Requiem (88 page)

‘You want to follow that cab?’ Daisy’s driver repeated phlegmatically. ‘Well, I’ll tell you straight off, it ain’t so easy as it looks in the films.’

The traffic was moving now, filtering slowly down to two lanes in the narrow section by the tube station. Campbell was three cars ahead and two behind the raincoat man. Approaching the junction with the Old Brompton Road the lights turned red and Daisy watched in sudden tension as the raincoat man’s cab sped over the junction into the beginning of Redcliffe Gardens. The car behind also scooted across on the red and then, to the sound of indignant hoots and a near collision, the Escort.

‘See what I mean?’ the cabby called as they ground to a halt.

Daisy thrust the walkie-talkie to her ear and when after a few seconds Campbell hadn’t come through she called him up. Finally there was an answering crackle, and Campbell’s voice informed her he was at the next lights, with the cab just ahead, looking as though it was going straight on. She described the next junction and how, once over it, he would come to the river and curve round to the left and that he should call her if the cab showed any signs of turning off. Whatever happened, he was to stay as close as possible.

When the traffic moved off again, the cabby put his foot down, skilfully cut up a couple of cars and gained three places. They beat the next two sets of lights, so that they caught up with the Escort on the Embankment just as Campbell’s voice winged over the radio to tell her that their quarry was indicating right to turn over the river.

On Battersea Bridge they overtook Campbell and came up behind the cab. Daisy checked the registration number and, once her tension had subsided a little, she radioed to Campbell to drop back.

Over the bridge they survived two more lights before plunging into the web of back streets that was Battersea. There was no order to the streets, just one-way systems with sudden twists and roads squeezed in beside tall railway arches, and row after row of squat two-up two-downs. Daisy relayed the route and street names to the invisible Escort until Campbell, with panic in his voice, declared himself confused, and after a short pause, lost.

Ahead, the other cab turned into successively smaller streets. ‘Hold back,’ Daisy commanded the driver sharply.

‘I’ll lose ’im!’ he declared in an injured tone.

‘We’re too close!’

The driver shook his head and slowed down. Ahead, the cab turned a corner. When, after what seemed a long time, they also turned, it was to find themselves in a road of terraced houses, and to see the other cab fast approaching the far end of the road where it formed a T-junction with a street of shops.

‘Too far back now,’ Daisy urged. ‘Get a bit closer.’

With an admonishing sigh the cabby pushed his foot down. The taxi was starting to accelerate nicely when the vehicle ahead swerved unexpectedly into the left and stopped, just short of the junction.

‘Drive past, don’t slow down,’ Daisy said sharply. She drew back from the window and did not look out until they were past the stopped taxi and turning left into the shopping street. Then, glancing quickly back, she saw that the raincoat man had been very quick off the mark; he was already across the pavement and stepping into a doorway set into the side wall of the corner building.

Daisy stopped the cab a safe distance along the main road and radioed fresh directions to Campbell. Then, paying the cabby off, she walked slowly back and examined the front of the corner building, which at street level contained a cycling shop. On the floor above were some sort of offices. The two windows were labelled Reynard Associates in the sort of gold-block lettering much favoured by solicitors and accountants. This firm, however, gave no hint as to its function.

She walked on, crossing the side street – its name was Peregrine Road – and continuing along the main street until she was well out of sight of the bicycle shop.

The Escort appeared soon after, approaching cautiously from the north. Campbell’s head swivelled from side to side as he looked for shop numbers and street names. Spotting her, he broke into a brief grimace, and pulled in.

They parked the car in a street on the other side of the main road and walked back to a baker’s shop which stood on the corner diagonally opposite the bicycle shop. Daisy, looking obliquely through the double thickness of the baker’s side and front windows, watched Campbell continue alone, crossing into Peregrine Road and ambling down the long side wall of the bicycle shop.

He paused at the door in the wall, gazed intently at whatever information it had to offer, then, glancing up as if to admire the architecture or perhaps to check for windows, he continued on his way down Peregrine Road. He reappeared five minutes later from a parallel road, having cut across the back somewhere, and, keeping largely out of sight of the bicycle shop, rejoined her, looking for all his tweeds like a thoroughly urban animal. It would be all too easy to think the two of them were getting to be rather good at all this.

‘It’s a firm called
Rey
nard Ass
oc
iates,’ Campbell announced, drawing the words out in a long string. ‘Investigation an’ security.’

‘But what now?’ she murmured. ‘We can’t very well walk in and ask them to own up, can we?’

Campbell threw her an odd look, both shrewd and innocent.

‘No, Campbell,’ she warned, getting his meaning. ‘Are you nuts? Far too dodgy.’

He looked away. ‘If you say so.’

