The Boathouse (18 page)

Archer felt as cold as ice. He had absolutely no idea where he was. The place was completely dark, but sounded huge. He took a deep breath and tried to move, but he couldn't feel his arms or his legs. He was so cold – he was numb. The large space stank of diesel and musty decay. He turned his head left then right, letting his eyes adjust to the total darkness. He felt weightless and disorientated, like he was floating in deep water in the pitch black of night.

He remembered that he had been running away from four men dressed in black, wearing balaclavas. He'd been running south over the river at Westminster Bridge, but had blacked out and woken up in this hellhole.

His neck stiffened as he strained to listen to a slow rhythmic thud coming from above. Then he heard heavy footsteps echoing on the hard floor. Getting louder with each step. Dragging something metallic like a heavy wrecking bar scraping against a concrete floor.

Someone was coming directly towards him. His heart rate increased as he felt the presence of someone standing right in front of him. He felt their rancid breath wafting over his face. Nicotine, caffeine and halitosis. It was suffocating. He caught his breath as someone touched him on the top of his shoulder with a large calloused hand and then started to squeeze it like a powerful steel pincer with five sharp talons. As more pressure was exerted a bright strobe light flickered on and off rapidly. He saw a masked man standing before him. He tried to step back, but he couldn't move. He looked down. His entire body was trapped inside a bath-sized block of ice from his chest down to the ground. Panic and shock set in. He couldn't feel anything except his trapezius being crushed and his heart pounding like a drum against his ribcage as the strobe light flashed and his mind started spinning out of control.

Was this it?

Was this the final moment?

He held onto his breath. He wanted to die right there and then.

The sudden burst of sound made him jump as the bedside phone rang at twenty to seven. It woke him up from the depths of his recurring nightmare. It was still dark outside.

Archer grabbed the phone from the bedside cabinet and answered it with his head still covered by the duvet.

“Hey, it's me. I've found Becky's sister,” Zoe said.

“Jesus, Zoe, what time is it? You've done what? Where is she?”

He put the bedside light on and sat up against the padded leather headboard.

“Oh sorry, did I wake you? Good morning, this is your friendly wakeup call from down the road in head office, where some of us are still working and haven't been home or had a chance to sleep yet. Anyway, that's enough about me. I've found something useful: Louise has a shell company that has rented a flat in Oxford. It's in easy reach of London, the M40, the A40, which of course provides direct access to the flat in Marylebone.”

“Excellent – thanks, Zoe. Send me the address and we'll go and check it out.”

“It's already on its way. So, I see you had female company round last night, didn't you? Is the wicked
Mrs
Forsyth up yet? And please note, I said wicked
Mrs
Forsyth as opposed to wicked
Miss
Forsyth. Subtle but poignant difference, don't you think?”

“We worked late in the kitchen and she stayed in the guest room. No hanky-panky.”

“Hmm, now listen to Mummy, Sean, there's a good boy. I'm watching out for you as your best friend, looking after your best interests. She's got a murky past, so you better watch out with her. You're bad enough in fast cars; you don't need to get involved with fast women – you'll lose more than your licence with this one.”

“Thanks, Zoe, but I think I can take care of myself. And just for the record, I knew she was married. She's separated. Getting divorced.”

“Oh, is that right? Well the jury's still out on her at this end, so we'll have to wait and see. Actions speak louder than words. Oh, and I also found out that Louise is friendly with a dodgy Ukrainian businessman; he's a bit of an oil oligarch, I suppose. He uses her travel company and she goes round his mansion in Belgravia for regular meetings. I'm looking into it now, and I'll let you know if there's any links to Sinclair.”

“Thanks, Zoe, keep me posted.”

Archer got out of bed in boxer shorts, still half asleep. He went downstairs and put some strong filter coffee into the machine in the kitchen and turned the radio on to politely let his guest know it was morning, as it was still dark outside. He walked back up to his bedroom on autopilot. Took his shorts off and threw them in the basket. He turned the shower on and brushed his teeth before getting in. The hot power shower soon woke him up. He let it flow over his head and down his back to soothe out the crick in his neck. He must have slept awkwardly thanks to his nightmare, but he didn't have time to use the steam room.

He turned the shower up as hot as he could stand it, then straight back down, staying under the freezing cold water until it took his breath away. He wrapped a white bath towel around his waist and shaved. He had a good feeling about today: the flat in Oxford would help them track down Louise and lead them to Becky. Then they could concentrate on Hunter's information, find the Boathouse and Alex's killer and finally take Sinclair out.

