Game Over (26 page)

‘Swan? Good choice. He’s sound enough.’

‘He understood the situation.’

‘All right. I’ll square the magistrates. But you’ll have to get a move on, because that only gives us another forty-eight hours, and still waters wait for no man.’

And I’m nowhere near a solution, Slider thought as he went away. He wondered what Bates was up to, why Pauline hadn’t called him back, if Joanna was all right. She’d be in rehearsal just now, so he couldn’t call her. Instead, when he got back to his office, he called Jimmy Pak.

‘I haven’t got anything to tell you,’ he said. ‘I’d have rung you if I had.’

‘I know,’ said Slider. ‘It’s just frustration. I needed to bother somebody.’

Pak laughed. ‘At least you know yourself. Self knowledge is the key to—’

‘No more proverbs, thank you. I’ve just had a skinful upstairs. Tell me what’s happening.’

‘I’ve got more respect for him than I thought. It’s really hard to crack. I’m trying every combination I can think of but no good so far. He must have been really cautious, or have something really important to hide.’

‘Both, I think. He knew he was dealing with pretty ruthless people.’

‘Right. Well, the safest password is a completely random sequence of letters and numbers. Breaking that is just chance. But people hardly ever use completely random sets because they can’t remember them. So they use birthdays, family initials, pets’ names, that sort of thing. If they do have a random set, they usually have to write it down somewhere. You’ve got access to his paperwork?’

‘Yes, all but the file that was stolen.’

‘If it was written down in there you’re in trouble. Otherwise, you’d better start looking for it. I’ll keep on trying, but it’ll speed things up if you can find it.’

‘I would like to speed things up. What am I looking for?’

‘A set of eight, numbers and letters mixed. Look in his diary, address book, personal papers, that’s the most likely place.’

‘Right. I’ll leave you in peace, then.’

‘Do that, man. Luck!’

‘Luck yourself.’

He passed on the instruction to the troops who were toiling through Stonax’s effects, and then sat behind his desk staring at the sea of papers with what felt like a brick of ignorance in his head. It was no good. He couldn’t even think. He needed to get out.

As he passed through the outer office he said to Swilley, who was nearest, ‘I’m going out for half an hour. Hold the fort, Norma.’

‘Boss, oughtn’t we to know where you’re going?’ she called after him. ‘Just in case?’

‘A man’s snout is sacrosanct,’ he called back over his shoulder.

The Kensington Park Road – always known as the KPR to local residents – had in Slider’s memory been a shabby, run-down street of peeling stucco, cracked windows and blowing rubbish, the fine old houses divided up into the lowest sort of bedsits. Now, since so much smart money had come to Notting Hill, it had been bought up and done up, and was exactly the right place for a man to set up in the burglar alarm, window lock and security camera business. Jack Bushman’s shop was just up from the Westbourne Grove turning, a discreet and narrow place with a smart fascia in green and gold, polished wood flooring and a retro wooden counter which Slider guessed played well with the locals. Solder Jack himself was standing behind the counter doing something to a piece of equipment that looked like the inside of a radio. His eyes sharpened as he saw Slider, but his welcoming smile did not waver and, most tellingly to Slider, the hands holding the piece of kit did not disappear under the counter.

‘Hello, Jack, how’s it going?’ he asked pleasantly.

‘Mr Slider,’ he said. ‘It’s going well, thank you.’ He was a tall man, well set up, with a big, handsome head topped with thick hair, swept back, in which there was the odd thread of grey. His face had the lines of experience in it now. It was the sort of firm, large-featured, fatherly face that inspires trust, especially in women, and a bit of age did it no harm at all.

He had been straight for – oh, it must have been ten or twelve years now, Slider reflected; and it was interesting that the thought of Jack knowing the inside secrets of all the locals’ security arrangements did not bother him. Poacher turned gamekeeper. But of course, Jack knew that he would be the first to be asked his whereabouts if anything went down, and there was nothing better for keeping a man straight – apart from his own intentions.

