The heating was shot to pieces and the lighting rigs were hanging on nothing more than the remnants of thin electrical cable over the stage area. Otherwise, the old West End theatre was slowly taking shape, although not at the pace Dillon had hoped for. And then there was the ever-present building mess everywhere that knew no boundaries. Words of appeasement did little to reassure him.
When the builders had left for the day, Dillon climbed the rickety old steps that led up from the orchestra pit onto the main stage, and immediately felt his heart race with excitement at the feel of the old, worn boards under his feet. And even though the old place was run down, there was still an electrifying presence of long-ago actors and productions, making the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He stood centre stage, turning around slowly, gazing up at the high vaulted ceiling and at the private boxes that looked austerely down at him. For a moment, he pondered Charlie Hart.
So here was an obviously wealthy man, influentially connected throughout India, who had senior UK politicians treading on eggshells whenever his name was mentioned. Yet, he wasn’t listed anywhere and didn’t appear to play the stock market, either. He had to make his substantial wealth work for him somewhere. Perhaps he’d put it in off-shore holdings. That would be a nightmare to look into and take far too much time. Especially as many are nothing more than elaborate and complicated façades, and that these would be guarded by a tangled mess of confusing companies, holding companies, false names and Dillon knew that even with a large team looking into them, it would still take months, if not years, to get a full account.
A few days later everything had settled back down to something like normality. Dillon hadn’t heard anything more from Charlie Hart and Issy had begun working on the extra workload that she had taken on. It seemed that Hart was a man who liked to make his point forcefully and with exceptional speed. Once he was sure that the message had been received and understood, he stepped back and left well alone.
At the end of the week, Dillon spoke to LJ and told him that he thought the firm should not proceed with the assignment against Hart on the grounds that there was not any real evidence against the man. From the offices of Ferran & Cardini, he drove back across town to the theatre and had a meeting with the architect. Afterwards, he stopped in the foyer and had a chat with some of the builders. He was stood talking to one of the electricians when an enormous explosion blew the front doors clean off their hinges and sent everyone, in the immediate area of the blast, reeling backwards.
CHAPTER FIVE
As Dillon was blown off his feet he heard the other men shouting behind him and the crash of falling glass. The building seemed to groan with the blast and then the erected scaffolding closest to the door was hurled sideward and sent crashing down onto the floor.
There were scaffold poles and lengths of timber planking strewn everywhere. Some of the men standing nearby had caught the full brunt of the platform as it crashed down on top of them, and were now pinned under the debris. Dillon was amongst them, laying flat on his back and looking up at the hanging plaster above him. He shook his head in an attempt to sharpen himself up, and then tentatively touched a tender spot at the back of his head. He must have fallen backwards onto the concrete floor, for it felt as if it was about to split in two and his mind was a jumbled mess. He tried to pull himself up into a sitting position but the effort was only inside his head.
Then there was movement all around him and a man’s voice shouting orders at others, trying to pull the debris off him. Dillon felt a surge of energy flow through him and managed to move a little. It was the site foreman’s determined voice that made Dillon strive further to free himself.
“He’s alive, he’s coming round. Quickly man, go and fetch a coat or something from my office. Oh, and you’ll find a bottle of Jack Daniel’s inside the top drawer of my desk. Bring it with you.”
Dillon slurred, “What the hell was that?”
“It’s okay. There was some sort of explosion just outside the front of the theatre.”
“Explosion?” Dillon pushed away the remaining debris and with a lot of help from the site foreman, heaved himself up off the floor. His memory was returning as quickly as he was finding his balance again.
He gazed blearily around at the devastation in the foyer.
“What a bloody mess. What could have caused such a blast? Has anyone called the emergency services?”
“The fire brigade are already on their way, and so are the paramedics, but no one has called the police yet.”
“And that’s the way I want it to stay for the moment.”
Dillon wandered shakily towards the entrance. Through the haze of dust, he saw the big double doors – one had been blown completely off, the other hanging off one hinge at a peculiar angle.
“I want those doors made good and secured immediately. If they’re still standing, get our own carpenters to do it.”
He felt weak, but his survival instinct was much stronger. He had a bad feeling about what had just happened and reiterated to the site foreman that the doors were to be made good immediately.
Dillon thought, as he stepped out into the narrow side street, that apart from the doors, which could easily be fixed and the general mess caused by the collapsing scaffold, things were not nearly as bad as they first appeared.
He could feel the intense heat even before he could see where it was coming from. The smell of burning rubber from the raging fireball that was ensuing, and smoke still spiralling from the wreckage, made his stomach churn. He surveyed what was left of the Porsche 911 Carrera, sank down on to his haunches and started to take in what had caused the explosion. He looked on in despair and disbelief at the pile of smouldering scrap that had once been his beautiful car. The bomb that had been planted somewhere on the underside must have been of a substantial size to have caused so much damage.
