The One a Month Man (16 page)

‘We keep out of sight for an hour or so until we’re sure they’ve gone, then return to this concourse to hire a car.’

‘And after that, where do we spend the night?’

‘In the car, near their home, but not
too
near. Laura could be flying from any of three airports: JFK, LaGuardia or New Jersey. We have to be certain which one, so we’ll need to tail, without being made.’

‘My, Mike, you really do know how to give a girl the five-star treatment!’ she said, waspishly. ‘And where do we dine?’

‘Where do you suppose?’

‘In the car?’

‘Full marks,’ I said. ‘We treat ourselves to a drive-through burger, fries and giant diet Coke, and eat and drink while we’re serenaded by music on the car’s radio. Then we sleep in
two-hour
shifts; something like that. Don’t I spoil you?’

‘And all for what? Don’t answer, Mike:
I’ll
tell
you
. Just so we can both get suspended and ultimately demoted as soon as the brass find out where we are and what we’ve been up to, unknown to them.’

‘Only if we fail,’ I persisted, stubborn as ever. ‘Anyhow, we’re way beyond the rubicon in that respect. In for a penny, in for a pound.’

‘No, Mike, in for a
pounding
,’ she predicted, with a withering glare.

We hired a medium-sized Chrysler from Hertz. When you’re into surveillance mode, everything should be understated. Nothing flashy, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that attracts. You dress down, not up, unless you’re going to the Mayor’s Ball, of course. Whatever the scene and situation, it’s essential to blend in; to become part of the furniture or absorbed into the wallpaper, one of the crowd, a faceless commuter or bystander, always Mr and Mrs Average. When on surveillance duty, it’s the one time when you strive for the status of
nonentity
.

I don’t believe that either of us had more than a total of two hours’ intermittent sleep. The smell from our takeaway meals seemed to intensify rather than disperse as the night wore on, despite our repeated efforts to cleanse the stale air in the car. I turned up the air-conditioning to maximum, but the odour from the fast food was slow to waft away; it clung to our clothes and seemed to have infiltrated our flesh.

Although the evening was mild, we were soon shivering as body heat was lost. There were no blankets in the car and, because it was summer, we didn’t have top coats with us, so the only solution was to snuggle up, like a young couple who had to make do with a car as a love-nest. Neither of us could be called young, but we were lovers, so we were fifty per cent the real deal. The fact that we weren’t posing with our affection gave legitimacy and conviction to our cover. Genuine lovers give out a scent, other than perfume and aftershave, and huddled together in a car was a natural sight at night. Some passers-by sniggered or shouted obscenities, but most had seen it all before and were too consumed by their own affairs to bother with us. The worst part of these surveillances was the boredom. Time seemed motionless. Mesmerized by the digital clock on the dash, I counted every second for hours and I really began to fear that morning would never come, that we had been plunged into eternal darkness, with the fire of the sun extinguished. Perhaps this was the beginning of the end of the world; God had flicked the switch, but had forgotten to turn off the lights of Manhattan.

Planes droned overhead on their final approach to JFK and thundered on take-off. By 3 a.m., the night-life in this
residential
neighbourhood had been reduced to a few stragglers; tipsy couples tottering barefooted, the women carrying their shoes. Bursts of spasmodic laughter competed with the screaming of fighting tom cats. Bats dive-bombed in the jaundiced glow of
the street-lamps. Silhouettes cavorted in bedroom windows just before lights popped out. An owl, out of sight, hooted in one of the trees. The final curtain-call came late, only an hour or so before the stage was set for the first performance of the new day. There was little time lag between the late-to-bed and the early-to-rise.

Almost imperceptibly to begin with, the black shell of night began to crack. White slivers appeared first, then the yolk. The birth of the new day was over within an hour. The rush hour would be the unpleasant afterbirth.

New York City was waking up fast. A few people were already on the run; suited and shaven; hair blown, make-up applied, all groomed for the fray. Some jogged before their
real
day began.

Sarah unfurled and yawned. ‘I’m cold and hungry,’ she complained.

Before I could reply, a yellow cab cruised past us, slowing down, before stopping outside Tina’s home.

Simultaneously, we both slipped on shades and sank low into our seats, so that we were partially hidden from the taxi.

Within a couple of minutes, Laura emerged, clad in jeans, white blouse, a caramel-coloured leather jacket and sneakers. She was carrying an overnight bag, slung over her shoulder. The bag wasn’t big enough for an overcoat or many clothes, so she wasn’t going into a cold climate.

Laura jumped into the rear of the cab, taking the bag inside with her.

Sarah was now as awake and alert as if she’d just stepped from under a cold shower.

‘OK, we’re on the move,’ I said.

Game on.

W
ithin a few minutes it was apparent that Laura was heading for JFK. Traffic was building, but we were an hour or more ahead of gridlock.

