TURKISH DELIGHT

by Barry Faulkner

  ‘What have you found out?’

  Gold sat opposite me at my desk the next day. I’d spent the morning smuggling a wealthy client’s dipstick son out of a rehab clinic by the back door and driving him home to their Weybridge Mansion – second time I’d done it for this kid, and no doubt in my mind that the first offer he got of a coke tab would roll him off the wagon and back into his dealer’s arms. It always did. I told my client a couple of heavies paying a visit to the boy’s dealer would have the problem solved at half the cost of a month’s rehab fee – at least it would solve the problem until another dealer tried his luck, which he would. County lines have an inexhaustible supply of care home kids willing to get out of the system with the money they can make dealing in towns and cities where their faces aren’t known.

  ‘Eve Rambart is trouble, Ben.’ Gold shot me a look that said ‘stay away from this one’. ‘She’s on her third husband, Nicholas Rambart. Numbers one and two had accidents – lethal accidents. Number one went over the edge whilst skiing in France and fell four hundred feet down a ravine; number two had a stomach full of whisky and fell from a balcony twenty storeys up in Barcelona. Eve was with them at the time, although on both days she had alibis that placed her far enough away from the actual scene so as not to be noted as a suspect.’

  ‘Perhaps she hired people to do the deed for her. Maybe that’s what she’s wanting to do with us. Local police raise any suspicions?’

  ‘No, local courts and coroner gave accidental death verdicts in both cases. She did rather well though, both husbands were rich – honest riches. Businessmen with seats on various top company Boards and major share holders in all of them; both were in the Forbes top earners list. It all went to Eve each time. She’s a multi-millionaire Ben. What’s she doing hiring a hit man?’

  ‘I don’t know – with that money I would think she’d hire a lawyer to get rid of a husband.’

  ‘Lawyers cost more than hiring you. Perhaps she’s trying to do it on the cheap?’ Gold laughed.

  ‘What’s her background?’

  ‘Sketchy. She seems to have arrived on the elite social scene out of the blue. No family history of money – in fact, no family history at all. One minute she’s nowhere to be seen, and then within a year she’s at all the big social affairs with husband number one and becomes a paparazzi target.’

  ‘Why?’

  Gold laughed. ‘You saw her, Ben. Is a paper going to pay a paparazzi more for some washed up minor reality show celeb getting out of a cab at a night club showing her knickers or Eve Rambart in a Stella McCartney one off and half of Cartier’s window display draped around her neck and wrists?’

  She was right of course.

  ‘Okay, you keep on her tail. I take it you found out where she lives?’

  ‘Knightsbridge, she’s got a rental apartment over one of the shops. Expensive.’

  ‘You think she knocks off her husbands for the money? Do you think that’s what she’s after this time?’

  ‘Could be, two husbands having accidental deaths are just about believable – but three? I think that might raise a few flags with the law, so she might be looking for this one to be murdered by person or persons unknown. Or, she might be setting you up.’

  ‘Setting me up?’

  ‘You do the hit and she points the finger at you, takes the heat off any investigation into her and the two previous.’

  I could see the sense in Gold’s answer. ‘Okay, keep an eye on her Knightsbridge place, see who comes and goes. I’ll see what I can find out about the husband.’

  ‘Before we kill him?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ***********************************

  CHAPTER 2

  ‘I’ve not known her long, six months at best. Bit of a stunner, eh?’

  I looked in my rear view mirror at Jameson Reynolds who was in the back of the hired Jaguar that I’d rented to take him to Heathrow. He was off on one of his many overseas trips and always insisted I did the chauffeur bit. I’d told him about my visit from Eve Rambart and that she had told me he recommended her. I hadn’t told him what she wanted me to do.

  ‘What does she do?’ I asked.

