The Boathouse (6 page)

Sinclair was not in the living room when Archer returned to the penthouse. Best was at the desk manning the phone while Adams played with a silver pen. He was sitting at the table and dexterously twirled the pen around the fingers of his right hand, keeping it moving and passing it between his fingers like a magician at a children's party. The room was quiet apart from the female newsreader talking on the large screen, but the volume was down low. The lighting was soft, coming only from table lamps. Archer was irritated in seconds by Adams' mindless pen trick and waited for Sinclair outside on the terrace.

The air was chill and the park looked like a black hole preventing any light from escaping. Archer stared into the darkness and felt it drawing him in, until a stool scraped the floor nearby and startled him. Haywood was at the far end of the terrace, sitting smoking a cigarette. Archer acknowledged him with a deferential nod of the head and stayed at the railing looking down at the eight lanes of traffic below. He wondered if the kidnappers were watching the penthouse. Through a spotting scope inside a hotel room with a direct line of sight, like on the Bayswater Road. A police car siren was getting louder. When it passed it was deafening. Archer wondered how long it had been since the siren makers had gone out of control with the concept of letting people know the cavalry was coming. There was nothing wrong with the old blues-and-twos; with the traditional two-tone horn so quintessentially British and still used in some places, but not here.

His mobile phone vibrated in his right trouser pocket.

“Hey,” Zoe said.

“Hey, what's up?”

He walked away from Haywood's earshot to the opposite end of the terrace and noticed that it turned the corner towards the master bedroom. He could see an outdoor sofa and a discreet hot tub partially hidden behind a topiary screen, but couldn't imagine Sinclair and Becky soaking together with champagne and candles.

“I'm sending you some more information. You need to check it out.”

“What have you got?”

“No luck with the bike. But there are too many people close to him who've been killed or gone missing. It looks like he hired Oakland Security five years ago, but it's a cleverly masked contract with layers of offshore companies. There's also a link to a firm in Virginia.”

“I'll read the files back at my place.”

“Be careful. There's a long list of arson attacks on buildings just before he buys them and people who won't sell conveniently committing suicide. Oh yeah, and his old fiancée before he got married to Becky died in a car crash and her brother is convinced that it wasn't an accident. But nothing ever sticks.”

“Where's the brother?”

“He's a hot-shot lawyer in the City.”

“Get me his number.”

“No problem – you okay?”

“Don't worry about me.”

“Someone has to.”

“All right then.”

“Work is piling up, so pull your finger out and come back safe.”

“Thanks, Zoe.”

Archer sat on a stool keeping his distance from Haywood. He needed some space to think. There was definitely an insider involved, but who was it?

Peter Sinclair entered the living room in fresh clothes. His hair was still damp and his face was flushed pink. He had replaced his suit with grey flannel trousers and a grey ribbed roll top beneath a navy blazer. Archer thought he was grey to the heart.

Best moved from the desk to the sofa and continued watching the news channel. Archer observed them from the terrace. He could see Best lusting after the newsreader like a mindless pervert. Secretly undressing her. His darting eyes and tongue way too obvious.

Sinclair sat back at the desk, bolt upright like a proud sentry guarding something important. He placed his hands in front of him on the desk and clasped them loosely. Left over right. Archer had already noticed he was a lefty when he signed the cheque.

Archer walked in front of Best without acknowledging him and went straight up to the desk to talk to Sinclair. They stared at each other in silence for a few seconds.

“You should get some rest.”

“I'm waiting for the next call. I want her back here where she belongs.”

“They won't call you again tonight. You may as well try and get some rest.”

“They may call, and if they do, I'll be here. Remember I'm paying you to find the kidnappers, not to babysit me.”

“Okay, your call. I'll be back in the morning.”

“Fucking lightweight,” Sinclair muttered sharply and looked away.

*

Archer left the penthouse quietly, walked home via Hyde Park Corner underpass and along the Old Brompton Road to Walton Street. He immediately changed into his running kit to crank up the endorphins and pound the endless maze of late-night streets. His mind was far too active, and he wasn't tired enough to sleep. He needed to clear his thoughts and get into his rhythm. His subconscious often solved problems when he let it work without any clutter.

