“Yes, I know. You really did give me your real name. Wasn’t that a bit foolish?”
Dillon mouthed ‘Hart’ silently to Havelock, and pointed at the tiny phone in his hand.
“And why should that be foolish? I thought that we were both being honest with each other. And anyway, you’ve got me on your CCTV; you’d have traced me sooner or later. But I have to say, I’m surprised you’ve bothered.”
“Mr. Dillon, I simply wanted you to know just how quickly you could be tracked down. And from the mobile phone company records, I now know where you live.”
“Well, bully for you. And by the way, I’m not planning to move in the near future. Now, was there something else that you wanted to say?”
“I’ve already said it. I wanted you to be fully aware that I now know where you are.”
“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Hart. And I hope that you sleep better for it.”
“Oh, I have no trouble sleeping. But will you sleep as soundly tonight? Think about it, Mr. Dillon.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Havelock watched patiently whilst Dillon walked off outside onto the deck. He knew him well enough not to be overly persistent and refrained from asking him the obvious question.
“It makes no difference,” Dillon said, as if reading the other man’s thoughts.
“Having tried a full frontal attack, he’s now on the offensive in exactly the same way. He’s that type of man. Perhaps it’s just another reason for not going to Delhi. I’ve been warned off in no uncertain terms. And I’m taking him seriously.”
Dillon came back inside, closed the glass panel and walked across the spacious room to the lift, stepped inside with Havelock, and said, “I’ll come down with you; see you to your car.”
Havelock gave him a sideward glance, but said nothing.
They walked out on to the pavement. Dillon looked up at the building on the other side of the street; an elderly woman was sitting by the window of her first floor apartment, reading a newspaper. On seeing Dillon come outside, she closed the newspaper and then immediately opened it again. Havelock’s Lexus was parked in a visitor space near the Embankment.
Dillon knew the signal was to alert him to something strange having happened or someone unknown having turned up. He squeezed Havelock’s arm in warning and escorted him to his car.
Havelock unlocked the car door remotely, instinctively knowing that something was wrong and taking his cue from Dillon, who casually looked up and down the road as he held the door open, whilst a frustrated Havelock climbed in.
Dillon’s mobile phone started to vibrate in his pocket. The text message was short and to the point, and read, ‘Black car by doorway, fifty yards up on left’. Dillon looked up and nodded once in the direction of the old lady who was still sitting by the window reading her newspaper.
Dillon leant into Havelock’s car and said quietly, “Next time you visit, bring one hundred pounds in cash for my guardian angel up there. It’s about time you paid her for keeping an eye on your car.”
“Yes, of course.”
Havelock was looking around, hoping that Dillon was going to tell him what the hell was going on, but all that he added was, “When you drive off, make sure it’s nice and slowly and keep your eyes straight ahead.”
He stood up, closed the door with a heavy thud and stepped back up onto the pavement. The Lexus drove off and Dillon ran quickly and silently in its wake to where the old lady had indicated. He reached the black Vauxhall Vectra, ducked in low behind it, just as someone emerged from the darkened doorway of an apartment building.
The old lady in the first floor apartment had pulled her curtains closed.
Havelock turned the corner at the top of the street. Dillon stood up and moved towards the thick-set man. The punch was wild and missed Dillon’s head by a mile, but allowed him to deliver a heavy blow to the other man’s stomach. As he doubled up with a rasping gasp, Dillon immediately followed through with a knife-hand chop across the back of his neck. He went down onto his knees and a moment later, was collapsing on the hard concrete footpath.
Dillon knew he had to work quickly; the building comprised of several apartments and he knew that someone might appear at any time. He dragged the unconscious man back into the doorway, propped him against the wall and went through his pockets with a professional thoroughness. He found a small amount of cash along with a London underground ticket stub and a private investigator’s identity card. He immediately felt some sympathy for the man who was, after all, only doing his job. He slapped him across the face gently until he slowly came round and Dillon kept repeating the same question over and over again. “Who sent you?”
When the confused man had come around enough to finally answer the question, Dillon wasn’t surprised by what he told him. He had merely been assigned to watch Dillon’s building by his employers, and to report on any callers. Dillon removed a mobile phone, small reporter’s notebook and a digital camera, and slipped them all into his jacket pocket. He gazed down at the man who was still not steady enough to stand up, and reckoned that if he was only half a detective he would easily remember Havelock’s private number plate.
As he walked back down the street towards his own building, he caught a glimpse of Issy’s car going down the ramp in to the underground car park. By the time he’d got back to the penthouse, she was pouring him a large single malt whisky.
“Did you see that man slumped in the doorway up the road? He looked positively ill, or most likely drunk,” she said, and then added, “And was that Dunstan’s car I passed?”
“He came over to hear what, if anything, I’d found out in Dorset, and I’m afraid he got more than he bargained for. I told him in no uncertain terms that I felt the time that I’d spent on his wild goose chase had flagrantly wasted tax payer’s money. I then presented him with the firm’s invoice. Dillon casually ignored her comments regarding the alleged drunk in the doorway and was thankful when she suggested they go and eat out, then changed the subject to how her day had been. Dillon glanced down at the Omega strapped to his wrist and said that it would have to be later. He made an excuse about having to send a number of emails back to LJ, and went off to his study.
He was dying to look at the notebook and find out what information, if any, was stored on the phone’s memory. But first, he looked at the images on the digital camera. There were a few long shots of Dunstan getting out of his car and going into the apartment building, and then some of Dunstan and Dillon coming out of the same door an hour later. He scrolled through the menu, found the ‘delete all images’ icon, and pushed the button. That done, he went through the mobile phone with a fine-tooth comb, found absolutely nothing of interest, and put that to one side, too.
The private detective was Phil McVey and he was employed by the Samuels Detective Agency. ‘Sammy’ Samuels was a former drug squad Detective Sergeant in the Metropolitan Police and ran a high profile agency in the West End. It was the kind of agency whose books were always full and Hart must have paid a substantially large sum of money over and above their usual fee to get taken on so quickly.
As Dillon had expected, the notebook contained the time McVey had taken up his position, the time of Havelock’s arrival and, of course, his car registration number. There was also a great deal of what looked to Dillon, like mobile text notes taking on the other assignments that he was working on. He tore out the relevant pages and put the notebook, along with the camera and phone, into a jiffy bag and sealed it. He addressed it to the Samuels Detective Agency and then called Vince Sharp and asked him to locate an ex-directory number. A moment later, he was phoning ‘Sammy’ Samuels at his home.