  ‘No idea. Her old man, Nicholas, is into finance and props up Middle Eastern regimes for oil and mineral rights, or used to – I think the Chinese have elbowed him out of that now. Last I heard he’d moved into arms and defence procurement, big money. I think they met somewhere in the Middle East. I’ve met him a few times when I went legit and put a couple of companies on the AIM listing; he was an initial buyer of their shares.’ He laughed sarcastically. ‘Like most things in the financial world Ben it’s all a con. The bank that handles new company share issues gets a few wealthy individuals and hedge funds to underwrite the issue; means the shares are all sold and creates an interest on the Stock Exchange floor, all smoke and mirrors stuff. You can have a crap company and if all the shares are sold on the day of issue then it creates a demand and they go up. Then shits like Nicholas Rambart sell their holding and pocket a good profit. What does she want you to do, kill him?’

  I checked in the mirror. He was smiling.

  ‘Kill him?’ I said with a bit of false laughter thrown in. Did Reynolds know? Had she told him?

  ‘Well, her last two husbands popped their clogs in unusual ways and it wouldn’t surprise me if she had something to do with it – she came out of both with a good bundle of dosh. To be honest Ben, I wouldn’t touch her with a barge pole but she wanted a private eye so obviously I recommended you. What does she want you for?’

  ‘No idea, said she was just checking me out and might have some work for me,’ I lied.

  Reynolds nodded. ‘Probably some security work. I told her you handle all that sort of stuff for me.’

  I dropped Reynolds off at Terminal One and gave Gold a call. I wanted to find out a lot more about Eve Rambart.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Anything happening?’

  ‘No, she’s been across from the apartment to Harrods for some lunch and now she’s back inside. Had a visit from a couple of blokes, they stayed about twenty minutes and left. Definitely Eastern European – they made a drop.’

  ‘A drop?’

  ‘They went in with a large holdall and came out without it.’

  ‘Drugs?’

  ‘Could be. I got a couple of photos through the front windows, I’ll ping them over.’

  ‘The front windows?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Her apartment’s above a shop, how did you do that?’ I couldn’t imagine Gold putting up a ladder in the middle of Knightsbridge and popping up with a camera.

  ‘There’s a building of small offices opposite. One on the first floor is vacant and empty.’

  ‘And you broke in.’

  ‘Well, didn’t take much – old Yale single lock, gives a good view into her apartment.’

  I thought for a moment.

  ‘Okay, might be a good idea to have a nosy round that apartment. I’ll meet you at the front of Harrods at seven.’

  *************************************

  Back in my office I took a look at the photos Gold pinged over to me. You couldn’t tell much about the pair that went into the building with the holdall. A few of the photos Gold had taken through the windows with a telephoto lens showed them with Rambart in the apartment, with the time code on the snaps only moving a few minutes. It was obviously a quick business meet, not a social affair, and then they were out minus the holdall and gone. But at least Gold had got a couple of good face shots as they left.

  *************************************

  It was quite dark by seven; the street lights and the car lights lit up Knightsbridge. Gold walked past me with a Burberry shoulder bag clasped to her side: our tool kit was inside. I was stood on the corner by the Harrods entrance and gave her a slight nod and followed at a discreet distance. She stopped opposite Rambart’s apartment and let herself into a street door set beside a shop, leaving it ajar
for me. I followed closing it behind me and hearing the lock snap across. It was dark inside and Gold shone a torch down from the first floor landing where she stood to show me the stairs that wound up around an old lift shaft that still used an old-fashioned gated steel lift. The vacant office was a one room affair, quite big with the front large picture window giving a good view of Knightsbridge below and the shops and apartments opposite. The shops were closed but the restaurants were open offering their mix of oriental and eastern foods, and about half the apartments above them were lit; I could see people moving around in some of them.

  ‘Hers is the one over the leather goods shop,’ said Gold. ‘She’s out by the look of it, no lights on.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘The entrance door is the one on the left of the shop. I had a quick look earlier and it’s a simple lever lock. I suppose they keep it simple because there’s two more floors above hers, and everybody needs a key. Have you got a card?’

  ‘Yes.’ I showed her the firm but flexible plastic card the size of a credit card that I had in my pocket. ‘And these,’ I showed my lock picks.

