Текст книги "48 Hours"

Автор книги: Jackson J. Bentley

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Chapter 41

London City Airport, London. Wednesday, 4:30pm.

Lord Hickstead stood beside his carryon luggage and checked his travel documents. There wasn’t a seat to be had in the overcrowded lounge; even standing room was at a premium. He had travelled this route hundreds of times in the last decade and the lounge was busier each time. The success of the airport owners to attract new flights was commendable, but they needed to make some changes to the facilities to accommodate the growing number of passengers.

There was a garbled public announcement directing him to the gate ready for his flight to Rotterdam. As he walked through the narrow passageway he noticed two plain clothes customs officers taking people to one side. He looked straight ahead, making every effort to avoid being selected.

The woman two places ahead of him was stopped and taken to a cubicle. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder, too.

“I’m sorry about this, sir, but we have heightened security today and I have to select someone from each flight. You are the lucky one,” the officer said, in a clumsy attempt at humour. “We won’t keep you long, sir.”

The Peer stood with his arms outstretched and was patted down, the contents of his pockets in a blue tray next to his open carryon bag.

“Thank you, sir. Could you boot up your laptop now, please? While that is booting up, could you please stand in the scanner booth? I am obliged to tell you that you will not be subjected to any harmful rays, but if you decide not to be scanned we reserve the right to do a full body search.”

“The scan will be fine, officer. We have to keep the skies safe, after all,” Lord Hickstead said, without meaning a word. The scan took less than a minute.

The customs officer tapped a couple of keys on the laptop to ensure that it was a fully working computer, and then he allowed its owner to repack his case and board the plane.

***

A minute later the customs officer was standing in a small windowless office with Inspector Boniface.

“Inspector, I have to tell you that Lord Hickstead is not carrying any diamonds. I did a thorough pat down and I searched his bag. Both he and his bag were then separately scanned; there was no sign of diamonds or anything else unusual, for that matter.” There was finality in his tone. “Oh, but there was one thing. As requested I had him boot up his laptop, and he does have an Icon for Photopaint on his windows opening page.”

***

The decision not to carry the diamonds with him had been a sound one. It only needed one random security check, such as the one he’d been subjected to, to blow the whole scheme. He would meet with an old colleague from his EU days and enjoy a leisurely dinner before embarking on the late night meeting that formed the real purpose for his trip.

As was bound to be the case, the buyer, Mr Van Aart, turned out to be a shady character, and so not carrying the diamonds was probably a good thing. In any case, Mr Van Aart had his own methods of moving diamonds around the world and Arthur Hickstead didn’t want to know what they were.

Chapter 42

Cafe Zwart, Schiekade 640, Rotterdam. Wednesday. 11:45pm

Hickstead knew that the potential buyer already had the certificates, the photos and that he had spoken to the diamond cutter. Van Aart had confirmed that he was satisfied that he could move the diamonds at a profit, as long as Arthur was prepared to be reasonable.

Arthur had chosen to stay at, and eat at, the Best Western Crown Hotel, which was conveniently close to the rail link for the airport. He was now sitting in a coffee shop less than a hundred yards from his hotel, waiting for the Dutch buyer.

The door opened and a bell suspended on a wire jangled as it was displaced by the head of the door. The man who entered was well over six feet tall, and completely bald. More accurately, his head was shaven. He did not seem at all threatening, however, and he smiled under a typically bushy Dutch moustache. Arthur hadn’t bothered with a disguise, but he wore a hat and glasses which obscured much of his head and face.

“Mr Bob Smith?” Van Aart asked as he stood at the only table occupied by a customer. Arthur nodded, and they shook hands. Van Aart shouted something in Dutch to the owner and then turned to his seller.

“Bob, I am very impressed with the gems. I am even more impressed that they are legitimate and not stolen. This makes resale more.....” – he struggled for the word in English – “.....profitable.”