A car engine started up as he began his run. He glimpsed a navy Ford Focus across the street pulling away slowly. He ran through Chelsea towards Battersea Bridge. The car was still tailing him by about a hundred yards when he reached the cooler air by the river, so he changed course, doubled back and took a narrow passageway off Cheyne Walk and made a dog-legged detour before getting back onto Chelsea Embankment and crossing Albert Bridge. The navy Ford tail had gone.

He ran back towards Chelsea over Battersea Bridge, feeling as if the past was catching him like a dark cloud he couldn't shake off. He ran faster and felt a chill on the back of his neck that made him shiver. He sprinted along Cheyne Walk, but no matter how fast he ran, he knew he could never escape the past, even if he couldn't remember fourteen years of it.

*

As he turned the corner into Walton Street, he saw the navy car was parked across the street from his house. He tapped the passenger window and the driver shouted, “Get in.”

Archer opened the passenger door and poked his head inside, as the driver thrust his warrant card at him. “DS Lambert, have a seat, Mr Archer.”

Lambert wore a black leather jacket, flat cap and East End accent via West Ham, Barking or Dagenham. The inside of the car was dark and stank of sweat and stale cigarette smoke. The big man spilled out from the seat in all directions and greeted Archer with a glare and worn-out grimace on a pumped-up pumpkin of a pock-marked face.

“How can I help you, Detective Sergeant?”

“I'd like to ask you some questions about last Wednesday evening. Where were you between six and ten?”

“Is this a formal interview, DS Lambert?”

“Don't be a dumb fuck.”

“I can see you're from Southwark CID, and I definitely did not make it south of the river last week. So I think we're done here.”

“Watch it, Archer. We both know you were in Ruislip. And you're in deep shit. You're under surveillance. Now get out.”

Archer stopped himself from responding, got out and slammed the door as the car sped off. Proper police surveillance didn't come with a health warning. This was a cheap tactic: by a dirty cop paid to intimidate him by whoever was responsible for last night's nasty encounter.

The next morning at quarter to eight, without breakfast or coffee, Archer headed off to South Kensington tube station, compiling and evaluating theories. He topped up his Oyster card with sixty pounds and took the Piccadilly line three stops east to Green Park. The forty-year-old tube train was hot and packed full of miserable looking commuters still half asleep. Some builders and outdoor manual workers were dotted around the carriage, but the majority appeared to be from offices and shops. Wearing the drab uniforms of their chosen professions, they all blended into a dullish grey mixture of vocational blandness.

The world's first underground was still running without proper air-conditioning on most of its routes, including the busy Piccadilly Line. Even in the autumn and winter it was uncomfortably hot at times. Especially when people squeezed themselves into the rush hour crowds, only to end up crushed inside the carriage, as they invaded each other's personal spaces, like helpless animals heading off to slaughter. Men and women pressed up against each other. Perverts copping a feel of the past as they rubbed bodies with younger, fitter women way out of their league. The discomfort was tolerated, but the mood was simmering between unpleasant and hostile.

The air in the claustrophobic carriage felt stale and heavy. After only three stops he was glad to get out. On the platform the air was still stuffy and recycled but the odd blast of cooler air from the tunnel gave him hope of getting enough oxygen to avoid suffocation. As he travelled up the escalator the air became thinner, cooler and fresher. Back out on the street the exhaust-tinged environment felt fresh like sea air in his oxygen starved lungs as he sucked it down deep and instantly felt better.

He crossed Piccadilly and strolled purposefully through random throngs of commuters towards Berkeley Square. He had discarded his usual office attire of Diesel jeans, Oxford shirt, cotton jacket and Chelsea boots for a more robust outfit. Darker jeans, rugged walking boots, long-sleeved polo shirt and his favourite black leather jacket. He stopped and sat on a wooden bench on his way through Berkeley Square. The case needed a break as his theories were about as stale as the tube train he'd just suffocated inside. Sinclair wasn't ruled out of the mix just yet, but it was far too elaborate a scheme for a bored husband to be bumping off his gold-digging wife. Becky was still a suspect, with a trusted accomplice in her sister, who might not be away on business after all. Both untraceable without their phones, but it was a complicated and dangerous way to leave a powerful husband, and less lucrative than finding a good divorce lawyer, so highly unlikely. The insider angle was still the key to catching the kidnappers. There had to be an insider and they were teamed up with an enemy or an opportunist, mainly motivated by ransom money. But he was still only skimming the surface. He needed much more information before he could run his powerful digital tracking and profiling models. Coffee, bacon and eggs required urgently.

