The Boathouse (4 page)

Archer quietly interviewed members of staff out on the terrace, while keeping a watchful eye on his new client through the window. He hadn't eliminated Sinclair yet, but the kidnapping seemed more likely to be motivated by ransom money or revenge. At three p.m. he heard the phone and saw Sinclair jump awkwardly to his feet and hit the speaker button after the third ring. Archer ran inside to listen.

“Sinclair,” he said calmly, despite the sudden movement.

“Listen carefully. If you want to see your wife again you need to get five million dollars in cash in a suitcase like before plus a half-litre flask of flawless cut diamonds, just like the hot ones from Botswana.” The electronic voice changer lowered the pitch and made the call mechanical and far more threatening than a natural voice.

“I want to speak to my wife,” Sinclair shouted.

“Shut up and listen,” the distorted voice snapped back.

“No, you shut up and listen. Put her on the phone now otherwise you'll get nothing else and I'll come after you with everything I've got.”

The line went dead.

Sinclair stared at the phone in shock and then glared at Archer. His face tightened and flushed red in anger. He picked up a crystal paperweight and threw it down at the desk. It bounced off and landed on the floor. Jones jumped up and put it back in its place. Sinclair sat back uneasily with his eyes closed and his head resting on his chest.

Five minutes later the silence was broken and the phone rang again. Sinclair braced himself, sat up straight and pressed the speaker button after two rings.

“Peter. Are you there?” A woman's voice, undistorted, nervous, out of breath.

“Becky. Is that you?” Sinclair started trembling.

“Help me. Do whatever they say. Please help me. I want to come home.” Everyone in the room heard her scream and then a muffled sound and a bang like the phone had been dropped. Sinclair jumped to his feet, thumped the desk and kicked his chair backwards.

The distorted voice returned. “Get the money and the diamonds and we'll call you in two hours with instructions on where to make the drop.”

“When will I get her back?”

The line went dead.

Sinclair was shaking. He made a private call on the cylindrical handset next to the conference phone. He turned his back and spoke quietly, but Archer overheard him mention five million dollars and a half-litre flask of diamonds from Botswana in half an hour. “Make sure we're ready to go again in two hours,” Sinclair ordered.

Archer walked to the lobby and called Zoe. The kidnapper's call had been too short. She couldn't trace it back far enough. She would try again with the next call.

“I'll call you when I find something useful,” she said and ended the call.

Archer returned to the living room. Three of the men walked out to the terrace and started smoking. The other two including Jones sat in armchairs and waited in silence.

Sinclair was still seated, staring at the portrait on the wall.

“Can we talk somewhere private?” Archer asked.

Sinclair got up stiffly as if in pain and said, “Follow me.” Archer followed him to the rear hallway and up the stairs to the tenth floor. A quiet floor with what looked like guest bedrooms and a large private study. Was this the retreat where he schemed and plotted?

The study was full of trophies, including a picture of Becky riding a horse through the surf on a beach, with a bronze sculpture of a female rider and horse below. It was a classical study in contrast to the rest of the modern apartment. The walls were light oak panels and the shelves were filled with old books, artefacts and sculptures. The art on the walls was also classical, more Canaletto's Venice than Picasso's Cubism downstairs. Sinclair sat down wearily at the desk and Archer sat in the green leather armchair opposite.

“There has to be an insider,” Archer said.

“How do you know that?”

“The kidnappers have inside information. First, they know you can get hold of substantial amounts of cash in sterling and dollars.”

“So can plenty of other people in London,” he said, with disdain.

“Plus they know you can quickly get your hands on cut diamonds.”

“Okay, less common than cash, but still not unique. Carry on.”

“Specifically, they know you have some illicit diamonds from Botswana.”

“All right, not so common, but I still can't form a shortlist on that basis alone.”

“How much does your wife know about your business dealings?”

“Too much,” Sinclair blurted out quickly, before his face reddened. “I mean too much for her own good.” The recovery failed to mask his apparent discomfort at this revelation. But if his wife did know too much and he wanted to bump her off, there were far easier ways than faking her kidnapping and putting on a complex show like this. The same would be true if she was running away from him.

Sinclair turned and looked out of the window.

Archer thought through his potential suspect list: Sinclair, Becky, Relatives, Staff, Friends, Enemies and Opportunists.

The phone vibrated twice in his hand with an incoming text from Zoe. He made an excuse to call the office about the trace and Sinclair walked back downstairs in a trance. Archer stayed seated in the study and speed-dialled his office.

