The Boathouse (14 page)

Forsyth drove as fast as traffic conditions allowed, but clearly not fast enough to suit her lead-footed need for speed. She tapped the steering wheel impatiently in jams and used the horn far too frequently. The stop-start ride was uncomfortable as the gravitational forces on the body kept changing without warning.

“Well this feels like déjà vu. Are you always this much fun to work with?”

She smiled and winked at him. Her confidence was infectious.

“You must have plenty of points on your licence by now?”

“Clean as a whistle.” She laughed and casually flicked her hair.

“Impossible.”

“I might explain how it works later. If you're lucky.”

“You drive too fast.”

“Police-trained.”

“For what? The Dakar Rally or the Secret Policeman's Ball?”

She gambled more red lights without any cameras flashing and got them parked on a meter outside the Harley Street address in less than ten minutes.

Two glammed-up middle-aged women sat in the waiting room quietly reading glossy fashion magazines. One wore dark sunglasses. She looked like Marilyn Monroe nursing a hangover. The other looked anorexic, with a face like a puffed-up trout. A butch short-haired receptionist with long dangly earrings stared and pursed her lips at them when they stopped and stood directly in front of her. The phoney doctor appeared to be busy consulting wealthy patients.

“How may I help you,” she said, with a guttural German accent.

They both flashed fake badges.

“We're evacuating the building,” Archer said. “There's a siege taking place upstairs in five minutes. You need to get out now, quickly and quietly. Who else is on this floor?”

The two well-dressed women stopped reading their magazines, looked at each other and left without saying a word.

“There's a client in with Doctor Azeez. He can't be disturbed.”

“Call him and tell him he'll have to reschedule.”

“I can't. He's doing an, er … examination.”

Archer leaned over and pressed the speed dial for Doctor A. It started ringing on speaker, but there was no answer. Archer opened the nearest door and found a dimly lit narrow hallway with two more doors. The ageing paint was peeling off the woodwork more like that of a back street address than a prestigious one. He knocked on the door with the doctor's name on it. There was no answer, so he tried to open it, but it was locked from the inside.

“Doctor Azeez, it's urgent, please open the door.”

“Go away. I'm with a client.”

“We're evacuating the building, open the door right now, this is the police.”

“Two minutes please.”

Archer and Forsyth waited in the dark hallway. They could hear muffled voices.

The door opened and a skinny dishevelled woman in her twenties walked out doing up her sheer black blouse. She had a pale expressionless face and drunken swagger, as if she was high on drugs. Archer led the way into the examination room. When Azeez saw Forsyth he frowned and said, “Don't I know you?”

“You have a good memory, Doctor Azeez. Or should I say Benoir Fache.”

“Who are you?” He continued to stare intently, but seemed to have forgotten her name.

“Nice little set-up, Monsieur Fache. Drug the patient, turn the lights out. And in such glamorous surroundings too. What do you think, Sean? Should I bring my mother-in-law to be treated by this snake oil salesman?”

“No, I think this dark cesspit has seen its fair share of venomous old cobras.”

“What do you want? I have important patients waiting.”

“Where's Stuart Hunter?” Forsyth said.

“Go to hell.
Putain
. I know who you are now.
Merde
. You're the mercenary bitch who falsified all that evidence against me.”

“And here's some more false evidence…”

Forsyth held up a manila folder and took out a wad of documents which she threw down one at a time on his desk. His confidence drained away as he saw the files.

“Fake passport, fake qualifications, new marriage certificate, old marriage certificate. Impersonating a doctor. Bigamy. Taxes. Need we say more?”

He shook his head, mute as a mannequin, expensive white porcelain teeth gritted and slowly grinding together.

Archer stepped into his personal space. “Where's Hunter?”

Azeez stepped back and held his hands up in the air.

“Puh,” he shrugged warily. “Nobody knows.”

Forsyth picked up the documents, waved them in his face then slipped them back into the folder.

