A Conflict of Interests (4 page)

Patterson said, "Your next rendezvous is the Playhouse Theatre. Take a Bakerloo or Northern Line train to the Embankment and turn left when you leave the station. The Playhouse is a semi-derelict building on the corner of Craven Street and Northumberland Avenue. Have you got that?"

There was a sudden eruption which sounded like a camel belching, then the Arabic phrases came thick and fast. None of them were polite, all of them were physically impossible.

"Speak English," Patterson told him curtly.

"Go to hell," Jalud hissed. "I'm tired of this foolishness."

"Colonel Qadhafi would say the same and more. One glimpse of your starring role in this particular home movie and you'd be out of a job."

A long sigh came over the line and he pictured the Libyan, his sallow, weasel-like face glistening with perspiration. "You want to repeat my instructions?" he invited.

"The Playhouse Theatre on the corner of Craven Street, turn left outside the tube station."

"Right. See you ten minutes from now."

Patterson hung up on him, left the phone booth and strolled into the gardens by the Embankment. The security check he was running on Jalud was largely bluff, but the little creep had no way of knowing this. As far as he was concerned, a legman was watching his every move. It wasn't difficult to achieve that kind of conditioned response in somebody who was scared shitless and incapable of thinking straight. The ironic thing was that he had Karen Whitfield to thank for that, the unwitting ally who'd reduced Jalud to a blancmange long before he'd gotten into the act.

Patterson lit a cigarette, chose a park bench near the gates where he could see anyone leaving the Underground station and sat down. For all her alleged shrewdness, the Whitfield bitch had been like any other hooker; strip away the sophisticated veneer and she was just a greedy, blackmailing call girl who didn't have enough sense to know when the leeching had gone too far. She'd looked on Jalud as a sure-fire touch, an asset to be milked dry in furtherance of her unique, long-term pension fund. Had she been more politically aware, it might have dawned on her she was playing with fire.

A dozen or so passengers emerged from the tube station, among them the instantly recognizable figure of Raschid al Jalud, a slim, black-haired little man in an expensive gabardine suit. Waiting until he'd disappeared around the corner into Northumberland Avenue, Patterson double-checked to make sure the Libyan wasn't being shadowed by one of the Embassy security men before he went after him.

Under the railway arches, several tramps were bedding down on the pavement for the night; behind them, a couple strolled hand in hand toward the river. The man, Patterson observed, had wispy blond hair and towered above the girl, a diminutive redhead whose enticing pelvic action was emphasized by a faded pair of skin-tight blue jeans. Allowing them to draw well ahead, he turned into Northumberland Avenue and casually approached Jalud.

"Hello there." Patterson smiled, clapped the Libyan on the shoulder, then gripped his left arm above the elbow. "How long have you been waiting for me?"

Jalud glared at him. "Too long," he snapped, "far too long."

"Yeah? Well, I'm sorry about that. I guess I didn't allow enough time."

Still smiling, he steered the Libyan across the road to where the Datsun was parked. The courting couple were on the far side of the Victoria Embankment now and were leaning against the parapet, seemingly enthralled by the Shell Building on the south bank. Keeping an eye on them, Patterson opened the offside door and told Jalud to get in.

"What?"

"You're driving." He shoved the Libyan inside, closed the door and then walked around the car and slipped into the passenger seat. Glancing into the side mirror, he saw that the couple had turned about and were gazing in their direction. "Don't look now, but I think we've got company." Patterson dug the door and ignition keys out of his pocket and handed them to Jalud. "A tall, gangling blond Englishman and a redhead. He's wearing a windcheater over a thin rollneck sweater; she's in jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt. You seen them before?"

"I don't think so."

"You'd have noticed the girl, Raschid, she has the kind of tight little butt you admire so much."

"You do me an injustice."

Patterson laughed. "My mistake, I was forgetting your taste runs to the more seductive — right?" He prodded the Libyan in the ribs. "What are we waiting for?" he said. "Let's go."

"Where to?"

"Straight up the avenue to Trafalgar Square. I'll direct you from there; meantime, stick to the inside lane."

