The Fire Man (26 page)

‘You stupid, stupid, stupid, bastard. You really are fucking insane!' Kanelos' knuckles whitened as he squeezed the top of the chair. He was standing behind the elegant leather chair, shaking with anger, almost incapable of sitting. Facing him across the conference table were O'Connell, sprawled back coolly in his own chair, and Derek Smythson who leaned forward, his head resting in his hands.

The private meeting room on the third floor of the Institute of Directors in Pall Mall had been specially booked by Kanelos. Neither he nor Smythson had been anxious to go anywhere near O'Meara Street following O'Connell's call.

‘Sit down, Alex,' muttered O'Connell. ‘I said sit down! And calm down while you're at it.'

‘Fuck off, you crazy bastard,' replied Kanelos, his eyes wild and his normal sangfroid clearly absent. ‘You've really blown it for us now and yet you sit there looking like nothing has happened. Well, you might be relaxed, my friend, but Derek and I bloody well aren't, I can tell you that. You might have nothing to lose, but I sure as fuck do.'

Smythson looked up; he was pale and appeared stressed, but in control. ‘Mike's right, Alex, sit down and stop stalking around for God's sake. You're making me nervous.'

Kanelos walked slowly to the side table and poured himself a glass of tepid water from a jug. He drained it in two large gulps, wishing it was something stronger, before calming himself. Eventually, he slumped back heavily into his chair.

‘So, can we stop behaving like kids and get on?' O'Connell's voice was controlled and measured.
It was a good job someone kept their nerve,
thought Smythson.

‘So far as I'm concerned, there may – and I emphasise, may – be absolutely nothing to worry about.' He glanced at Kanelos, who was rolling his eyes theatrically. ‘We'll just put everything on the back burner for a few months, allow things to chill and then go ahead as planned. Anyone see anything wrong with that?'

‘I'd like to hear your reasoning,' said Smythson quietly.

‘Alex?'

‘We're up shit creek and we need to stop paddling. Let's just close the thing down and get out of here, that's what I think.'

‘Now who's being crazy? We've got three hundred grand's worth of effing useless stock, at cost – quite apart from the other crap – and my friends are going to want their money back, need I remind you?' O'Connell glared at Kanelos. ‘Apart from which, doing a runner isn't going to change fuck all so far as McRae is concerned.'

‘But we can afford it, Mike, we've made millions. Why not just call it a day? We've had a bloody good run and I, for one, am prepared to cough up,' Smythson said plaintively.

‘Me too,' said Kanelos.

What a totally useless pair,
thought O'Connell, but his tone was soft, emollient, almost conciliatory as he spoke again. ‘Look, I know how you feel boys, honestly, but I don't think you're seeing things straight. What if, like I say, we wait a month or two and, if nowt is happening on the McRae front, we either double or quits? Let's face it, there's been a deathly quiet since that wall business. Nobody has heard anything. In a month or two, everything should seem a lot clearer. Even the bloody Health and Safety blokes will have forgotten all about it. And don't forget, Alex, you were covered on the night, weren't you? George knows nothing; Derek and I have got no connection with the fucking business. What is there to worry about?'

He stared intently at the other two, neither of whom spoke, before getting to his feet. ‘Tell you what, I'll go down to the bar for a drink, make a few calls and let you two discuss the matter between you. Let me know what you think when I get back, eh?' He sauntered out of the room, closing the door softly behind him.

On his way down the ornate staircase, the Irishman decided that any lingering hopes he had harboured of tidying up the relationship with Alex and Derek without any nastiness could be shelved. He then had a quick Jameson in the basement bar, washed down by a half of Guinness, made a short call, and then, finally, headed back to the room.

‘So, made your minds up then? Or do you want the good news first?'

‘What's that?' asked Kanelos.

‘He's still in a coma,' said O'Connell.

The others exchanged glances before Smythson spoke, ‘We agree with your suggestion. We should just let everything go quiet and decide how to proceed in two months.'

‘Excellent,' said O'Connell, ‘I thought you would see the logic.'

‘But whatever happens then, I'm telling you, this is the end for me,' said Kanelos.

Never a truer word,
thought the Irishman. He simply nodded.

In the Intensive Care Unit of St. Thomas' Hospital, Suzanne was sitting in an uncomfortable chair next to McRae's bed. He'd been there, having been transferred from the Royal London Hospital, for nearly four days. It had been a week since they had found him amongst the rubble.

Matters had settled into a routine now. Either Tina, Drew's mum or herself popped in between 2.30pm and 8.00pm to check on progress, even though they had been warned to expect none – or, at least, for the foreseeable future. The surgeons had said that until the trauma to the skull settled, there was little chance of his regaining consciousness.