“Once these get around town, no one will know where you are either. Not where you're going. It'll be sausage and beans all day long for you, cowboy.”

“All right,” he snarled. “Let me think.”

“No,” said Archer. “Don't think. Talk.”

“I don't know where he is. The driver does.”

“Who's the driver?”

“He collects the medicines and treatments. Then he delivers them to the Hunters.”

“Call him.”

“But I don't have another delivery scheduled for two weeks.”

“Call him. Tell him you have a small package for urgent delivery. Make something up, you're good at that. Just make it sound important. If you don't, you're going down.”

“
Très bien
. I'll tell him they need some important medication. That will make it sound more urgent.” The phoney doctor made a call then informed his uninvited guests that the driver would pick up the package within the hour.

They left quietly and waited in the open-top car. After half an hour, a black BMW Seven Series with tinted windows double parked in front of the address, blocking them in. They pretended to ignore the driver and acted like a couple saying goodbye. A shaven-headed thick-set man got out, wearing a long black leather coat and dark sunglasses. Archer saw a neck tattoo peeking out from above his collar. He looked like a Hollywood hit man. Two minutes later he returned clutching a small white paper bag with a green cross on it.

They followed the black Seven Series to Docklands without being spotted. Forsyth parked the convertible Merc in one of the empty parking bays at South Quay House, across the dark green water from Canary Wharf. The BMW was parked in a disabled space next to the main entrance. The driver waited outside it until a well-dressed young woman opened it and collected the package from him. He left without saying a single word to her, lit a cigarette and drove off. She went back inside and took the lift, but Archer could not make out where it had stopped.

He called Zoe and told her where they were. He read out the name and address of the building. Within five minutes she called him back and delivered her findings. She'd searched the information on all the tenants and found that the most likely property was owned by a shell company in the Caymans and rented out to a retired widow who was living off a trust fund allowance from Liechtenstein. She had a French live-in housekeeper and a British live-in boyfriend slightly older then her. The widow's name was Samantha Knight, but it was a false identity for Samantha Hunter. She was living in apartment 12A, one of two apartments on the top floor of South Quay House. Her “boyfriend”, Hunter, might be hiding from Sinclair, but this was still an extravagant five-thousand-square-foot apartment.

“Do you think he could be armed?” Forsyth asked as she got out of the car.

“Possibly, but he's not used to using guns himself, is he? Zoe said he doesn't have a gun licence, so if he's got a gun it's unregistered.”

“Aren't you concerned that we're about to rumble him and he's probably armed?”

“Not really. Hunter wouldn't get his hands dirty. He'd hire contractors.”

“He could have contractors in there guarding him right now.”

“I don't think so.”

“Do you think Becky's in there?”

“I think Hunter's potentially behind the kidnapping, but I don't think he'd use his own hiding place to keep her prisoner. Actually, I'm not expecting to find anyone in there apart from the Hunters and their housekeeper.”

“Are we going to wing this one as well then?”

“I think we will. You ready?”

“You go from hero to zero in less than two minutes.”

Archer frowned at her and pressed the shiny silver button for apartment 12A.

A soft female voice answered, “Hello?”

“Hello, Mrs Knight? I'd like to talk to you about Peter Sinclair if you can spare some time. He's looking for you and I want to help you stay alive.”

No response.

“Mrs Knight, please open the door.”

No response.

Archer pressed the buzzer again for ten seconds. He knew how to annoy. He smiled vacantly at the lens above the buzzer. “Mrs Knight. I have some vital information for you. You're in great danger.”

Archer was directly in front of the video entry system camera. Forsyth stayed out of sight as she leaned back casually against the wall next to the camera with her arms folded and watched her accomplice attempt to get in.

“Who are you?” a female voice said.

“I have to talk to Mrs Knight.”

“Mrs Knight is not here.”

“Who are you?”

“I'm the housekeeper. What is your name?”

“My name is Sean Archer.”

“I'll tell her you called. Goodbye, Mr Archer.”

“I need to speak with her now. She's in great danger.”

