“How about the culprits?” Mike asked.
“Well nothing came up in the live debate; of course, neither the PM nor the Foreign Secretary would be foolish enough to open a can of worms live on television no matter how hard the Leader of the Opposition might try. As far as the public are concerned, the situation in Edinburgh has already been blown up out of all proportion and we’re dealing with nothing more than organised crime.”
“Any comparisons to 7/7?”
“As a matter of fact, the Foreign Secretary compared it to the 2011 riots.”
Mike nodded. A politician’s answer. “How about the press?”
“The Cabinet Office has been peppered with questions of course, as has the MoD. The museums in Edinburgh are passing on all queries to Scotland Yard. The main fear north of the border seems to be about mob violence. The authorities are refusing to label it a terrorist attack.”
“Why should they?” Kit asked. “Even on the night itself, it was the local police who cleaned up the mess. As far as I’m aware, the military wasn’t even called.”
“Be that as it may, I think it’s fair to say they were aware. Probably in the same situation as us. There, but not seen. It’s at times like this security must remain watertight. Any hint of a leak . . .”
“But there hasn’t been one yet?” Kit asked.
Atkins looked back with a strong expression. “I’d like to think most people in our organisation understand the business they work in, don’t you?”
Mike sat down in the nearest seat, three along from Kit. He looked enviously at Kit’s warm cup of tea, and licked his dry lips. “Any orders from the PM?”
“No, the Director caught him for ten minutes on the line at 6:30 a.m.; for obvious reasons it hasn’t been possible to speak to him since. Mr White wants surveillance on the Deputy PM and his wife to remain ongoing. The wife is currently relaxing in Knightsbridge. Iqbal himself saw her return within moments of his leaving the building. He’s still in the vicinity. As far as we’re aware she’s not left since.”
“You think she’ll be joining her husband at the opera?” Mike asked.
“Probably,” Kit said. “Though the tickets weren’t named.”
“The tickets had most likely been a gift. I understand from the number, the box is on permanent reserve, almost like a grace and favour,” Atkins said.
“I take it if we go, we’ll get no such favours?”
“Unless the PM has a trick up his sleeve,” Mike said.
“Otherwise it’s the stalls.” Kit grinned.
Mike guessed as much.
Atkins took a seat opposite them. “As I’m sure you’ll both appreciate, if you do manage to gain entry, your purpose will be solely to observe. Any hint of trouble will only escalate matters. Even opera critics aren’t illiterate.”
“What if we get lucky?” Mike asked.
“Now steady on, Michael, after all we are here to work.”
Ignoring Kit, Mike asked, “Suppose Mrs Hughes is present, and we so happen to have a moment alone. Then what? We do nothing?”
“Well that’s hardly likely in an opera house. Even if you were alone, you’d probably have some fat Czech woman bellowing in your ear. As a matter of fact, I’d say keeping your distance is the priority. Any suspicion that she’s under surveillance and the PM would have a minor crisis on his hands. Not to mention a divided Cabinet.”
Mike accepted the point. “Very well. So does that mean we have the afternoon off?”
“In the meantime, you’ll be staying here, if that’s what you mean?” Atkins pointed to the far wall; a cramped space with bunk beds that had been put in for their predecessors at the height of the wartime Cabinet. “You’ll find a spare pair of uniforms in the wardrobe, as well as a range of tuxedos and dinner jackets. After the week you’ve had, I suggest you both use the opportunity to catch up on some sleep.”
7
The narrow back streets of Paris had never been intended as tourist spots. Even for the most adventurous tourists, they were the last places a stranger would head for, even in the middle of the day.
Walking the streets as dusk began to fall, Fabien Randek showed no signs of a man who had something to worry about. After the life he’d had, one compromised robbery was hardly going to make much of a difference. As fate had had it, he’d managed to avoid detection as his two countrymen were being picked up. Like most times in his life, luck had shone upon him when it mattered. He hadn’t been in the harbour at the decisive moment. He’d been on the phone.
Talking to a man about opera.
As the sun began to set on the other side of the Eiffel Tower, the cobbled streets took on a different feel. The stones were darker than normal; a quick shower that had passed as soon as it came had coated the hard surface with moisture. Dusk had a timeless quality in the city; locals used to say it was at twilight when the past and the present came together as one. Even in this less wealthy neighbourhood, the buildings were a hallmark of the city’s post-revolution past. Rumour had it the series of former trade shops whose purpose had spanned every guild, still sat on the ruins of historic sights. If the stories were to be believed, the street had known everything from wineries to blacksmiths. On the site of what was now a butcher’s shop a prison had stood in former times.
As Randek made the familiar walk along one particular street, ignoring the range of vehicles parked on both sides of the road, he became aware of a pervading quietness that he was not used to. There were few people out, either on the roads or walking the pavement. He knew the reason. Frenchman, Englishman, Scot, Czech, it made no difference. Everyone was watching either at first hand or on a TV in their kitchen or living room.
The eyes of the city were firmly on the UK.
