Eye Contact (25 page)

Of course.

It was perfect. Down to the end of the street and turn right, and there the game could begin. He would follow Piccadilly back down towards Park Lane. The first person to make eye contact would be the target.

A pleasing thrill of adrenalin infused him as started towards The Ritz, the haze of drowsiness evaporating with each step. Pedestrians stepped out of his way, as though sensing his presence if not his purpose, and he had to concentrate on relaxing his muscles into a neutral expression, so that the terrible eagerness would not show on his face.

One last block to go.

An expensively dressed woman with olive skin and long dark hair met his eye as they passed each other, but she was lucky – had they met a hundred yards further along, it might have been her. Naysmith smiled at her good fortune and walked on, his gaze drawn to a double-decker bus that had drawn up ahead of him, indistinct faces staring out from the upstairs windows. He dropped his gaze to the paving slabs in front of him, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone else until he was in the proper place.

The traffic noise grew louder, and a slight breeze of fumes touched his cheek as he finally stepped out of the side street and, turning right, raised his eyes to look out on Piccadilly.

Game on.

Ahead of him, a young couple were walking arm in arm, threading their way between the oncoming pedestrians. Naysmith kept his distance, staying a little behind them, allowing his gaze to flit across the faces of the people coming in the other direction.

Two suited men in their forties, ties loosened for the evening, passed by without looking up. An Arab woman with a broad, beautiful face and an exotically hooked nose approached with a graceful stride, but her large eyes were turned towards the trees of Green Park, lost in thought. Naysmith slowed as she passed, turning to watch her receding figure with a thoughtful smile, then moved on.

He watched diners, oblivious to his presence, talking to each other across small tables in restaurant windows, and caught glimpses of his own reflection keeping pace with him in the polished dark marble of the Piccadilly facades.

The young couple turned right into Half Moon Street and he walked on alone, the road sloping gently downwards. The traffic still rolled along beside him, but there were fewer people here. A huddled male figure sat with his head down in a darkened doorway and, moments later, a cadaverous-looking tramp stumbled along with unseeing eyes staring straight ahead.

He was approaching Hyde Park Corner now, and still nobody had made eye contact. Surely he would find someone before he got back to his hotel. Perhaps the usual crowd of tourists that milled around outside the Hard Rock Café? He didn’t want to end the evening with nothing.

Frowning, he walked on towards the grand old hotels that lined the end of the street. A short, middle-aged man stood between a pair of empty tables in a roped-off section at the front of one of them. The red ember of a small cigar glowed in one hand, and his head was bowed as he studied a phone held in the other. The man smiled to himself and straightened, raising the cigar towards his bearded mouth. Inclining his head slightly, he peered over the top of his glasses, his gaze resting on Naysmith for just a second before looking back to the phone.

He would be the one.

Naysmith allowed his pace to slow very slightly as he focused on the figure, just a few feet away from him now, taking in each detail. Late forties or early fifties. Five foot ten, average build, with wispy brown hair swept back from his face, and a bushy, salt-and-pepper goatee beard. Small eyes peered down through delicate, thin-framed spectacles perched on a pointed nose.

He had on a beautifully tailored jacket and expensive-looking shoes, but wore a dark woollen sweater vest over his shirt. A smart leather shoulder bag lay on the table at his side.

And then Naysmith was past him. Closing his eyes, he committed the man to memory – the shape of his ears, the slight double chin. Picking up his pace again, he walked on, casually glancing at his watch to make certain of the time. Exactly 8.16 p.m. He smiled to himself as he followed the pavement back round towards his own hotel.

Naysmith walked across the old entrance lobby and passed through double doors into the beautiful art deco hall of the lounge. Beneath the high, arched ceiling, a central aisle of chequered marble stretched out from the street entrance to the sweeping curve of the bar at the far end of the room, where steps led up to the hotel reception area beyond. Comfortable sofas and padded wicker chairs surrounded the low, linen-shrouded tables, while Japanese murals filled the spaces between the columns on the walls and cream-shaded lamps nestled on tables beneath the large potted palms.

