by Bill Vidal
Grinholm walked over to his fridge and selected a vintage Krug. As the bubbles soared in his glass he elaborately prepared his best Havana and lit it slowly with an extra-long match. After savouring a few puffs he called up Clayton’s personnel file. He approved an electronic transfer for $650,000, value-date yesterday, and then, under today’s date, entered ‘Resigned’.
The computer did the rest.
System access passwords were cancelled, termination papers – earnings statement, IRS, pension fund – would be dealt with automatically. By the time the champagne was finished and Hal Grinholm left the august temple of Mammon for the night, Thomas Clayton was a fading shadow in its history.
* * *
Earlier, Hector Perez had watched Tom leave the bank. This was just after he handed in his resignation. For a week the Cuban had been trailing Clayton, but so far had been frustrated by his target’s habits. Tom moved around the West End mostly by taxi. Invariably he would be collected from his doorstep by a black cab and be dropped at his destination – a shop, a restaurant – leaving Perez no room to act. The killer wanted either total seclusion or some very crowded place. So far Tom had offered him no chance.
On those days when Tom went to the City, he travelled by Underground. Perez concluded that would afford the best opportunity – especially at rush hour, when the crowds were thick and the trains packed.
Upon arriving in London, Perez had gone shopping and soon found what he wanted in a shop near Piccadilly Circus that sold all kinds of so-called sporting weapons: air pistols, rifles, crossbows, and an unbelievable assortment of hunting knives. Perez picked a 7-inch stiletto, Toledo steel, strong and light. Elsewhere he purchased an industrial blade sharpener and in the evenings, sitting in his hotel and dreaming of getting back to Cuba, he patiently sharpened both sides of the blade until he could shave with it and thread its point through a needle’s eye. He then filed two exact grooves around the thin waist, where the handle joined the blade. Each day, as he sought his opportunity, he carried the stiletto in his pocket, in a sheath he had fashioned from newspaper and Scotch tape. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, the week had passed without joy; each day Clayton dashed in and out of his Kensington house and Perez followed him patiently. But today the timing was just right. Tom came out of the bank at five-twenty and joined the City crowds.
Perez walked down into Bank station just a few steps behind. He had observed that Clayton always stood back as the train came. He would let others go in first, then board, preferably last. Perez had also noted that people leaving the train made straight for the escalators. No one ever looked back. He would drive the knife straight through the man’s back, right of the spinal column, at an angle, through the lung and into the heart, then push him into the train and snap the handle off the blade, let the doors begin to close and step back. They would be halfway to the next stop, packed like sardines, before anyone noticed a dead man.
The platform was suitably crowded as Perez stood behind Clayton waiting for the train to come. As it pulled into the station, the doors hissed open and the waiting crowd grudgingly allowed arriving passengers to disembark. Perez put himself into position, extracted the stiletto and held the handle and sheath with both hands behind his back. As the man in front of Clayton stepped on to the train, Perez pulled the paper sheath free and let it drop to the ground, then placed himself almost touching Clayton and drew his right arm, blade pointing forward, slightly back. He pushed a bit with his right shoulder, as was normal at peak travel time, then picked the precise entry point and tensed himself to shove.
But his arm would not move. He looked at it in disbelief and was struggling to order it forward as the poison overcame him and his vision clouded. Perez thought he saw a figure jump past him into the train – just before he died.
Riordan Murphy thrust himself into the carriage as the door closed. He carefully slipped the vial of curare, needle first, into his right pocket, which was aluminium-lined. Then he stood there quietly, his face a few inches from Clayton, who was unaware that Murphy had just saved his life.
For nearly three months he had been following Clayton; Murphy and a team of five.
‘Shield him until March 2nd,’ Sean had said. ‘Then you will either come home or kill him. You’ll be told at the time.’
With only three days remaining, Murphy braced himself for action. Then on the penultimate day the message came from Dublin:
All is well. Come home. He is one of us.
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Copyright © Bill Vidal 2008
Bill Vidal has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First published in Great Britain in 2008 by William Heinemann
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