He poured two mugs from the freshly made pot and knocked on the guest-room door, still in his towel. “Coffee?” There was no answer so he opened it and saw that the bed was empty. He heard the shower stop and the shower door open.

“Morning, Sarah. There's a fresh mug of coffee for you on the bedside cabinet.”

The bathroom door opened and she peered out, wearing only a white towel wrapped around the top of her head. “Can I use this bathrobe on the back of the door?”

“Of course.” Archer coughed as he caught himself staring at her naked body like a star-struck teenager. He looked away quickly, embarrassed at being caught gawping.

She looked incredible. She was like a
Playboy
centrefold, only better because she was all natural. What was wrong with him? How could he possibly have turned her down? He felt a rush of guilt hit him as he thought about Alex.

She tied the white bathrobe around her waist and picked up her mug of coffee. She smiled, winked and then gave him a playful peck on the cheek. Was she teasing him or just being friendly? Maybe Zoe was right after all.

“Morning, Sean. Thanks for the coffee.”

“No problem. Anything else I can get for you?”

“Do you have a hair dryer I can borrow?”

“There should be one in the drawer, plugged in and ready to go.”

“I slept like a log – how about you? Nice power shower, by the way.”

“Thanks. Zoe has just found a fresh lead on Louise. We're off to Oxford. There's some fruit juice and toast in the kitchen. I'll let you get dressed. Need anything else?”

“I'm good thanks, although—” she looked at his body – “if your butt is half as firm as your abs look, then we definitely need to get to know each other better.” She looked him up and down slowly, without shame. Smirked wickedly and winked at him again. He closed the door on his way out, still unsure if she was teasing or being serious.

There was something about her that fascinated him. She was attractive and intelligent. She was confident and flirtatious. But there was something else going on that he couldn't put his finger on and hadn't felt for a long time. Something in his gut told him he could trust her and his instinct told him that he would have to before the case was over.

They left London with the sunrise washing the mackerel sky with soft metallic hues of pink and orange. Both of them wore jeans and leather jackets. Archer's black jacket was a present from Alex. It was the last thing she had bought for him. He also took his small combat rucksack, which was fully loaded with his customised Beretta. Instinct told him he would need it soon enough, as he expected a lot more trouble than yesterday.

Driving westward through the morning mist, against the heavy rush-hour traffic along the gridlocked A40 and M40, there was a comfortable silence. The air was a cool and damp six degrees outside, but a pleasant twenty degrees inside with the soft top up.

Archer reclined the back of his seat a little and tried to snooze while Forsyth listened to the breakfast show on Radio Two. She sang out of tune to all the songs being played and entered into lively discussion as if she was a guest on the show. It started off being more amusing than annoying, but impossible to ignore.

They arrived in Oxford at five to nine, just as Forsyth's strangled harmonies were making Archer want to reach for his Beretta. Luckily the GPS got them into the city centre without a problem and she stopped singing as she focused on carving up other drivers. The first car park they tried was full and they cruised around the second, looking for a space. A fat contented-looking woman was sitting in a tiny red Fiat bubble car stuffing down a cream doughnut and chocolate éclair. She polished them both off before leaving her parking space.

Forsyth jammed the Merc into the vacated spot and squeezed herself out of the small gap between the car and the door, then went to get change. Archer stayed next to the car and peered out from the car park. Out on the street people scurried about their business in a hurry. Most of the shops and offices opened at nine and plenty of people were clearly running late for work.

Forsyth returned, bought a ticket from a machine and displayed it on the dashboard.

“It must be that building over there, above those shops on Cornmarket Street.” Archer pointed. One of his best programmers had lived in the next street so he knew Oxford city centre fairly well. Around the corner they saw a small sign over an old doorway, between a chemist and a phone shop.

“Agamemnon House – got it.” Forsyth said. The name was new, but the building was old, traditional Headington Quarry limestone, with lead glass windows.

They tried the old wooden door and found it was unlocked. The corridor and worn stone stairs looked deserted, so they walked in and found the flat in question on the first floor.

Archer knocked and waited.

No answer. He knocked again.

Still no answer. He put his ear to the door.

“Listen,” he whispered. “Sounds like someone's moving around inside.”

Forsyth got the lock pick out of her bag and looked over her shoulder furtively before working on the door. It creaked open and the rummaging sound stopped. They stood in the doorway and took stock of the living room. Modern flatpack furniture rested on worn-out ancient floorboards. The white walls were adorned with black and white prints of waterscapes and New York skyscrapers, exported en masse all over the world from Sweden.