He took a table off to one side of the bar, his seat facing into the room so that he had a good view of the doors. The hushed murmur of conversation wafted across the room as he sank back into what was an extraordinarily comfortable chair. A raised eyebrow summoned the waiter, who approached with a measured step and nodded politely.

‘Sir?’

‘I’d like a gin and tonic, please.’

‘Certainly,’ the waiter nodded. ‘We have Caorunn, Plymouth, Bombay Sapphire, or London Number One.’

‘Excellent,’ Naysmith smiled, relishing the choice. ‘Caorunn, I think.’

‘Very good, sir.’

Naysmith watched him walk over to the bar, then relaxed back into the soft upholstery of his seat, gazing up to admire the beautiful stained-glass ceiling and noting the apparent absence of security cameras. There were worse places to wait for someone.

The bar filled up steadily as the evening progressed, the volume of conversation and laughter rising to overcome the meandering jazz that drifted down from somewhere overhead. At first, Naysmith read a newspaper to pass the time. Later, he amused himself by exchanging glances with an elegant brunette in her forties on the other side of the room. Toying with her drink, she artfully smiled at him while her husband stared at the waitresses, and offered a tiny, apologetic shrug when he finally led her away. Naysmith acknowledged her with a mischievous wink, then returned his attention to the doors.

It was a little after nine thirty when his target appeared.

At the far end of the room, the double doors swung open and two figures walked in, deep in conversation. Naysmith gazed across at them, his expression rigidly neutral but his eyes alert. Small glasses, goatee beard, and that curious sweater vest visible under the jacket. Definitely the same man.

As the pair approached, Naysmith calmly folded away his newspaper and placed a twenty-pound note under his half-empty glass. Easing back his chair, he stood up and yawned, allowing the two men time to make their way across the room. As they drew level with him, he took one last glance at the paper, then abandoned it and turned slowly towards the stairs, falling in just behind the two men as they passed.

‘. . . but you know what? Their stock’s gonna take a big hit if they don’t get out of that market soon.’ The target had a West Coast accent.

‘And did you tell him that?’ The other man was younger, taller, with short, dark hair. He spoke with a slight Scottish accent, and held the door open for Naysmith as they passed through into the brightly lit reception area and walked over to the lifts.

‘I called him like three times but he just wouldn’t accept it,’ the bearded man shrugged, pressing the button to go up. ‘It’s actually a shame because they had some stellar growth in the last few years.’

The three men waited as the doors slid open, then stepped into the lift. Naysmith went last, his eyes casually registering the single CCTV camera above his head. The younger man pressed the 5 button for himself before turning to the target.

‘It’s four, isn’t it?’ he asked.

‘Thanks,’ the bearded man nodded.

‘Four for me too,’ Naysmith murmured, moving to stand slightly behind and to the left of the target.

The young man pressed the polished metal 4 button and stood back as the doors slid together.

‘Still, I thought tonight was very positive,’ he observed as the lift started to move.

‘It sure was,’ the target chuckled. He was wearing the bag over his left shoulder. It was clearly expensive – soft black leather with reinforced gunmetal edges. A small plastic tag swung on a miniature leather loop, and Naysmith leaned back against the mirrored rear wall of the lift, his head inclined as he watched it.

An American Airlines executive-flyer logo, with what looked like a membership number embossed on it, along with a name: MR D. LENNOX.

‘Anyways,’ Lennox was saying, ‘it was useful to meet their people, and I think there may well be something we can do together.’

Naysmith straightened, studying the man’s clothes, his bag . . . and above all his bearing. Mr D. Lennox was clearly a wealthy man. The wristwatch, the executive-flyer tag – innocuous details that all spoke quietly of money. Naysmith recognised them but wasn’t impressed. Money was power, but only of a sort. What
he
did was more powerful, more absolute. And when the time came, and he stood face to face with this wealthy man, all the money in the world wouldn’t be enough to save him.

‘Well, I guess this is me.’ Lennox watched the lift doors slide open and turned to nod at his colleague. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

‘See you in the morning,’ the younger man replied.

