The Reckless Engineer (26 page)

CHAPTER 35

Friday, October 29 — Fourteen Days Later

They went down to a late Friday dinner about twenty past seven, walking into The Rock & Oar through the direct entrance from The Sugarhouse. It was apparent that the visitors through the direct hotel entrance used the pub as a restaurant, for with no delay a waiter approached them, menus in hand.

‘Welcome to The Rock & Oar, sir. Please select a table. The room to your left is The Fireside, which is a smoking room. There’s more relaxed dining in the Games Room ahead of you past the arch. We have more tables around the corner past a second arch in a room we call The Library on account of its popularity with university students and business customers which has a more coffeehouse-like atmosphere. You can order your drinks at the bar. Please select a table and I shall be with you shortly for your food order.’

This guy had given this introduction a few hundred times before, Jeremy thought. He sounded so rehearsed.

He looked around. The pub must be one of the biggest he had ever seen, but the way it was sectioned out into small spaces gave the illusion of the intimacy of a small village local. The classic look with the ceiling held up by large wood beams and the walls painted a dark wine colour was pleasing and easy on the eye. The Fireside was a separate room to their left, with its wide doors opening out to the main room in which they were standing.

‘Don’t look directly, but the lad in the red T-shirt serving beer at the bar is Hosé, Catalina’s brother,’ Skipper whispered.

Straight ahead, the bar, shaped like a horseshoe, ran parallel to the Fireside, curved around in the Main Room and the Game Room, and ran straight into the Library. From where Jeremy was standing, he could see over the bar and through the many wooden pillars holding up the ceiling into the Library-its walls lined with bookcases and its small wooden tables with chessboards drawn on them.

Hosé was standing bang in the middle of his line of sight at the near bend of the horseshoe. He was a tall, broad lad with a full frame just a pound or two under the weight that would have Jeremy describing him as “chubby.” Full. That was the word. He was a big, full young lad, about thirty, with a ruddy-olive complexion and dark brown, straight, floppy hair parted sideways.

Jeremy followed Skipper to the bar where the investigator ordered a pint of lager for himself. Hmm. They were here to get a feel for the lay of the land and to size up the enemy tonight. He had had enough drunken nights already. This weekend he had to have his wits about him and he needed to keep Skipper focused.

‘Hey, boss. We’ve gotta work tonight and be up early tomorrow. So how about we share that pint? Gimme a pint of coke and an extra empty glass.’ He passed a tenner across the bar to Hosé. He felt brown Spanish eyes sizing him up with a sullen expression as the lad took his order, boyish brown eyes too harsh for his age and his pretty-boy good looks.

The bar and the wall of the Fireside formed a three-foot wide passageway that turned into the rear hallway from the door with a “WC” sign on it. He was going to need a long visit to the loo that way later on.

They took their drinks and made their way into the Fireside through the second side doors parallel to the bar, also propped open fully by brass hooks latched to matching brass hoops fixed to the floor by the wall. Straight ahead on the opposite wall was a beautiful old fireplace set ablaze by a crackling log fire, burning so luxuriously that Jeremy could feel the heat on his cheeks right across the room. The Fireside. This was what gave the room its name. Dim, shaded lights hung low over the tables, adding some localized lighting for the food. Two high-back armchairs were set in front of the fire, angled towards each other.

Jeremy looked around. More than half of the wall on their right was covered with a bookcase similar to those Jeremy had seen across the bar in the Library. The walls of the pub in the Fireside, as in the main pub, were adorned with beautiful black and white photographs of the north seas in all its wanton moods. On the wall above the fireplace, a pair of long wooden oar crossed and rested at an angle over two protruding rocks cemented to the wall, the rocks’ surfaces apparently covered with seaweed with a stuffed seagull perched on one. Of course, the Rock and the Oar.

