False Impression (32 page)

He glanced up at
the mirror again, while trying to maintain a steady speed, and suddenly it all
came back to him. He now remembered exactly where he’d last seen her. The hair
had been longer, and blonde, and although it was over a decade ago, those eyes
hadn’t changed – eyes that registered nothing when she killed, eyes that bored
into you when you died.

His platoon had
been surrounded on the border with Bulgaria.

They were
quickly rounded up and marched to the nearest prisoner-of-war camp. He could
still hear the cries of his young volunteers, some of whom had only just left
school. And then, once they had told her everything they knew, or nothing at
all, she would slit their throats while staring into their eyes. Once she was
certain they were dead, with one more sweeping movement of her knife she would
hack off the head,
then
dump it in the middle of an
overcrowded cell. Even the most hardened of her henchmen had to avert their
eyes.

Before leaving,
she would spend a little time looking around at those who had survived. Each
night she left with the same parting words, ‘I still haven’t decided which one
of you will be next.’

Three of his men
had survived, and only because a new set of prisoners, with more up-to-date
information, had recently been captured. But for thirty-seven sleepless nights,
Colonel Sergei Slatinaru could only wonder when it would be his turn. Her last
victim had been Anna’s father, one of the bravest men he’d ever known, who, if
he had to die, deserved to go to his grave fighting the enemy – not at the
hands of a butcher.

When they were
finally repatriated, one of his first duties as commanding officer was to tell
Anna’s mother how Captain Petrescu had been killed. He lied, assuring her that
her husband died bravely on the battlefield. Why should he pass his nightmare
on to her? And then Anton phoned to say he’d had a call from Captain Petrescu’s
daughter; she was coming to Bucharest, and would
he
...
someone else he didn’t pass his secret on to.

Once the
hostility had ceased, rumour concerning Krantz was rife. She was in jail, she
had escaped to America,
she’d
been killed.

He prayed that
she was still alive, as he wanted to be the one to kill her. But he feared that
she would never show her face in Romania again, because so many former comrades
would recognize her and line up for the privilege of cutting her throat. But
why had she returned? What could possibly be in that crate to make her take
such a risk?

Sergei slowed
down when he reached a barren stretch of land, where the runway had once been
but was now covered in weeds and potholes. He kept one hand on the wheel, while
the other moved slowly down his left side and reached underneath the seat for a
gun he hadn’t used since Ceaugescu had been executed.

‘Where do you
want me to drop you, madam?’ he asked, as if they were in the middle of a busy
street. He placed his fingers round the handle of the gun. She didn’t reply.
His eyes glanced up into the rear-view mirror, realizing that any sudden movement
would alert her. Not only did she have the advantage of being behind him, but
she was now watching his every move. He knew one of them would be dead in the
next sixty seconds.

Sergei placed
his index finger round the trigger, eased the gun from under his seat and began
to raise his arm slowly, inch by inch. He was about to throw the brakes on,
when a hand grabbed his hair and jerked back his head in one sharp movement.
His foot came off the accelerator and the car slowed to a halt in the middle of
the runway. He raised the gun another inch.

Where is the
girl going?’ she demanded, pulling his head even further back so that she could
look into his eyes.

“What girl?’ he
managed to say as he felt the knife touch his skin just below the Adam’s apple.

‘Don’t play
games with me, old man. The girl you dropped at the airport.’

‘She didn’t
say.’
Another inch.

‘She didn’t say,
even though you drove her everywhere?

Where?’
she shouted, the edge of the blade now piercing the skin.

One more inch.

‘I’ll give you
one last chance,’ she screamed as the blade broke the skin and warm blood began
to trickle down his neck. ‘Where was – she – going?’ Krantz demanded.

‘I don’t know,’
Sergei screamed, as he raised the gun, pointed it towards her head and pulled
the trigger.

The bullet
ripped into Krantz’s shoulder and threw her backwards, but she never let go of
his hair. Sergei pulled the trigger again, but there was a full second between
the two shots. Just long enough for her to slit his throat in a single
movement.

Sergei’s last
memory before he died was staring into those cold grey eyes.

L
eapman wasn’t
asleep when his phone rang. But then he rarely slept, although he knew there
was only one person who would consider calling him at such an ungodly hour.

He picked up the
phone, and said, ‘Good morning, chairman,’ as if he was sitting at his desk in
the office.

‘Krantz has
located the painting.’

“Where is it?’
asked Leapman.

‘It was in
Bucharest, but it’s now on its way back to Heathrow.’

Leapman wanted
to say, I told you so, but confined
himself
to,

‘When does the
plane land?’

‘Just
after four, London time.’

‘I’ll have
someone standing by to pick it up.’

‘And they should
put it on the first available flight to New York.’

‘So where’s
Petrescu?’ asked Leapman.

‘No idea,’ said
Fenston, ‘but Krantz is at the airport waiting for her. So don’t expect her to
be on the same flight.’

Leapman heard
the click. Fenston never said goodbye. He climbed out of bed, picked up his
phonebook and thumbed through until he reached the Ps. He checked his watch and
dialled her office number.

‘Ruth Parish.’

‘Good morning,
Ms Parish. It’s Karl Leapman.’

‘Good morning,’
replied Ruth, cautiously.

‘We’ve found our
painting.’

‘You have the
Van Gogh?’ said Ruth.

‘No, not yet,
but that’s why I’m calling.’

‘How can I
help?’

‘It’s in the
cargo hold of a flight on its way from Bucharest, due to land outside your
front door just after four o’clock this afternoon.’