“Hey, what's up?” “Sinclair hides a lot of his deals. He's careful, but I'll find a hole in his armour somewhere, don't worry. There has to be one. There always is.”

“What are the signs?” Archer said.

“The usual stuff when something bad is being covered up by immoral lawyers and bankers on massive fees. It takes a poor moralistic hacker like me to find them.”

“Like what?”

“Layers of offshore shell companies with transactions through numbered bank accounts in Switzerland, Aruba and the Cayman Islands. He's well connected in several countries via lobbyists and agents. And I just found a trail of property deals leading back to Washington D.C. and the CEO of a major defence contractor. Be careful, Sean.”

Sinclair was definitely connected to cold-blooded killers. But was he connected to the cold-blooded killers behind the Boathouse?

Sinclair sat bolt upright at the desk. His stare switched between the phone and his solid gold Rolex with occasional glances towards the large portrait on the wall. At five p.m. the phone rang as promised. Sinclair pressed the speaker button after the third ring and listened carefully to the instructions to drive around the circuit. At the end of the call he quietly said, “Okay, so when do we do the exchange?” The line went dead.

As he stood up he took a deep breath and addressed his team. “Load the money and the diamonds into the car and drive around the circuit again, like before. Start in an hour. Who wants to make the drop?”

“I'll do it,” Jones said.

“I'll go with him,” Archer said.

The other four men at the table started talking quietly and then one walked towards Sinclair.

“Shall we follow them, sir?” asked the biggest one.

“No, not yet,” Sinclair said.

“What's the circuit?” Archer asked.

“Basically it's a clockwise route around Hyde Park,” Sinclair said.

He walked off towards the master bedroom. It was on the same floor as the living room, across the entrance hall. Archer was still waiting to see inside it. The four men at the table openly discussed the call while Jones walked over to Archer.

“Be ready in half an hour,” Jones said, and walked off.

The stockiest of the four men broke away and nodded at Archer. “So are you going to help us find out who's behind this?” he said.

“Yes,” Archer said.

“You find them and we'll sort them out,” he said. “Once Mrs Sinclair's back safe we'll get the money back and then shut them down for good. They won't be bothering anyone after we've finished with them.”

Archer looked into the stocky man's dark eyes and believed he meant it. Then the man stuck his arm out to shake hands and a huge bicep flexed into action beneath the silky grey suit.

“John Haywood,” he said. “Pleased to meet you.” His crushing grip lasted a moment too long. Archer wondered if the excessive muscles and handshake were over-compensating for some hidden weakness. The ice was broken, but only by a hairline crack. The rest of the men slowly stepped forward to introduce themselves. Adams was the biggest, Best the shortest and Clarke the nastiest. They shook hands with Archer, but he sensed they were still keeping their distance. There was not a hint of warmth or a welcoming smile. He was still the untrusted outsider.

“So do you all work for a security firm or what?” Archer asked. No reply. “What kind of security do you guys do?”

Archer focused on Haywood. But he just stared back without expression.

“You're all retired SAS though, right? Archer asked.

“Not too difficult to guess, but Clarkey here was a Commando.”

Archer asked them some light questions and they answered curtly until Peter Sinclair came back into sight. He was pulling a large suitcase that looked stretched full and heavy. Five million dollars just like that, Archer thought. Some cash machine this guy has access to. He estimated that it weighed about fifty kilos. The case had two wheels, not four, and was bulging to its expanded limits, like elasticated trousers on a mud wrestler. Sinclair wheeled it out to the entrance hall, where it fell over and crashed onto the marble floor with a dull thud.

Jones flinched and the four guards instinctively reached for their weapons. Archer noted the exact locations of their reflex actions and followed Sinclair into the entrance hall.

“Can I see Becky's room now and her personal effects?”

“Why?” Sinclair said, over-defensively.

“It's called investigating. I'm trying to help you, remember?”

“Okay, follow me.” Sinclair frowned and tapped his leg nervously as he led the way.

He followed Sinclair to the modern master bedroom across the entrance hall. More of the same grey and neutral tones. Again, nothing feminine except a heavy-looking crystal vase of white tulips and some tastefully framed holiday photographs of the Sinclairs.

“Any children?”

“No.” Sinclair snapped.

The bedside tables told two stories. One had an alarm clock and a photograph of Becky looking radiant. The other had several photographs and recent hardbacks. The photo of Peter Sinclair posing with a shovel at a construction site was dwarfed by one of three women preparing to ski down a mountain.