Along the perimeter of the wall ran the deep green leather upholstered benches built onto the walls of the pub. In the seat at the far right corner at this table sat a man facing Jeremy as they entered the room, a man who could be mistaken for the Skull he had seen in those pictures, except he did not have those trademark tattoos. A Staffordshire Bull Terrier lay licking and biting on a bone at his feet under the table. Jeremy turned left and walked out the second door into the main room, followed by Darren, and put his drink down on the table immediately to the left of the doorway from the Fireside. With a slight turn of his head he could see the man drinking at his table over his left shoulder.

‘Heineken.’ Darren gestured with his head as he took the seat opposite Jeremy from the table.

It didn’t take long for Skull to appear from the hallway. Jeremy smiled at Skipper upon seeing the apparition that had long evaded them, with the bald head, the build of a stocky wrestler, and the famed tattoos on his hand and his thick neck. Skull walked up to the bar to speak to Hosé briefly and then joined Heineken.

‘Unmistakably brothers,’ Jeremy leaned forward and whispered to Skipper.

‘Uh, huh. Or cousins at least.’ Darren nodded with food in his mouth.

Their dinner was here. This steak was perfect, he thought, medium to well done, just the way he liked it. The fat chips were perfectly crispy on the outside and the middle melted on his tongue with the cream of the peppercorn sauce. So good. Skull owned and ran a superb establishment. He could see why Caitlin loved the place.

‘Do you reckon McAllen has a stake in this setup?’ Jeremy asked in a lowered tone.

‘Nope, not his cup of tea; but I hear that Ronnie does.’

Jeremy raided his eyebrows. A truly unholy alliance here.

Halfway through his dinner, Hosé joined the men at the Fireside table. After an involved discussion he returned to the bar and sent in a waiter who cleared the empty tables and put “Reserved” signs on them. As soon as the only other diners in the room had finished their dinners they were encouraged to leave the room.

‘We have a reservation for this room for a private party in a few minutes. You are welcome to have a drink in the Main room, which has a big flat screen TV. My boss over there sends his compliments; this bottle of wine is on the house.’

The waiter pointed to Heineken who raised his beer and nodded his head. ‘We have bridge and poker tables in the Game room going well into the night which you are welcome to join. The Library around the corner has more comfortable seating with Internet access and a café style atmosphere to relax in.’

Seconds after the couple left the room the two sets of Fireside doors were shut, locked, and bolted from the inside and “Reserved” signs hung on the doors. Shortly two men, both speaking heavily Scottish accented English, entered the pub and were greeted at the main entrance by Hosé in person. They were led into the Fireside through the door behind Jeremy. Both Hosé and Heineken exited the room and a waiter took dinner in for Skull and his guests a few minutes later.

‘Don’t let anybody bother us for the next three hours me lads, alright?’ Skull peered through the door behind Jeremy and said in a Scottish accented hoarse, gruff voice, before locking and bolting the door from the inside.

The music in the pub, a mix of classic American rock and Scottish folk song, was turned a couple of notches up.

CHAPTER 36

Saturday, October 30 — Fifteen Days Later

Through the weekend Skipper and Jeremy kept a long watch, waiting for Skull to leave the premises. They picked a larger and more inconspicuous table by the corner window of the main room to the right of the entrance from the hotel. One of them watched the exits out of the backyard from the small desk dragged close to the window in the Wine Executive. Jeremy brought his laptop down and worked on the AirWater Marine designs and code from their table, keeping an eye on Skull and his gang. He connected to the office servers through the pub’s wireless network, and worked with Sean via IM messaging and phone. Skipper kept watch from the other post.

Skull, however, never left the building. He habitually had his meals from his seat by the fireside with Hosé, Heineken, and Bull. Some of the time he walked around the pub, supervising work and repairs and occasionally chatting to punters. He took stock in the drinks storage in the middle island behind the bar and ordered re-stock. He pulled a chilled beer to serve an odd punter. He threw a stick across the yard for Bull to fetch, sitting on the stairs of the back exit from the Sugarhouse into the yard. The rest of the time he was upstairs in his flat.