Next door to the old butcher’s was another building of similar style but different purpose. Experience told him the interior would be in character with the outside: a quaint bookshop, run by one of the long established families of the area. The sign above the door had been there for years, the name recognisable to everyone in the neighbourhood. The former owner had been respected in most quarters as among the most learned, a trait inherited by his son. A substantial door occupied a space between red brick walls, darkened by past pollution. On one side of the entrance there was a doorbell and within the door itself a small glass panel displaying a sign reading Fermé: closed. As he looked closer he saw a second, smaller note.
Use rear entrance.
Following the instructions, Randek took the detour to the end of the street and along a narrow alleyway, behind the row of buildings. For the first time evidence of squalor revealed itself: rubbish jutting up above garden fences, the smell reminiscent of a landfill. On reaching the bookshop, he found a small open gate leading to a path. Unlike those of its neighbours, the path, though severely weathered, appeared in better maintained surroundings. A bizarre selection of keepsakes from the city’s past decorated the way, along with a profusion of brightly coloured pot plants. Many of the possessions of the present owner’s father had been turned into ornaments, items from watering cans to looms that stood like miniature statues, a quaint feature that he attributed to the esoteric personality of the owner.
From the rear, the shop itself was unimpressive. The brickwork was dated and looking, in parts, in some danger of collapse. A second door, blue and glass framed, was similar in appearance to the one at the front and beside double doors that led down into the ground. Neither were open, but he knew one would be unlocked. It was the entrance the owner preferred, out of sight, out of mind.
He knocked, waited, and knocked again. The second time he heard a voice.
He entered.
*
It was the one place in the city where he had always felt comfortable. His grandfather had once told him that those who chose to walk abroad amongst their fellow man would always gain a place in the hearts of the people. He’d never disputed it. Experience told him it was the only part of Paris, the only part of the world, where a ma
n of his background, and family, could walk in complete safety. The only place in Paris where he could use his real name. In other circles he went by the name Christophe Blanc as it provoked little ill feeling. His typically French dark hair matched the photograph on Blanc’s driving licence, but differed substantially from the shaven-headed, stubbled individual who appeared on Randek’s. Their ages in both were indeterminate, most likely over thirty, yet whether by two years or twelve was anyone’s guess. Blanc’s height was on file as half an inch more and his shoe size one larger; he achieved both with the aid of an insole. The rest was down to him, and to fate. Thanks to his diet, he was now slightly heavier, the extra mass mostly around his thighs and biceps. The last thing he wanted was to gain mass anywhere else. In his occupation, fitness was essential.
As Randek, or Blanc, descended the wooden steps, his footfalls causing a prolonged creak as his size twelve footwear pressed down on the rotting wood, he entered a cellar that was familiar and stony. The bricks were damp; they’d been put in just after the war in an unsympathetic mix with the foundations of the building lost in the Revolution. The cellar gave off a distinct smell; not squalor, but even after all these years he couldn’t quite put his finger on the source. In the corner of the room, several bottles of red wine, mainly from the Poitou-Charentes region, were stacked in rows of three, alongside several containers that had once been used for bread or cheese. It was as if the smells of all these things, over all these years, had come together in a way that could never happen again.
Something that belonged only here and in the depths of hell.
There were no windows in the cellar; the only light was artificial, a single forty-watt bulb that dangled from the centre of the ceiling. The dim light of the solitary bulb illuminated an area of furniture that had once belonged in the living room above. A rigid antique wooden chair was currently in use, its occupant, it appeared from his physical features, probably old enough to remember its creation. His grey hair had receded completely on top, and what remained matched the colour of his eyes. His beard was full, but no longer thick; its appearance had become dishevelled. His thin physique exaggerated the features of his bones, the majority of which were crippled by arthritis. He looked at Randek through small glasses that were perched, as always, on the end of his nose.
Randek stopped several metres away with folded arms. “Why must we always meet down here?” he asked. “Even the British Security Service would not be stupid enough to neglect to search an antiquarian’s cellar.”
He walked closer, detecting that the old man wasn’t in any mood to reply.
“Jeremy and Serge are taken. I saw them led away with my own eyes. Fortunately, their property was not all seized.”
He removed a manuscript from his black rucksack and waved it in the man’s face. The bookseller waited, his grey eyes a milky white in the dim light.
“Do you have the map?” the man asked.
“I have the book.”
“Where is it?”
Randek removed a second item from the rucksack he’d been carrying for the past two days and passed over the dense hardback shell. The old man took both books and examined them one at a time. The title of the first confirmed a Scottish pedigree, dating back to the old clan system.
The second, for now, was of greater interest.
Putting the first to one side, he took the second book and felt the spine with thin leathery hands. He blew the dust and cleaned it with a delicate cleaning brush before turning to the first page.
The text was handwritten, which was a good sign; if the rumours were true the secrets only existed in the original. It was written in English, the handwriting elongated.
Also a good sign.
Randek watched with folded arms. “Well? You understand?”