He looked a complete mess; he was a complete mess. He had a seriously fractured skull, a broken nose, a collapsed lung, three fractured ribs, a minor fracture to his pelvis and his left leg was badly broken. His spleen and kidneys had also taken a battering. The bricks had caused severe lacerations, particularly to his legs, and the bruising was appalling. He was a mass of purple and yellow, or at least what could be observed between the bandages. There were two drips; one was saline, she assumed, but what the other colourless liquid was she had no idea.

Once the nurse was out of the way, she did what she had regularly done for the past few days; she pulled McRae's scarred phone from her pocket and quietly played the ringtone. She had a vain hope that the familiar sound might provoke some reaction from the motionless figure. As usual, there was no response – just the same shallow breathing and wheezing between broken lips.

Sighing, she got to her feet and went out into the corridor to call Tina with an update. Sadly, there was nothing to report. Next she called Anna, Drew's mother. She had flown over two days earlier from Crete and had attended every day since, twice in the company of her other son, Tom. He had been there when Suzanne had arrived and while there was a distant resemblance to Drew, the man could not have been more different in personality. A real “steady Eddie” type, though he was a great comfort to Anna. It was amazing that two brothers could be so unalike.

All McRae's connections were pretty odd, she had concluded. Graham Cairns was probably Drew's best friend, but he had somehow not corresponded with her expectations. He had seemed a serious, almost miserable, sort, although she realised that the ambience of the ward had hardly been conducive to levity.

Karen, McRae's former secretary, whom she had spoken to many times on the phone but had never previously met, had also seemed a very strange case. She was a skinny woman with thin lips and a pinched face. She had been devastated by the news and was clearly distraught at the sight of the battered man in the hospital bed.

The one that perplexed her most, though, was Tina. They had developed a warmer association, almost a kinship, as a result of their shared concern, but Suzanne still couldn't figure her out.

The woman had been brilliant when faced with McRae's part-buried body. His head and shoulders had, incredibly, been protected by the seating section of a picnic bench, which had partially withstood the weight of the masonry. By some further miracle, a large slab of yellow bricks – which surely would have shattered his spine had it struck – had become wedged partially against a table, providing just sufficient clearance to prevent mortal damage.

Tina had waded into the rubble, coolly assessed the body's position and the dangers it faced from the precarious slabs of brick, before she and the landlord had painstakingly removed the greatest dangers. Suzanne, meanwhile, had been incapable of movement.

Yes, Tina had been fantastic with the rescue, but ever since, even though she'd attended the hospital many times, she had shown no desire to discuss the big questions with Suzanne. How the hell had Drew come to be in that position? How had he come to have a massive injury to his head? The brickwork had clearly not struck his head as it had been protected by the bench, hadn't it? So, how?

They both realised that McRae must have been snooping around near Le Copa, but all Tina had said was that Suzanne should leave things alone, to leave it to her and the police. According to Dwayne, who was rapidly becoming a new friend, the police had shown little or no interest.

There had been ribbons of incident tape fluttering around the site and a horde of people taking photographs and measuring up the wall, or what remained of it, for a couple of days, but then nothing. So far as she was aware, everybody seemed to be treating the matter as an accident.

Would it have been any different if he'd died? It was as if the investigation was being put on ice until such time as McRae emerged from the coma.
If he emerged,
she thought. The hospital seemed confident he had not sustained any permanent brain damage, but the more the days dragged on, the more concerned Suzanne became.

From a purely selfish point of view, she was also worried that the business would suffer. Already the number of new cases coming through the door was declining as clients became aware of McRae's absence, and while John and she were coping, they missed his knowledge and guidance badly.

Anyway,
she thought,
better get off. Nothing was going to happen today.

She left the ward and started to retrace her route along the endless corridors to the Westminster Bridge exit. She had only just reached the nurses' station when she observed a tall, broad-shouldered man with a distinctive aquiline nose and long hair speaking to one of the nurses at the desk. He was wearing a long blue raincoat that was dripping onto the tiled floor. As she drew level with him, she distinctly heard him mentioning McRae's name.

Without stopping to consider the consequences, she tapped the man on the shoulder and asked whether she could help.

He turned to face her and she found herself transfixed by the penetrative gaze with which he fixed her with his pale grey eyes. ‘Yaah,' he drawled, ‘I'm looking for a guy named McRae. Bit of a nasty accident with a wall, I believe.'

‘And you are?'

‘Tranquil. Kit Tranquil. I'm a sort-of colleague; just thought I'd pop in and see how he's getting on.'

