The Boathouse (8 page)

Archer decided to spend an hour in the basement gym followed by a long run to make sure he was tired enough to sleep. He fancied drinking himself into a coma, but decided to take the healthier option, so he ran to the river via Chelsea. He had been born and raised there and often ran past his grandparents' old house, where his eidetic memory began, at fourteen years old. And not a single memory before the day his parents were found killed by a psychopath.

As he turned the corner from Cheyne Walk to Flood Street he could see the lights were on. The house was detached on a corner plot. Two storeys plus a partial basement. The glossy white painted stucco on the ground floor was grooved to look like stonework. The first floor was London brick. White Georgian sash windows with plantation blinds throughout, just like his house in Walton Street. And a flat roof which had been used for sunbathing while reading stacks of true crime books in his teens. The front door on Flood Street was gloss black like 10 Downing Street and he had a similar one in South Ken. There was a black iron gate with a double parking bay before a double garage with a flat above it where he had spent a lot of time recovering from his trauma. Professor Miles Davenport had been good to him and his grandparents after his parents were killed. He had provided the best psychologists and tutors from his team to help Archer catch up and then get ahead of his peers.

As he ran through the alley to Cheyne Walk two masked men dressed in black stepped out in front of him. He turned around and saw a third man behind him, breathing hard through a black sub-zero balaclava and wearing gloves. Archer pulled out a telescopic baton from his running jacket and snapped it into action. He turned his back to the wall so that he could see all three men and tensed his arms and legs as he prepared to defend himself. The three men flashed knives and guns inside their jackets and closed in on him. His heart rate rocketed, but then his Krav Maga training kicked in and he calmly lowered the simple baton down to his side. The alpha dog stepped forward like a battle-hardened soldier.

“Put that away, Mr Archer,” he said, with a broad Yorkshire accent.

Archer closed the baton and put it back inside his jacket pocket as a black Audi S8 came to a halt beside the kerb at the end of the alley.

“Good lad, now listen hard: stop investigating the Boathouse, otherwise you're a dead man. The next time you snoop around or talk to anyone about it, will be your last.”

The other two men grabbed his arms and Yorkshire kicked him hard between his legs. It felt like his intestines had just been ripped out, making him nauseated.

“You're due a good kicking,” Yorkshire said, nostrils flaring. At six foot four, Archer was a few inches taller and smiled briefly before his forehead crashed down onto Yorkshire's nose. Yorkshire stepped back clutching his face as Archer pulled his arms in fast, cracking together the heads of the two men either side of him, then punching them on the ear and jaw.

Two men were bent over and one hit the ground as Archer sprinted away from the car, back towards Flood Street. He exited the alley and turned his head to look, but nobody was following, so he slowed his pace and headed home – on autopilot.

*

At Walton Street the navy Ford was waiting for him across the road from his house. Lambert lowered the window and held out an envelope with cigarette in hand. “Take a good look at the photo and put two and two together, you dumb fuck.”

“DS Lambert, wrong side of the river again, I see.”

“Shut up, fuckwad. You're in deep shit. You're being set up by the big boys, you dickhead. Lucky for you I need some fast cash and I can fix it for you. You've got two days to get me a hundred grand in used twenties and I'll make it go away, otherwise you're nicked.” He threw the envelope on the pavement at Archer's feet and drove off slowly, waving his cigarette in majestic circles out of the window.

Inside the envelope were two photographs. One of Archer entering the De Winton Lodge apartment building just off Ruislip High Street. The other was the dead woman in her running kit splayed on the bed with the Fairbairn Sykes knife in her neck. But this time he could see her face. It was Gillian King, journalist, and Alex's flatmate and best friend.

She'd been investigating the Boathouse for the past six months and had called him and asked to meet. He'd visited her last Wednesday evening at her flat in Ruislip around six p.m. where they talked for an hour about the Boathouse. She and Alex had shared the flat for over two years and worked together on foreign assignments in the Middle East and Africa. She'd recently found Alex's list of over twenty names titled ‘The Boathouse: People of Interest'.

