The Memory of Blood

∨ The Memory of Blood ∧

19

Rope

It was bloody inconvenient. Gregory Baine had been enjoying an excellent chateaubriand and a frankly sensational bottle of Rioja with Susan at the Square when the waiter stopped by and apologized for interrupting the meal, but sir had received an urgent message, just a few words but they were enough to send him hurtling towards a taxi – with Susan scowling furiously and asking what was wrong, and how dare he leave her in the middle of dinner? Did he expect her to get home by herself? But what else could he do? And how the hell could anyone have found out?

Cannon Street station – entirely in the wrong direction, but it couldn’t be helped. As he sat back in the cab, he tried to think who might know about the problem. His accounts files were password-protected, but the sound was so strange in that bloody theatre that sometimes people came into the office without knocking and nearly gave him a heart attack. He supposed someone could have seen him, but it seemed a bit unlikely. Even so, Robert Kramer would murder him if he thought that anyone knew what they were up to. Cruikshank Holdings was their private nest egg if anything went wrong in Adam Street.

An even more alarming thought crossed his mind as the cab headed for Fleet Street. What if somebody knew about the debts? What if somebody knew that he had been robbing Peter to pay Paul, shifting cash from the pension fund to cover their expenditure? But no, he and Robert were the only account holders. How could anyone else know? Cruikshank Holdings had been kept well hidden, or so he had thought.

But it only took one person to overhear an unguarded conversation, and there had been a few of those lately.

Jaundiced reflections of the streetlights splintered across the windscreen of the cab as they passed St Paul’s and cut down towards Cannon Street. The sky had veiled itself once more and it was starting to rain again. The City seemed desolate after the madness of the West End, all those crowds standing around on the street corners by Leicester Square, trying to decide which awful tourist-trap pub or steakhouse to throw their money at. But the Square Mile out of office hours was like a morgue, despite the vulgar new mall they had chucked up at One New Change.

No one about – why pick such an odd place for a meeting? And what was the point of it? A rebuke? A request for a piece of the action? Please God no, not that – it would be difficult enough once Robert discovered the funding shortfall, and discover it he would because Robert had a way of sniffing out financial trouble and making his life hell. As if they didn’t all have enough problems with a murder investigation, of all things, Judith on the edge of a total breakdown, and now a leak, a spy in the camp. He was an accountant, not a producer. He should never have agreed to the new position. It came with too much bloody responsibility.

The cab stopped in the narrow street that used to be called Waterman’s Walk, only now it was covered in platforms and scaffolding poles where the bridge was being rebuilt. He could hear the river below, and wondered why he had ever agreed to meet in such a godforsaken place.

He paid the cab driver and alighted outside the station. More construction works, blue nylon sheeting and hoardings everywhere. It looked like a third-world bloody country and never seemed to get any better – so where the hell was his contact? It didn’t look as if there was anyone here. Whoever had summoned him clearly wanted money. Why else would they send a message saying they knew about the Cruikshank account?

He tipped his Rolex to the light, turned about, ducked under the cover of the scaffolding as the rain fell harder.

And realized that someone was standing in the shadows beside him, a slender figure silently watching and waiting.

“Oh, it’s you. I don’t know what you think you’re playing at, sending me silly messages through the restaurant when you could have called my mobile.”

“I didn’t want to leave a trace.”

“I was having dinner with my girlfriend; she’s furious. Not used to me walking out on her before dessert. You have no idea how she gets if you deprive her of pudding. And as for all this secret-agent stuff, if you wanted to talk about Cruikshank we could at least have met in a decent wine bar.”

“That’s just it, Mr Baine, I don’t want to talk about Cruikshank. I know it’s a company you and Robert set up, and I know it holds the slush fund you just emptied out.”

“That’s not true, it’s just – ”

“I know you’re being investigated by the Inland Revenue office. And I know you’re terrified that Robert will find out what you’ve been doing. You’ve been a very, very bad accountant, Mr Baine.”

“I’ve had enough of this. You theatricals are all the same, you think you can get something for nothing. If you want to talk further with me, make an appointment at my office like everyone else instead of playing silly games. I should never have – ”

“Go on, say it: you should never have tried to seduce me.”

“That’s a bit of a strong word. It was a stupid mistake. I’m not usually – Susan was away – ”

“But I’m glad you tried. I went through your briefcase while you were in the bathroom. That’s how I discovered what you were up to.”

“Stupid of me – ”

“You can’t change the past. But I can change the future.”

The spray hit Baine squarely in the eyes and snatched his breath away, burning and searing. His throat was on fire. He couldn’t see. He dropped his briefcase and slipped to his knees on the rain-soaked street.

He felt sick and disoriented, the acid in his stomach curdling the rich meal he had consumed, bringing it up into his throat. Now he could feel gentle guiding hands under his arms, carefully towing him away from the scaffolding lights and into darkness. He staggered and found his polished brogues connecting with wooden duck-boards. Below, the tide was lapping at the shoreline.

His heart was hammering fit to burst beneath his ribs and he flailed dizzily, but found himself pushed blindly on until he felt sure he was over water. He could hear it lapping somewhere far below, smelled its acrid tang even through the pain of the pepper spray.

And then he felt the rope.

Coarse and thick, it dropped over his head, tightening around his neck, an absurdity in this day and age – hadn’t they all been replaced with nylon? He reached up and felt it, rolls of the stuff arranged in some kind of – but of course that’s what it was, a hangman’s noose.

And now it was tight and getting hard to breathe, and his feet were stepping out into nothing but the updraught of damp, brackish night air from the river, and he was falling out over the Thames, and suddenly he realized that the steak and the wine and the bad-tempered girlfriend were part of the final night of his life.