  ‘Okay. I’ll keep watch, you stay listening,’ She pulled a small receiver pack from her shoulder bag and an earpiece on a cord. I clipped the pack to my belt, put the earpiece in and ran the cord down under my black sweater from the neck and plugged it into the pack. She did the same with a similar pack and put on a headphone and microphone that she plugged in.

  ‘Hear me?’

  ‘Yes, loud and clear.’ I’d be able to hear her but couldn’t talk back.

  ‘Good, here...’ She handed me a pair of night vision glasses, a pair of black leather gloves and a black balaclava. ‘Off you go, she might be back anytime.’

  I nodded and put the night vision glasses on to make my way down the dark stairs to the front door. I took them off, put on the balaclava and rolled it up to look like a beanie hat and left the building trying to look as inconspicuous as possible as I dodged through the busy traffic crossing the road to the leather goods shop and stood like a tourist looking in the lit window. The pavement was crowded, tourists and people out for a meal moved slowly along drinking in the ambience that a busy central London can give out. I love it. Home sweet home.

  ‘Testing, one two three,’ Gold’s voice came through my earpiece. ‘Right arm raise.’

  I raised my right arm.

  ‘Good. All is quiet in the apartment.’

  I felt in my pocket for my plastic card and walking up to the door pushed it in level with the Yale keyhole. It hit the bar and a little effort in the push slid it open and I was in, closing the door silently behind me.

  ‘That looked easy.’

  It was very dark inside, I put my night visions on; there was a switch for lights in the hallway and on the stairs but I ignored it and slipped on my gloves, pulling the balaclava down until the eye sockets were in place. I stood silently still for thirty seconds listening, just in case anybody was about on the staircase. Silence. Making my way up to the first floor and Rambart’s door, I kept to the side of the stairs and listened after every two steps. The landing was clear.

  Her door was more of a problem than the entrance one and took a couple of minutes with the picks before I was able to push it slowly open. I was half expecting an alarm to scream out but if there was one it was a silent one, the kind that send a signal direct to a security firm who would alert the police. In the short hallway I couldn’t see an alarm keypad, so with a bit of luck there wasn’t one. I moved through into the lounge that had the big windows looking out over Knightsbridge.

  ‘I have you in view,’ was the message from Gold. ‘I can see you in the light from the street.’

  I checked around for a desk that might have paperwork that could tell me what Rambart was involved in. There wasn’t one. I walked back through the lounge into the hallway and into the one bedroom; everything was tidy and in its place. Quickly I checked through the wardrobe and bedside cupboard – nothing that you wouldn’t expect. Her taste in clothes was expensive, designer labels on everything.

  That only left the kitchen-come-breakfast room, which was small and windowless off the back of the lounge so I could turn the light on without it being seen by anybody looking up from the street, anybody like Eve Rambart coming back home. I didn’t have to do a search of the cupboards – a black holdall sat on the pine table. I pulled the zip along and looked inside, expecting bricks of cocaine; but no bricks were there – just guns, or to be precise Walther PPKs, six round automatic pistols packed neatly in their boxes plus twenty boxes of bullets to fit them. I remembered Jameson Reynolds had said Rambart’s husband had moved into arms dealing; perhaps these were for him, or perhaps Eve Rambart was branching out on her own?

  ‘You’ve got company.’ Gold’s warning was unemotional. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her sound any other way. ‘Single male.’

  I closed the holdall, switched off the light and quickly made my way back to the hallway.

  ‘Looks like a pro. He used a card to get in – dark clothes, no hat. Couldn’t see any night vision specs.’

  He might just be a burglar trying his luck, but then again he might not be. I let myself out onto the landing, quietly pulling Rambart’s door shut behind me. Whoever this person is they hadn’t switched on any lights. I flicked down my night visions and crouched on the landing beside the top of the stairs. Anybody climbing the stairs couldn’t see me there; maybe he’d go on past and up to the second or third floor. He didn’t.

  As he came off the stairs and round onto the landing, I stood and hit him as hard as I could in the face. He let out a stifled moan as he crumpled and hit the floor holding his broken nose, I stamped on his stomach. I never take chances, he was going to stay where he was, alternating between trying to get his breath back and stemming the blood and pain from a broken nose long after I’d gone.