Jalud nodded, found the right key for the ignition and started the engine. Shifting into gear, he checked that the road was clear behind and pulled out from the curb.

"Did you…?" He swallowed nervously. "Did you see Karen Whitfield?"

"Sure, we had a very agreeable talk." Patterson reached inside his jacket and took out a video cassette. "Your problems are over, Raschid."

"How can I be certain of that?"

"You want me to describe the movie, how she used her dildo on you?"

"That won't be necessary," Jalud said, tight-lipped.

"No, I don't suppose it is. You're not likely to forget a kinky scene like that in a hurry." Patterson opened the glove compartment, stowed the cassette away and closed the lid. "We want to head into The Mall," he said. "Soon as you move into Trafalgar Square, filter off to the left and go through Admiralty Arch."

"Save your breath." Jalud noticed the lights were against them at the top of Northumberland Avenue and braked to a halt. "I know my way around London."

"Damn right," Patterson told him. "That's been your trouble, the reason why you got yourself into such a jam."

"So what? You took care of the problem, didn't you?"

"I put a couple of bullets into her head. She wasn't breathing too well when I left the house."

"There's been no mention of her death in the newspapers." Jalud saw the lights go from amber to green and let the clutch out. "Or on the radio," he added.

"They haven't found Oliver Leese yet, but they will."

"Who?"

"Oliver Leese, the guy who filmed your sexual exploits from the adjoining room." Patterson smiled. "I did you proud, two for the price of one."

"You were paid twenty-five thousand dollars cash in advance."

The inference was clear: as far as Jalud was concerned, payment had already been made in full and he could go fly a kite. "What about the rest of the deal, Raschid?" he asked. "You're not thinking of welshing on our agreement, are you?"

"I assume you mean the franchise to provide the logistical support essential to our operations in Chad?"

"What else?" Patterson grunted.

"The matter is in hand," Jalud assured him, "but you must be patient. Although Colonel Qadhafi expressed interest in your proposal when I spoke to him the day after our meeting in Tripoli seven weeks ago, I got the impression he was well satisfied with the existing arrangements organized by your former colleagues in the CIA. However, I'm sure I can talk him around in time."

They were well into The Mall now, approaching Marlborough House on the right, and time was running out in more senses than one. For all his smooth talk, Patterson knew the Libyan meant to double-cross him. The way he'd clenched the steering wheel and temporized before answering his question was proof of that. There was also every chance Jalud would arrange to have him eliminated when he eventually returned to Tripoli.

"You want to get into the outside lane," Patterson said tersely. "We're turning right at the traffic lights ahead."

"As you wish."

Jalud tripped the offside indicator, drifted toward the center, then made the turn and drove past St. James's Palace into Pall Mall, where the one-way circuit obliged him to turn left and head up to Piccadilly. Twenty yards beyond the alleyway leading to the back entrance of the Stafford Hotel, Patterson told him to pull into the curb and stop.

"This is where I leave you," he said.

"You leave me?" Jalud blinked. "Shouldn't it be the other way round?"

"The Datsun belongs to Rent-a-Car Limited, but it's yours until Saturday." Patterson opened the door and got out onto the pavement. "About the cassette," he added, "you'll recognize the room but not the man."

"I don't understand."

"It's really very simple, Raschid. I'm holding on to your particular home movie, it's the only life insurance policy I've got."

"Bastard."

"It takes one to know one," Patterson said and slammed the door.

There was a moment of stunned silence before Jalud found his voice and began mouthing a string of obscenities. Unperturbed, Patterson walked away and left him to it. At four-thirty that afternoon, he had parked his BMW in St. James's Square and fed the meter with sufficient loose change to insure it would run into the free evening period. Dawdling along until the Libyan had calmed down and moved off, he eventually crossed the road and turned into King Street. Five minutes later, he collected his car from outside the London Reference Library and drove out to his flat in Highgate.

Some detectives get all the lucky breaks, some get none; Harry Mace was one of the unfortunates. He did everything by the book and never cut any corners, but somehow he always ended up with egg on his face. The moment Coghill walked out of the press conference at Wimbledon Police Station and saw Mace's lugubrious expression, he knew it had happened again.