‘Just passing?’ Jack asked, his eyes taking in the Jiffy bag Slider was carrying and moving politely away to his face again.

‘It’s not an entirely random visit,’ Slider said.

‘Not trouble, I hope?’ Jack said, but it was without alarm. He had the calm eyes of a man with a clear conscience. His accent, Slider noted, had gone upmarket quite a bit too, obviously to fit in with his new clients.

‘It’s a lot of trouble,’ Slider said, ‘but for me, not for you. I’ve got something here that I wonder if you’d have a look at, tell me what you think.’

‘Always glad to help.’

Slider drew out the evidence bag containing the device from Valancy House, and passed it across the counter. Jack took it up and looked at it, turning the bag in his hands. ‘Can I take it out?’

‘As long as you don’t dismantle anything. It’s been tested for prints.’

‘Wouldn’t get anything useful off surfaces this small,’ he said with professional confidence. ‘But I’ll put gloves on anyway.’

He had a box of disposables under the counter. ‘How come?’ Slider asked.

‘Some devices it’s not a good idea to get grease and acid on,’ he said. Gloved, he removed the device from the bag, stuck a jeweller’s glass in his eye, and examined it minutely, using a pair of tweezers to move the wires out of his line of sight. ‘Very nice,’ he said. ‘Simple, but all the best devices are. What was it used on?’

‘Security door. One of those buzz-in jobs in a block of flats.’

‘Old one?’

‘Pretty old.’

‘So the locks cut out if there’s a power failure. The modern ones use a conventional lock with a key or a numbers pad as a back-up. What did you want to know about it?’

‘Whether there’s anything about it that would tell you who made it.’

He removed the eyeglass and lowered the device on to its bag. ‘I’ve been out of that game a long time,’ he said.

‘I know. But you’ve kept up with things. Your opinion has got to be better than mine, anyway. Tell me what you think.’

‘Well, it’s simple. But elegant, almost. A lot of people could do it, but they wouldn’t all bother to take the trouble someone’s gone to with this. This was done by someone who cared what his work looked like. So he was intelligent, skilled, and right far up his own arse.’

Slider almost laughed at the descent into vernacular. ‘Self absorbed? Self obsessed?’

Jack nodded. ‘A nutter. Why bother? The way this wire’s held with a tiny brass screw. Anyone else would just stick it with a touch of solder. Do the job just as well. The bloke who did this is watching himself doing it. Playing to his favourite audience. Probably masturbates a lot,’ he concluded, straight-faced.

‘Anything else? What about that timer?’

‘It’s nice,’ Jack said with genuine admiration. ‘I’ve not seen one like it. Chinese. All the new miniature stuff is coming from China now. Used to be Taiwan, but its mainland now – they’re catching up in everything. And since they took Hong Kong back they’ve got no trouble with distribution.’

A heaviness had settled on Slider at the mention of Hong Kong. It seemed to be leading him towards the conclusion he had started to suspect, but didn’t want to.

‘Got a name for me?’ he said. ‘Strictly between us. It never gets back to you.’

Jack shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’d have said straight off one name in particular, but he’s inside. Not for this sort of thing, though.’ He met Slider’s eyes. ‘Trevor Bates. He was legit, as far as this sort of thing goes, but he got banged up for some personal stuff.’

‘I know. I did the banging,’ Slider said. Jack’s eyes widened slightly, but he forbore to pursue the point. ‘How did you know him?’

‘I didn’t, not personally, but I’ve come across him a few times at trade fairs and so on. I saw him once put something together as a sort of demonstration – a listening device. It was on his stand at the Surveillance and Security Trade Fair at Olympia. Fascinating, watching his little fingers twinkling away. Didn’t like the bloke – him with his silly red hair down to his shoulders. What did he think he looked like? But he was good. And his company imported all those Far East novelties. He had connections out there.’

‘I know.’

Jack surveyed his face. ‘You thought it was him,’ he said.

‘I didn’t want to. It creates all sorts of complications.’

He gestured at the device. ‘Bad trouble?’