  I left the building and shut the street door behind me, Gold was crossing the road and walked close beside me as I dropped the night visions in to her shoulder bag. We separated and she dropped back into the crowd. I walked a further hundred metres along Knightsbridge, crossed the road and walked the same distance on the other side before crossing back and doing another hundred metres.

  ‘You’re clear,’ came through my earpiece. I stopped and waited as Gold caught me up. The road crossings would have shown if anybody was tailing me.

  ‘Do you know who he is?’ she asked as I gave her my earpiece and battery pack which she put into the shoulder bag.

  ‘No idea, just a chancer I suppose.’

  ‘No, he wasn’t a chancer.’

  I looked at her. ‘No?’

  ‘No, I clocked him earlier today. He was dressed normally then, suit and briefcase, It didn’t register with me at first ‘cause he was looking in the shop window like any other person would but when a resident left the building he was quick to get to the door before it shut and go in – I thought maybe he was just another resident. He didn’t stay inside long so I got a good look at his face when he left. That was him again tonight, all togged up for a job – I reckon he went in earlier to take a look at the layout and what the locks were. I take it he made for Rambart’s apartment?’

  ‘Well, he came onto her floor, yes – her landing. No other apartments on it, just hers.’

  ‘So he was there for a reason.’

  ‘Guns.’

  ‘Guns?’

  ‘That holdall you saw earlier is full of PPKs, maybe he was picking them up. I should have checked his pockets, he may have had a key.’

  ‘So it looks like she’s either arms dealing for herself or part of hubby’s firm?’

  ‘Both make sense.’

  ‘Could be the million quid job offer is her takeover move to get rid of Nicholas. Are you sure you want to be part of that? Sounds a bit dangerous to me?’

  ‘You could be right. I think I’ll sleep on it and see if she hassles me – the forty-eight hours is up tomorrow.’

  ************
********************

  CHAPTER 3

  ‘Well well well, this is a surprise.’

  I looked up from the morning newspapers I’d been looking through for any mention of the previous night’s escapade – nothing yet. The man stood before me in my office was Clarence Woodward – Commander Clarence Woodward, although he’d never been in any line of fire except from maybe a few expletives from the Home Secretary when things in MI6 go wrong. Woodward is a civil servant, he had progressed through the Ministry of Defence and then into MI6, quickly climbing the ladder to the top where he had been my boss during the latter part of my N14 service – N14 being the select group of individuals who did the jobs that even the SAS declined: political hits to assist regime change, destruction of enemy threats and nuclear progress installations, things like that. You would never know Woodward was anywhere near that stuff; slightly built, dark hair neatly combed back, fawn overcoat, pinstriped suit, regimental tie, shining brogues and always with his umbrella for company, he gave the immediate impression of ‘somebody in the city’. Behind him his two bodyguards waited by the door. The common perception of a bodyguard is somebody the size of a barn door with hams for hands and no neck. Maybe that’s true for the underworld but in the real world of espionage they are well trained, fit and intelligent. Just like me eh? Okay, maybe the ‘fit’ bit could do with a little tuning up.

  Woodward pulled out a chair and blew away any dust before sitting and facing me. He didn’t look amused; I got the impression from his expression this wasn’t a social visit.

  ‘Enjoyed yourself last night did you, Nevis?’

  He sat back waiting for my answer. He wasn’t going to get one, not before I understood how the hell he knew about my Rambart visit. After few seconds of silence he nodded towards the newspapers on my desk. ‘You won’t find any mention of your evening’s work in there.’ We held each other’s gaze for another few seconds. ‘You’ll be glad to know he’ll live – no major organ damage, a broken nose, three broken ribs and a perforated lung being the collateral damage caused by one of the ribs.’ The silence fell for a while again before he continued. ‘It was a classic unarmed combat attack, straight out of the textbook: hard hit to nose incapacitates the victim and if hard enough sends him to the floor. This was hard enough and did send him to the floor, where phase two – a good stamp on the stomach – winds the victim and leaves him basically paralysed whilst the attacked makes a getaway.’