Suzanne instantly recognised the name from the report that McRae had given her on the Kanelos background. ‘I don't think “colleague” is quite the right description, is it? Still, I do actually happen to know who you are. Academy Investigations, isn't it?'

Tranquil nodded vigorously and a large hank of wet hair flopped forwards over his eyes. He moved his hand to his face and swept the hair back into place. Seeing his face clearly for the first time, Suzanne assessed his age to be mid-forties, a good-looking man, who was almost, but not quite, attractive. Again, she was conscious of his appraising gaze. For a second she felt distinctly uncomfortable, as if she was a lab specimen on a microscope slide, but then he smiled and she relaxed, despite herself.

‘I did say “sort-of” colleague,' he remarked mildly.

‘Whatever. There's no point you seeing him, he's still in a coma,' she said. ‘Why don't you leave me your card and I'll let you know when he's fit to receive visitors? If he's ever fit to receive visitors', she added quietly. ‘Anyway, if you don't mind me asking, how did you know?'

‘
Lloyd's List
,' he replied, referring to the insurance market magazine. ‘I keep an eye out for all my clients, even ones who haven't dealt with me for years – particularly the ones who haven't been in touch!' He gave a short rueful laugh and Suzanne found herself warming to him.

‘Fancy a coffee?' he gestured towards the café. ‘You can tell me all about it – sounds a very strange accident to say the least.'

A while later, as she walked across Westminster Bridge towards the underground, it started to rain more heavily. Suzanne cursed the absence of her pocket umbrella and broke into a trot, pulling her coat collar higher. With any luck, she should get to the protection of the station before it got too bad. On the opposing footpath, she failed to notice the slight blonde figure of Tina Forsyth hurrying briskly in the opposite direction.

* * *

Tina was as distracted as Suzanne had been as she left the hospital forty minutes later, but for slightly different reasons.

Unlike Suzanne, she believed that McRae would emerge from his coma. She had seen them before and she was pretty certain that it was, as the doctors had suggested, just a matter of time. There had been no damage to the cerebral cortex. The problem, however, was that she desperately wanted it to happen quickly. She'd been less than frank with the investigating officers and had pulled rank on the Met sergeant who was tasked with the inquiry. He had been understandably curious, to say the least, to find a senior Thames Valley CID officer at the scene of what appeared to be a freakish accident.

So far, she had got away with the explanation that she had simply been trying to track down a “friend” – a description that had made him raise his eyebrows in a frankly insulting manner. In any other circumstances she would have chewed his insolent balls off, but she had let it ride.

The local boys had, unsurprisingly, been more than happy to leave matters until such time as McRae was able to explain his presence at the pub, in the early hours of the morning. She had hinted that he was engaged in some form of surveillance, but beyond that she had been vague. Fundamentally, she was still in a bit of a bind and she needed to get some sense out of him before she knew how best to proceed. In the meantime, she had managed to call in a favour from the technical department, who had conveniently “lost” the phone tracking enquiry. It was one of thousands, anyway. Of course, it would pop up in some sort of departmental audit, but, by that time, with any luck the whole business would have been satisfactorily wrapped up.

This couldn't go on any further. She had fobbed off Jack Reid, who had been on the phone a couple of times, and hadn't told him anything about the wall incident. The truth was that she would have welcomed his advice, but she was also sure she wouldn't enjoy hearing it. Either way, this couldn't go on. Jack's nose was twitching. He knew something was going on with O'Connell and he wouldn't be fobbed off for ever.

She couldn't know for certain whether O'Connell had been involved in the wall collapse, but she didn't believe in coincidences. Leastways, not coincidences like that. There remained a nagging question in her mind as to whether McRae might have been trying to climb over the wall and had, in effect, caused it to come down, despite the fact that the position he had been lying in made it unlikely.

As soon as McRae regained consciousness, she was determined to act, regardless of any potentially embarrassing consequences. She'd had long enough to dream up an explanation for her unprofessional behaviour. Yes, she would get slapped on the wrist, but if the pieces fell in the right direction she would still emerge with credit – great credit. A top IRA man and a major fraud gang bagged in one move wouldn't be sniffed at. She would, she thought, be slightly red-faced, but undeniably still standing.

What a selfish cow you are
, she thought.
Even with poor old McRae in a bloody coma, you can't help thinking about yourself. If you had started to take some action, done something, anything, he wouldn't have ended up in that bed and you know it. Always thinking about yourself… and your career – bitch.

What she could do was make it up to him, if only he would hurry up and emerge from his darkness.

She pulled her coat tighter around her and increased her pace. She had only twenty minutes before her drinks meeting with Commander Daventry, at the Savoy no less.