‘What did he say?’ Belsey asked.
‘You might have the money.’
‘What money?’
‘Amber’s money.’
‘I get the impression she’s been disposing of it quite well herself. Why would I have it?’
‘I don’t know. But it’s gone. To the extent that they can’t pay people meant to be doing the wedding.’
‘Hold on. How much is gone?’
‘About forty-five million in the last few weeks.’
Belsey tried to accommodate this new information. Drummond’s eyes flicked to the corpse, then the meeting room. Both men sensed the presence of this fact in the room. A missing £45 million is rarely an irrelevance.
‘I don’t have Amber’s money,’ Belsey said. He walked to the window, called Drummond over. ‘Know this guy?’ He pointed to the Ford Mondeo parked across the street, the goatee.
‘No. Who is it?’
‘He’s been tailing me for the last twenty-four hours. I might try to find out.’
Drummond nodded, walked into the meeting room. ‘Holy fuck.’ He picked up the royal lingerie shot, then put it down and picked up the Polaroids. ‘Are the police on their way?’
‘I haven’t called them. I thought you could do the honours.’
‘Sure.’ Drummond turned to the safe. ‘I might hang here for a minute.’
‘Knock yourself out.’
27
BELSEY RETURNED TO THE BENTLEY. He waited for his watcher to climb back into the Mondeo, then he drove west, up City Road, turned fast into a cul-de-sac behind a council block and hit the brakes. The Mondeo followed him in. Belsey reversed back past the Ford, swinging his car so that it blocked the exit. He got out, opened the Ford’s passenger door and got in.
‘Why are you following me?’
The driver gripped the wheel. He didn’t turn. He still had shades on, but Belsey could see he was in his late twenties, beard thin, sleeves rolled up to show well-honed forearms. There was a click of miscalculation and he reached for the door handle, about to get out. Belsey opened the glove compartment and sifted through paperwork. The man leaned across and tried to snatch it out of his hand.
‘Get out of my car.’
Belsey kept a grip on the papers and eventually the man gave up.
‘Take a walk.’
‘Fuck off.’ The man got his mobile out. Belsey took it from his hand and threw it out the window.
‘Go on – take a walk.’
The driver tore his shades off, held Belsey’s glare for a second, then opened the door, heading to retrieve his phone. According to the car papers, the Mondeo belonged to Sisco Private Intelligence. Belsey knew Sisco: big company, but not the one he’d hire. They were greedy, took on jobs they couldn’t support. Overstretch led to sloppy recruitment: graduates and fantasists. The young PI had rigged himself with an excessive amount of kit: night-vision binoculars, a Nikon with zoom lenses on the dashboard. On the back seat were headphones connected to a sound-amplifying mic. Amongst the papers were briefing notes on Belsey: his name, age, vehicle details; ID photos ripped from his police file. The notes were addressed to a Stefan Keydel.
Keydel got back in with his phone. He tried to grab the papers again. Belsey chucked them out the window.
‘Stefan.’
‘Get out.’ Keydel clutched the steering wheel again as if that might go next.
‘Your car, Stefan, or Sisco’s? Maybe it’s Neil Ferguson’s car. He still runs Sisco, doesn’t he?’
‘For fuck’s sake.’ The private investigator stared straight ahead. ‘What do you want?’
‘Me and Neil go way back.’ That was a half-truth. He’d had three pints in the bar of a Travelodge with Neil Ferguson after a race-awareness training session. ‘We used to work in the same unit.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘Who’s the client?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I’ll ask Neil directly. We can have a chat.’
‘Queens Park Rangers,’ Keydel said. Belsey checked his face. He wasn’t joking.
‘I’m being scouted?’
‘No.’
‘Why are QPR interested in me?’
‘It’s their player – Jason Stanford.’
‘He used to date Amber Knight.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Jason Stanford’s hired you to follow me?’
‘It’s his people. They want to know what’s gone wrong.’
‘What has gone wrong?’