"Hello, Harry," he said. "I thought you were supposed to be keeping an eye on Trevor Whitfield."

"I was." Mace gave him a sheepish grin and opened a door off the hall. "Mind if we talk in here, Guv? It's more private."

"Right." Coghill followed him into the interview room and closed the door. "So what happened?" he asked.

"Remember that Stanley Quainton he tried to phone from the airport?"

"Yes."

"Well, he called him again from the hotel soon after you'd left for the press conference, and this time Trevor got lucky. Quainton showed up at the Merton Hotel about half an hour ago and carted Whitfield off to his house in Putney. He said that if there were any further questions we wanted to ask Trevor, he would run him out to St. Mark's Hill at ten o'clock tomorrow morning."

"How very decent of him," Coghill said drily.

"Yeah, wasn't it. Of course, I could be wrong, but I got the impression that this Quainton is a lawyer, one of the sneaky kind."

It never rained but it poured, Coghill thought, and just when everything was going nicely. Although Draycott had invited Trevor to spend the night at his house, Whitfield had politely declined and Mace had booked him a room at the Merton. Now, just when he was ready to make him jump through the hoop, Whitfield had slipped through their fingers and they were stuck with a dodgy lawyer.

"You got any more bad news, Harry?" he asked.

"Not at the moment," said Mace.

"Thank Christ for that." Coghill rubbed his eyes. "I assume you took Quainton up on his offer?"

"Yeah. I told him we'd like to see Whitfield at nine-thirty." Mace smiled. "I didn't see why we should make life easy for him."

"Good. Let's you and me call it a day." Coghill opened the door. "See you at nine-thirty, Harry," he said.

"I'll be there on the dot, Guv."

Coghill smiled, nodded to the desk sergeant and walked out into the station yard. Harry Mace might have reached his ceiling careerwise, but he knew the detective sergeant had something he lacked — a wife to go home to. Feeling deflated and empty, he got into the Volvo and headed out toward Acton and the lonely flat he'd bought after he and Janice had split up.

Patterson removed the cassette from the video machine and replaced it with another of the deck of home movies he'd stolen from Leese. Depressing the play button, he picked up the half-empty beer can and returned to his armchair. As usual, a series of frame numbers appeared on the small screen, then the room came sharply into focus and the camera zoomed in on Karen Whitfield. This time, in addition to a pair of ultra high-heeled shoes, black nylon stockings and a red lace garter belt, she was also wearing a gown and mortarboard. Her expression was stern, a pose that was emphasized by the cane she was flexing with both hands. A naked man knelt in front of her, his head almost touching the floor and enveloped in a pillowcase. As a further humiliation, the victim's wrists were handcuffed behind him and his ankles were chained together.

After two hours of watching Karen Whitfield in action, Patterson was beginning to think he was wasting his time. It had occurred to him that if Raschid al Jalud was a typical client, it was reasonable to assume her other customers were equally important and influential, but so far none of their faces had struck a chord. Bored to distraction by the sound of her strident voice and the muffled grunts coming from the man, he glanced at his wristwatch and saw that it was five minutes to twelve. At this rate, it was going to be a very long night; there were eight cassettes he hadn't seen yet and each of them lasted approximately half an hour. He should have asked Karen Whitfield who else had a star part in her porno movies, while he was at it. By the time he had finished with her, she had been in a very talkative mood, but all he'd wanted to know then was the spine number of the video tape that featured Raschid al Jalud.

Patterson raised the beer can to his mouth, then froze as Karen Whitfield unmasked her victim and helped him to his feet. Jeremy Ashforth: novelist, roving reporter, political commentator and TV personality. He recognized the face, recalled the name even before she announced it for the benefit of the hidden camera. Shit, the guy even had a reputation in the States — the epitome of liberal opinion, supposedly.

Ashforth was money in the bank if he played it carefully. The direct approach was too dangerous, because it would link him to the murder, but there were other possibilities. With his prestige and influence, a hostile intelligence service would certainly be interested in controlling a man like Ashforth. And there was a Soviet operative in Paris he'd done business with in the past who'd always given him a fair price. Viktor Orlov was no fool, though; he'd want to see what was on offer before they agreed to terms.