Private Games

Chapter 24

TEN MINUTES LATER, Knight followed Pope up the stairs into One Aldwych, looking questioningly at the hotel doorman he’d spoken with earlier and getting a nod in response. Knight slipped the doorman a ten-pound note and followed Pope towards the muffled sounds of happy voices.

‘That music got to Farrell,’ Pope said. ‘She’d heard it before.’

‘I agree,’ Knight said. ‘It threw her hard.’

‘Is it possible she’s Cronus?’ Pope asked.

‘And uses the name to make us think she’s a man? Sure. Why not?’

They entered the hotel’s dramatic Lobby Bar, which was triangular in shape, with a soaring vaulted ceiling, pale marble floor, glass walls and intimate groupings of fine furniture.

While the bar at the Savoy Hotel along the Strand was about glamour, the Lobby Bar was about money. One Aldwych was close to London’s legal and financial districts, and exuded enough corporate elegance to make it a magnet for thirsty bankers, flush traders, and celebrating deal-makers.

There were forty or fifty such patrons in the bar, but Knight spotted Richard Guilder, Marshall’s business partner, almost immediately: a corpulent, silver-haired boar of a man in a dark suit, sitting at the bar alone, his shoulders and head hunched over.

‘Let me do the talking at first,’ Knight said.

‘Why?’ Pope snapped. ‘Because I am a woman?’

‘How many allegedly corrupt tycoons have you chatted up lately on the sports beat?’ he asked her coolly.

The reporter grudgingly made a show of letting him lead the way.

Marshall’s partner was staring off into the abyss. Two fingers of neat Scotch swirled in the crystal tumbler he held. To his left, a bar stool stood empty. Knight started to sit on it.

Before he could, an ape of a man in a dark suit got in the way.

‘Mr Guilder prefers to be alone,’ he said in a distinct Brooklyn accent.

Knight showed him his identification. Guilder’s bodyguard shrugged, and showed Knight his. Joe Mascolo worked for Private New York.

‘You in as backup for the Games?’ Knight asked.

Mascolo nodded. ‘Jack called me over.’

‘Then you’ll let me talk to him?’

The Private New York agent shook his head. ‘Man wants to be alone.’

Knight said loud enough for Guilder to hear: ‘Mr Guilder? I’m sorry for your loss. I’m Peter Knight, also with Private. I’m working on behalf of the London Organising Committee, and for my mother, Amanda Knight.’

Mascolo looked furious that Knight was trying to work around him.

But Guilder stiffened, turned in his seat, studied Knight and then said, ‘Amanda. My God. It’s …’ He shook his head and wiped away a tear. ‘Please, Knight, listen to Joe. I’m not in any condition to talk about Denton at the moment. I am here to mourn him. Alone. As I imagine your dear mother is doing, too.’

‘Please, sir,’ Knight began again. ‘Scotland Yard—’

‘Has agreed to talk with him in the morning,’ Mascolo growled. ‘Call his office. Make an appointment. And leave the man in peace for the evening.’

The Private New York agent glared at Knight. Marshall’s partner was turning back to his drink, and Knight was growing resigned to leaving him alone until the next morning when Pope said, ‘I’m with the Sun, Mr Guilder. We received a letter from Denton Marshall’s killer. He mentions you and your company and justifies murdering your partner because of certain illegal activities that Marshall and you were alleged to have been involved in at your place of business.’

Guilder swung around, livid. ‘How dare you! Denton Marshall was as honest as the day is long. He was never, ever involved in anything illegal during all the time I knew him. And neither was I. Whatever this letter says, it’s a lie.’

Pope tried to hand the financier photocopies of the documents that Cronus had sent her, saying, ‘Denton Marshall’s killer alleges that these were taken from Marshall & Guilder’s own records – or, to be more precise, your firm’s secret records.’

Guilder glanced at the pages but did not take them, as if he had no time for considering such outrageous allegations. ‘We have never kept secret records at Marshall & Guilder.’

‘Really?’ Knight said. ‘Not even about foreign currency transactions made on behalf of your high-net-worth clients?’

The hedge fund manager said nothing, but Knight swore that some of the colour had seeped from his florid cheeks.

Pope said, ‘According to these documents, you and Denton Marshall were pocketing fractions of the value of every British pound or US dollar or other currency that passed across your trading desks. It may not sound like much, but when you’re talking hundreds of millions of pounds a year the fractions add up.’

Guilder set his tumbler of scotch on the bar, doing his best to appear composed. But Knight could have sworn that he saw a slight tremor in the man’s hand as it returned to rest on Guilder’s thigh. ‘Is that all the killer of my best friend claims?’

‘No,’ Knight replied. ‘He says that the money was moved to offshore accounts and funnelled ultimately to members of the Olympic Site Selection Committee before their decision in 2007. He says that your partner bribed London’s way into the Games.’

The weight of the allegation seemed to throw Guilder. He looked both befuddled and wary, as if he’d suddenly realised he was far too drunk to be having this conversation.

‘No,’ he said. ‘No, that’s not … Please, Joe, make them go.’

Mascolo looked torn but said, ‘Leave him be until tomorrow. I’m sure that if we call Jack he’s going to tell you the same thing.’

Before Knight could reply there was a noise like a fine crystal wine glass breaking. The first bullet pierced a window on the west side of the bar. It just missed Guilder and shattered the huge mirror behind the bar.

Knight and Mascolo both realised what had happened. ‘Get down!’ Knight yelled, going for his gun, and scanning the windows for any sign of the shooter.

Too late. A second round was fired through the window. The slug hit Guilder just below his sternum with a sound like a pillow being plumped.

Bright red blood bloomed on the hedge fund manager’s starched white shirt and he collapsed forward, upsetting a champagne bucket as he fell and crashed to the pale marble floor.