The Cassandra Sanction

Chapter Thirty-Four

Welcome to Britain. London was every bit as wet and cold as Hamburg had been.

The longest part of the journey had been getting from the sleepy Black Forest village to the nearest decent-sized airport, which had been a choice between Strasbourg over the French border to the north, Zurich to the south and Basel to the west. After a bit of calling around, in the end Basel had offered the earliest direct flight to Heathrow, and the cheapest for Raul, who insisted on paying for both one-way tickets. Ben had left the BMW in long-term parking at the airport, where it would be unlikely to be flagged up to the police for days, if not weeks. When the police did eventually find the stolen car, they’d get an extra surprise when they discovered the weapons in the boot. Ben didn’t like leaving them behind, and felt naked the whole time they were sitting in the departure lounge and on the flight, in case they were being followed.

But he’d spotted nobody suspicious among his fellow travellers, and they’d reached Heathrow without a single shot fired. Once they’d breezed through arrivals and exchanged a few hundred of their euros for pounds sterling to have some walking-around money, they jumped on a Piccadilly Line train direct from their terminal. Just under an hour later, they were experiencing the joys of a rainy afternoon in central London. Huddled crowds moving fast in all directions, noise and traffic fumes and confusion and roadworks and slippery pavements. Even to Ben’s hardened sensibilities, the place was a shock after the rural serenity of the Black Forest village they’d woken up in that morning. It was Raul’s first visit to London, and his verdict as they clambered into a taxicab and sped through the city was, ‘It’s, how would you say? An armpit.’

Raul was even less impressed with the district where Ben had the taxi driver drop them, in a backstreet off Pretoria Road in the dingy, crime-rotted heart of Tottenham. Even the cabbie seemed cagey about letting them off there. To Ben’s mind, it was the perfect setting for the next stage in his strategy.

‘Where have you brought us?’ Raul said, staring around him as he hunched his shoulders against the rain. Graffiti and boarded-up windows, windswept litter and remnants of drunks’ vomit gurgling down the gutters weren’t everyday sights back home in Frigiliana.

‘They call this area Little Russia,’ Ben said. ‘It was a ghetto for immigrant refugees after the 1917 revolution and became one of the most notorious dens of iniquity in London. You could hardly walk the streets without getting stabbed or shot. It’s gone downhill since then.’

‘Thank you for the history lesson. I’m still unclear as to what we’re doing here.’

Ben shrugged. ‘There’s so much gang and drug crime in the place, nobody even cares any more. The police just let them get on with it. Which makes it the best place I know of to nick a car.’

Raul frowned. ‘Nick? You mean steal?’

Ben looked at him. ‘You have scruples about taking a car? After punching a guy off a roof and breaking his neck?’

‘I’m not a murderer,’ Raul said. ‘I’m not a thief, either.’

‘If it makes you feel better, around here the chances are it’ll already be stolen,’ Ben said. ‘Anyway, we won’t need it long. We’re just borrowing it, so to speak.’

Within ten minutes, Ben had found a seven-year-old Renault Laguna estate far enough out of sight of any surveillance cameras to spark his interest. Judging by the damage to the door locks, this wasn’t the first time it had been broken into. The rest was easy. Less than a minute later, they were driving away. There was an empty hole where the radio used to be, and the suspension knocked badly, probably from being joyridden over too many speed humps. But the motor ran smoothly, there was enough fuel in the tank to get them where they needed to go, and the Laguna had no faulty lights or worn tyres that might attract unwanted police attention. Ben tossed his smartphone into Raul’s lap. ‘Now dial up the GPS on that and find me the offices of The Probe.’

‘I hope for their sakes they’re based in a nicer part of London than this puta letrina,’ Raul muttered. ‘This car stinks as if someone has pissed in it,’ he added, and wound down the window only to receive a faceful of rainwater spray as Ben went hammering through a puddle.

‘I didn’t realise you were so sensitive,’ Ben said.

Raul stared at him. ‘Besa me culo.’

The Probe was one of a group of independent publications privately operated under the corporate banner of Trinity Media Ltd, based in Hammersmith a few miles to the southwest. Trinity House turned out to be a converted Georgian three-storey tucked away among a cluster of office buildings near the banks of the Thames, where Ben found a parking spot that allowed them a view of the entrance.

‘Now what?’ Raul said.

‘Now we sit, and hope that our guy’s in there, and wait for him to show his face,’ Ben replied. The image on McCauley’s website showed a lean-faced man somewhere in his mid-fifties, with round wire-framed glasses, thinning hair and a scraggy beard turning grey about the chin. As Ben imagined him, he could have been a lecturer at a former polytechnic, the kind of guy who would wear open-toed sandals and sew leather patches onto the elbows of his corduroy jackets. The whole vegetarian look. Unless he’d shaved off the beard, he shouldn’t be too hard to spot.

Ben checked his watch. It was 3.17 p.m. ‘If McCauley keeps regular nine-to-five office hours, it shouldn’t be that long a wait.’

‘Someone like that, he could be at his desk until midnight,’ Raul said. ‘If he’s even at work. We could have come all this way for nothing. We should have phoned in advance to find out if he would be here.’