‘Everything.’ Keydel exhaled, released the wheel.
‘Come on, Stefan, give me some insight. It will make both our lives easier. Save me making that phone call.’
‘He’s had some kind of breakdown. No one knows.’ Keydel didn’t sound sympathetic. ‘Money’s missing.’
‘How much?’
‘A lot.’ Keydel climbed back out, started trying to gather up his papers. ‘You can get out now,’ he said through the open passenger window.
‘You haven’t said why you’re following me.’
‘We’re following everyone connected with him.’
‘I’m not connected to him.’
‘Sure.’
‘Have you tried following Jason himself?’
‘Other people are on him.’
‘What have they found?’
‘Nothing.’
‘So your colleagues are about as good as you. When did Sisco get hired?’
‘Last Thursday.’
That was something approaching good news.
‘So you know Jason’s movements over the weekend?’
‘Not off the top of my head.’
Keydel walked back round with the papers. Slid back in.
‘Has he been with Amber in that time?’
‘I think so.’
‘When? Where?’
‘I don’t know, mate. It’s another lot on him. I just told you.’
‘What kind of team’s Neil running?’
‘About fifteen on rotation: three tail teams, two photographers, data analysis back in the office.’
‘And you’re assigned to me?’
‘I was asked to investigate you. To see how you connect.’
‘Do you know whose flat I was in at Thames Village?’
‘No.’
‘He was called Ian Harper. I think he filmed something involving Amber Knight. Have you heard anything about a recording made over the weekend?’
‘No.’
‘Nothing about any tapes?’
‘We have a tape – of Jason, not Amber. From Saturday.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Acting fucking weird. Near Great Portland Street.’
‘Like what?’
‘It’s hard to explain.’
‘You got a copy?’
‘In the office.’
‘I need to see it.’
The PI turned to Belsey.
‘I’ve just had a kid, a son. I’ve bought a home.’
‘Congratulations, Stefan. What are you saying? You’re tired?’
‘I can’t afford to lose my job.’
‘Few can. But mutual desperation’s a wonderful thing. Is Sisco still based on Grosvenor Street?’
Keydel shut his eyes. Belsey got out.
‘I’d like to see what you’ve got. The awkward way to achieve that is I walk into the office myself; much easier is if you get the tape and I wait around the corner.’
Keydel nodded.
‘That’s where I’m going, anyway,’ Belsey said. ‘If I were you I’d tail me.’
28
KEYDEL KEPT A FEW METRES behind, through rush-hour traffic, all the way to his office. It was an impressive address just off Berkeley Square, a Georgian block with a Porsche showroom on the ground floor. A suited security guard watched the lobby. Belsey stopped on the next corner. Keydel drew level, wound his window down.
‘Do people at your office like Indian food?’ Belsey asked.
‘What?’
‘Do they ever go for curries after work?’
‘No.’
‘There’s a restaurant called Knights of the Raj, a couple of blocks north of here, on South Molton Lane. Should be pretty empty. I’ll meet you there.’
‘Give me twenty.’
‘Take as long as you need.’
Belsey drove to the curry house and asked for a table at the back. He was the only diner. The place was low-lit, white tablecloths, a recording of a woman and a sitar. He ordered two beers, some poppadums and a jalfrezi. He ignored the incessant calls from Andy Price, possibly wanting his Bentley back. Keydel arrived fifteen minutes later, carrying a bulging Waitrose bag. He sat down, glanced around, bemused.
The bag contained a laptop and the file on Jason Stanford. Its first few pages put the whole thing in context: Stanford had been bought from Newcastle on 3 August 2013. QPR had paid £4.2 million to Newcastle, £900,000 to Stanford’s agent. Stanford was on £42,000 a week, rising to £60,000 the following season. The club had bought him a Bugatti and his parents a £2 million house in central London. Additional clauses included a £1.4 million bonus for European qualification. This was all followed by ten pages about image rights and commercial endorsements totalling another £2 million.