He paused. ‘Just
make sure you’re there to pick it up.’

I’ll be there. But
whose name is on the manifest?’

Who gives a
fuck? It’s our painting and it’s in your crate. Just be sure you don’t mislay
it a second time.’ Leapman put the phone down before she had a chance to
protest.

Ruth Parish and
four of her carriers were already on the tarmac when flight 019 from Bucharest
landed at Heathrow. Once the aircraft had been cleared for unloading, the
little motorcade of a customs official’s car, Ruth’s Range Rover and an Art
Locations security van drove up and parked within twenty metres of the cargo
hold.

If Ruth had
looked up, she would have seen Anna’s smiling face in her tiny window at the
back of the aircraft. But she didn’t.

Ruth stepped out
of her car and joined the customs officer. She had earlier informed him that
she wished to transfer a painting from an incoming flight to an onward
destination. The customs official had looked bored, and wondered why she had
chosen such a senior officer to carry out such a routine task, until he was
told, in confidence, the value of the painting. His promotion board was due in
three weeks’ time. If he screwed up this simple exercise, he could forget the
extra silver stripe he’d promised his wife she would be sewing on his sleeve
before the end of the month. Not to mention the pay rise.

When the hold
eventually opened, they both walked forward together, but only the customs
officer addressed the chief loader.

‘There’s a red
wooden crate on board’ – he checked his file ‘three
foot
by two, and three or four inches deep. It’s stamped with an Art Locations logo
on both sides, and the number forty-seven stencilled in all four corners. I
want it unloaded before anything else is moved.’

The chief loader
passed on the instructions to his two men in the hold, who disappeared into the
darkness. By the time they reappeared, Anna was heading towards passport
control.

‘That’s it,’
said Ruth when the two loaders reappeared on the edge of the hold, carrying a
red crate. The customs official nodded.

A forklift truck
moved forward, expertly extracted the crate from the hold and lowered it slowly
to the ground. The customs man checked the manifest, followed by the logo and
even the stencilled forty-sevens.

‘Everything
seems to be in order, Ms Parish.
If you’ll just sign here.’

Ruth signed the
form, but couldn’t make out the signature on the original manifest. The customs
officer’s eyes never left the forklift truck as the package was driven across
to the Art Locations van, where two of Ruth’s carriers loaded the crate on
board.

‘I’ll still have
to accompany you to the outgoing aircraft, Ms Parish, so I can confirm that the
package has been loaded for its onward destination. Not until then can I sign a
clearance certificate.’

‘Of course,’
said Ruth, who carried out the same procedure two or three times a day.

Anna had reached
the baggage area by the time the security van began its circuitous journey from
terminal three to terminal four.

When the driver
came to a halt, he parked beside a United Airlines plane bound for New York.

The security van
waited on the tarmac for over an hour before the cargo hold was opened, by
which time Ruth knew the life history of the customs official, even which
school he intended to send his third child to if he was promoted. Ruth then
watched the process in reverse. The back door of the security van was unlocked,
the painting placed on a forklift truck, driven to the side of the hold, raised
and accepted on board by two handlers before it disappeared into the bowels of
the aircraft.

The customs
official signed all three copies of the dispatch documents and bade farewell to
Ruth before returning to his office. In normal circumstances, Ruth would also
have gone back to her office, filed the relevant forms, checked her messages
and then left for the day. However, these were not normal circumstances. She
remained seated in her car and waited until all the passengers’ bags had been
loaded on board and the cargo doors had been locked. Still she didn’t move,
even after the aircraft began to taxi towards the north runway. She waited
until the plane’s wheels had left the ground before she phoned Leap man in New
York. Her message was simple. The package is on its way.’

Jack was
puzzled. He had watched Anna stroll into the arrivals hall, exchange some
dollars at Travelex and then join the long queue for a taxi. Jack’s cab was
already waiting on the other side of the road, two sets of luggage on board,
engine running, as he waited for Anna’s cab to pass him.

‘Where to, guv?’
asked the driver.

‘I’m not sure/
admitted Jack, ‘but my first bet would be cargo.’

Jack assumed
that Anna would drive straight to the cargo depot and retrieve the package the
taxi driver had dispatched from Bucharest.

But Jack was
wrong. Instead of turning right, when the large blue sign indicating cargo
loomed up in front of them, Anna’s taxi swung left and continued to drive west
down the M25.

‘She’s not going
to cargo, guv, so what’s your next bet Gatwick?’

‘So what’s in
the crate?’ asked Jack.

‘I’ve no idea,
sir.’

I’m so stupid,’
Jack said.

‘I wouldn’t want
to venture an opinion on that, sir, but it would help if I knew where we
was
goin’.’

Jack laughed. ‘I
think you’ll find
it’s
Wentworth.’

‘Right,
guv.’

Jack tried to
relax, but every time he glanced out of the rear window he could have sworn
that another black cab was following them. A shadowy figure was seated in the
back. Why was she still pursuing Anna, when the painting must have been
deposited in cargo?

When his driver
turned off the M25 and took the road to Wentworth, the taxi Jack had imagined
was following them continued on in the direction of Gatwick.

‘You’re not
stupid, after all, guv, because it looks as if it could be Wentworth.’

‘No, but I am
paranoid,’ admitted Jack.

‘Make up your
mind, sir,’ the driver said, as Anna’s taxi swung through the gates of
Wentworth Hall and disappeared up the drive.

‘Do you want me
to keep followin’ her, guv?’

‘No,’ said Jack.
‘But I’ll need a local hotel for the night. Do you know one by any chance?’