He noted that Sinclair's cars were all still garaged in Adams Row before he stopped at Café Richoux on South Audley Street for breakfast. The décor was continental; it was like he had been transported to a café in Paris or Vienna. He sat in the corner with his back to the wall and a good view of the room and the door. The clientele was mixed. Business-people, tourists and workers. He overheard a large man in a track suit explaining to a family on holiday that he was staying in a five star hotel nearby that wanted ninety-five pounds for breakfast. “London's criminal. Full of sharks.” The man owned a football club up north, but he was still shocked by the extortionate prices in central London. Archer stopped people-watching, ordered his breakfast, read the headlines and started doing the crossword.
Heartfelt appeal, from the depths
. Two and nine. He knew it.
De Profundis
. Good start.

He finished off his crispy bacon and scrambled egg with HP Sauce, drank Tabasco- and Worcester-sauce-infused tomato juice and changed papers and crosswords from
The Times
to
The Telegraph
. Two rounds of wholemeal toast, butter and thick-cut Oxford marmalade and another pot of freshly ground Illy coffee. It was half past eight and he wanted to be back at Sinclair's apartment before nine. Ready to tackle anything.

One round of toast and two thirds of the crossword to go. He was on form and was feeling compelled to finish it, until his mobile phone rang.

“Slumming it in Mayfair again, I see? How's Café Richoux?”

“Always good to know you're keeping track of my whereabouts.”

“Someone has to. I've just sent you the brother's telephone number – the brother of the fiancée who came to a sticky end. His name is Julian Cavendish and his sister was Jane. He hates Sinclair with a passion. Now it looks like Becky's going down the same hole, he ought to sing.”

“Excellent, thanks, Zoe, I'm going back into his evil eyrie now. I'll call you later.”

Archer paid his bill and left a generous tip. As he walked to the penthouse he called Julian Cavendish, but got his voicemail, so he left a message.

He was back at the penthouse before nine. Sinclair was sitting on the sofa watching the news. His face was pale and crumpled. He looked completely exhausted. The mood in the living room was gloomier than the night before and even the glamorous presenters on the news channels were unable to ease the awkward tension.

The ten a.m. weather forecaster was an attractive blonde woman dressed as if she was going out on a date in a tight skirt, low-cut blouse, bright red lipstick and matching jacket. Archer wondered if the bodyguards were ever interested in the news and weather. He knew the answer. She had the room's full attention and promised no rain, blue skies and a cold wind from the North-east.

She smiled vacantly and started to go into more detail as the phone rang. All eyes jumped from the pretty weather forecaster on the big screen to the phone ringing on the desk.

Sinclair burst with energy. He pounced off the sofa towards the desk like a leopard focused on its prey. He grabbed the desk before pressing the speaker button on the second ring. He then paused briefly to calm himself before answering.

“Hello, Peter, where's my sister?”

“Oh Louise, it's you.”

“Becky's not answering her phone – is she all right?”

“She's gone to the spa, she needed some space and alone time.”

“But is she all right? You sound upset, is everything okay?”

“Yes, don't worry about her, she's fine. I'm just busy, that's all. Look, I haven't got time to stop and chat. I'll get her to call you when she comes back – could be a couple more days as the spa has a no-phone policy.”

“Sounds a bit odd. Can I call the spa?”

“No, she's fine, Louise, she just needed a rest, that's all.”

“Tell her I called from my hotel, and ask her to call me. I'm still due back Monday, there's a new seven star hotel opening in—”

Sinclair hit the phone off with a clenched fist. He was trembling with anger and leaning onto the desk to prop himself up.

“That stupid fucking skank of a woman. Why didn't they take her instead? I'd give them ten flasks of fucking diamonds to kill her.”

The phone rang in front of him, but Sinclair just stared down at it like a zombie.