What he didn’t do, however, was leave the buildings.

On Saturday morning Catalina arrived, bringing with her Skull’s two little boys aged about five and seven. Catalina was beautiful in an earthy way with olive skin, an oval face, and platted straight, glossy, brown hair down to her bum. She was neither too thin nor overweight. The two boys were gorgeous little things due to the mix of genes, though for certain any beauty had
not
been inherited from their father. They ran around everywhere on the pub grounds, in the flat, and around the hotel followed by an excited Bull, while Catalina directed the housekeeping staff and the cleaners, speaking fluent Spanish and heavily accented English. Skull played with his boys and the dog in the yard before sitting them down at his table in the Fireside and watching them draw and colour with crayons. At lunchtime he took Catalina and the boys up the metal stairs to his flat where lunch followed them, delivered by two waiters.

Skull came down again the same time he had done the night before, about 8 p.m. The same routine ensued as the night before: He locked himself inside the Fireside with dinner and the same two men for about three or four hours, after which he escorted them out of the Fireside and out the main entrance.

Sunday morning brought similar activities. About four in the afternoon Catalina left with the boys driven by Hosé in a black SUV.

By Sunday afternoon, Jeremy was desperate. He had to return to work and he knew they could not pull off another day hanging out around The Rock & Oar and The Sugarhouse without arousing suspicion. Tanner had served them a late lunch in person and enquired suspiciously how their work was going.

Immediately after watching Hosé drive off with Catalina and the boys, Jeremy sent a text for Darren to come up to the Wine Executive.

‘Darren, those two men are going to come in to meet Skull about eight this evening again. We are going to do this while Skull is locked in the Fireside with them.’

‘That is very dangerous, but I agree we cannot keep up this watch for another day.’

Skipper walked over to the window. ‘So you are planning to climb into the flat from the metal balcony through that window to the right of the entrance. What if he closes the window, and how are you planning to get into the yard and up the metal stairs during the busiest time of the day?’

‘He won’t close the window. That’s the window from the loo. That room is just above the toilets downstairs, which I have checked from the inside. See the metal pipe that runs up the wall? That’s the sewer pipe and an extension from it enters through the first floor wall under that window the same way it does into the downstairs loos. He will always leave it ajar, especially in the context of the security in the yard.’

Jeremy tapped the toolset he was packing into a black backpack.

‘Speaking of security in the backyard, how are you getting up to that window?’

‘I’m going out
this
window.’

Jeremy opened his case and pulled out a heavy sailing rope he had bought from a hardware store Friday afternoon, which he had knotted at every two feet for grip. He looked around. Their room was in the part that was newly extended from the old building over what would have been the land equivalent to the yard behind the pub. Two steps from the end of the hallway led down into the room past a ‘Mind the Steps’ sign stuck on the door. A large metal pipe extended the plumbing from under the floor of the main part of the building, but it ran just above the floor in the Wine Executive and into Jeremy’s bathroom. He tied one end of the rope around the pipe with the old sailing Bowline knot used to tie a boat to a ring or a post at a dock which ensured that the more load it had on it the tighter it held. Jeremy wrapped the rope twice around the foot of the bed for added support and put his weight on it.

‘This should hold my weight easily. I’m going to half abseil and half climb down onto that metal balcony and I should be inside in no time. It is getting dark out there already, and no one will see me with my freshly washed black outfit on. I’m going to put gloves and a ski hat on to make sure I don’t leave prints or DNA behind because we might have to call the police in at some point.’

Darren pursed his lips and nodded with a grave look.

‘You are going to go down to dinner alone about the same time tonight, Darren. I want you to buzz me on my mobile the moment Skull locks himself in the Fireside with the two men again. I shall mute the sound and put my mobile on the vibrator in my back pocket. Text me the moment Skull comes out of the Fireside so that I can get the hell out of that flat.’