by Jack Higgins
Jade grabbed Rich’s arm. “Run!” she hissed.
And together, they ran.
14
The main bar of the Clarendorf Hotel was subtly lit even in the middle of the day. It was a long narrow room in the Regency building, with leather sofas and armchairs arranged around polished wooden tables.
At one end was the bar, with its oak-panelled front matching the walls of the room and its polished marble top gleaming. At the other end of the long room was a small gallery, reached by a narrow staircase in the foyer that led to the back of the gallery. There were several more tables on the balcony, but today only one of them was occupied. A man and a woman arrived soon after Ardman and sipped at their drinks, almost hidden in the shadows at the back.
Ardman spared them only a glance as he looked round for any sign of Rich and Jade. He was a few minutes early, and if Goddard was as good as he liked to think he was, then the twins would already be safely in the back of an unmarked car.
He found himself an armchair from which he could watch both doors into the bar and have a good view of the other patrons – not that there were many – and gestured to the barman that he’d like a drink.
The barman came and took his order for a cup of Earl Grey tea. It was a bit early in the day for anything more, Ardman decided. But if he was here for the duration then a single malt would help ease the boredom later. The barman returned with the tea – in a small silver-plated teapot together with bone china teacup and saucer and a silver jug of milk.
The sugar was crystallised, like little uncut precious stones in a china bowl. Amused, Ardman selected two crystals that were pale green like unpolished jade and dropped them into his tea.
When his phone rang, Ardman checked the display on the mobile and then answered: “Hello, Mr Goddard. You are calling with good news, I hope?”
Goddard sounded embarrassed. “I can’t think how we missed them.”
“It happens. Don’t worry. And I’ve met these kids, albeit briefly. They’re good. Very good, it seems.”
He could almost hear Goddard shuffling uneasily at the other end of the call. “There is one other unfortunate piece of bad news, sir.”
Ardman listened, his face grave. “That is unfortunate,” he agreed. “I doubt if it can be down to the Chance twins, but I’ll take care…”
“I think you should have backup, sir,” Goddard said.
“No, no, I certainly don’t want your people stamping all over this place with their heavy boots. You’ve frightened them off once, I don’t want you doing it again.”
“You think they’ll turn up?”
“I don’t know,” Ardman said. “But it’s the only hope we have – the only hope they have, for that matter. So I shall wait all day if I have to.”
Rich watched Ardman for a while from the doorway before he plucked up the courage to go over. He and Jade had been watching the man since he arrived. Now Rich was sure the man had seen him, but he went on drinking his tea as if nothing had changed.
“Just you?” Ardman asked as Rich sat down opposite him in another of the leather armchairs. Rich took out his mobile phone and put it on the table between them.
“Jade’s listening. You don’t need to know where she is. She could be miles away. Any sign of trouble and she’s gone.”
Ardman nodded. “Very good. You’re assuming I want both of you and of course you’re right. But I want to make sure you’re safe.”
“Did you send the police?”
Ardman didn’t answer. “Was it you who killed PC Skinner?” he asked instead.
Rich felt his mouth go dry. “No,” he said. “It was the woman, Magda. Is she one of your lot?”
Ardman shook his head. “Definitely not. Though if the lady in question has long black hair, then we certainly have a file on her. Beautiful but deadly. You’d be well advised to keep out of her way.”
“Thanks, but I think we worked that out for ourselves,” Rich said. He nodded at the phone on the table between them. “You’ve got about ten minutes before my credit runs out. Then, I’m leaving.”
“Your father works for me,” Ardman said. “He isn’t an industrial spy, he’s a government agent, for want of a better term. As I told you, I run a rather special department reporting to the Cabinet Office emergencies committee COBRA. Or certain people who serve on it at any rate.”
“And what does our dad do for you?” Rich wanted to know. “Apart from get abducted?”
“In this case, he was keeping tabs on an oil company.”
“KOS.”
Ardman nodded. “That’s right. He took the place of an industry expert called Lessiter.”
“We know. What happened to Lessiter?”
“He was delighted to find that before taking up the post he had the chance for a free cruise round the Mediterranean with his family, and all at Her Majesty’s taxpayers’ expense.”
Rich frowned. “He’s not dead then?”
Ardman looked shocked. “Please, what sort of man do you think I am.”
“I’m not sure you want me to answer that.”
Ardman smiled. “Touché. Would you like a drink, by the way?”
“No thanks. I’m not staying.”
“Still not convinced?” Ardman sounded disappointed. “What else can I tell you then? Let me see… I needed a man on the inside at KOS to see what Vishinsky was up to. He’s—”
“We know who Viktor Vishinsky is.”
“Good, that will save time. Then you’ll know that I needed absolute proof there was a… what shall we say? A problem?” He nodded as if agreeing with his own choice of word. “That there was a problem before I could act against KOS officially.”
“Why?”
For the first time Ardman seemed irritated. “Because Vishinsky is a rich and powerful man with friends in high places. I had hoped you would find that out when I let his name slip for you.”
“It was deliberate?” Rich asked in surprise.
