‘How can you be so sure?’
‘I work for the ministry which watches our people when they leave the Kingdom. All of those brothers have gone abroad at one time or another. I have no idea what they will have done that they would prefer to keep buried, but there is bound to be something.’
‘Where are these brothers of yours now? In Saudi?’
‘No, at my father’s villa in the south of France. It is his birthday in three days’ time.’
‘All fifty-three of them are there?’
‘Fifty-four, including me. No, I lie. It is only fifty-three, because one of my brothers was executed last year.’
‘What had he done?’ Meadows asked.
‘In the Kingdom, it is sometimes wiser not to ask that question.’
Jesus, Meadows thought – but back to business …
‘Fifty-three of you,’ she said. ‘And how do you manage it? Do you sleep in bunk beds?’
‘Of course not! Don’t be so disgusting. We all have our own rooms, though some of my less important brothers have to share a bathroom.’
‘So it shouldn’t be too difficult to have some time alone with the ones you need to talk to?’
‘No problem at all.’
‘And how long should it take you to get back to your father’s villa, Farhad?’ Meadows asked.
‘Two or three hours,’ the prince replied.
It wouldn’t do to look impressed, Meadows warned herself. It would be fatal to look impressed.
‘Two or three hours!’ she said scornfully. ‘Is that the best you can manage?’
‘I don’t see how I could do it quicker,’ Farhad said. ‘I will fly back to France in my own jet, when I land there will be a helicopter waiting to take me to the villa, and …’
‘If it’s the best you can do, it’s the best you can do, and we’ll just have to learn to live with it,’ Meadows said.
‘I am sorry,’ Farhad said.
‘What matters most is not how long it takes you to get there, but how quickly you can find out what I want to know once you’re there,’ Meadows said briskly.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘I’ll tell you, if you’ll only be silent.’
‘I am sorry again.’
‘I want to know about the deal your country signed with BAI and Roussillon Aéronautique for the Faucon fighter plane. Specifically, I want to know why it took so long to negotiate, and what finally tipped the balance.’
‘Am I allowed to ask what my reward will be if I succeed in doing what you’ve asked me to do?’
‘You’re allowed – and I will tell you. When it’s over, we’ll spend a night together – perhaps even two.’
‘Will it be dangerous, Zelda – this thing you’re asking me to do?’ Farhad asked.
‘It could be.’
‘Might I be arrested and tortured?’
‘It’s possible.’
‘Is there a chance that, even though I am a prince, I might be executed – like my brother was?’
‘Yes.’ Meadows smiled. ‘But I don’t think that bothers you, does it?’
‘No.’
‘In fact, it excites you.’
‘It does,’ Farhad admitted. ‘It excites me very much.’
Rosemary had told them that she could identify Roger in the drawer, so there was no need to go through all the palaver of getting him out, but they insisted, and would not even let her into the room until he had been neatly laid out on a trolley.
Rosemary looked down at the face. ‘Well, I can’t tell anything from that,’ she said.
‘I did warn you,’ Green said
‘So let’s see the rest of him, then.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘The rest of him. The part that’s hidden by the sheet.’
‘I don’t think you’re quite aware …’ Green began.
‘Of course I’m aware. I’m not a medic, but I am a scientist. At the very least, there’ll be a big Y-shaped incision down his front that’s been roughly sewn back together again, and if you think that will send me running from the room, you haven’t learned much about me in the last half hour.’
‘Pull back the sheet, please,’ Inspector Green said to the attendant.
‘Right down to the feet?’ the attendant asked.
‘Right down to the feet,’ Rosemary Pemberton said.
The attendant pulled back the sheet.
Rosemary examined the body for less than ten seconds, then said, ‘Shit, that’s not my husband.’
Green wondered if he dared put his hand on her shoulder, and decided that the circumstances justified it.
‘It’s natural to deny that your husband is dead,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen it happen so many times. You may tell yourself that you hate him, but there must still be love for him in some small part of your heart, and that part refuses to let him die.’