It was hidden inside Alex's old-fashioned writing desk. Gillian had given him a scanned copy of the list and they had agreed to meet again in two weeks; after he'd run some background checks.

Peter Sinclair was fifteenth on the list. Now Gillian was dead and he was being blackmailed and framed for her murder by a dirty detective.

The next morning Archer caught the Circle Line to his appointment with Julian Cavendish. The law firm's office was a five-minute walk from Monument tube station and resembled an ornate cut-glass trophy. Beams of morning sunlight radiated off it, casting facets of light like a brilliant cut diamond ring. It was a superior-looking building for people who really thought they were superior. A crystal palace for wealthy clients to hire expensive lawyers, and Julian Cavendish was a partner who charged his clients five hundred and fifty pounds an hour.

The first floor reception was as large as a football pitch with spotless marble and glass surfaces to reinforce the impression of exclusivity. The high ceiling spared no expense to provide excellent views of the Lloyd's Building. Insurance was obviously an important sector for the firm and close proximity to Lloyd's was prestigious as well as strategic. The firm's outward illusion of elitism was carefully built into the structure and fabric of the building.

Archer had been there before. He wouldn't work for lawyers, but he had worked for underwriters on salvage cases. He informed one of the four stewardess lookalikes at reception of his nine a.m. appointment with Mr Cavendish and was asked politely to take a seat.

Red and black leather Barcelona chairs were in even-numbered clusters of twos, fours and sixes. Coffee tables made each cluster an odd number and therefore more aesthetically pleasing. The walls were covered in modern artwork alternating between colourful splashes of oil on canvas and monochrome contemporary photographs of London with one red image per piece. The modern art made the room colourful and interesting as a whole, but Archer thought that splashing and swirling colours around was not that difficult. If it did not have to have any form or meaning then it was just random patterns of colour where the price tag reflected the name tag. It was another reference to exclusivity. Archer loved art, but he didn't get random splodges of colour that looked like a four-year-old had been messing about.

Large screens showed satellite news and weather channels without sound. Ironed copies of that morning's
Financial Times
and yesterday's
Wall Street Journal
fanned the tables along with
The Economist
and
Forbes
magazines.

An attractive attendant wearing a black and gold mandarin suit and ballet pumps arrived silently as if from nowhere. She asked him if he wanted some tea or coffee. Within two minutes she brought coffee and biscuits. Archer knew lawyers well. He had visited most of the top firms in the City. Good décor in client areas, expensive biscuits, company pens, pencils and notepads and attractive staff scattered around as impressive eye candy.

But the masquerade of pleasant calmness in client areas was little more than a clever illusion of smoke and mirrors. The engine-room reality went on behind the scenes, on the work floors, where stressed-out juniors and associates shuffled papers into the small hours as they jostled and fought for promotion from the fat cats. The firm discarded eight out of ten of its graduates with its aggressively competitive promotion policy. It was up or out. The poor sods needed Sun Tzu and Machiavelli as much as instant case law and
Chambers Guide
.

After dropping out of university, Archer had worked as an IT contractor in the City. He'd lasted three weeks as an IT support assistant; his first week was in a bank, then an insurance company and finally a law firm. The corporate workplace was too regimental, claustrophobic and toxic for him. He'd hated every minute of it and never went back.

Cavendish was a managing partner, so he knew exactly how to pull in work for the firm. Zoe's report indicated that he was at ease with senior corporate clients and even had a reputation outside London, especially in New York, where he was known by his partners as a lush, schmoozer and serial womaniser. He was also fifteen minutes late. Archer thought that this must be in all the manuals at City law firms, along with instructions to never apologise for anything. Archer was frustrated by his tardiness, but decided not to say anything as he needed Cavendish on side.