Ardman looked at him with ill-disguised sympathy. “Young man,” he said, “you need to realise that in this game, the game you’re now in, everything is deliberate.” He paused to pour himself more tea before going on. “Vishinsky knows that too. And it is not by chance that he is so friendly with many powerful people in this country as well as others in Europe and the US. It is quite deliberate that he knows our own Prime Minister so well – and that he has had him to stay on holiday at the Vishinsky villa in Italy.”
“So you sent our dad to get the dirt on him?”
“I wouldn’t phrase it quite like that myself,” Ardman said. “But, yes. In a nutshell.”
“And it went wrong.”
“Yes,” Ardman said again. “Vishinsky is planning something, but only your father, and possibly not even him, knows what it is. Your father and a… colleague managed to get into a secure laboratory facility at the KOS installation just outside London. They removed a sample of fluid. But what that fluid is, why it is important and where it is now, we don’t know.”
“Magda mentioned a sample of fuel.”
“Perhaps she knows its significance. If we can find it, we can analyse it and discover what it is. From that we can make a good guess what it might be for. Your father had it hidden until he could pass it on safely to his contact, another of my men. Andrew Phillips.”
“The man who was shot in the flat.”
Ardman nodded. “Maybe he passed it on and Phillips hid it or it was taken from him. But if this Magda woman is asking about it, then the sample must still be hidden.” He fixed his eyes firmly on Rich. “It is very important that I get that sample of fuel,” he said solemnly. “Do you know where it is?”
Rich shivered under the intense stare. “Where’s Dad?” he countered. He didn’t want to admit to knowing – or not knowing – anything. Not yet.
“I’m afraid that Vishinsky has taken him. He too is desperate to recover the sample, probably to stop us getting it. Though it is possible he needs it back.”
&nbs
p; “Why? He must have loads of the stuff.”
Ardman smiled. “Possibly. But there was a bit of an incident at his London facility. Just after your father left. As you may have heard – the whole place blew up. An accident of course.”
Rich shivered again. “Dad?”
“Your father,” Ardman said, leaning forward so that the phone on the table between them got it loud and clear, “is a very brave man. But he’s on his own now and in terrible danger. I’m asking you to help me to help him. Please.”
The door to the gallery area overlooking the bar was closed. Anyone going up the narrow staircase to the gallery would have found a notice on the door that said: CLOSED FOR RENOVATION. Returning to the bar and looking up, they might have thought it was odd, then, that there were two people sitting up there.
The man and the woman in the gallery did not think it odd at all. It was Stabb who had stuck the notice on the door. Now he and Magda were leaning close over the table between them.
They were listening to the voices coming through single earpieces, connected by a thin wire to a device taped to one of the ornate wooden struts at the front of the balcony. A powerful directional microphone pointed straight at Ardman and Rich, sitting halfway down the bar, a mobile phone on the table between them.
“…help me to help him. Please.” Ardman’s voice was slightly tinny but it was clear enough.
“Oh, how sweet of the man,” Magda said, pushing her long black hair behind her ear. “Wanting to help the poor little boy. Should we offer to help him too, do you think?”
Mr Stabb shook his head. “We need them both. Chance doesn’t seem to care about them, so we can’t use the brats to put pressure on him. But if we have them both we can threaten one to make the other tell us where the sample is hidden. The Security Services know nothing, it seems, so Mr Vishinsky can go ahead. Nothing can stop him now. Just as soon as we get those kids.”
15
The hotel lobby was large and impersonal. There was a big seating area off to one side, close to the main bar. Jade had found a high-backed chair where she could sit without being seen by the staff at the reception desk. She had angled the chair so that it was facing a large fireplace.
There was no fire burning and she wasn’t interested in the ornate fireplace itself. She was watching the mirror above the mantelpiece – in which she could see the reflected images of Rich and Ardman. She couldn’t see Ardman’s face, so she was pretty sure that he could not see her – even if he was looking.
She and Rich had sat together here for a while, watching the man, looking round to check he really was alone. So far as they could tell, he had brought no one with him. When they were as sure as they could be, Rich called Jade’s mobile on Dad’s and went to join Ardman in the bar.
Now Jade was listening intently to the conversation between her brother and the man from MI5, or whatever it was. Their voices were quiet and she had to strain to hear, even with the phone volume up full.
“There is something I think you should hear,” Ardman was saying.
“Better be short,” Rich told him. “I’m out of here any minute now.”
“It won’t take long. I have it on an MP3 file, which I understand is the way these things are done these days.”
“Great, going to let me copy it on to my iPod, are you?” Rich said.
“I thought I’d play it on this actually,” Ardman replied. “If I put it here by the phone, then Jade can hear it as well. I assume that’s OK?”
“Yeah, fine, whatever.”
There was a pause, and in the mirror Jade could see Ardman reaching down to put something on the table between himself and Rich. She guessed it was a digital recorder from which he’d play back the file so they could hear.
“What you’re about to hear,” Ardman said, “is covered by the Official Secrets Act.” He paused and Jade could almost hear him smiling. “Not that it makes much difference, but legally I have to tell you that.”
“Covering yourself?”