The cafe owner brought a coffee over, along with a pastry containing half a peach covered in white icing. “Fruit; you have to get it where you can, eh, to stay healthy and to live long.” Arthur suspected that the sugar in the icing alone made the Dutchman’s efforts at hitting his ‘five a day’ redundant.

The negotiations took almost fifteen minutes, and as soon as they had shaken hands on an agreed price they heard a melodious clock strike twelve. Arthur was a little disappointed at receiving only a quarter of a million Euros rather than a quarter of a million pounds, but it was still around two hundred and ten thousand pounds. Van Aart would pay the money directly into an account in Brussels, held under the name Euro Union Financial Enterprises. That particular account was already heavily loaded with money and expenses accumulated over the last ten years, and kept well away from the inquisitive noses of the UK Exchequer.

Tomorrow morning the Peer would go to his safety deposit box, remove the diamonds and hand them to the courier in the shadow of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square, and the transaction would be complete.

***

Ever the gentleman, Lord Hickstead held open the hotel door for the attractive Dutch lady who had come in behind him. She smiled and thanked him before heading to the bar. He wondered whether he should follow her. After all, it had been a successful trip so far, but he had to be up early for his flight and so he took the elevator and headed off to bed.

As soon as the elevator doors closed the woman, who had been following him since he had left the airport, watched the display above the doors, recording that it stopped at the sixth floor. She took her mobile phone out of her pocket and walked to a quiet spot in the lobby.

“Commissaris, this is Imka. The target has left the hotel only once for a meeting in a coffee shop, and now he has retired to bed, I think.”

“Good work, Imka. I will tell the English Inspector. They are one hour behind us, he will still be available.”

“Commissaris, the man he met with was Walt Van Aart.”

“Are you sure, Imka? I have surveillance photographs of him in Paris this morning, sent to me from Europol.”

“I am certain it was him, Commissaris. I was on the surveillance team in Delft when he met with the Russians.”

“Thank you, Imka. I will send the English police his file, summarised of course. We cannot jeopardise our own prosecution for the sake of a few diamonds.”

Chapter 4 3

London City Airport, London. Thursday, 8:30am.

DS Fellowes stood on the platform at the City Airport Docklands Light Railway Station. He was waiting for the next train to Bank Station in the City. His mobile phone rang. The voice was one he knew well.

“Sarge, our man has arrived and is heading to the DLR station as predicted, so I am now handing him over to you. He should be standing on the platform any second.”

Fellowes saw Hickstead arrive on the platform, and smiled in approbation when he noted the next Bank train was scheduled in one minute’s time.

“Okay, thanks Andy, I’ll take it from here.” Fellowes ended the call just as the driverless train approached.

No matter how many times he travelled this route, Arthur Hickstead felt uncomfortable about riding a train with no driver. It was disconcerting to stand at the front of the train and watch as the rails passed beneath it at fifty miles per hour. In the middle of the carriage sat DS Fellowes, apparently immersed in the pages of a fantasy novel. The chances of losing His Lordship were nil, but they didn’t want to risk missing a clandestine meeting where diamonds could change hands.

Brad Fellowes wondered whether the Peer knew who he was getting into bed with when he was dealing with Walt Van Aart. A quarter of a million pounds in diamonds was small beer to a crook like Van Aart; the Dutch Police seemed surprised that he would bother to meet Lord Hickstead personally. Unless, of course, Van Aart was aware of the real identity of the seller, and felt that he could use His Lordship’s European political clout to his own advantage at some time in the future.

The file said that Van Aart led an organisation known as the Geest Mafia, which in English means the Ghost Mafia. The trafficking of people, diamonds and drugs in the southern half of the Netherlands, including all of Amsterdam south of the river, was their speciality. Another gang called the Matroos, or the Seamen in English, ruled the northern half of the Netherlands. Van Aart was dangerous.

The train terminated at Bank station and Brad Fellowes tailed the Peer until he stood on the platform waiting for the next westbound Circle Line train. So far they had guessed his route correctly, and Brad nodded to DS Scott of the Met., DCI Coombes’ sidekick, who would take up the trail from here.

