Reconstruction (39 page)

Ben had said: Because you’re the lady in the nursery . . .

‘But he pretended he thought it was me. Why would he do that?’

Chapman looked like he had a place to go to where he thought things through – his brow pulled tighter and his eyes became stones. The squawking intercom dragged him back: ‘Hello in the lift?’

He put a hand to the button. ‘We’re still here.’

‘Is there anything obstructing the door?’

He looked down at his foot doing just that. ‘No.’

‘Damn . . . Look, we’ll have you out in a jiffy, okay?’

Louise said, ‘Tell me again how you found me.’

Chapman released the button. ‘Like I said. You weren’t at any of the other places I knew about.’

‘Because I’d gone to DFM, to confront Crispin.’

‘What is this, a state the obvious contest?’

‘He encouraged me,’ Louise said. ‘Ben. He wanted me to come after Crispin.’

Chapman was still partly in his thinking place. His voice might have been coming through a pipe. ‘You went back in when you didn’t have to.’

‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘He knew he could trust you to do the right thing. Or what you thought was the right thing. Which in this case meant coming to DFM. Confronting Crispin.’

‘So you’d follow me,’ she said, reconnecting with her train of thought.

‘Instead of him. Sowing confusion. You’d think he was a field agent.’

‘But you don’t, do you?’

‘No,’ Chapman said. ‘I think he’s a thief.’

Ben keyed the number and, as the strongbox door swung open, rocked back on his heels. Paused. Through the windows came the usual squabble: traffic, weather, London. He reached inside.

Yes.
That was what he’d said to Miro.
Yes. I’ll help you.
We’ll take the money back.

Another of those life-changing moments. Often you only recognize them in retrospect. That one, he’d given thought to in advance.

There’d been the possibility, of course, that it was indeed a set-up; that Miro was trailing a coat in the dust, to see if Ben would jump on it. Miro had even suggested as much: but then, he would, wouldn’t he? Hints within clues within stories. The kind of game the bosses played, when they were working out whether you were destined for greatness or heading for the door. But Miro the mirror man wasn’t the bosses’ tool. He’d been strictly a number-juggler.

And Ben hadn’t been in the frame for greatness.

So it was an honest approach: what next? Miro was smart enough to work out how to fool the numbers: Ben didn’t doubt that. All he’d need from Ben was one brief moment of corroboration . . . Of course, they could wind up behind bars, or worse. Not everything finished in court.

And supposing they got away with it: what was the upside? A ripped-off country got some of its money back? Ben doubted it would set up many roadside chapels in his honour.

Miro Weiss, there was no denying, was a good man, with ideals chiselled on his heart in stone. Ben Whistler, on the other hand, had a future to consider.

He reached into the safe. First thing his hand touched was a gun.

It was strange how the light in the room seemed to flicker.

‘Miro must have trusted him.’ Louise was thinking out loud. ‘And said as much to Jaime – something like, any-thing happens to me, go to Ben Whistler for help. And he mentioned Judy, too. The lady in the nursery. Why would he have done that?’

‘Guilt,’ Bad Sam said. ‘He reported what Ainsworth told him, and Ainsworth died. You don’t have to be a genius to spot the connection. See it Miro’s way. If Ainsworth hadn’t gone to Iraq, he’d not have met his new woman. Wouldn’t have abandoned his wife, who wouldn’t have gone to work in the nursery . . . ’

‘I wonder what made him become a thief.’

‘It wouldn’t surprise me,’ he said, ‘if he planned to give the money back.’ He put the cigarette he was holding in his mouth. ‘I need to smoke this.’

‘Not in here.’

He didn’t light it. ‘He made you think it was me, didn’t he? Whistler.’

‘You hurt my arm.’

‘It’s not the worst thing I’ve done today.’

‘You were there this morning. You tried to kill Jaime.’

‘Ashton did. Neil Ashton. He didn’t want me there. Not a lot he could do about it though, me being his boss.’ He leaned back against the lift wall. ‘Miro was a clever sod, but we’re supposed to be able to find clever sods. It’s our job. Made me wonder if we were trying hard enough. And I knew I was. So maybe Ashton wasn’t.’

‘How long had you suspected him?’

‘Not long enough.’ He inhaled on his unlit cigarette. ‘The three of them were in it together, but there wasn’t much trust there. Ashton was monitoring Ben’s calls.’