‘It’s not him,’ Rosemary said firmly.
‘There was a perfect match with the prints.’
‘Then someone screwed up.’
‘Mistakes are made, but they are so rare that …’
Rosemary brushed the comforting hand aside, and stepped away from the table.
‘Listen very carefully, because I will not be repeating this,’ she said. ‘My husband was circumcised, and unless he had a foreskin transplant while he was on the run, this is not him.’
Dr Pemberton glanced at her watch. She couldn’t ring Colin Beresford for some time yet, so she thought she might as well go to the nearest hotel and treat herself to a bottle of champagne.
Captain Mahoney was only gone for twenty-five minutes, but it seemed to Proudfoot – with only an unresponsive patrolman in the corner for company – to have been at least three or four hours, so that when the captain did return, Proudfoot was surprised to discover that he was pleased to see him.
Mahoney sat down.
‘So you used to be in the CIA, didn’t you?’ he asked.
Proudfoot had not been expecting this, but he was surprised, rather than worried.
‘Yes, I was in the CIA,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t admit it while I was operational, but I’ve made no secret of it since I left.’
‘Now that is one hell of an understatement,’ Mahoney said. ‘Made no secret of it? Man, it was splashed all over your campaign literature when you ran for the Assembly.’
‘I’d done my duty while I served the Company. I saw no reason to be ashamed of it.’
‘Quite so. Good for you, I say. And while you were working for the CIA, did you ever come across an English police officer called Detective Chief Inspector Monika Paniatowski?’
‘No.’
Mahoney shook his head. ‘It’s a pity you’re taking that attitude. Still, since you’re here, I suppose we might as well press on. I met Monika at a couple of international police conferences, and we got on like a house on fire. No sex, you understand, and she spoke a special kind of English called Lancashire English, so I’m not sure we even understood each other half the time. But like I say, we hit it off.’
‘What’s the point of all this?’
‘That will become clear real soon now. A couple of years ago, Monika asked for my help on a case because it involved a New Yorker – a very famous New Yorker, as things turned out. You may have read about it.’
‘I didn’t,’ Proudfoot said.
Mahoney made a face. ‘You want to consider changing your name to Sourpuss,’ he said. ‘So, I do Monika this little favour, and then I read in the New York Times that I’m the one who’s cracked the case. And where do you think the reporter got that information from?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Take a guess.’
‘I couldn’t possibly …’
‘Take a guess.’
‘I know what you’re doing,’ Proudfoot said. ‘In the CIA, I was taught how to resist interrogation.’
‘If you don’t answer my question right now, I’m going to come round that table and pull your head off
,’ Mahoney growled.
‘It was her who probably told the reporter,’ Proudfoot said sulkily.
‘Yep, that’s right,’ Mahoney agreed. ‘So instead of her being in my debt, I’m pretty much in hers. So when she calls me up, yesterday …’
‘She couldn’t have called you up,’ Proudfoot said. ‘She’s in a coma.’
His face froze.
‘Yes, she is in a coma, and it was one of her friends who made the call,’ Mahoney said. ‘But how would someone who’s never even heard her name before know that?’
‘No comment.’
‘Now you’re talking like a criminal,’ Mahoney said. ‘Anyway, this friend asks me if I know anything about a Robert Proudfoot, who she tried to arrest a few years back, but who turned out to have diplomatic immunity. Well, it doesn’t take me long to find you, and it’s almost as quick to get something on you, because you perverts are never as smart or discreet as you think you’ve been. So here we are. I’ve got you over a barrel, and I want to know what you were doing in Barrow Village that early morning four years ago. I believe it’s your move.’
Proudfoot took a deep breath, ‘I feel under a certain obligation to the Company not to say anything about that incident,’ he told Mahoney.