‘The worst.’

‘Sorry.’ Carefully he replaced the device in the evidence bag and began peeling off the gloves. ‘I tell you what, though, it doesn’t altogether surprise me. If ever there was a bloke up himself it was Trevor Bates. Little runt of a bloke,’ he added with all a large man’s contempt, ‘and they’re often the worst. Napoleon complex, you know? Got to be better than everyone else to make up for it.’

‘You may not be wrong,’ Slider said.

Outside, he walked back to his car in a brown study, only to find a traffic warden in the process of writing him a ticket.

‘Didn’t you see the notice on the dashboard?’ he said, pointing out the battered POLICE ON CALL sign he had stuck there when he was forced to park on the double yellow.

She was unperturbed. ‘I don’t take no notice o’ dem tings. People write hall sorts o’ notices, hanyting to get out o’ payin’.’

‘But I really am a policeman,’ he said, showing her his brief.

‘Dat don’t mean hanyting to me,’ she said magnificently, continuing to write. ‘Once I start de ticket, I got to finish. “I started so I’ll finish”,’ she concluded, and tee-hee’d merrily.

Slider was just going to say something moderately savage when a roar of a motorbike, now hard-wired into his brain, made him jump for cover, carrying the woman with him. They had been standing together on the road side of the car; he flung her almost bodily before him into the gap between the bonnet and a white van which was obviously destined to be her next port of call. She was a hefty woman and about his own height – useful in altercations, he supposed vaguely – but his adrenaline made him strong as well as fast, and the motorbike roared past as she shrieked and clutched him and they both banged into the van doors, setting its alarms going, and reeled off on to the bonnet of his car.

The van blocked any forward vision, and by the time he had regained his balance and got out from behind it, the bike was long gone.

‘Don’t you touch me!’ the woman shrilled angrily, brushing herself down. ‘You can’t touch me! I’ll call de police!’

‘I am the police,’ he reminded her. ‘Did you see the number?’

‘People all against us! But you shouldn’t park wrong if you don’t want a ticket. Hit not my fault. I just makin’ a livin’.’ She burst noisily into tears. ‘People all de time takin’ a pop at us, callin’ us names – hittin’ us. I’m sick of it. I’m callin’ de police on you dis time. I got your number.’ She shook the parking ticket at him. ‘You not get away wid it!’

‘I just saved your life,’ Slider said, exasperated. ‘That motorbike tried to kill me, and you with me. Did you see the number?’

But she had backed away from him on to the pavement, and one or two passers-by were starting to take an interest. She noticed them, and began to play to the gallery. Her sobs increased in volume and she said to the world in general, ‘He attack me! For no reason! I just doin’ my job! A helpless woman!’

Slider decided on the better part of valour. Fortunately, traffic wardens were not popular, and with her size she looked anything but helpless, despite her boo-hooing, so no-one was exactly leaping forward to get involved. But that might change at any moment, and he got in his car and drove away before someone discovered his chivalry and got involved.

Fifteen

A Tale of Two Kitties

H
ardly had Slider regained his desk when Bates rang him. There was a change in the man. The self-conscious calm and confidence were gone. He sounded angry for the first time.

‘All right, Plod,’ he almost snarled, ‘I’m done with you. I’m done playing with you.’

‘Whoever asked you to?’ Slider retorted, too wearily angry himself with the whole thing to be much afraid. ‘Starting to repeat your effects, aren’t you?’

‘Don’t interrupt me! You’ve been warned to keep your nose out, and you won’t listen to warnings, so I’m going to have to put you out of the game. Permanently.’

‘If it means I don’t have to go on listening to you quoting from bad gangster movies any more—’

‘Oh, you think you’re quite the hero, don’t you?’ Bates sneered. ‘Well, the next time you hear from me will be the last, all right. I’m going to get you – and then I’m going to get that woman of yours. And in the split second when you realise you’re about to die, which is all you’ll have, I hope you’ll think of her and remember that it’s you who’ve condemned her to death.’