‘And you were monitoring Ashton.’

‘He was Duty Officer last night. Any unusual calls, he should have alerted me about. He didn’t.’

‘But you knew anyway.’

‘I checked the call-log.’ He paused. ‘I think the first he knew about Jaime Segura was last night. He must have been crapping himself, wondering how much the kid knew.’ He tucked his cigarette in his shirt pocket. ‘Miro was a fall guy. He’ll turn up sooner or later, in a car boot or a pothole. Maybe the same pothole Jaime was hiding in. Where he should have stayed.’

‘But if they stole this money, Whistler and Ashton, they did it weeks ago. Why’re they still here?’

‘Same reason Miro isn’t.’ She was aware again of his mixed aroma: tobacco and sweat. ‘You disappear the same time as a quarter of a billion pounds, you might as well write
I did it
in lipstick on the bathroom mirror. I’ll tell you something else about Whistler. He’s got leave coming up. He’s going abroad.’

‘A foreign holiday,’ she said.

‘Two weeks. It would turn into forever. But he’d have two clear weeks to disappear in. No one would even think about looking until the day he didn’t come back.’

The sly bugger.
That was what Neil Ashton had said, when Ben had told him of Miro’s plans.
The dirty sly bugger . . .
He took the gun from the safe. It had a silencer attached, giving it a clunky elongated look. The lights had stopped flickering, if they’d ever started. Ben put the gun on the floor, reached back into the safe, and drew out the false passports and matching credit cards. Ashton wouldn’t be using his, of course. It would be a while before Neil Ashton used anything as complicated as a toothbrush. But the gun – that had been there for one reason only. Ashton hadn’t intended Ben to be using his false passport either. He’d intended Ben to be behind him while he knelt, opened the safe, turned, and put a silenced bullet through his head. The same end that had befallen Miro. The end Ashton must have had in mind from the start.

Tell him you’ll do it
, Ashton had said.
You up for this, Ben?
You tell him you’ll do it.

All except the part about giving the money back.

It was no shock to Louise that men could lie. So Ben Whistler had been acting all that time: okay. What she had trouble with was that she wasn’t the lady, and never had been. Today had started with her, of course it had.
This is
where it begins
. But she’d been peripheral: no more essential than Claire Christopher, absent because of a dental appointment, or Crispin, who was simply the hook she’d grown used to reaching for, whenever something happened. None of this was about her. She’d been discarded, jilted, dumped.

And now was stuck in a lift.

The intercom squawked, and Chapman slapped a hand on it, reducing its output to static:
crrrckzz lift crrrckzzsshhh
moving soonsshhh
He said, ‘Okay, anything else?’

‘How can anyone steal that much money?’

‘I meant information, not questions. What else did Whistler say?’

‘You want me to walk out of this lift without fuss, just answer.’

She held his stare for as long as he offered it.

Chapman said, ‘Christ. Okay. Look. Mostly, you can’t clean someone else’s account out. I mean, you can with the citizenry, but not corporations, because they’re firewalled to the eyeballs, and keep close tabs on their funds. But they frequently move money around, which people mostly don’t. Their money has to keep working, has to be in different places at different times, often to make the business look richer than it is. And money’s vulnerable on the move. If you know how much is moving when, and have the access codes of the accounts involved, which you get with what they call Trojan software, which our guys invented – trust me, you can steal it. If you’re smart enough.’

‘By yourself?’

‘No. Miro would have needed someone to vouch for his use of the relevant codes. Someone with appropriate security clearance. That’s why he needed Whistler.’

Louise nodded. She knew about security clearance. ‘What happens now?’ she asked.

‘You come with me. Whistler should be back in London. The local woodentops won’t have kept hold of him long.’

‘And now you’ve heard what he was saying, you’re not worried about others hearing it too.’

‘Well, I wasn’t about to let them hear it first.’ He moved his foot and the doors hummed shut. ‘You won’t care, but that hurt.’ The lift moved to the next floor, and the doors opened. A couple of men stood outside, one of them dis-mantling the control panel. Both looked in dismay at the emerging couple.

‘Six-foot-high club,’ Chapman said. ‘Sorry to be a nuisance.’

He lit his cigarette at last as they headed for the open air.

Jonathan Nott said, ‘He
what
?’

‘He decked Moody. He’s gone. Legged it, basically.’

‘Why, for fuck’s sake?’