No response. The voice had vanished.

“That went well,” Forsyth smirked, as if she'd enjoyed watching him fail.

“Thanks, I put a lot of thought and effort into it. It's all about detailed planning and flawless execution. You should take notes.”

“I'm glad you're not perfect. But right now we look like a pair of door-to-door salesmen trying to flog Armageddon to Jehovahs. Hold on, someone's coming.”

The door opened and a young couple walked out holding hands. Before they made it to their bright yellow Porsche, the uninvited visitors had quietly slipped inside the lobby and walked towards the open lift.

“I'm not taking the stairs to the twelfth floor.”

“Nor me,” he smiled and gestured with his right hand to let her go in first. Taking the opportunity to have a good look down at her perfectly sculptured body and then realising she'd clocked him in the mirror. He felt his face flush, but faced the door and stayed silent.

They took the lift to the top floor and got out onto an extra-wide hallway. The floor was covered with large dark slate tiles. The walls were covered with lighter stone tiles. The slightest sound echoed like the inside of an old church. There were two console tables with oversized glass sculptures and table lamps and a window at the far end with a clear view of the O2 Arena. The door on the left was labelled 12A and the one on the right 12B.

“The property developer wasted a lot of space on this hallway; these apartments must have cost mega-millions. I'd say Hunter still has plenty of money.”

“He probably doesn't see it that way. He doesn't see what he has, but what he's lost.”

“Shall we knock on the door?”

“Wait.”

“Listen, did you hear that?”

“What?”

“Voices – arguing inside.”

They tiptoed across the slate floor to the extra-wide light oak door with shiny decals stating 12A above a small peephole. Archer's left ear touched the polished oak and Forsyth listened with her right. Their faces were only a few inches apart. They could feel each other's breath; hers smelled minty fresh.

Inside, a man and a woman argued. The sound was muffled by the door and they couldn't make out exactly what was being said. From the tone and the raised voices they could tell there was an element of alarm.

After a couple of minutes the argument fizzled out. A moment's silence was followed by accomplished piano music and the distinctive sound of pool balls crashing into each other as they were hit hard and fast by a cue ball.

Forsyth touched Archer's shoulder. “Leave this to me,” she whispered confidently.

“It's all yours.”

He stepped back and watched. Forsyth clenched her right fist and knocked on the door assertively with the middle knuckles of her fingers.

“Mrs Hunter, it's Sarah Forsyth.”

The professional piano playing continued without pause.

Forsyth hammered on the door with her clenched fist half a dozen times. Then they listened with their ears pressed up against the door again. They heard stiletto heels getting nearer as they clipped out a measured rhythm against the hard floor.

“Go away,” a soft female voice said. “I'm calling the police.”

There was a small lens built into the door and Sarah stood in front of it a good yard back to avoid any menacing distortion from the peephole view.

“We know who you are. If you don't open this door in twenty seconds I'm calling Peter Sinclair and within an hour you'll be in the boot of a limo driven by four of his thugs.”

The heels clipped off again. The piano playing stopped. There was more muffled debate, but this time with three voices. One male and two female. It had to be them. Then the piano started playing again and the heels clipped back towards the door.

“Where did you last meet Mrs Hunter?” the soft female voice asked.

“We had tea at the Ritz; in the Palm Room. You've got three seconds.”

The door opened slowly. A slim woman in her early thirties looked at them with a stern expression. She wore a black skirt, black seamed stockings and black stilettos with a white blouse. Her jet-black hair was scrunched up into a bun. Her accent was French, but her almond-shaped eyes looked Asian. Her unblemished face was white and her lips were painted bright red. She had a small beauty spot on her left cheek which made her look like a classic movie star from the monochrome Forties or Fifties. She looked like Zoe's sister, except far too short.

“You'd better come in then.” She offered her hand. “I'm Madeleine, the Knights' housekeeper. I look after Mr and Mrs Knight.”

“You mean Hunter,” Forsyth corrected.