The Boathouse
R. J. Harries
Copyright © 2014 R. J. Harries
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or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
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Contents
Cover
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
CHAPTER SIXTY
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
CHAPTER ONE
Sean Archer sensed he was being followed. He ran alone, late at night, as it helped him clear his thoughts and forget about the past. He liked the hypnotic rhythm of his feet hitting the streets like a drum, the air rushing in and out of his lungs, body parts working as one – on autopilot.
The midnight chimes of Westminster echoed behind him and he focused up ahead, through the misty autumn chill, towards the tapering row of lamps that stood tall on the granite river wall.
The Victoria Embankment was too quiet. There had been no passing traffic since Westminster Bridge and the rising pitter-patter of another late-night runner was gradually getting louder.
He entered the shadows beneath Charing Cross Railway Bridge. Two uniformed policemen parted and turned sideways to let him through. The gap was more than wide enough, but the thick-set copper on the right flinched and moved his right arm back. Archer glanced towards him as the truncheon swung round towards his head. He leaned away and tried to swerve out of reach, but his shoulder crashed into the other man’s chest as the baton smacked him just above his left eye.
*
He woke up under the bridge, slumped against the wall, with his chin on his chest and a dense throbbing headache. The pressure intensified as he lifted his head up and tried to get his bearings through kaleidoscope eyes.
The dirty cops must have dragged him there when he was out cold. He heard voices in the distance and started to turn his head, but the vice-like grip tightened, so he stopped. The cold and the damp were numbing his lower body and his eyelids closed automatically as he drifted off into a swirling vortex of darkness.
A train rumbled across the bridge overhead and he slowly opened his eyes. When his mind stopped spinning he realised he was holding something in both his hands. There was a knife in his right hand and what felt like a postcard in his left. It was dark and he couldn’t see exactly what it was, so he slowly unzipped his jacket and placed both objects inside the net pocket, took some deep breaths, leaned to the right and dry heaved in short spasms.
He pushed himself up with his arms and legs, like a punch-drunk boxer struggling to beat the count. Bending forward slightly he coughed and spat out the stomach acid that had burned his mouth and ripped his throat raw. He zipped his jacket back up and took a deep breath as he started what would be a long walk back to Walton Street, SW3, clenching and unclenching his fists, gritting his teeth and keeping his gaze low to the ground.
After a few hundred yards of slow deep breaths he broke into a light jog without even thinking. The movement was mechanical and familiar, helping him ignore the pain. Regaining his speed and rhythm alongside the river; hammering the street like a drummer keeping perfect time. Breathing the cool damp air in, and the warm moist air out, with a visible cloud of vapour; zoned out from the random clusters of cars heading home.
Finally, alone inside his renovated South Kensington townhouse, he double dead-locked the solid front door, set the perimeter alarms and stretched his aching leg muscles towards the pain barrier, removing the lactic acid to prevent them from cramping up. As he leaned forward, slowly working his burning calf muscles, his thoughts gravitated towards Alex, but instinctively he closed them out. Compartmentalising was a skill that enabled him to function whenever his brain was overloaded with vivid memories from all five senses.
The white plantation blinds covered the bottom half of all the sash windows and were always set at an angle so that nobody could see inside. He opened his jacket and studied the knife. It was a Fairbairn Sykes fighting knife, used by elite British forces. He had one just like it upstairs in his study, and he used it as a letter opener. This one had something on the blade.
It looked like dried blood.
The postcard was actually a glossy photograph. A dead woman in a running kit splayed on her back with the knife sticking out of her neck, her wrists and ankles tied with clean white sailing rope to the four corners of a double bed. Her face had been blurred by some trick of Photoshop. The seven-inch steel blade must have hit the carotid artery as blood had sprayed in a
wide arc over the white bed sheet, while a darker patch had formed above her shoulder. On the back of the picture someone had printed in thick black capitals:
DROP IT OR DIE LIKE HER.
Two weeks ago an anonymous caller had threatened to have him silenced if he didn’t drop his personal investigation into Alex’s unsolved murder. He hadn’t taken much notice, but this threat was different. This time he should call the police.
He carefully placed the knife and photo inside separate Zip-loc plastic bags and put them at the back of a kitchen drawer, deciding to forget about them until later. Two aspirins and a small bottle of Evian took care of the dull residual headache.
After his daily routine in the compact basement gym of fifty push-ups, sit-ups and pull-ups, he stretched, went upstairs to the first floor, kicked off his size twelve Asics, undressed and tossed his sweaty combat-style running kit on top of the laundry basket.
Naked, he walked into the slate-tiled en-suite bathroom and turned the shower on as hot as he could stand it. He scrubbed himself with a hard sponge to rid himself of the disturbing encounter with the cops. Then he turned the shower down and stayed under the freezing cold water until he could bear it no longer. Within two minutes he was back on autopilot as he dressed in fresh boxer shorts, pale blue polo shirt and flip-flops; until a drop of fresh blood landed on the back of his left hand.
He studied himself carefully in the bathroom mirror. His cobalt blue eyes revealed nothing but calm. The inch-long gash above his left eye was still bleeding. He found a packet of butterfly stitches in the cabinet, squeezed the wound closed, wiped the blood off with a tissue and stuck a small piece of sticky tape across it to hold it together. Ruffling his fingers through his short brown hair, he thought about shaving, but decided to leave it until the morning.