The old man adjusted his glasses and reluctantly looked away from the book. “In matters such as these, there are no rules. When dealing with hearsay, even the plausible must be taken as possible conjecture.” He turned to the later pages. While the early ones had been laid out consistently, four-line stanzas, iambic pentameter, and illustrated occasionally by quill-penned drawings, the later pages were blank.
“Well?” Randek pushed.
“If the reports are correct, if it exists we’re talking not of a simple layout. A geometric puzzle. Written in a language known only by one who would understand.”
Randek was unimpressed. “The boss has very high hopes. Lifelong dreams. Are you, Sébastien, going to be the one to disappoint him?”
The old man was unfazed. “Your boss is not the man you think he is. He understands only too well. There are no rules. Nor can I make any promises. The author was a genius; and in a position to know what others did not.”
He rose to his feet and walked to the far corner of the room where a second antique desk had been placed, its frame showing the effects of past woodworm. There was a further light source on the surface, in addition to two unlit candles, both of which he lit after striking a match.
Randek approached, watching over the man’s shoulder. The book was now lying on the desk, open towards the end.
“What are you doing? The wax will get everywhere.”
“Shhh.” The bookseller opened the second of his drawers, removed a swab from an unopened tin and placed the tip to the flame. Satisfied it was warm, he lowered his hand to the final page and brushed delicately across the blank page. Below his hand, he felt the temperature of the paper rise as it became exposed to the heat. Finished, he did the same to the page opposite.
“What are you doing?” Randek asked, prepared to remove his pistol and shoot the old man there and then. The theft had taken months: the planning, the negotiation, the execution . . . the risk . . .
As he looked down at the tome, he noticed things had changed. The final pages, seconds earlier appearing murky yellow, tarnished by the brown stains of what he guessed were once burn marks, now revealed something more visible. Initially the outlines were faint, before becoming stronger; then, finally, fully comprehendible.
Randek was lost for words; it was as if a great secret had been revealed to him, a doorway opening up before him. He turned to the old man, who looked back, a smug smile formed across his thin features.
“Would you like to make the call or shall I?”
8
The car dropped them off in Russell Street, just off Wellington Street, close to the Strand. Taking advantage of a rare free parking bay on the side of the road, the dark-haired driver pulled up alongside a white hatchback and reverse parallel parked in the space.
The car was a Bentley, one of the finest in the fleet. The selection was wide ranging: three door hatchbacks to six-figure supercars. It was a profession where reliability was essential. Most of the models were disposed of after three years. The MoD had on-going contracts in place with the majority of the suppliers, which ensured trade-ins were always of value. Those they kept might have lost their monetary worth, but some provided a different sort of value. An eight-year-old hatchback might lack the glamour of a supercar, but there were certain places one didn’t travel in a Ferrari or a luxury BMW. A Nissan Micra could be readily used in the confines of inner city Liverpool and Glasgow without fear of attracting unwanted attention, whereas in Kensington or Monaco the opposite might be true. If one of the more luxurious vehicles went missing every so often, they would frequently turn up in the possession of the targets themselves.
Even the thefts could be of value.
The driver of the Bentley was Jamal Iqbal, known by those in the order as Jay; a Birmingham-born operative of Iranian descent with an accent that Kit joked was a cross between the Black Country and the Queen’s English. Jay glanced at the passengers in the rear-view mirror and used the opportunity to play with his gelled hair.
“You can do that all you want, you’ll never be as attractive as I am.”
Kit was sitting behind the driver, alongside Mike and dressed impeccably. A smart tuxedo clung tightly to his firm physique; h
is dark hair had been carefully blow-dried and gelled. Once again he was wearing dark-framed spectacles, which did more than just improve his eyesight.
Jay grinned. “Saw a very dapper-looking geezer coming out the doors of that flat in Knightsbridge. Can’t be sure, but I think I’d seen him with that Hughes bird in all the tabloids. Right good-looking, he was.”
Mike smiled. “Was he as attractive as Kit though, Jay?”
Jay glanced in the mirror. “Nearly, Mikey. Nearly.”
Mike’s appearance was almost identical to Kit’s; from the shoes to the hair to the jacket, they could almost have been mistaken for twins. He glanced at his watch and compared it to the clock on the dashboard. 18:55.
“What time did you say this thing starts again?”
“Seven-thirty, according to Maria,” Jay replied, in truth uncertain. Not for the first time in recent weeks, Maria had come up with the goods. The tickets, as expected, were bottom of the range; Mike guessed they were probably for somewhere on the floor.
Through the rear left window, Mike made out the figure of an elegant woman with jet-black hair who looked carefully both ways before crossing the street and getting into the front passenger seat. She flicked her hair to her right and left and closed the door behind her.
“Good evening, gentlemen.”
“Well it is now.” Kit was suddenly alert.
Ignoring him, Maria reached into her handbag and removed a large white envelope. “Here are your tickets.” She passed them to Mike, who looked at them closely.
The Bordeaux Connection Page 6