‘Moody’s not clear. Except that Whistler was keen on knowing where Sam Chapman was, and not in a good way. Whistler didn’t want to run into him.’

Nott stared at his desk.
I don’t care if he’s the last of the
fucking Mohicans
.
If Chapman was trying, he’d have found
Weiss by now.
He said, ‘I’ve had Barrowby on the phone every ten minutes. He wanted Sam Chapman over the river.’ He looked up. ‘Not a euphemism, Reggie. There’s a real river between here and there.’

‘I remember, actually.’

‘He never showed.’

‘Chapman’s –’

‘Sam’s a loose cannon, but only because he misses being a joe. He’d get more of a kick out of stealing money than spending it. And he’d have needed technical help.’

‘You think he and Whistler . . . ?’

‘I never think anything. I wait for the facts to arrange themselves. Find them. Find them both.’

Reggie said, ‘It’s being done.’

On the pavement, Chapman took out his mobile. ‘It’s me. Yes, I know he does. Tell him I’ll be back when I’m fuck-ing ready. Is Whistler there yet?’

Louise was looking out at the mad traffic weaving in and out of itself. If you stood way high and stared down on this, it would look impossible.

‘He’s
what
?’

Or resemble, perhaps, a mad act of terrorism; its sole purpose to frighten the living wits out of anyone foolish enough to participate.

‘Tina . . . I know he’s looking and I don’t fucking care. When did Whistler go AWOL?’

The city was settling into mid-evening mode; its pavement hustle equal parts workers struggling to get home, and workers struggling not to. And none of it anything to do with her; all of it happening regardless.

‘Okay, Neil Ashton . . . I know he is. I was there, remember? Has he authorized use of any safe houses lately? . . . I’ll hold.’

‘He’s gone, hasn’t he?’

‘On the fucking wind.’ He returned to his call: ‘Tina? Damn. Okay.’ He killed the call, and switched off his phone. ‘About an hour ago.
Damn
.’

‘He’s on the run.’

‘Did he say anything – anything at all – about where he might go?’

‘Nothing. I can’t think of anything.’

‘
Fuck
ing hell.’

‘He’s a desk man, you said so yourself. How far can he get?’

‘He’s not done badly so far.’

She said, ‘He said it too.’ Something vague, unimportant. ‘About not being a real spy. Not jetting off everywhere like James Bond.’

He waited. ‘That’s it?’

‘I wasn’t aware I should be memorizing –’

‘Okay, okay.’ He bit his lip. ‘Christ. That means he’d head for an airport or not head for an airport, you think?’

‘I doubt it’s a clue.’

‘Everything’s a clue. In the absence of hard evidence.’ He produced cigarettes again already, and she reached out: she’d had a hard day. He tapped the base of the packet, and popped one into her hand. ‘A pro wouldn’t go for a plane, he’d lie low as long as possible. But he’s not a pro.’

She leaned forward for a light. Her first drag, like always, felt as if everything else had been prelude. ‘You’re over-complicating.’ The word dizzied her. ‘He’ll either get a plane or he won’t. It’s fifty-fifty.’

‘That’s what he’ll do.’

‘Unless he doesn’t.’

‘Fuck it.’ He raised a hand; drew a taxi-shape in the air. ‘Change of plan. Go home. We’ll be in touch.’

‘And that’s it?’

‘Whistler’s broken ranks. That’ll do as an admission of guilt. We’ll want your statement about what happened this morning, but right now, getting him back takes priority.’

A taxi pulled up.

She said, ‘Oh, what does it matter anyway? It’s
money
. He stole some money. Who cares if he gets away?’

‘You want him to walk away rich, that’s your privilege. But you really think Whistler tripped over his feet? That it was an accident that kid got shot? Dream on.’

He climbed into the taxi, and slammed the door behind him. As the car moved away, he didn’t look back.

Ben put Ashton’s fake passport back in the safe, and pocketed his own. The pair of them were currently richer than almost anyone on the planet, but if Ashton had planned to kill Ben, it wasn’t for the money. It was because he’d wanted Ben’s silence, the way he’d guaranteed Miro’s.

‘One half of one quarter of a billion pounds,’ he’d said. ‘You think you get that rich without blood on your hands?’ ‘We can skip once it’s done. Vanish.’

‘With a target on our backs. No, Miro goes. We disappear once they’ve worn themselves out looking for him.’

‘They’ll still come after us.’