DS Fellowes left the tube station and headed towards the Vastrick Offices at Number 1 Poultry, less than a hundred metres away.

Chapter 44

Vastrick Security, No. 1 Poultry, London. Thursday, 9:30am.

Dee Conrad’s Operation Peer Down and the Police Operation Peer Pressure were going well. Our own file was thick with incriminating evidence, albeit mostly circumstantial. Inspector Boniface had been really good about keeping us informed as to what was going on, even to the extent of a midnight call the previous night.

He had also called Don Fisher to inform him that the Peer had flown to Rotterdam without the diamonds but nonetheless to assure him that we were getting close, and that the blackmailer would be punished. Apparently Don wasn’t particularly impressed, and Boniface got the impression that he still wanted to kill the “old geezer”. Odd that Fisher should refer to Hickstead as the old geezer when he was only six years older than the aging rocker himself.

A phone rang. We all went for our mobiles but it was DS Fellowes who received the call. He spoke for a while and the DS hung up, after issuing the instruction, “Stay with him, we’ll get back-up.”

He turned to the rest of us. “OK, that was DS Scott. It seems that Lord Hickstead has just entered number 2 Parliament Street, opposite the Palace of Westminster. According to the doorman, probably an MI5 operative, he’s staying in the Chief Whip’s private apartment on the fourth floor. DS Scott virtually had to get a warrant to extract that information.”

“Thanks, Brad,” Dee said in reply. I felt a small stab of disapproval. When had she started calling him by his first name? “That would explain why you couldn’t find him registered at a hotel. If only we could get in there we might be able to close this case. He must be hiding the money, painting and diamonds somewhere.”

We looked up the address on Google Streetview; it was a white rendered building which had probably been several separate buildings at one time. I had passed it many times and never looked at it twice, yet now it might be at the heart of the case against Hickstead. It was galling to hear that we were more likely to get a search warrant for Windsor Castle than for the Chief Whip’s private apartment.

Chapter 45

No. 2 Parliament Street, London. Thursday, 9:30am.

DS Scott was standing on the other side of Parliament Street, from where he could see the entrance to the apartment building, and he was engaged in conversation with a motorcycle courier dressed in black with gold lettering on his jacket, which read City Slicker Couriers. The courier looked just like thousands of others in and around the City, but this one was very different. Constable Knott was a police motorcyclist from the traffic section, seconded to CID for covert surveillance. The reasoning behind the disguise was that no-one in London gives couriers a second look.

As they stood together talking, their attention was on the apartment entrance. The team felt sure that His Lordship would pass on the diamonds sometime soon and they wanted to be there when he did. Such had been the police focus on the Peer since he landed at City Airport that morning that they had not noticed he was also being followed by someone else.

***

Dirk stood at the corner of the street, watching the latest policeman to follow Lord Hickstead. It had been a busy morning. Dirk had been warned that the police would have a tail on the Peer, and so he knew he must be careful. Dirk had dutifully waited at the airport until Hickstead appeared. He hung back and watched as a plain clothes policeman followed at a distance, radioing in his location. The man then dropped back and allowed the target to head towards the DLR platform. Dirk felt a little uncomfortable. The boss had insisted he got himself a haircut and buy a dark suit. Dirk couldn’t remember the last time he had worn a collar and tie.

Hickstead stepped onto the train and a casually dressed young man entered the same carriage, his eyes fixed on the target. The man had a phone fixed to his ear. Dirk was convinced he had spotted the new tail.

After an uneventful journey into the City, and a mad dash across Bank Station, the police tail nodded to a man standing on the platform and then walked away, almost brushing past Dirk as he exited.

The policeman who had picked up the tail at Bank Station was now standing opposite the building that Hickstead had entered an hour ago.

Dirk lifted his mobile phone to his ear. “Gordo, you still close by?”