Dillon stood up as he heard the sound of sirens approaching at speed. The fire engine pulled up at the end of the street, not able to enter it because of its size. A moment later, the crew were jumping out and running towards the burning wreckage of the Porsche with hoses trailing behind them. Within seconds, the burning car had been completely submersed under a blanket of thick white foam. The only sound that could be heard was the metal contracting as it cooled off.
For a while, he didn’t move; he was shocked and angry, and was using every ounce of self-discipline that he possessed to control the anger that he could feel rising within him. He eventually walked back inside the theatre to find two carpenters working to put the doors back onto their hinges. The site foreman came up and asked when he was going to call the police. Dillon ignored him, but took out his mobile phone and dialled the firm’s special number that was used for this type of emergency. He hoped that Vince would be there and was relieved when he eventually answered.
“Dillon,” he said quietly. He glanced around the foyer, making sure that no one was within earshot of his conversation.
“My Porsche has been bombed. Blown to bits outside the theatre. Fifteen minutes earlier, and I would have been in it. Now listen carefully, Vince. The police are going to be here in a moment, along with the press; I have no doubt. What should I tell them?”
“Absolutely nothing; is that clear?”
“Okay.”
“Give them Dunstan Havelock’s number at the Home Office and tell them to call him immediately. If they don’t, tell them that the next call you make will be to the Chief Constable.”
Vince gave Dillon the number to call if that became necessary.
“Don’t forget to call Dunstan the minute you hang up.”
“Understood. Thanks, Vince.”
Dillon disconnected and immediately called Dunstan Havelock. He answered almost immediately, and Dillon wasted no time in coming to the point.
“Dunstan, my car has just been b
lown to bits outside the theatre. I’m okay, but I’m going to have the police crawling all over this place within minutes.”
The question had no sooner been asked when two police cars pulled up and four Constables got out and headed straight for the burnt out wreckage of Dillon’s Porsche. They stood talking to the lead fire fighter for a moment, who pointed towards Dillon and then walked off inside the theatre.
“Do you think it was Hart?” Havelock asked.
“Who else do you think it would be? Look, I don’t mean to be abrupt, Dunstan. But I’ve got two burly coppers heading towards me and they’re going to want some pretty good answers to their questions. Now, do you mind if I give them your direct line number at the Home Office?”
“By all means give them the number. In the meantime, I’ll speak with the Chief Constable and get him to slap a news blackout on the incident. I’m assuming you’ve already updated Edward Levenson-Jones or someone at Ferran & Cardini?”
“Vince Sharp, I phoned him before I called you.”
“Good, because Sir Lucius Stagg will need to be kept in the loop on this one. We’re almost certainly going to need his political clout if Hart starts throwing his weight about with those MPs who think the sun shines out of his arse. I’m very sorry that this has happened, Jake. Now, are you sure you’re okay? Do you want me to call a doctor?”
“That’s the best you can come up with, is it? To be blunt, Dunstan, I’m thoroughly pissed off with the way this Charlie Hart thing is evolving.”
“Just stay calm, Jake. The police will be taken care of. Remember, you tell them that you don’t know of any reason why your car would have been blown up. And that you don’t have any enemies, or have had any disagreements with anyone that would warrant such an act of aggression. Simply state the facts as you know them. Oh, and Jake, please don’t think for one moment that if it was Hart who did this he’ll get away with it.”
Dillon disconnected the call and had slipped his mobile phone back into his jacket pocket, just as the two police officers walked up to where he was standing.
“Quite a mess,” the first policeman commented dryly as he gazed back towards the bulk of twisted metal, and then added, “Is that your vehicle, sir?”
“It was,” Dillon replied. “Thankfully, I wasn’t in it at the time.”
* * *
Dillon met Havelock at Slinky Joe’s, a club in Soho frequented by the more dubious elements of the London criminal fraternity and located below the offices of a film company, a Chinese restaurant on one side and a lap dancing club on the other. The polished brass plate alongside the film company’s door stated that they were in the business of making movies of an artistic and erotic nature for the discerning client. Havelock, feeling completely out of place, was sitting with Dillon in the furthest, darkest corner of the bar. Realising from the glances cast at him that he was making a few of the regulars feel uneasy, possibly even cramping their style.
The Champagne was remarkably good and so was the coffee.
Dillon said, “Chill out, Dunstan. You will not come to any harm in here. I know most of these people and Joe and I served together in the intelligence corp. He opened this place with the pay-off the army gave him when he took early retirement. He’ll even make sure you don’t get mugged on your way out.”
Dillon laughed and sipped his Champagne.
“As reassuring as that may be, Jake, for someone in my position to be found in an establishment such as this would cause an awful stir in Whitehall. Couldn’t we have met somewhere else?”