‘Fine,’ the captain said. ‘In that case, call your lawyer – and while we’re waiting for him to arrive, I’ll throw you into the cage with four or five guys who are just going to love you.’
‘If I … if I tell you about that morning …?’
‘Yes?’
‘… what do I get in return?’
‘I’ll kick you loose.’
‘Why should I believe you?’ Proudfoot asked.
‘Because I’ve just given you my word,’ Mahoney growled.
He’d always been going to kick him loose. What choice did he have? He couldn’t charge Proudfoot, because it hadn’t been his operation. And if he sent him back to Vice, then Boone would kick him loose, because Proudfoot was a state assemblyman, and as far as Boone was concerned, that gave him the right to jam his dick into little boys’ assholes.
‘The reason I went to Barrow Village that morning was to check with my own eyes that a man called Arthur Wheatstone had been terminated,’ Proudfoot said.
‘Who sent you?’
‘The short answer to that is my boss sent me.’
‘And what’s the long answer?’
‘Somebody in State? Somebody in Defence? Maybe even somebody in the White House? I wasn’t told.’
‘And that was all? You just had to check he was dead?’
‘No, not just dead – terminated. I was to check there was no possibility that he’d killed himself.’
‘Why would you need to do that?’
‘If you ask yourself why in the Company, you’ll last maybe a week.’
‘OK, you can go,’ Mahoney said.
‘Just like that?’
‘Just like that.’
Proudfoot rose unsteadily to his feet.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘Don’t thank me,’ Mahoney said. He paused for a second. ‘Oh, by the way, say hi to the reporters for me.’
‘What reporters?’
‘The ones waiting outside. Somebody must have told them you’d been arrested in a brothel full of under-age sex workers.’
‘But … that … will ruin … me,’ Proudfoot gasped.
‘I should hope it would,’ Mahoney told him.
‘I’m not going down alone,’ Proudfoot said. ‘I’ll find a way to drag you with me.’
That was a possibility, Mahoney thought, but it was a long-term possibility. In the short term, he still had to look at his own face in the shaving mirror each morning.
It was early evening, and nothing had gone as Mr Forsyth had expected it to that day.
Colin Beresford, who had announced in the Drum and Monkey that he would be seeking a meeting with the chief constable to tell him that it was the end of the road for his investigation, had spent most of his day by Monika’s bedside, playing her songs which, in Forsyth’s opinion, were more likely to induce a coma than pull someone out of one.
Then there was Kate Meadows. There was no doubt that she had targeted the two men on the train, which meant she knew they were connected with the security services in some way, but that didn’t necessarily mean her trip to London had anything to do with the case. It might simply be – and knowing Kate Meadows as he did, probably was – that she had just decided that she didn’t want to be followed around by a couple of spooks, and had not been too particular about how she got rid of them.
The other concern was Diana Sowerbury. He had brought her to Lancashire with the sole purpose of her keeping an eye on Monika, and the fact that she’d already struck up a relationship with Beresford by the time he’d briefed her on her mission had been a real bonus.
And it had all continued running like clockwork until nine that morning, which was when the transmitter in her flat had gone down. Sowerbury herself couldn’t have known that, of course, but the protocol was that whether you were wired up or not, you checked in by phone, as a safety measure, at given pre-set times – and she hadn’t been doing that.
It was when Sowerbury had missed three of those check-in calls – and still not made an appearance in public – that Forsyth reluctantly decided that even though it might compromise her cover, he had better send Wilson up to her flat.
Wilson rang back ten minutes later.
‘She’s here,’ he said. ‘I found her on the bed, bound and gagged.’
‘Who …?’ Forsyth began – and then realized what a stupid question he was about to ask. ‘Has Diana Sowerbury said why Beresford tied her up?’
‘No. He came at her from behind. She thought he was starting some sex game at first, and even when he put the tape over her mouth …’
‘All right, I get the picture,’ Forsyth said. ‘Does she need medical care?’
‘It might be wise for her to have a check up.’