‘What do we do with our rental car when we get to the airport?’ said Sarah. ‘Have you given that a thought?’

I hadn’t. I saw the point she was making. Laura might have only a few minutes to catch her flight. The formalities involved with returning a hire car could take up to half an hour, especially if the company was busy. Laura might well have been checked in and passed through Passport Control before we were on our way from the car-rental lot.

‘You see what I’m saying, Mike; we might lose her completely and never know which flight she boarded,’ Sarah pressed her point, unnecessarily.

‘We’ll just have to dump the damned thing,’ I said, seeing no alternative.

‘It’ll be towed within five minutes.’

‘Great! The towers will do the job for us of returning the car.’

‘Unless they reckon it’s a booby trap and blow it up. How
irresponsible
is that for a pair of Scotland Yard officers, one as senior as you?’

‘Cometh the hour, cometh extreme measures!’

Before she could respond we were riding the ramp towards the drop-off zone for Departures. I pulled into the kerb about
fifty metres behind Laura’s cab. She hopped out, paid the fare, and hurried into the airport, without as much as a fleeting glance our way.

‘OK, let’s go,’ I said. ‘We don’t want to get too close, but, equally, we mustn’t fall too far behind.’

All the way along the concourse were check-in counters, with lines of people hauling their baggage, having passed the point where trolleys had to be abandoned. There were also hundreds of people milling around apparently aimlessly, as if not knowing where they were going, except in circles. Each airline had its own colony of counters. However, some of the smaller airlines had only one or two check-ins.

‘Can you see her?’ I said.

‘Not a chance.’

‘OK, let’s take her at face value,’ I suggested.

‘And what, exactly, does that mean?’

‘We look for Bahamas Airways.’

Sod’s Law kicked in. Bahamas Airways had only one check-in desk, and that was at the far end of the concourse. While slicing our way through the queues and dodging the crowd of drifters, we had to keep our eyes peeled for Laura, in case she was preparing to check in with another airline for a destination somewhere other than the Bahamas.

‘Got her!’ Sarah suddenly exclaimed, stopping and putting out an arm to restrain me from going further.

‘Where?’

‘Right ahead. In the queue at the Bahamas Airways check-in desk. She’s six from the front.’

‘So she was telling the truth, not laying a false trail,’ I said. By now I also had her in my sights. She had a ticket and
passport
in her hand and was pushing along her bag with a foot as she shuffled forward. I steered Sarah to the nearest monitor on which all departure times and destinations of flights were listed.

‘Eleven a.m. to Nassau,’ I read aloud from the screen.

‘That means it should be boarding in about half an hour,’ said Sarah, doing a quick mental calculation.

Simultaneously, we both looked for the Bahamas Airways ticket desk.

‘Over there!’ declared Sarah, pointing to a small kiosk, wedged between two minor car-rental companies and a currency-changing outlet, towards the rear of the concourse.

Luckily, there was no queue at the kiosk, which could have been a good or bad indication for us.

‘Have you any availability on your 11 a.m. service to Nassau?’ I said to the smartly attired female ticketing-agent, adopting the parlance of the airline industry.

Not looking up, she tapped into her computer for a few seconds, before asking, ‘How many travelling?’ Now she did engage my eyes with a wonderful calypso smile, her teeth almost blinding me with their flawless luminescence.

‘Two. Two adults.’

‘OK, I can do that. Coach or Business?’

I hesitated and turned to Sarah.

‘There are just two seats left in Business,’ added the sales clerk.

Sarah could see the problem to which I was alluding with my expression and said to me quietly, ‘It makes sense to take Coach.’

She was right again, of course. ‘Yeah, Coach,’ I said, passing over the
firm’s
credit card and giving our names.

Within five minutes we were ticketed.

‘Business class will be relatively small,’ said Sarah, as we walked away. ‘If we opted for Business and Laura’s also in that section, we couldn’t possibly avoid her. And if she’s in Coach, well … as long as she’s not in the same row, we’ve a decent chance of staying incognito.’

‘Because we’ll be the last people she’s expecting to encounter,’
I said, continuing with Sarah’s extrapolation. ‘What really would be helpful would be to know what name she’s using.’

A boy carrying a beach ball, who was clearly on his way to
re-join
his parents or guardian in one of the queues, instantly gave me an idea.

‘Hey,’ I said to the boy.

He stopped and eyed me suspiciously, his alarm diluted, however, when he saw Sarah by my side.

‘How would you like to earn twenty dollars?’

‘How?’ he said, edging closer, his face lighting up. I gauged his age about ten.

‘You see that woman, second from the front in that line?’ I said, pointing towards Laura’s back.

‘Yeah.’

‘And you see the bag on the floor beside her with a label attached to the handle?’

‘Yeah, I think so,’ he said, hesitantly.

‘Tell me what name’s on the label and this is yours,’ I enticed him, producing a twenty-dollar bill from my wallet.