‘I didn’t want him to know we were coming,’ Ben said. ‘If he has any inkling of what’s going on, he might have got the strangest idea that bad guys were gunning for him, too.’

‘Fine. Then we sit and breathe stale piss for the next however many hours. Could you not have stolen a better-smelling car?’

Ben looked at him. ‘If it’s fresh air you want, you can take a stroll to that newsagent’s we passed back there, and grab us a couple of sandwiches. Get me some cigarettes, too.’

Grumbling, Raul hurried off through the rain in search of the newsagent’s while Ben sat alone in the dank car and watched the building. Trickles of rain snaked through the dirt on the windscreen. Now that they were here in London, his worries about not finding McCauley so easily had returned in full force to haunt him.

Raul returned a few minutes later with two floppy sandwiches, a couple of Mars Bars and a pack of Mayfair Superkings. Ben stared at the cigarettes. ‘What’s this you’ve bought? I can’t smoke this crap.’

‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ Raul said. ‘Then I won’t have to choke on your fumes on top of the stench in this car. Why can’t you vape e-cigarettes like all the other addicts these days?’

‘Maybe because sucking pure liquid nicotine is like shooting poison directly into your system,’ Ben said. ‘That stuff’ll kill you.’

‘Not me. I respect my body.’

‘Oh, I noticed that, first time I laid eyes on you.’

Ben left the Mayfairs unopened. He wasn’t that desperate. He’d just have to smoke twice as much to catch up, when he eventually got hold of some real cigarettes again. For now, he contented himself with the sugar rush from the chocolate.

Time passed. They didn’t speak, partly because of the nervous tension Ben could sense coming from Raul, and partly just because there was nothing new to say. Four o’clock came and went. Now and then, a vehicle pulled up in the little car park to the side of the offices, and someone would go in. Three people emerged from the building, but none of them looked like Mike McCauley, with or without a beard. Ben lapsed into the still, watchful, disembodied state that had seen him through a hundred stakeouts and military missions. He could sit for hours, days, silent and immobile. That was a talent Raul lacked, and after the first hour he was becoming more and more restless.

Four thirty passed. Quarter to five. Traffic was building in the street, as well as through the entrance of Trinity House as office staff started leaving. Still no McCauley. Five fifteen. Half past the hour ticked on by, and they watched in silence as the building slowly emptied. Some people departed on foot, some in groups, some alone, some on bicycles, wearing pointy helmets that made them look like extraterrestrials. Green London. A less ecologically concerned minority got into their cars and drove off, until only a beige Smart car, a Ford Transit and a motor scooter remained in the little car park. Raul could hardly sit still any longer as the stress of waiting got to him. Ben was aware of his own neck and shoulders gradually stiffening as his apprehension grew.

‘So what’s the story with this guy Austin Keller?’ Ben asked.

Raul grimaced. ‘You already know the story. He broke her heart. Before that, nobody on the outside even knew about the relationship, because they wanted to keep it secret to protect their privacy. What do you want to know about him for?’

‘I was thinking that if this McCauley lead falls through, we might need to go and talk to him next.’

Raul looked at him. ‘Why, you think it will?’

Ben shrugged. ‘Anything’s possible.’

‘Forget it,’ Raul said. ‘Not even you could find that one. He’s… how would you say it in English? A bicho raro.’

‘An oddball,’ Ben said. ‘A weirdo.’

Raul nodded. ‘That’s it. A very rich weirdo. If he’s not sailing around the middle of some ocean in his yacht, he’s hiding like a hermit in one of his many secluded properties all over the world. He’s paranoid. Hates being seen in public, can’t stand to be photographed or anything like that. It was what finished things between him and Catalina. She was getting more noticed and beginning to go places, and he wouldn’t give up his reclusive lifestyle. He tried to put pressure on her to quit and come and live with him. Everything had to be his way, the selfish prick. She loved him, but she wouldn’t let him ruin her career. So she refused, and in the end they split up.’

‘How did they meet?’

‘Baxter Burnett introduced them. The movie star? You must have heard of him.’

Ben shook his head.

‘You live in a monastery or something?’

‘I did,’ Ben said. ‘For a while.’

Raul raised a dubious eyebrow. ‘Hmm. Anyway, a bunch of film and TV people got together one summer for a weekend party at Burnett’s place on the Italian Riviera. Keller made a brief appearance. Apparently he dabbles in movie producing from time to time, not that he needs to work. For some reason I never understood, my sister apparently took a… what’s the expression?’

‘A shine,’ Ben said.

‘A shine to him. Like I said, he has his head so far up his own ass that he wouldn’t be worth talking to even if we could find him.’

‘It was just a thought,’ Ben said.

They fell back into silence. More time dragged by.

Then, as the hands on Ben’s watch were closing in on ten to six, the door of Trinity House swung open and a casually dressed man with round wire-framed spectacles, thinning hair and a scraggy beard walked out of the building, carrying a battered leather satchel on a strap. He wasn’t wearing open-toed sandals, but there was little doubt as to his identity. He paused to pull a key ring from the pocket of his jeans, then headed for the beige Smart car.

‘McCauley,’ Raul said, straightening up in his seat and going as stiff as a gundog tracing a scent.

Ben was already reaching for the ignition.