Silent Predator (12 page)

‘Hello, you’ve been in the wars, eh?’ Tom said to Christo when they found him lying on a bed in the sick room. Christo looked down, shy in front of the stranger.

Sannie hugged him then held him at arm’s length to inspect the cut under the Band-Aids. His dark thick hair – a legacy from his father and yet another constant reminder of him for Sannie – was matted with dried blood and the gash looked quite nasty. ‘Are you okay, my boy? How do you feel?’ she asked him in Afrikaans.

‘Fine, Mom,’ he replied.

‘
Ag,
you’re so brave. Still, we have to get you to the doctor to make sure everything is fine.’ Sannie switched to English. ‘This is Mr Furey, Christo. He works with Mommy. He’s from England.’

‘Hello,’ Christo said, holding out his hand, which Tom shook. Sannie was proud of his manners. ‘Do you play rugby in England?’

Tom laughed. ‘Not me. I used to play football – soccer.’

‘That’s funny,’ Christo said. ‘Do you know Kaizer Chiefs?’

Then Sannie laughed, and said to Tom, who was shaking his head, ‘Soccer’s mostly played by the black Africans in this country. That’s why he’s interested in you playing it. Come, let’s go.’

Mrs De Villiers returned a few minutes later with little Ilana, whose hair colour and cut, nose and mouth were all carbon copies of her mother’s. ‘Christo fell over, Mommy. Who’s this man?’ she asked in Afrikaans.

Sannie repeated the explanations and introduced Tom, but Ilana maintained a shyness act in front of the British policeman. Sannie said goodbye to Mrs De Villiers and bundled the kids into the back of the car.

The doctor’s surgery was in a small shopping centre, surrounded by a fence of spike-topped metal poles and patrolled by security guards, low-key by Johannesburg standards. Tom went into the waiting room with Sannie and sat with the kids while she spoke to the receptionist. Fortunately the doctor would be able to see them quickly, after his current patient. She thanked the woman and went back to her family. Ilana, she noticed, was showing Tom a picture of a lion in an old copy of
National Geographic
. Tom asked her what sort of noise it made, and the five year old let out a mighty roar that caused an old lady sitting across from them to burst into laughter. The kids seemed at ease around Tom already and Christo was asking him if he had any scars.

‘I’m so sorry to drag you through all this,’ Sannie said to him.

‘Like I said, I’ve got nowhere else to go and nothing to do until my flight. Would the kids like an ice cream? I saw a shop next door.’

The two small faces turned to her, nodding their approval. They hadn’t had lunch so normally she wouldn’t have agreed, but with Christo injured and the kids so settled in his company it couldn’t hurt. ‘You don’t have to, Tom, but I’m sure it would cement the friendship.’

Tom left them. A cell phone started ringing in her handbag, but the ring tone was unfamiliar. It was Tom’s. In her state of concern over Christo she’d instinctively scooped up Tom’s phone from the Merc’s console, as she never left her phone open to view in a car park, even one with security. She looked over her shoulder out the window of the surgery and saw Tom had disappeared into the ice-cream shop. She could let the call go through to voicemail, but it could be something important. She answered.

‘Tom Furey’s phone.’

‘Hello? Oh, Sannie, is that
you
?’

‘
Ja
.’ It was a woman’s voice. Just as she recognised it, the caller continued.

‘It’s Carla. Are you two still together?’

‘I’m taking him to the airport.’

‘Oh, cool. Look, would you be a dear, please, Sannie, and ask him if he saw one of my gold earrings this morning? I’ve looked everywhere and the maids can’t find it. The only other place it could have come out was Tom’s suite. It might have got mixed up with some
of his
kitundu
when he was packing this morning.’

‘Sure, no problem. I’ll pass the message on,’ Sannie said and hung up. She felt queasy. Perhaps it was the smell of the doctor’s surgery. Perhaps not.

Tom sat in the BA lounge at OR Tambo International Airport, sipping a bloody mary he’d just fixed himself from the self-service bar. The lounge was in tranquil contrast to the bustling departure terminal upstairs.

He’d realised straightaway that Sannie’s change in attitude towards him was due to the message Carla had left. He’d tried, twice, to tell her what happened, but Sannie had shut down the explanation before he’d had time to get it out.