The room smelled of bleach and there was also a hint of Gauloises cigarette smoke, just like the flat in Marylebone. Surfaces in the room were bare as if it had recently been stripped of all personal belongings. They crept into the flat quietly as the floorboards creaked wearily underfoot. There was nobody in sight and it had gone quiet.

Archer was startled as a window slammed shut in the kitchen, followed by the sound of empty metal bins crashing around noisily outside. Forsyth ran to the kitchen while Archer raced back down the stone stairs, taking them two at a time, and ran straight out of the building.

Archer instinctively turned right and darted up Market Street. He glimpsed a man wearing a grey hoody and yellow rubber washing-up gloves sprinting away from him between the Covered Market and Jesus College. The hoody turned around to see if he was being followed. He looked a good ten years younger, but Archer was a natural runner. The hoody went out of sight briefly as the road bent to the right and then he disappeared again as he turned the corner and headed left down Turl Street. Despite his sturdy footwear Archer upped a gear and when he turned the corner he saw he had gained at least ten metres on him.

Archer swerved through crowds of students ambling to lectures on foot and side-stepped sleepy cyclists between the ancient walls of Jesus and Exeter Colleges. As the hoody turned left into Broad Street a distracted cyclist came out of Ship Street and crashed into Archer, knocking him off his feet and sent him flying into the fifteenth-century stone wall of Exeter College. Archer's right shoulder was numbed by the impact, but he could still run. The stunned cyclist shouted apologetically after him, but it was wasted breath as Archer ignored him and sprinted off.

Archer looked left on Broad Street and just caught sight of the hoody across the wide road, running through the stone arch entrance into Balliol College. He zigzagged across the road, causing traffic to brake hard and blast horns at him but he didn't stop.

He ran through the dark porters' lodge and out into the Balliol front quad, but couldn't see the hoody. He stopped and looked around. Where was he? Was he still running through the grounds up ahead towards Trinity College? Or had he gone upstairs and through the warren of corridors inside Balliol?

Archer decided to go back and check out the corridors just as he glimpsed a motorcyclist without a helmet in the darkened recess of the porters' lodge. It was the hoody pushing off and trying to start a trail bike.

Archer accelerated towards him as the hoody pressed the start button. Archer lunged at him, grabbing the back of his grey top with his right hand and causing a sharp pain to jolt through his numbed shoulder like an electric shock. The silver BMW motorbike roared to life and the hoody accelerated away, making Archer stumble and fall to the ground. He'd got away.

Archer got up, dusted himself down and returned to the flat crestfallen, nursing a sore shoulder and a bruised ego. Forsyth was sitting on a stool at the kitchen bar talking to Zoe on her mobile and emptying the hoody's sports bag.

The bag's contents were spread out over the breakfast bar for summary analysis. A full baton of ten packs of Gauloises cigarettes, more handcuffs, more Trojans, six different types of bullets ranging from a soft-point dumdum to a training blank. Plus an energy drink and a yellow Taser gun, fully charged. But no obvious prints on anything and nothing useful that would lead them to anyone specific anytime soon unless they could find fingerprints somewhere and then a match, but that would take too long without police help and the hoody might not even be in the system.

Forsyth rang off and recounted the call. Zoe had called and spoken to the estate agents for the flat twice, to no avail. Their databases were impossible to hack as they were currently offline. Their net had drawn a blank. Zoe had called the estate agents the “Barrow Boy” variety. She had a sliding scale of estate agents. They ranged from chartered surveyors to “Barrow Boys” and they were either posh or not. Apparently, these were not chartered surveyors and they were not posh.

They left the flat with their heads down and walked to the estate agents in the High Street. Archer knew it was the hoody and the trail bike from the ransom pick-up. They either had to find that bike or make the barrow boys talk.

Zoe was checking out the cameras. The bike was heading for Swindon, but Archer already knew the game the hoody would play. He would enter a car park somewhere and then in less than an hour the bike would disappear again into the back of a stolen van. It was another dead end.

They saw the estate agents' office across the road and checked out the window display. The flat was already back on the market as available to rent.

“So what do we do now?” Forsyth asked, looking disappointed.

“We're going to get all the information these estate agents have, one way or another. It's our last chance.”

“That won't be easy. They wouldn't tell Zoe anything.”

“We have to get it – physically; otherwise it's back to the drawing board.”

“What's the plan?”

“Plan B.”

“Oh, right of course. The famous Plan B. What's Plan B?”

“Plan B is to leave them without a clue as to what's going on.”

“Oh, I see. You're trying it out on me first?”

“You got it. We need to change our appearances. Come on, we're going shopping.”