Finally, he called Cassie, once again blowing their weekend plans out of the water. Cassie took it well. Eric smiled to himself. She was a wonderful woman.
Chris parked his car in the nearest spot he could find to his flat. It was still fifty yards away. He lugged his bag up the hill, thinking nervously about his meeting with Ian in just over an hour’s time. He tried to ignore the fear. There was nothing Ian could do in a crowded pub. In fact, it was hard to take Ian seriously as a physical threat. As a manipulator, certainly. As a devious, lying, conniving bastard. But not as a cold-blooded killer.
But Alex and Lenka were both dead. And Chris had been warned.
Chris checked the street both ways before unlocking the front door of his building. Nothing suspicious, just a man in his fifties walking his dog, and a harassed mother dragging two reluctant children towards the Heath. No one was waiting for him on the stairs and his flat was locked just as he had left it. He entered, dumped his stuff, put the kettle on to boil, and listened to the messages on his machine. There was one from Ian.
‘Sorry, I can’t make lunch. Something’s come up. Got to go to Paris. I’ll call you next week.’
Chris looked up Ian’s mobile number and dialled it. It was answered.
‘Hello?’
‘Ian? It’s Chris.’
‘Oh, hi, Chris.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Heathrow.’
‘Look, I’ve got to see you.’
‘Yes. I’m sorry about lunch today. But we can catch up at the end of next week. I’ll give you a ring as soon as I get back.’
‘But why the sudden rush to Paris?’
‘Big deal. We’ve got to move fast. I only heard about it after you called me yesterday.’
‘But it’s a Saturday!’
‘What can I say? It’s a live deal. They say jump, I jump.’
This didn’t sound right. Corporate Finance people like Eric might work all weekend but Ian was basically a salesperson. They worked Monday to Friday. Or they certainly had when Chris was at Bloomfield Weiss.
‘I have to talk to you Ian. I can drive out to Heathrow now.’
‘My flight’s in twenty minutes.’
‘Can’t you get a later one?’
‘No. I’ve got a meeting in Paris. It’s going to be tight as it is.’
Damn, thought Chris. ‘When will you be back?’
‘Can’t say. Depends on how the deal goes. End of next week at the earliest. I’ll call you.’
‘Ian—’
‘Got to go, now. Bye.’
Chris put down the phone, thinking that he didn’t believe a single word Ian had told him.
Ian had a horrible flight to Paris. He was sweating: the heating on the plane must be too high, or something. Eric was right: he would be safer in Paris. It was unlikely that Chris would come looking for him there. He had no idea what he was going to tell the office on Monday. There was, of course, no big deal in France for him to be working on. But there were deals in London that he was supposed to be doing something about. He would have to develop quite a story to justify his presence in Paris. But at least he had two days to think of it.
He was scared. He had been scared for ten years. He had done his best to hide it, to forget it, to rationalize it away, but the fear had always been lingering under the surface. And now, since Lenka had died, it had forced itself very much into the open.
He felt for the little package in his jacket pocket. It was the first time he had taken any abroad with him. Until now, he had always made it a rule never to carry drugs over international borders. But these days London to Paris didn’t count. The only guys he had ever seen checked were swarthy men with moustaches wearing leather jackets who practically had ‘smuggler’ tattooed on their foreheads. He’d be OK. And he’d brought enough to last him until the end of next week.
He could certainly use some now. He knew his consumption had gone up in the last few weeks, since Lenka died. That was hardly surprising. These were exceptional circumstances. Besides, he knew he could give up any time. He’d gone cold turkey many times over the last ten years, hadn’t he?
Ian fidgeted in his seat. He didn’t underestimate Chris. Chris was smart and determined, and he would discover the truth eventually. Unless Eric stopped him first. Ian shuddered. Chris had become a pain in the arse, but he didn’t want another killing. The killing had to stop.
He wished that he had told people what he knew when he had the chance, ten years ago. Now he had no choice. He had to keep quiet and trust Eric.
It was too much. Ian stood up, pushed past the man in the aisle seat, and headed for the toilets.
Terry’s feet hit the damp soil with the barest of sounds. It was a ten-foot drop from the wall of the college: no problem. Terry smiled to himself. These old colleges might look like fortresses from the outside, but they were a cinch to get into. And once inside the walls there were all kinds of bushes, staircases and corridors to lurk in. Plus everyone he had seen wandering around the place during the day looked as weird as hell, so he doubted anyone would think anything strange if they did see him.
It was one thirty. There was only a slither of a moon, which cast the palest of light on the spreading tangle of branches of the ancient tree outside the building. Terry waited for ten minutes, stroking the moustache he had attached for the exercise. He was getting to like it. Perhaps he should grow a real one when this was all over. But the wig irritated him. The long greasy hair tickled his neck. It made him feel scruffy, not the neat, well-trimmed man of action that he liked to think himself to be. It was necessary though, enough to mislead anyone who caught a brief glimpse of him. He grinned to himself as he thought how it had fooled Szczypiorski in New York.
He waited while a loaded kid made his unsteady way across the grass to bed, and then crept along the shadow of the wall until he came to the building. He straightened up and walked up to the staircase and through the doors. Nothing was locked. Up two flights of stairs and there was the thick wooden door with the number eight painted on the wall above it. This door was locked, but it was only a Yale, and within a few seconds Terry was inside.
He found himself in a sitting room. No bed, but a door in one corner. He opened it and slipped into a much smaller room. There was a narrow bed here, and a figure huddled under the covers, dark hair splayed over the pillow. Terry smiled to himself, slid his gloved hand into his jacket and gently pulled out a six-inch knife.
Two hours later, he was in an all-night Internet café in London, typing out a brief message. Three hours after that, his moustache and wig now removed, he was at Heathrow’s Terminal Four, waiting for an early flight to Paris.
2
Chris woke up early on Sunday morning. There was no chance of him indulging in his traditional Sunday morning lie-in, so he rose and made himself a cup of tea in the kitchen. The thoughts that had been tumbling about incoherently in his sleep coalesced into the questions he needed to answer. Marcus, Ian, Alex, Lenka. How were they all connected? What had happened in the water off Long Island Sound ten years ago? What had happened in Prague two weeks before? And what was Ian doing in Paris?
Chris wandered into his sitting room with the cup of tea. He glanced at the blank screen of his PC. Perhaps there was an e-mail from Marcus. Or George Calhoun. Or someone else that could shed some light on the whole mess. He knew it was probably a waste of time, but he turned on the machine and checked his e-mails.