There was a copy of a report from the medical he had passed with flying colours. There were copies of the drink-driving conviction he picked up in October 2013, and the official statement from his agent released subsequently, which included references to anger management. He’d stayed clean enough from then on. He’d promised to put his troubles behind him. But he seemed to have put everything behind him.
A log of curiosities followed, prepared by the club’s lawyers: Stanford not turning up for training, or turning up in body only. Extended periods out of contact. Not just out of contact with the club but with friends and family as well. Visits to addresses that didn’t make sense – residential properties in poorer areas of London. Then Sisco Private Intelligence were hired, Thursday May 7. Neil Ferguson must have been eager to impress: he rustled up a fifteen-strong team to service this one lucrative client. Maybe he thought he’d found a potential niche in the market.
Concern over the possibility that Amber Knight was involved led to closer scrutiny of her life, which led to Belsey: ‘Monday 11 May: Amber seen out with former police detective, Nick Belsey.’ He could see how that might get people thinking. But this was the problem of such comprehensive surveillance: they’d got everything, except what was going on.
A fresh stack of poppadums arrived.
Belsey slid the food over. ‘Help yourself.’ He slid a beer over too. Then he flicked through photos of Jason Stanford’s home life, his friends, his nights out. A lot of the material was taken off social media. Lazy. In photos Stanford looked content; he looked like a lad out on the town: fresh haircut, designer stubble, tattoos. Only difference was he carried with him a few million pounds’ worth of accuracy in front of a goal. Or had done until this March.
‘What’s Neil’s interpretation?’ Belsey asked.
‘He says Jason’s probably got caught up in something. Big boys.’
‘Like what?’
‘Gangs. Betting. Like he was told to do something and fucked up. Now he’s having to pay out money, either for some kind of protection or blackmail.’ Keydel cracked a poppadum and scooped fragments into his mouth.
‘You said you had a video of him.’
Keydel opened the laptop, loaded up a file, pressed play. It was grainy black-and-white footage from an off-licence’s external security camera: 23.14, 9 May, junction of Great Portland Street and Cavendish Street. Stanford stood at the bottom of the shot. He wore a bathrobe of some kind: thin material, dark. He was barefoot.
He seemed to walk in slow motion. Up to the kerb.
‘He’s walking strangely.’
‘It’s like he’s seeing things that aren’t there.’
At 23.21 Stanford entered a convenience store. Someone approached him and he backed out. He spent a minute looking east across Cavendish Street. Watching for someone, or something.
‘How did he get there in the first place?’
‘We can’t figure it out.’
After another five minutes he managed to cross, disappearing from shot towards north Euston.
‘We found him two hours later, in a school playground near Euston station, totally naked.’ Keydel took a swig of beer.
‘And you managed to keep that out of the press?’
‘Just. We found the robe half a mile away. It was wet. With salt water.’
Belsey put his drink down.
‘Salt water?’
‘You could smell it. And see where it had dried – there was white sediment.’ Keydel saw Belsey’s expression. ‘What is it?’
‘What did Jason say? About the water.’
‘He said it was tears.’
The investigator’s mouth twitched with the beginnings of a smile.
‘Tears.’
‘That’s right. Go on. What do you know?’
‘I just found a body in Epping Forest. A bloke called Ian Harper. He’d been drowned in salt water. So I’m curious about where all this salt water is coming from. Did you recognise the robe?’
‘No.’ Keydel shrugged, dipped poppadum into Belsey’s jalfrezi. ‘He’d been acting increasingly weird the last few days. We picked up a phone conversation with a friend where he says he wishes something wasn’t a secret. Wishes he never knew it. That his life’s not going to be the same again. That kind of stuff. Basically, he’s losing it. Since then, he’s just spending all his time playing games on his computer. Shut indoors, not really speaking to anyone. Like he’s trying to shut stuff out.’
