couple of police officers, his colleague John Ferguson, and an animated young woman with an unhappy expression on her face waiting to see him.
‘There’s a bit of a problem, Alistair,’ said Ferguson.
‘Oh?’
‘My brother would never have signed a donor card. There’s been a mistake,’ said Penelope Harris.
‘I’m sorry? I don’t follow.’
‘I want the operation stopped.’
The surgeon shrugged. There wasn’t much apology in the gesture. ‘It’s too late, I’m afraid. The transplant has been done. It was clearly what your brother wanted.’
‘I don’t believe it. I want to see him.’
‘Of course. You have to understand that he was in a serious accident. He suffered major injuries.’
‘I know that. I need to know it’s him.’
One of the police officers stepped forward. ‘We need a formal identification.’
‘Of course you do. Come with me, then.’
A short while later Alistair Lloyd nodded at the mortuary assistant who slid open the drawer and revealed the body. The dead man had suffered considerable trauma but his face, although lacerated, was recognisable. Penelope gasped holding a hand to her mouth. Then she nodded, unable to speak.
The surgeon gestured to the assistant to close the drawer again. As he did, Penelope’s brother’s left hand flopped loose from the covering sheet.
‘What happened to his hand?’ Penelope asked, puzzled.
John Ferguson looked down, shocked. The third finger of the dead man’s hand had been severed at the second knuckle.
‘It wasn’t like that when he came in,’ he said.
Chapter 52
Sam was parking the car as I jogged up the stairs to our office.
There was some activity in the offices of Chambers, Chambers and Mason. But not a great deal of it. Lawyers, it seemed, were not always on the case. Not on Saturday afternoons, at any rate.
Lucy was back at her reception desk, typing on her computer.
‘Where’s Suzy?’ I asked her.
‘She’s still down at the university.’
‘You get anything more?’
‘We made contact with Laura Skelton. She’s pretty shell-shocked by what happened.’
‘She would be. She add anything new?’
Lucy shook her head. ‘Suzy’s still with her. They seemed to be getting on pretty well. She thought it might be useful to strike up a friendship.’
‘Keep me posted. And tell her to dig into a meatball by the name of Ashleigh Roughton while she’s down there. Captain of the rugby team. Make him a priority.’
‘On it!’ She snatched up the phone.
Maybe we’d make a field agent out of her yet. I walked across the office to the water cooler, pulled a cup out of the dispenser and poured myself some.
Sipping on the water, I strolled over to Adrian Tuttle’s workstation. He had three computers on it, a big Apple cinema display screen and two laptops. The footage of Hannah bound and reading the message that her captors had given her was freeze-framed. Adrian looked up from the laptop he was working on as I approached.
‘You got any good news for me, Adrian?’ I asked.
He shook his head apologetically. ‘The email address is a hotmail account, as you know. Use it and lose it kind of thing.’
‘And the YouTube account?’
‘Linked to that address. I’m trying to get the computer signature but I’m not having any luck.’
‘YouTube won’t release it?’
‘Not short of a warrant. And the original film has been taken down.’
‘You can’t trace the ISP remotely?’
Adrian shook his head. ‘Sponge might have been able to but…’ He shrugged. ‘Outside of my pay grade.’
I nodded. Nothing I didn’t expect. ‘Keep on it.’
The phone rang. Lucy answered it and waved me across.
‘It’s them,’ she said.
‘Put it through to my office, Lucy, I’ll take it there.’
I gestured to Sam to follow me and headed into my office. As Sam closed the door behind me I hit my speakerphone button.
‘It’s Dan Carter. Talk to me.’
‘There’s a trade on the table if you’re interested.’
‘Of course we’re interested.’
‘Good. Ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Parliament Square. There is a statue of Sir Robert Peel on the south-west corner of it.’
‘I know it.’
‘Good again. Be there then. Be alone. And have one million pounds’ worth of cut diamonds with you.’
I looked at my watch. ‘That might be tricky to arrange in time.’
‘Your problem, not mine. And make sure they are perfect. No flaws. After all… neither of us want to be left with damaged goods when this trade is completed, do we?’
‘No,’ I said. Picturing Hannah Shapiro dressed in her underwear, terrified. I gripped the phone tighter.
‘Then we have an understanding?’
‘I’ll be there,’ I agreed.
‘Any…’ there was a slight hesitation ‘… woodentops, as you call them, show up… and it’s on your head, Mister Carter. Don’t let her down. She’s counting on you.’
‘I want to hear her voice.’
The line went dead.
I clicked on my computer screen and pulled up the incoming-call register. Nothing. I slammed the phone down. ‘Son of a bitch!’
‘At least we know something from that.’
‘What?’
‘It’s not an American outfit that’s taken her.’
‘How so?’
‘He said woodentops. Quite pointedly. Not likely an American would use the expression.’
‘Not impossible. They have English cop shows over there too, and he said as you call them. Meaning the British, as though he were foreign.’
‘It’s more a term used in the force than out. And it’s hardly a current one, is it?’
‘True.’
‘Could have been deliberate.’
‘I’m pretty sure everything he said was deliberate.’
‘What are we going to do?’
‘Get the diamonds. Make the trade.’