‘Then ring the number, and they’ll send an ambulance.’
‘Beresford’s been back, sir,’ Wilson said.
‘Then why in God’s name didn’t you tell me before? When was this?’
‘Diana thinks it was about three quarters of an hour ago.’
‘Thinks!’
‘Yes, it’s hard to look at your watch when your hands are taped behind your back.’
‘Did he do anything to her – or say something which might give us a clue about what he might do next?’
‘He asked her if she’d like some water, and he gave her a massage.’
‘He did what!’
‘You’ve been tied up like that for hours, and it’s not good for you,’ Beresford says. ‘So what I’m going to do is, I’m going take some of the tapes off, so I can massage you. Please don’t take advantage of the opportunity to try and escape, because you won’t make it, and I’ll probably have to hurt you. Do you understand?’
Diana Sowerbury nods.
Beresford strips off some of the tape, and goes to work on her legs.
‘I used to do this for my mum,’ he says. ‘She had Alzheimer’s disease. I’m not sure it did her much good – she’d given up any sort of exercise by then – but I think she recognized it as a kind act, if not a loving one, from this stranger who was always around. And that has to count for something, doesn’t it?’
He starts to work on her other ankle.
‘I’m sorry about this, I really am,’ he says, ‘but we’re on different sides, and that’s just the way it is.’
He finishes the massage, and tapes her ankles together again.
‘I’m expecting some phone calls,’ he says. ‘The way we figured it, you’d have all our phones bugged, but you probably wouldn’t have bugged your own,’ he said. ‘Is that right?’
She glares at him.
He grins back.
‘Well, there was always a chance you might tell me,’ he says.
The phone rings in the living
room.
He walks through and picks it up.
She hears him say, ‘Hello Captain Mahoney … Yes, sir, that is very good news.’
‘How many other calls did he receive?’ Forsyth demanded.
‘Two.’
‘And who were they from?’
‘Diana doesn’t know.’
One of the other phones rang – the one from the van outside the hospital.
Forsyth picked it up.
‘Yes,’ he said, irritated.
‘I really think you should hear this, sir,’ the man in the van said.
There were a few seconds of a screeching song – something about sugar, honey and candy men (as far as Forsyth could work out), then the cacophony was gone and a voice that he recognized as Beresford’s said, ‘I’m Col the Pol and that was the Archies singing “Sugar, Sugar”. You’re listening to Radio Monika, broadcasting to all blue vans in the vicinity of Whitebridge General Hospital. And now, a word from our sponsors.’
There was a few seconds’ silence, then a voice which was very weak – but also instantly recognisable, said, ‘I think that it’s about time we had a talk, Mr Forsyth.’
TWENTY-THREE
‘Will there be cricket on the radio?’ Forsyth asked Downes, as they crossed Whitebridge on their way to the hospital.
Downes checked his watch. ‘There’ll be no match coverage at the moment, but you might catch a summary on the news.’
‘Well, see if you can find it for me,’ Forsyth said.
He enjoyed his cricket, and it annoyed him when he heard racists shout unpleasant things at the Indian and Pakistani players. He was a racist himself – if you were born white, you were born superior, and there was just nothing you could do about that, was there? – but it seemed to him that if these chaps batted or bowled well, they deserved the credit for it, and if they did happen to win, well, you just gritted your teeth and accepted the result, because when all was said done, damn it, you were English.
‘… and that is the end of the sports results,’ said the newsreader. ‘Here are the closing headlines. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a major speech …’
The Chancellor of the Exchequer was a windbag, Forsyth thought. He had been a windbag at school, and he was a windbag now.
‘… raised an objection with the International Monetary Fund. It has been announced that the chairman of British Aircraft Industries, Sir Henry Tavistock, is stepping down next month. His replacement is Mr Thomas Carter, who has been a senior executive with the Boeing Corporation for a number of years. On the stock market …’
Dead End Page 24