‘I told you, Tom, it’s got nothing to do with me. We’re all adults here. What you do in your off time is your business.’

She was right, of course, and he was a bit pissed off that her tone suggested he’d done something wrong when, in fact, he hadn’t. It was a shame, though, that their time had ended coolly, just when he thought he was getting to know her better. While he hadn’t pushed things over dinner, he wanted her to like him – and not just in the professional sense as two colleagues who would still have to work together closely. The kids had surprised him, as well – how much he enjoyed the brief time he spent with them. Ilana had pretended to read to him from a magazine while they waited for Christo to get his head stitched, and the boy had proudly showed off his sutured wound to Tom when
he and Sannie had at last emerged from the doctor’s room. He felt a sense of loss now, as though he’d let something precious slip through his fingers.

The
Daily Mail
he was flicking through must have come in on the morning’s flight as it already had a small piece about the explosion in Enfield. The Home Secretary was reported as saying: ‘Security service officers had this house under surveillance because its occupants were suspected of having links to a terrorist organisation.’

Tom frowned. That was a bit of an oversimplification. The house was occupied by suspected people smugglers who had
possibly
provided refuge to terrorist suspects. The fact that Steve had found pornography on the computer also led Tom to suspect the illegal immigrants who moved through the house were bound for the sex trade. Still, he knew politicians liked to simplify things and the ‘T’ word was always good for a headline. He thought again about the computer expert who had lost his life. What a bloody waste. They’d probably never know what it was that he had been so excited about.

One thing there was no doubting, the occupants had to have been hiding something very sensitive in the house – presumably on their computer – to blow it up. He wondered if they were, as the government was speculating, in the process of planning another ‘spectacular’ in the league of the Twin Towers or the London Underground bombing.

He checked his watch and called Shuttleworth’s direct number from his mobile phone. When the chief inspector answered, Tom gave him a brief rundown
on the advance recce in South Africa and assured him everything was in order at this end.

‘We’ve still had no word from Nick,’ Shuttleworth said.

‘How about the strip club, guv?’

‘Nothing there, either. That girl, Ebony – real name Precious Mary Tambo – appears to have done a bunk. She’s an illegal and they’ve had no further word from her. We’ve got a home address, though. Frank and Bill are going around to check it later today. Nick’s ex hasn’t heard from him, either.’

‘I’ll type up a report when I get back, but from here it seems our Nick was getting his end away when he could while he was in Africa. Also frequented a table-dancing club in Pretoria and seemed to prefer African girls.’

‘Hmmm. I don’t like any of this, Tom.’

Tom agreed. Had Nick got himself into some kind of trouble? Drugs? Gambling? Seeing a stripper wasn’t grounds for dismissal from the force, but it was possibly an indicator that he was involved in something on the fringes of the law. Had Nick been seduced or coerced into helping the African woman? Police officers didn’t just disappear.

The flight to London Heathrow was called and Tom drained his bloody mary. He was looking forward to reaching home and getting a good night’s rest before his first full day with Robert Greeves.

As he got up he noticed a glossy coffee table book standing on a bookshelf. It was about the wildlife of the Kruger National Park. He remembered the excitement of the close encounter with the silent
predator – the leopard – in the darkness. Despite his misgivings about the job, he was looking forward to coming back to Africa in a couple of days’ time.

If this was a normal job, he would have been staying in Africa. Another protection officer would have escorted Greeves on his flight and Tom would have met them at the airport. But these were not normal times, as the increased threat alert and Nick’s disappearance had proved. It meant they were cutting corners and Tom felt his initial niggling concerns growing.

Tom straightened his tie and knocked on the dark blue door set in the white stone facade of the Belgravia townhouse. The place was worth a fortune, though he was not surprised by the size or location of Robert Greeves’s London residence. He knew from his briefing that the assistant minister was extremely wealthy, in addition to being a successful politician.

Greeves’s family was old money and, unlike many of their breed, they knew how to make a quid as well as spend it. Greeves’s wife, Janet, also came from a well-off family, although hers had made their money in trade, running a nation-wide chain of supermarkets. She came from a long line of party faithful and Tom had read that she had served on the executive.