Back downstairs in the large open-plan living area, he opened an ice-cold bottle of Peroni and selected some music to break the silence: on deck one he’d left Kind of Blue by Miles Davies since he’d moved in over a year ago. He loved the moody sax solos by Coltrane. It was the best album he had for late-night background music whether relaxing or working. He started the turntable and brushed the dust off. But first he needed a shot of blistering blues guitar; something restless to match his unsettled mood.
On deck two he placed The Sky is Crying by Stevie Ray Vaughan, positioning the stylus above the smooth dark grooves that indicated the gap before the fourth track Little Wing. He relished the mesmerising blues-rock guitar riffs with intricate phrasing, greasy distortion, chomping wah-wah and frantic blues slaloms.
The renovated Victorian house had thick walls to absorb the sound and several retro features including a double vinyl hi-fi rig as an alternative to the more convenient digital system. Both sounded good, but the uncompressed dynamics and strong links to the past won on this occasion. The touch and smell of the twelve-inch disc made it a far more intimate experience than digital.
His own blues guitar was gathering dust on the stand next to the rig. He gently brushed his finger across the strings of the customised black Stratocaster, but still wasn’t ready to pick it up. It had been fourteen months and he’d lost the calluses on his finger-tips.
He flipped the lever on deck two. The stylus dropped and washed the room with the warm fluffy sound vinyl makes before the music starts as he took the first sip of beer.
The guitar sound filled the room as he wandered over to the large touch screen on the wall and turned it on. It showed a map of Great Britain and he stared at all the coloured dots. Each one depicted a potential location for the Boathouse, along coastlines, rivers and lakeshores. Different colours signified various levels of cross-referenced research materials. Four sites were coded red.
He recalled his personalised field training by a retired SIS officer who needed to top his pension up. He’d written a Sun Tzu style memoir that hadn’t sold well, but he still held the record at Fort Monckton: Know your enemy and know what they want.
The Boathouse was off-grid, a facility that nobody wanted to talk about. How many people had been tortured and killed there? It was an obsession, and finding it would help him find Alex’s killer. He should have stopped her investigating it before it was too late, but she wouldn’t have listened to him or anyone else. His body tensed as his mind projected the ghostly image of her pale dead body. He’d accepted the fact that he couldn’t change the past, but he was fiercely determined to change her killer’s future.
CHAPTER TWO
Sean Archer’s office was a convenient two-minute walk from his house and on the same meandering street in the heart of South Ken. He always felt comfortable walking down Walton Street, with its two- and three-storey stucco townhouses, boutiques and art galleries. It had that relaxed village feel to it, but was also upbeat, with wealthy Russians heading towards Knightsbridge and fashionable locals who always made out they were in the know.
He ordered two large Americanos in Le Bistrot opposite the office and stared out of the window at the white painted building where he worked. His office was above two bespoke sole traders; Morgan’s Fine Art Gallery and Farnsworth Antiques.
Londinium Lux Limited comprised of Sean Archer and his business partner Zoe de la Croix, originally from Luxembourg and sacked by GCHQ as an intelligence analyst, caught utilising their powerful resources for personal use.
He used the front entrance and ran up the stairs two at a time without spilling any coffee through the flimsy plastic tops. The office space was open plan with two private meeting rooms. The parquet floor was honey-coloured oak and the walls white painted brick, covered with flat screens, framed posters of movies and old computer games he had developed called Psycho Killer, Vigilante and Man Hunt. Club chairs and leather sofas gave it a relaxed Manhattan-loft-meets-special-operations-centre feel.
It was unashamedly anti-corporate.
Zoe was an elegant brunette, dressed in a black skirt and white blouse. She was sitting upright at her work station, operating multiple screens, and frowning at images of the three investment bankers they’d been investigating for the past week, for a Dutchman who ran a dodgy hedge fund in Charles Street, Mayfair, but paid out on a good percentage. One of the screens showed them having breakfast in their favourite café in the Barbican. Archer had planted the tiny camera, microphone and transmitter there – inside a light fitting. Most hedge fund clients were after satellite imagery and analysis. This one wanted more.
“Morning, Zoe.” He placed her coffee next to her desk phone.
“Thanks.” She looked up at the scar above his eye. “How did you do that? Let me put some make-up on it.”
“It’s nothing. Found anything useful yet?”
“It’s coming. Take a croissant.”
She opened her red leather handbag, took out a large make-up brush and held it in front of her with an impatient look. “Come closer.” Archer obeyed and bent forward as she gently dusted around and over the butterfly stitch. “There.”
She gazed up at him and smiled as she played with her pearl necklace from Majorca. A material reminder of the only time they had been intimate together. She sighed and turned around to her computer, put the brush away and resumed working. Her red fingernails rattled across the keys at speed, alternating between two keyboards as the screens around her flashed up new images and information. Pictures, videos, satellite imagery from tracking their phones and confidential files stolen from various networks.
Archer was fascinated by her ability to hack into anything without getting caught. She’d learnt her lesson and was fearless with technology and completely comfortable with the unconventional techniques they used to solve cases. Despite being tall she always wore high heels, a lot of make-up, bright red lip gloss and designer clothes. The only framed picture on her desk was one of herself playing the cello at one of her burlesque shows. Archer always had to hide a smile when he stole a glance at it; he’d enjoyed her last public performance far more than he’d let on.
His iPhone rang out with a bell-like ri
ng tone. The image of a chunky old man with wild grey hair and red-framed glasses, reading in his study, showed that it was his old family friend and Nobel Prize-winning psychologist, Professor Miles Davenport, OBE.
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