Naysmith brushed past him, following Lennox out of the lift, his feet sinking noiselessly into the deep blue carpet as the doors slid shut behind them. The corridor curved away to the left and right, broad deco uplighters creating pools of soft illumination on the ceiling.

No cameras here. Good.

Naysmith slowed in the shadows between two of the lights, pretending to tap something into his phone. His head was inclined forward, but his eyes peered out beneath the brows, looking along the corridor. He had to let the target get ahead of him, so that he could see which room he was staying in. And he had to do it without appearing suspicious himself.

Lennox walked a little further, then paused, fumbling in his pocket for his key card. Naysmith began to move again, calmly sliding the phone back into his jacket and picking up his pace as he heard the click of the lock. They were only a few yards apart as the door opened and Lennox passed inside.

For a second, Naysmith felt the urge to run forward, to burst in through the slowly closing door and overpower his victim in a sudden explosion of violence. But he mastered the compulsion, maintaining his relaxed pace, his disinterested expression.

He drew level with the door just as it clicked shut, continuing past it with nothing more than a sidelong glance to confirm the room number.

408.

Walking on, he went to a door at the end of the corridor, feigned searching for a lost room key, then retraced his steps back towards the lift.

It wasn’t going to be easy.

The fact that his target was a business traveller meant he would need to act quickly. Lennox was probably visiting from the US, and would have to be eliminated before he could return home. But how long would that be?

And then there was the problem of access.

The lift was much too risky – a confined space with CCTV coverage, but also the unpredictable delay in waiting for it to arrive if he needed to leave in a hurry. He glanced over his shoulder, then nudged a side door open with his elbow and slipped into the stairwell. Moving slowly, calmly, his eyes swept the space above him, but there were no cameras to be seen. He trotted down the broad, shallow steps, the carpet deadening his footfalls. This was much better – a discrete way to and from the fourth floor.

He counted the flights down, emerging to one side of the reception area, close to the hotel’s rear entrance. Adopting the confident air of a paying guest, he walked over to the glass doors and slipped out into the cold night air. A claustrophobic little back street sloped down between the tall buildings, but he could see a four-way junction, just a few yards up to the left, that presented several different ways to leave the area.

Naysmith smiled. It was important to have options. He took one last look up at the hotel behind him, then turned, walked to the corner and disappeared.

Naysmith moved quietly, preserving the hushed tone of the room as he stepped around the bed, laying out the things he would need. A strange peace descended on him as he prepared – the calm before the storm. Everything was ready, but he checked each item once more to be sure. There would be no margin for error, no time for a second attempt.

Surveying the items laid out on the bed, he nodded with satisfaction. It had been quite a challenge, getting everything together so quickly, but he had done it.

Clothing had been the biggest issue – usually he had the luxury of time, with plenty of opportunities to source anonymous, untraceable garments from different supermarkets – but time was tight on this one. He’d briefly considered wearing his own clothes, or perhaps even stealing a bag from one of the other hotel guests, but that would have been a dangerous compromise; he had to act quickly without being careless. In the end, he’d remembered the big sporting retailer near Piccadilly Circus and reached it before it closed for the night. Under the glaring strip lights, hunting quickly through the crowded racks of discounted football shirts, he picked up a nondescript tracksuit, T-shirt and trainers – all suitably generic items, all paid for with cash.

As he’d approached the sleepy cashier, his gaze had rested briefly on some cellophane-wrapped baseball bats and a rack of substantial-looking golf clubs. He’d hesitated, weighing up the possibilities, but they were memorable items to travel with, and difficult to conceal. After some thought, and needing to find something that could serve, he’d picked up a long black umbrella with a steel-tipped spike.

Better.

Rubber gloves, a packet of wet wipes and a selection of plastic bags had come from a Metro supermarket on the way back through Mayfair, and everything would be stowed in a small fabric bag with ‘I
London’ printed on it, purchased from a street vendor. Backpacks and holdalls attracted the wrong sort of attention on the capital’s streets these days, but obvious tourists were virtually invisible.