Cavendish wore a navy pinstripe suit with red buttonhole and was groomed within an inch of his life. He formally introduced himself. They shook hands firmly and he escorted Archer up one floor via the lift to one of the client meeting rooms. Cavendish was a smooth operator. He glided his slim frame around effortlessly. His attire was expensive and impeccable. Prada eyeglasses the only brand name on show. His silver tie was perfectly knotted. The matching silk handkerchief in his breast pocket perfectly ruffled. He wasn't classically handsome or plain vanilla and his greying red hair was cut extremely short as it was balding from the front. Archer thought he looked like he had just been made up to shoot an office scene in a film or read the news; he exuded total self-confidence with a relaxed and disarming style.

Archer decided not to mention the art along the way. The Turner Prize-winning pieces, in prime locations, were clearly strategically placed ice breakers, there to prompt new clients and their lawyers to talk about something other than their case. He wondered how much money the firm had invested in the artwork, but consciously waited for Cavendish to steer the conversation. He needed him to remain positive.

The meeting room was well appointed with fresh fruit and drinks on show at one end and a floor-to-ceiling window at the other. A large oak meeting table dominated it, surrounded by modern leather boardroom chairs, original award-winning pictures and state-of-the-art multimedia gadgetry. All the typical attire that the managing partners perceived their demanding clients expected from them.

“Coffee, Mr Archer?”

“Black, no sugar, thanks.” He hadn't finished the one downstairs.

Cavendish poured two coffees and brought them from the host area to the meeting table where another tray of exotic biscuits waited to be unwrapped from silver and gold foil.

“Help yourself,” he said, and gestured towards the tray.

“Thanks.” Archer just stirred the hot black coffee and took a small sip.

“So you want to talk about Peter Sinclair?”

“How much do you know about him?”

Cavendish flinched. Folded his arms. His body language guarded.

“Perhaps you can tell me a little bit about yourself and why you're here first.”

“I'm a consultant profiler and investigator.” He handed over a Londinium Lux Limited business card. “I've been hired by Peter Sinclair to find someone. But I'd like to know more about him first. I'm sorry to be so direct, but I understand that you believe he had something to do with your sister's death.”

“Can you tell me who you're looking for, Mr Archer?”

He shook his head. “It's confidential, Mr Cavendish. I'm afraid I can't discuss it.”

“Yet you want me to help you.” He shrugged and looked bemused.

“Yes.”

“Then you'll need to tell me, otherwise we have nothing else to discuss.”

“Only if I have your word that it goes no further than this room.”

An awkward silence as Cavendish took a bite of a chocolate biscuit as if it were beluga caviar. “Very well, you have my word.”

“Sinclair's wife has been kidnapped. If he goes to the police they'll kill her.”

“I should have warned her not to marry him.”

“Do you know her?”

“Not really. We met briefly at some cocktail parties in the City several years ago, when she was marketing manager for an international property company.”

“Do you know Peter Sinclair?”

“Not personally. How well do you know them?”

Archer considered how best to play the conversation.

“I don't know either of them. I was recommended by an associate to help find Mrs Sinclair. My loyalty here is not to Peter Sinclair. I want to find Becky Sinclair, and I need to know more about her husband in order to do that. I think you can help me.”

“What do you want to know?”

“I know he was engaged to your sister and that she died in a car accident. I'm sorry to bring this up, but I'm investigating his background.”

“Does he know you're here?”

“No, of course not, he only knows that I'm out looking for his wife. I want to make sure there are no nasty surprises further down the line. He would be extremely angry if he knew that I was here talking to you.”

“You're not worried that he could find out you were here?”

“I'm trying to find his wife. He won't find out that I've been here from me.”

“Am I not one of your suspects, Mr Archer?”

“No, not at all.”

“Why not? I could be out for revenge, couldn't I?”

“I've done some homework on you, Mr Cavendish.” Archer paused. “Let's just say that you're not a suspect.”

“What do you know about me?”

“I know you like the company of attractive women.”

In the silence, Cavendish looked around and scratched his nose. He looked nervous.

“I'm sure Jane was murdered by that despicable man.”

“What makes you think that?”

“The car crash was made to look like an accident, but it wasn't.”

“How do you know that for sure?”

“I'll tell you how, but first you need to understand how they met, because it will explain a lot in terms of how ruthless he can be.”