Belsey turned through the reports. The back of the file contained a somewhat dull and uninformative log of the gaming sites Stanford had been visiting. Belsey ripped them out. He turned back to the log of Stanford’s movements, skimming for any mention of Mark Doughty, Chloe Burlington, Ian Harper. Any Andreas Majorana. None of their names came up. He trawled the log again, slower this time. Four days ago, Saturday night, Stanford had turned up on Great Portland Street, half-dressed, covered in ‘tears’. Friday night he was tailed to Finchley.
At 17.45 Stanford parked by Majestic Wine in Finchley. Then ran. Lost the operative tailing him on Ballards Lane.
A few hundred metres from the Comfort Hotel.
Belsey read it twice, to be sure, then drew Keydel’s attention to the incident.
‘Do you know about this?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What was he doing there?’
‘We don’t know.’
‘Connected him to a place called the Comfort Hotel?’
‘No.’
‘You said Jason has lost a lot of money.’
‘That’s right. It’s not clear where it’s going. He’s been withdrawing huge sums of cash every week over the last eighteen months or so. That’s why Neil’s got it pegged as gambling.’
Belsey turned back to the log of Stanford’s movements.
‘Amber was also at this hotel on Friday night. She’s also haemorrhaging big money. I’d chase that angle. What’s causing the cash outflow?’
Keydel nodded.
‘Are you confident you weren’t followed here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Would you check the street?’
Keydel shrugged, went outside. Belsey tore a selection of pages from the file. He folded them into his jacket.
‘Nothing,’ Keydel said, returning. Belsey put a twenty on the table, got to his feet.
‘Give me your number. I’m going back to the hotel to see if I can find out what it was hosting on Friday. You concentrate on figuring out where the money’s going. I’ll give you two hours.’
He headed for the Bentley.
29
COMFORT. QUARTER TO NINE IN the evening. The leisure park had assumed an unexpected floodlit beauty. Darkness framed it like something precious. Beneath the lights, f
irst dates ensued, peer groups laughed, nuclear families moved unhurriedly between the cinema and the dining options.
The hotel itself remained quiet. Habiba was on the front desk, accompanied by a boy with a shaving rash. Her smile faltered as Belsey approached.
‘We spoke about Amber Knight,’ Belsey said.
‘Yes.’
‘I think she was with other people that evening. A larger group. I wondered if you remembered them.’
Habiba frowned. ‘Like a band?’
‘Maybe. Or not quite like that. There was the man we saw the first time, checking in. But maybe another two men – a footballer, Jason Stanford, and a fourth man, possibly with a Slazenger tennis bag.’
‘Jason Stanford?’ the boy said.
Habiba shook her head. ‘I didn’t see that.’
‘I need to recheck the security footage.’
‘My manager’s not here at the moment.’
Belsey walked behind the reception and opened the door to the back office. ‘I spoke to him on the phone. He said it would be OK.’
He sat down in front of the security monitor, typed in the time and date for Friday evening, figured out how to split the screen between the reception’s camera and the one above the entrance, facing the car park.
Harper’s receipt – a whisky in the restaurant at 17.08. That was earlier than Amber or Mark’s arrival. Belsey found the moment Harper entered, 17.01. He was recognisable from the family portrait, but a little heavier maybe. Head down, waxed jacket, jeans. Straight into the restaurant.
Carrying his sports bag.
Belsey wondered about the logic of the timing. Get there early to set up his kit, maybe; in time for a double whisky, calm the nerves.
Twenty minutes later, Mark Doughty, 17.21.
Belsey fast-forwarded through the pair of middle-aged men in suits who appeared between Mark and Amber’s arrivals. Then he stopped. He wound back to them.
They didn’t check in. Just walked straight to the lifts.
‘Habiba.’
She stepped into the office.
‘Recognise these guys?’
‘No.’
He paused the footage. One tall, tieless, receding hair and a long, thin face. The other built like a rugby player, with ruddy features and small eyes.
Amber walked in less than two minutes after the suits, followed the same course to the lifts.
The House of Fame Page 18