“I like to do things properly. Now, this is a recording of a telephone conversation made last week. I’m not permitted to tell you who is speaking or why the conversation was recorded. But I think you’ll recognise the voices and you’ll guess why the gentleman’s calls were all recorded. May I begin?”
“Get on with it,” Rich told him.
Jade pressed the phone even harder against her ear, wondering what she was about to hear. When the recording started it was louder than the voices of Rich and Ardman, and she could actually hear it quite clearly.
The first voice said just one word: “Yes?” But Jade knew the voice at once – it was her father.
“Is that Mr Chance?” a woman’s voice asked – tentative and slightly nervous.
“How did you get this number?” Chance demanded.
“Oh, dear,” the woman said. “They did tell me this might be more difficult than… I got it from, er, well, your employers. I think. They were a bit vague at the Ministry when I—”
Chance cut her off. “What do you want?”
“My name is—”
Her name was obscured by a high-pitched bleep. Jade grimaced and pulled the phone from her ear, but she had recognised Mrs Gilpin. Hesitating, she put it back, in time to hear Ardman’s voice say quietly:
“Sorry about that.”
Mrs Gilpin’s voice went on: “I have some news for you, Mr Chance. It’s not good, I’m afraid. And… well, it may be a bit of a shock too. Are you sitting down, may I ask? I think perhaps you should.”
“I’m used to bad news. And shocks. Just tell me.”
“If you’re sure. It’s about Sandra, Sandra Chance.”
There was a pause, and then Chance said slowly: “Go on. I’m sitting down.”
“There’s been an accident. A road accident. It was – there was nothing anyone could do. She didn’t feel anything, it was instant. I… I’m sorry, I’m not doing this very well.”
“You’re doing fine. Thank you for letting me know. But it’s been a long time since I last saw Sandra.”
“But, the thing is—”
“Thank you,” Chance insisted. Jade could hear the pent-up emotion in his voice. It might have been a long time, but he was feeling it. She knew exactly how he must have felt. It seemed an age since they had come to the school and taken Rich and herself out of class to tell them… Hearing it again, Jade wiped her eyes with her free hand and wondered if Rich was all right. His image in the mirror seemed blurred and indistinct.
“I’m sure you have lots of other people you need to inform,” Chance was saying stiffly. “Friends, family…”
“Er, no, actually,” the woman said. “There’s no one else. No one but you. I don’t think she ever… Well, that’s not for me to say. But I thought you should know straight away. About Sandra I mean, but also that…”
“That what?”
“Well, that your children are fine. They weren’t involved.”
“My… children?”
“They’ve taken it very badly of course, but they’re OK. They’re good kids. Tough. They’ll be all right. Only, well…”
“My children?” Chance said again. Jade could imagine him wondering what the hell was going on, what he was being told. After all these years.
“The funeral is tomorrow,” the woman was saying. “I’m sorry it’s not much warning, but it did take a long time to find you. Sandra left a letter that indicated you worked for the Civil Service. It was been quite difficult tracking you down… But if you can get here I’m sure Rich and Jade will appreciate it.”
There was silence from the other side of the call, so the woman went on.
“Your children need their father more than ever now. They need you, Mr Chance.”
Jade felt tears in her eyes as she watched the blurred image of Ardman lean forward in the mirror. The recording stopped with a click.
Rich sat frozen, all thoughts of leaving gone from his mind. In front of him, Ardman was selecting another
file on the tiny personal MP3 player.
“This is rather more recent,” he was saying. “Again, I can’t tell you who the people are, but suffice it to say that one is the same man as on the previous recording, and the other man you have also met, albeit briefly. He is now, sadly, deceased.”
“Phillips,” Rich muttered.
If Ardman heard him, he gave no sign. “I’m sorry to have to do this to you,” he said. “To both of you.”
“I think I may be being watched,” Chance’s voice said.
“You sure?” another voice asked. Rich recognised it immediately as Phillips – though he sounded understandably calmer and less stressed than when Rich and Jade had met him.
“No. They’re good, whoever they are. But it’s even more urgent I get the sample to you.”
“Yes, well, you were supposed to do that the other day and you never showed.”
“I had to go to a funeral.”
There was a pause, then Phillips said: “I heard. I’m sorry. I heard about the kids too – they OK?”
“Do you mean are they coping? Or am I coping?”
There was a short laugh. “Both, I suppose.”
“Then, they’re OK. They’ve gone out for the morning. God knows what I do with them when they get back. I need to sort out schools. It’s a mess.”
“A real pain, right? Something you could do without.”
Chance’s reply was surprisingly sharp. “I didn’t mean it’s messing me up. It’s them I’m worried about. What sort of father am I? What sort of mess am I making for them? Their mum’s just died and their world’s turned upside down and what I am doing to help? I don’t even know where to start.”
“Yeah… Well, I’m sure you’ll do your best.”
“And what if that isn’t good enough? These are my kids we’re talking about. And the best I can do is to try and get them out of the way until it’s safe to look after them properly. Have you any idea how that makes me feel? Have you?”
Rich was sitting open-mouthed as he listened. It sounded like John Chance, but what he was saying seemed so at odds with how he and Jade had imagined he felt.