“Who are they?” Archer asked.

“That's her sister Louise and her niece Amanda.”

“Are they close?”

“Is this really necessary?”

“Yes.”

“Very,” Sinclair said, and grimaced as if he had a bad taste in his mouth.

Archer took a photo of it and sent it to Zoe. He skipped the all-marble en-suite bathroom with its giant marble bath and in-built television. Instead he headed straight for the walk-in closet full of designer clothes and shoes. Hundreds of shoes and handbags lined up on show. Archer started to look through the drawers in the closet, causing Sinclair to raise an eyebrow. One of the drawers was full of jewellery, another of watches. Several contained expensive-looking underwear, mostly matching sets of silk lingerie. Archer wondered if Becky was naturally well proportioned or surgically enhanced, but decided not to comment.

The bottom drawer, about the size of a briefcase, was full of neatly stacked money, bundles of new twenty-pound notes.

“How much is there?”

“Two hundred thousand.”

“Why all the cash?”

“She has expensive tastes and a limitless charge card, but sometimes only cash is king. She has instant access to it if she needs it.”

A fortune to most people, but he thinks it's just some spare cash stashed in a drawer.

“Okay, thanks. I've seen enough for now,” Archer said. “I'll need to speak to the rest of your staff, but I can do that later.”

Archer followed Sinclair back to the living room. The suitcase was still on the floor, in the entrance hall. A small stainless-steel flask had appeared next to it. Jones and the other men were still sitting quietly in the living room. Jones nodded that it was time to leave. Adams and Best took the case and the diamonds to the car. Clarke and Haywood stayed seated with Sinclair in the living room. Archer assumed they were his most trusted bodyguards.

At ten minutes to six, Jones drove the black Mercedes out onto Park Lane in bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic with Archer in the passenger seat. Five million dollars in cash in the boot and a small flask of sparkling diamonds between his legs worth well over two million dollars. The second drop was underway.

Jones drove the Mercedes around the congested street circuit exactly as instructed by the kidnappers. Knightsbridge was still busy with shoppers as Archer stared out of the window. Throngs of tired-looking commuters still travelling home from work. Cyclists in suits with their computers in rucksacks. Joggers who left their suits in the office. People in office outfits wearing trainers to walk easier and faster, some even overtaking slower people out exercising. The pace of commuting had increased dramatically over the years. These fit commuters were seriously focused on minimising their journey time as they elbowed tourists and dawdlers out of the way, as if they had a birth right to be first wherever they happened to be. He noted the contrast as they passed the overweight smokers and drinkers standing outside pubs calmly waiting for the rush hour to pass. It was all easy to watch from the comfort of a luxury air-conditioned sedan.

Becky would be used to the remoteness of wealth, accustomed to the finer things in life, like being whisked around in style and never getting too close to the workers. She was probably struggling with her ordeal on several levels. Being held prisoner, not in control or comfort, but far too close to strangers and fearing what they might do to her.

The route around Hyde Park took between ten and twenty minutes per lap depending on the traffic and the lights. Archer counted the fourth lap out loud and checked his watch. They had been driving for exactly one hour and it was getting dark, but still no call.

“Do you always drive the Sinclairs around?” Archer asked.

“I'm mainly Mrs Sinclair's driver, but sometimes I drive Mr Sinclair.”

“Does she always keep to the same routine every week?”

“She favours certain shops and restaurants, normally after her workout.”

Jones was a steady driver and held his nerve well during an hour of mild interrogation. He kept hitting Archer's questions back over the net without taking his eyes off the road or showing any signs of stress, like a well-trained ex-soldier.

“Does she socialise much?”

“Long lunches with her sister, dinners and functions with Mr Sinclair.”

“Are she and her sister good friends?”

“They argue like all sisters.”

“Any notable jealousy?”

“Her sister's a bit envious of Mrs Sinclair's wealth I suppose but they're still close.”

“What else does Mrs Sinclair like to do?”

“Keeps fit, watches movies and reads a lot.”

“No clubs or charities?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Any male friends?”

Jones took his eyes off the road for a second and gave Archer a bemused sideways glance in total disbelief.

“You must be joking, Mr Sinclair wouldn't have any of that.”

Archer had finally made a dent in the stiff-lipped driver. Jones showed he had some personality hidden somewhere beneath the surface. This was the exploratory foot in the door Archer was after; he had to bond with someone on the inside. He was about to change tack and make the move, when the mobile phone in the cradle lit up. He answered it on the second ring on speaker.

“Yes.”