“No, not really. Your home is almost certainly bugged from top to toe; Issy is working from my home and I certainly don’t want her involved with any more of this stuff. She obviously knows a certain amount, but I don’t want her frightened with details of what’s gone on this morning. I told her that I’d be at the office until early evening.”
Havelock nodded in understanding; he would have exactly the same problem with his better half.
“What was the outcome with the police?”
“They were sceptical, to say the least. Then they tried to run me through their database and were immediately blocked because they didn’t have high enough clearance. One of them was rather pissed off about this, and was so narked that I thought he was going to arrest me. That’s when I thought it best to hand them your telephone number. The more senior officer called it and after you’d spoken to him, he remarked that I must be some sort of spook to have that much protection. He told me that they’d have to file a report and inform the bomb squad along with the anti-terrorist unit, who more than likely would want to pay me a visit and inspect the wreckage. Eventually, they packed up and drove off.”
“Could it have been anyone else other than Hart, do you think? I mean, whoever is trying to soften you up.”
“You don’t like the idea that it could be Hart. Don’t try to play games with me, Dunstan. It was not someone from my past, because if it had been, I would almost certainly be dead by now. A terrorist or professional mercenary would have used something a little more sophisticated and much more precise to blow up my car. And they would have made sure that I was securely belted in before remotely detonating it.”
“It’s damned lucky you weren’t killed.”
“That’s the big question, isn’t it? Was I meant to be? I suppose I’ll never know. If the bomb had been on, let’s say, a mechanical timer, there was no way that anyone could guarantee that I would be inside the car at the right time. If it was a remote detonated device it tells me that someone would have had to be in the vicinity of the theatre, and able to watch me arrive and get out of it. But I would have seen someone if I’d been followed. Unless I’m losing my touch. It wasn’t connected to the ignition or I would have been blown to bits the moment I turned the key.”
“So you think it was merely a warning?”
“Well, if it was, I’ve had a few of them these last couple of days. And, to be honest, if it was a warning then it was bloody extreme and you owe me a new Porsche. Maybe whoever it was deliberately used more explosive to make sure that there wasn’t going to be much left for the forensic boys to piece together.”
“I’m not in such a position that I could countenance a seventy thousand pound Porsche, Jake. I’d never get away with it, so I’m afraid that you’ll have to claim on your own insurance.”
Dillon glowered at the Home Secretary’s personal aide.
“Well, I’m most definitely in a position to tell you, Dunstan, that one way or another you most certainly will be footing the bill for a replacement. That car was only nine months old, and you can bloody well pay for another one.”
Havelock looked embarrassed and awkward.
“Oh now, Jake. I’ll never be able to convince them that it was a result of something a Ferran & Cardini field officer was doing for the Home Secretary, thereby for HM Government. Needless to say, I’ll obviously do my best, but it won’t be easy. In the meantime get yourself a hire car and have it charged to me personally.”
He was unable to meet Dillon’s piercing gaze as he added, “You know that if it were down to me I would not hesitate. I’m very sorry, Jake.”
He then lowered his voice conspiratorially. “I suppose you will not be going any further with the investigation?”
“When I spoke to LJ earlier he was all for dropping the assignment and, you personally, from a great height. But I don’t think that Hart will let this go now. I think that what has got him all fired up, is that he got wind of us snooping around into his commercial background and didn’t like it. But the ironic thing is that we didn’t really find out a bloody thing about him.”
Havelock reached for the ice bucket.
“Well, it tells me one thing, though: That there is without any shadow of a doubt something quite interesting to find at the bottom of all this. The question is th
ough, what is he trying to hide from the world? Interesting, wouldn’t you say?”
* * *
Dillon walked Havelock the short distance from the club to his car, searching it from the tyres up for anything that resembled a bomb. He got down on his hands and knees to check the underside; then searched the inside of the boot and engine compartment areas. Satisfied that there was nothing to be found, he waited until Dunstan had driven off. He was conscious that someone may be watching and without too much movement scanned the immediate area for anyone. Once satisfied that there was no one obvious, he made his way back to Slinky Joe’s and instead of going back in he hailed a black cab and went straight home. On the way he occasionally glanced out of the rear window to see if there was anyone tailing behind. By the time he’d arrived at his apartment, Issy had finished working on the papers for Charlie Hart, and as he stepped out of the lift her warm smile immediately lifted his spirits.
They went out to an Italian restaurant in Covent Garden. It was somewhere they both enjoyed going to when neither of them could be bothered to cook. Dillon had got to know the owner and head chef, Giovanni, over the years and he always ensured that Dillon got the best table in the house; one which enabled whoever was sitting there to have a clear view of the entrance.
Shroud of Concealment (Jake Dillon Adventure Thriller Series) Page 7