‘She’ll think I’m trying to steal the bag,’ he vacillated, even though the bait was inflating his eyeballs.

‘This is what you do: bounce your ball a couple of times, then lose control of it, so it rolls towards her, giving you an excuse for scrambling around on the floor near her feet.’

‘To pick up my ball?’

‘Exactly! Think you can do it?’

‘That all you want me to do?’

‘Nothing else, I promise.’

‘And I get the twenty dollars just for
that
?’

‘Just get me the name.’

‘Done!’ he said, and was gone.

‘Let’s hope we’re in the clouds by the time his parents are demanding to know how he came by the twenty-dollar bill,’ said Sarah, shaking her head in dismay.

We faced the opposite way to avoid being
made
should Laura follow the boy with her eyes after he’d completed the artifice.

We didn’t have long to wait before the boy was in front of us again, now with a hand out and grinning broadly.

‘Twenty dollars,’ he said, very precocious and businesslike.

‘Name first,’ I said, proffering the bill, but not releasing it.

‘Clapton. Laura Clapton.’

‘You’re a star,’ I said, letting go of the reward.

‘Good to do business with you!’ said the boy, snatching the note and running off, his ball tucked under an arm.

Sarah laughed. ‘He’ll go far,’ she said, admiringly.

‘How about me? It was my bright idea.’

‘For which, Inspector, you might make sergeant!’

We were among the last of the passengers to board. As we stepped into the Boeing 737, Business class was to our left, out of view. The senior flight attendant scrutinized our tickets, before saying, ‘Your seats are in the very last row.’ This, of course, meant that we had to run the gauntlet of all Coach passengers. People were still standing, cramming articles into the overhead lockers. Others were settling into their seats, fastening belts, reading about safety procedures, or just peering out of the
porthole
windows. We kept our heads lowered, but if Laura was in Coach and not distracted, we couldn’t avoid being seen.

‘Phew!’ exclaimed Sarah, as we finally reached the rear of the aircraft. ‘I think we made it OK. She must be in Business. For once you made a winning bet!’

Two hours and fifty minutes later we landed in scorching Nassau.

We were in no hurry to disembark, so we allowed everyone else off the plane before us. There would be queues of
passengers
waiting to be processed at Immigration Control, so our idea was to ensure that Laura had passed through before we joined
any of the lines. An even bigger danger-zone for us would be in the baggage-reclaim hall, where everyone from our flight would be buzzing like bees around one carousel.

‘Let’s hang back until we’re confident she’s gone beyond Immigration and Customs,’ I said.

‘Surely we’ll lose her,’ said Sarah, frowning.

‘If she gets a cab, possibly….’

‘But you don’t think she will?’

‘I reckon she’ll be renting,’ I predicted. ‘That’ll give us a chance to spot her at one of the car-rental outlets.’

‘And how does that get us any further than knowing the owner of the vehicle she’ll be driving?’

‘When hiring a car, you’re always asked for a contact address, such as the name of a hotel.’

‘So how do you propose we get hold of that information?’

‘That’s where you come in,’ I said, winking. She knew exactly what was expected of her. No briefing was necessary.

By the time we were out into the concourse, Laura was just leaving the Budget desk to board the rental firm’s transfer bus to the car she’d been allocated.

‘Go to work!’ I said.

Sarah braced herself, grimaced at me, then rushed to the Budget desk, putting on a great act of being out of breath.

‘Oh, my goodness, have I missed her?’ I heard Sarah say to the young man in a white, short-sleeved shirt and dark-blue trousers.

‘Who?’ he said, obviously perplexed, his accent a cross between American (Deep South) and Caribbean.

‘A friend I made on the flight from New York. Laura Clapton. We said we’d meet for dinner tonight. We got
separated
at baggage-claim. I know she was going to hire from you. She said to me, “Whenever in Nassau, you
must
always rent from Budget. Trust me, they’ll always take good care of you.”’

‘That’s nice to hear, madam.’

‘Well, anyhow, Laura seems a very discerning lady to me,’ Sarah continued with her overload of flattery.

‘Well, you’ve only just missed her.’

‘Dammit! I don’t suppose she told you the hotel where she has a reservation? We talked and talked about how we’d meet up, but forgot to exchange details about where we were staying. You must think us very stupid.’

‘Not at all, madam. In fact, I think I can help you.’

‘You can?’

‘Yes, indeed. She did leave a contact address with us.’

‘Really! I’d never have thought of that.’

He beamed and his chest swelled. ‘Here we are: the Beachcomber, on Bay Street, bang in the centre of Nassau.’

‘Oh, you’re a darling!’ Sarah gushed, planting a kiss on his cheek.

That’s my girl! She should be on the stage earning real money
.

‘How was that?’ she whispered, re-joining me outside the airport shop.

‘No one can fake it better than you!’

Then we went to Hertz and hired one of their cars.