“Turn left and park in front of the Hilton.”

Archer hit the mute button.

“Turn left up there.” He pointed but Jones was already indicating.

They had just passed the turning for Curzon Street and took the next left and another immediate left which brought them right in front of the hotel entrance. They reverse-parked next to two other German-made cars in front of the high-rise hotel, the boot facing Park Lane and the park. Jones turned the mute button off and the sound system's volume up.

“Okay, what next?” Archer said.

“Put the flask on the ground in front of the car while letting down the driver's side front tyre. Then take the bag to the concierge. Tell him it's for Mr Jefferson.”

“And then?”

“Pump the tyre back up and go home. Don't hang around the lobby or follow anyone otherwise she gets a bullet in the head.”

The line went dead.

“Open the boot and I'll take the bag to the concierge. Here, you take the flask and let the tyre down,” Archer said.

Jones pressed the button to open the boot and it started to lift slowly. He took the flask and opened the door. Archer opened his door and got out. People were milling around in all directions but nobody was taking any notice of them. Taxi drivers were talking in a group, the doorman was talking to a cab driver. A group of couriers were smoking near their bikes.

Archer lifted the heavy bag out, carefully placed its two wheels on the pavement and closed the boot. He looked up at the twenty-seven-storey hotel and wondered if they were being watched. A vivid image of his friend free-falling flashed before him. He had died base jumping off the hotel roof when they were twenty. The chute had snagged and his arm was torn off on the way down. Archer had witnessed it from the rooftop and had never base jumped since.

He watched Jones place the flask in front of the car and unscrew the dust cap. Jones then squatted down beside the wheel and used his nail to depress the valve and let the air out.

Archer wheeled the heavy case past Jones and yanked it up the kerb. The doorman asked if he wanted any help but he politely declined, shimmied through the revolving door into the lobby and casually strolled across to the concierge desk. He waited in line behind a tourist getting directions to a restaurant and then stepped up to the desk. He was greeted by Sergio from Spain, or so his badge stated.

“Luggage for Mr Jefferson.”

The young concierge's eyes bulged greedily and his face lit up.

“We've been expecting that one, thank you, sir, let me come and get it.”

The concierge grabbed the handle and pulled it towards the lifts. He seemed to wait for a lift, but as Archer exited the front entrance he looked back and saw the concierge walk away towards the rear entrance pulling the case behind him.

Archer walked out of the front entrance and saw Jones take a small bag from the boot. He then sat in the car with the door open and opened the bag. The front tyre was deflated and the flask of diamonds was still on the ground. He was getting the pump ready as a silver BMW motorbike stopped in front of the car. The leather-clad rider was wearing a full face helmet but appeared to be male. He bent down, picked up the flask, and put it in a small rucksack.

The biker headed off down Pitt's Head Mews. Archer ran to the corner of the hotel to see if he could read the small number-plate for Zoe to track by hacking into the CCTV system. As he turned the corner he saw the biker had stopped. A lorry was blocking the road while a crane was unloading materials at a construction site. This was an opportunity to read the plate if he could get close enough. Archer sprinted down the road. The biker was only forty yards away, but wasn't waiting for the road to clear. He spun the bike around, leaving half a donut of rubber behind, and headed back towards Archer, who automatically stopped in the middle of the road and held his hands out, shouting, “Stop!” Which immediately felt like a stupid thing to do.

The fit-looking biker stopped six feet in front of him and casually reached inside his leather jacket, pulled out a yellow Taser gun and aimed it at Archer. He motioned it towards the pavement and Archer moved off the road and jerked uncontrollably as his body went into spasm. Every muscle in his body tightened and became rigid with the fifty-thousand-volt shock from the Taser. It stopped, and his legs fell away beneath him. His muscles vibrated as if he'd had a mains electric shock. His body went numb and seemed to fall asleep for a minute or two. He couldn't move, and then he felt hot, and as soon as he could move again his muscles started to tingle. He tried to stand but was too weak. Hundreds of pins prodded his skin before it was set on fire, prickling, itching. Would it ever end? He sat on the kerb with his head bowed between his knees for a couple of minutes to recover. Pedestrians passed by, but nobody stopped.

He got up, still feeling weak, and managed to stumble back to the car, slumping into the passenger seat next to a relaxed-looking Jones.

“What happened to you? You look like shit.”

“Never mind, let's get out of here.”

“Did you get the plate?”

“No, did you?”

“No.”

“Let's tell Sinclair what happened and then come back and see the concierge.”