A girl in her late teens opened the door. She had a pierced nose, a studded leather collar around her neck, jet black hair and a long black dress on. ‘Dad!’ she yelled. ‘I think it’s your bodyguard.’

‘Protection officer, ma’am,’ Tom said. The girl rolled
her eyes and turned without a word of greeting and walked down a corridor. Tom smiled. It seemed the picture-perfect political family had at least one gothic sheep.

Greeves appeared, shrugging on his suit jacket and stuffing a piece of toast into his mouth. ‘I want you in by eleven, Samantha,’ he called back through his breakfast. ‘Even though I’m not going to be in the country, I’ll call you.’

Tom looked over his shoulder to make sure all was well on the street and saw Greeves’s official driver, Ray Butler, in the car with the engine running. Greeves had a briefcase and overnight bag in the hallway, ready to go. Tom made no move to pick up the bags, and he’d instructed Ray to stay in the ministerial vehicle.

Sally, the other protection officer who worked with Nick on Greeves’s UK team, was standing next to her BMW five series, its exhaust curling around her legs as the chilly morning breeze caught it. She nodded to Tom. Sally was acting as close protection officer, while Tom was the PPO – principal protection officer. In Nick’s absence he was also the team leader.

‘Hello. Robert Greeves,’ the minister said politely, though completely unnecessarily. ‘Don’t mind my daughter. She can be almost civil when you get to know her well. She’s at college, stays here in the London house when she’s not out clubbing. My wife Janet’s at our country place in Buckinghamshire.’

‘Detective Sergeant Tom Furey, sir.’ Tom shook the minister’s hand. It was the strong grip and eye contact, Tom thought, of a man who had spent a large
proportion of the past twenty years shaking people’s hands for a living.

‘You and I should have a word, Tom, about how things are going to work between us. It’s a busy day, as usual. Where’s Ray?’

‘In the car’s the best place for him, sir. With the engine running.’

Greeves looked at him for a second, then down at his bags, before picking them up. Tom wasn’t fazed. If Nick did things differently – let the chauffeur act like a bellboy – then that was his business. Tom moved to one side as Greeves walked out past him. Tom pulled the house door closed, then said into the microphone of his radio, ‘Moving now, Sal.’

‘Okay, Tom.’

Tom moved ahead of Greeves, opening the back door of the dark blue Jaguar saloon. Greeves tossed his bags in ahead of him and climbed in. Tom closed the door. He’d once been protecting a newly promoted minister who’d insisted that he should sit in the front seat, next to the driver, and that Tom should sit in the back. Also, he’d told Tom he didn’t want his protection officer opening the door for him, like a footman. Tom had politely but firmly explained that the reason he acted as he did was not out of courtesy. ‘I control the door, sir,’ he’d said. ‘I don’t get in until I know you’re secure and the street is clear, and you don’t get out, sir, until I know it’s clear outside.’

Tom took another look up and down the street. ‘Clear, Tom,’ Sally said into his earpiece. When they were talking on the back-to-back channel, for interpersonal communication, it was first names. Tom looked
back and saw she was waiting outside her car until he was in the front of the Jag. She was good, even if Nick had let things slide. The Jag indicated and pulled away from the kerb, with Sally following in the BMW.

Tom scanned the road ahead, looking for anything unusual – cars or vans double parked, people on the street who took an interest in them.

‘Funny business about Nick,’ Greeves said from the back seat.

‘Yes, sir,’ Tom said, without looking back at the minister. ‘We’ve got detectives out looking for him and following up leads.’ Tom checked the wing mirror and saw Sally was close behind them.

‘I’m starting to become concerned about his welfare, Tom. Nick seemed a bit of a lad in his spare time, but he was never a second late for a job, and that counts a hell of a lot to me. What he got up to in his own time was his own business, but I’m alarmed at hearing reports of investigations in strip clubs and so forth.’

Tom was surprised that Greeves had that much detail on the investigation, although he certainly had the clout and the motive to keep himself informed. A threat to his protection officer could mean a risk to Greeves himself, if someone was trying to get at Nick or compromise him in some way. Greeves had enemies the world over, as well as plenty at home.

‘Nick and I got on,’ Greeves went on, ‘because he was good at his job and he was always ahead of the game. I know of your background – it’s similar to Nick’s – and I’m sure you’ll do just as good a job.’