“Yep, I can see you standing on the corner, but it’s really difficult to keep parking up here. I’ve been moved on three times already.”

“I need you in case he takes a taxi. If he leaves on foot I’ll follow on my own, OK?”

“OK, Dirk.”

***

Lord Hickstead had changed his clothes and was now standing at the kerb holding a briefcase. The doorman had walked to the corner to hail a cab for him. Luckily it was sunny and the cabs were looking for customers. In the rain you couldn’t get a cab for love nor money.

“I think we’re off,” Sergeant Scott said to the motorcycle cop, who put on his full face helmet before testing the built in microphone. HQ answered immediately and made it clear that they wanted a running commentary.

The Peer stepped into the black cab, and after a moment it did an illegal U turn and headed towards the Palace of Westminster. As it passed Big Ben, or St Stephen’s Tower as it is more accurately known, it had been joined by a motorcycle courier and a blue Vauxhall Corsa.

“Bloody hell, Gordo, couldn’t we run to something better than this?” Dirk asked as he slid the seat as far back as it would go, realising he was still bent nearly double in the compact space.

“Boss said it had to be something inconspicuous,” Gordo muttered apologetically.

***

The unwitting convoy of cab, motorbike and Corsa proceeded along Victoria Street and then north along Grosvenor Place, skirting Buckingham Palace Gardens.

Against the odds, they all made it around an exceptionally congested Hyde Park Corner to exit onto Knightsbridge and the A4. They hadn’t travelled far along Knightsbridge when the black cab turned into Brompton Road and indicated a right turn. The motorbike followed, but the Corsa, a few cars behind now, had to wait to turn.

Dirk and Gordo both swore, but they need not have worried because the convoy came to an abrupt stop just a hundred metres away on Cheval Place. By the time the Corsa arrived on the scene, Lord Hickstead was climbing the steps into a building. The wall next to the front entrance bore a brass plaque on which was engraved the words CitySafe Depository.

This area of London was unfamiliar to the Corsa driver, but he soon discovered that Cheval Place was actually a mews. It was very narrow and, whilst the motorbike could pull over to one side, the Corsa was not going to be able to squeeze past the cab, which was still standing outside the depository. Gordo turned right onto a one way Street called Rutland Street, and then he turned right again onto Fairholt Street so that he was parallel to Cheval Place.

“OK, Gordo, His Lordship has obviously got a safety deposit box in there. We have to assume that he’s retrieving something valuable. Here’s what we do.” Dirk outlined a rough plan and Gordo agreed, even though he had extreme concerns.

***

Lord Hickstead pressed the buzzer on the security panel and announced himself. The door buzzed and a tough looking man in uniform opened the door with a smile, beckoning the customer inside. In a few minutes he was past the metal grillage which protected the strongroom security guard and at the entrance to the strongroom itself. The door stood open. It was about ten feet in diameter and it was at least two feet thick. A mixture of brass and titanium locking bolts were arranged in three rows. The safe was virtually impregnable and the depository was fully manned twenty four hours a day, every day of the year, so breaking in overnight or at a weekend wasn’t possible.

The Peer looked into the vault. There were boxes of all sizes, from letter sized to kitchen cabinet sized. His personal box was one of the largest; it was called a ‘half cupboard’. It was sixteen inches wide and half the height of the vault at around three feet six inches tall. He tapped in a six figure code and a small beep announced the opening of a discreet panel in the door. Behind the panel was a keyhole. Lord Hickstead took his key from his pocket. It was rather unusual in appearance, similar to a Yale lock blank key with no notches along the edge. Instead it had tiny depressions or craters drilled into the flat sides. He slid the key into the keyhole and heard tiny rods slip into the depressions. Once they were in place he was able to turn the key ninety degrees to the right, and the lock disengaged.

