15

The Old Town, Geneva

Carver spent the twenty-four hours following his deal with Razzaq deep in thought. He ran through possible identities and disguises; spent hours memorizing the junctions and landmarks on key roads; compared a number of indoor and outdoor locations; and considered all the many different ways of ending a human life at his disposal.

For a while he even toyed with the idea of sabotaging the private jet that would carry Zorn from New York to London. The timing was crazy, though: it would mean hiring a jet of his own to cross the Atlantic in order to reach Zorn’s plane before it took off. It was too soon, anyway. He and Grantham alike both needed to know more about what Zorn was up to. And Carver needed flexibility, a little wriggle room in case he had a sudden change of plans. Nothing about this job felt right, and he had no intention of getting caught with his pants down if Razzaq, Zorn, or some other player as yet unknown started changing the rules of the game.

He ended up concentrating his attention on Wimbledon, searching out every piece of information he could find about the All England Club and the suburban townscape that surrounded it. Looking at the aerial views of the tennis complex, and correlating them with the official maps available on the tournament website, he noticed an entrance gate on Somerset Road, just behind the press and broadcast centres. It was not listed among the spectator gates, and seemed to be an access point for trucks servicing the tournament’s insatiable demand for food, drink and merchandizing. To the left of the gate, the road disappeared into the mouth of a tunnel. It didn’t take long to discover that this led to an un loading bay below Number One Court before rising back up to an exit on to Church Road, on the far side of the club. Carver reckoned there had to be some way of distributing all the deliveries from the unloading bay to the places where they were needed without interfering with the crowds above ground. That meant more, and smaller tunnels. So now he had the possibility of underground ways into, out of and around the All England Lawn Tennis Club.

He also looked into the debenture tickets Zorn had bought. Their original owners had paid?27,750 for the right to buy a Centre Court ticket for every day of the Championships over five years (Number One Court debentures cost roughly half the price for the same period.) They were the only Wimbledon seats that were legally transferable, and could be sold at any price the market would bear. With each seat came perks: a dedicated entrance to the show courts, private bars, restaurants and so on. If Zorn had these tickets, Carver had to have them, too. He phoned a ticket agency.

‘We can do you a debenture ticket. When do you need it?’ the man from the agency asked.

‘Monday, Wednesday and Friday.’

There was a soft whistle. ‘Blimey, that’ll cost you. I mean, the best price we’ve got for the men’s semis on Friday is, hang on… $6,758. In pounds that’s-’

‘Don’t bother, I’ll take it,’ said Carver. ‘And I’ll take the other two days. And I want Number One and Number Two Courts as well, all three days.’

Now the whistle became a chuckle as the agency man worked out what he was about to sell. ‘You planning to be in three places at once?’

‘I’m planning to be wherever I need to be.’

‘Fair enough, but there’s a problem, yeah? They don’t do debentures for Number Two Court. So there ain’t no tickets on sale for that.’

‘Yes, there are.’

‘No, there’s not. See, that’s not legal.’

‘I’m sure it’s not,’ said Carver. ‘But if I’m willing to pay the same price for Number Two Court tickets as for Centre Court ones, I reckon someone will want to sell me them. I’ll pay cash, if necessary. So, can you help me?’

‘Well, obviously, selling you them tickets is a criminal offence, as such…’ There was a pause and Carver could sense the battle between greed and fear going on in the man’s mind. Eventually, as he thought it would, greed won.

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

It would take Carver most of Saturday night to finish his planning. But first he wanted to know more about the business his target was in. His financial affairs were handled through a private bank in Geneva. It placed customer service at the very top of its priorities. So when Carver called his personal manager, Timo Koenig, and asked him if he could spare an hour or so for a drink, the fact that this was a Saturday evening did not deter Koenig — openly at least — from saying yes.

‘Great, meet me at seven in the bar of the Beau Rivage,’ said Carver.

The Beau Rivage was an old-fashioned grand hotel on the banks of Lake Geneva. It had been quite a while since Carver had visited it. The last time, also, he’d had a meeting with a bank manager, and he’d been with Alix. Things hadn’t worked out too well for them that night. Carver saw no need to tell Koenig about it… let alone how much worse they’d worked out for the banker.

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