Inside the box sat the oversized briefcase containing the painting, a holdall courtesy of Don Fisher and a bag of diamonds donated by Josh Hammond. It was time to start converting the remaining goods to cash. He was meeting Van Aart’s man in an hour, and he had a meeting tomorrow with a London based Sheik who used the Peer to gain access to the highest levels of the last government. The Sheik was also rather keen to own the Churchill painting.

The last item in the box was possibly the most controversial; it was a brown envelope containing a series of Polaroid photographs which had been taken last year. Hickstead was not a man for gadgets or technology, but who on earth uses Polaroids any more, he wondered. He already knew the answer. He had paid a German journalist ten thousand Euros for ten poorly composed and badly lit photos, taken by an impoverished but good looking German boy. The photos had no artistic merit, but the faces in them were recognisable and what they were doing was likely to disgust and shock many who saw them.

Lord Hickstead placed two items into the briefcase he had brought with him and locked his safety deposit box. He had a busy day ahead of him.

Chapter 46

Cheval Place, London. Thursday, 11 am.

Constable Knott was now about a hundred yards from the depository; he was sitting astride his motorcycle with a clipboard in his hand, trying hard to look inconspicuous.

He saw the target exit the depository and start walking up Cheval Place in the direction of Montpellier Street, where he would have a chance of hailing a taxi. The policeman put his full face helmet on and put his clipboard away. As soon as His Lordship reached the end of the road he would follow; until then he would be too obvious.

At first he wasn’t sure whether or not he was seeing things. A short man appeared from nowhere and moved close up behind the Peer, before using his foot to kick at back of the target’s knee. Naturally the older man’s knees folded and he ended up on the ground, breaking his fall by instinctively stretching out his hands. In the process he let go of the briefcase, and his assailant picked it up, held it to his chest and ran.

The constable was already off his bike and was yelling into his headset that the target was down and a mugger was escaping down a side street. The policeman was normally very quick on his feet, but he discovered very quickly that motorcycle boots are not made for running. By the time he got to the Peer the uniformed security guard from the depository was already helping the man up, and so the policeman directed his attention toward the mugger.

The policeman ran around the corner onto Montpellier Walk and nearly ran into a smartly dressed man carrying a green Harrods bag who was coming in the opposite direction. The man looked alarmed, but he quickly regained his composure and said, “I think the fellow you’re chasing turned left down Fairholt.”

Knott called out his thanks as he ran around the corner in time to see the mugger starting a small car and driving away at speed. He read the registration plate out loud to Control, informing them that this was a one way system and the only way out was via Brompton Road. If they could block that quickly enough, they would catch the mugger.

The constable walked back to his bike and waited for back up.

***

The plan had worked well. As soon as Gordo was out of sight of the policeman he had passed the briefcase to Dirk, who placed it in the Harrods bag and walked nonchalantly in the direction of the crime scene.

The motorcycle cop raced around the corner and nearly knocked Dirk over. Dirk pointed in the direction the mugger had gone, and the policeman hurried on his way. The constable had seen a smartly dressed man in a suit carrying a distinctive green Harrods bag, and had no reason to suspect him of anything. He had been too preoccupied with chasing a mugger, after all.

Dirk crossed the road and pressed himself against a wall as a police BMW raced into Cheval Place.

***

Gordo slowed down as he put distance between himself and the crime scene, so as not to attract attention. He reached the end of the road and realised that he could only turn right. It was a one way system and cars were coming from the left. He manoeuvred into the roadway and realised that he was heading back to Cheval Place, but there was nowhere else to go.

At the next junction he could either go right and pass the crime scene, or left and up to Brompton Road. He took the left turn. He could see Dirk walking in the same direction carrying the Harrods bag, and was contemplating picking him up – although that wasn’t the plan – when a police car headed straight towards him. The BMW screeched to a halt, and Gordo was trapped.

***

Dirk saw the police helping Gordo out of the car and hurried away from the area, eventually flagging down a taxi. He gave the Boss’s address, and relaxed on the back seat of the cab before making the inevitable call.

“Boss, I have some good news and some bad news,” he said, as if starting to tell some bad joke.