‘I do. All I need is to
see
Maynard. That’s all. Just to make sure.’

Before starting the watch, she went in search of a phone box to call Scotland. As she dialled, a slight heat came into her face, a butterfly of anticipation, and it was with disappointment that she heard the housekeeper answer and say that Nick was out on the estate. The helicopter bringing the party from Glasgow was not expected for another hour. Daisy left a message saying she would try again later, but that she and Campbell might not make it up to Ashard until the morning.

She found some take-away tea and sandwiches and, making her way back to the baker’s shop, thought of Nick. Thinking of Nick had taken up quite a lot of her time in the last few days. Since he’d left the flat on Tuesday night, they’d spoken, what? – eight or nine times, and met once, for a quick meal. She had gained his support and goodwill, but had she gathered a bit more along the way? Was there something to be read into his willingness to talk when the business was done, his near-confidences, his subtle teasing?

It was two hours later, as Campbell was preparing to go in search of pizzas, that the raincoat man suddenly emerged from the side door and, striding a short way down Peregrine Road, stopped by a car and got in. When the car drew out from the line of parked vehicles, it was pointing the other way and there was no chance of seeing the registration number as it drove off.

After that she and Campbell split up. While Campbell stayed by the baker’s window and called in on the walkie-talkie every half hour, Daisy took the Escort and, circling the backstreets, came up Peregrine Road and parked in the slot vacated by the raincoat man, just fifty feet from the doorway. When she leaned across the passenger seat, she had a good view of the side wall and the rear of the property: three storeys of grimy brickwork with a two-storey extension pushing back into the yard to create the long outside wall.

The stillness of the morning had given way to a sharp breeze and the clear sky to a succession of bold black-rimmed clouds. Daisy pictured Alan Breck and his wife in the warmth of Ashard, perhaps in the room Nick called the library, with a roaring fire and a hot meal, and wondered if Simon would have tried to begin the first session yet. It would be nice to think he wouldn’t rush things, but that might be hoping for too much.

Would he let Nick sit in on the sessions? She tried to imagine the two of them in conversation, tried to guess what they’d make of each other. Journalists were not among Nick’s favourite people, not even when they were on his side, while Simon would, she guessed, try to be amenable. Like many people who publicly distrusted excesses of money and power, Simon was at the same time fatally attracted to them.

The day slowly wore on. A couple of dogs met, bristled and briefly scrapped. The traffic increased to a steady trickle, a few residents of Peregrine Road dawdled out, returning with Sunday newspapers under their arms. Regretting the tea, Daisy at one point went in hasty search of a loo, finally inveigling a newsagent into letting her use his.

Towards four the thin winter sun began to settle over the roof of the bakery, there was a brief flare of rich buttery light, a moment of glory for the houses of Peregrine Road, then twilight came quickly and the streetlamps began their uncertain flickerings. Taking pity on Campbell at his windswept station, Daisy offered to swap places. While they were talking, there was a sudden movement at the door in the wall. A dog appeared.

The animal was fluffy and low-built, a Pekinese maybe. She wasn’t too good on makes. It seemed to be unaccompanied. It raised its nose to the air then snuffled along the base of the wall, the model of a well-trained pet.

But we know better, don’t we? Daisy thought with a stab of savage excitement. We know what a vicious little agitator you are! In dark cars, under tower blocks, in well-laid traps. She saw again the white shape as it hurled itself against the glass, the bared teeth, the goggle eyes.

The walkie-talkie crackled and she realized she was still pressing the transmit button. She released it to hear Campbell repeatedly calling her name. She was about to answer when the dog acquired an owner in the shape of a hunched female figure with high heels and thin legs beneath an over-short coat that did not quite cover her knee-length skirt. She was pulling the door shut with one hand, locking it with the other. A cigarette hung from her lips. Her hair was blonde or grey – it showed white-rimmed against the shop lights in the main street – and was styled into a tall starched beehive rolled into a sausage at the back, like well-moulded candy floss. But if the beehive was enjoying a fashion revival and could have belonged to a young woman, the legs could not. They were thin and slightly bandy and, in the way of older women who lose weight, her feet looked a little too large for her body.

The woman dropped the keys into a handbag and stood watching the dog, puffing on the clamped cigarette while she buttoned her coat more closely.

Campbell’s voice was becoming increasingly agitated.

‘I’m okay,’ Daisy whispered. ‘There’s a woman – ’ She broke off as the woman strolled towards her.

Daisy shifted rapidly across to the driving seat and prepared to engross herself in something on the opposite side of the road. The woman halted alongside the Escort, one foot resting coquettishly out to one side like a model’s in a fashion still, one elbow tucked tightly into her waist as she alternately pulled on the cigarette and let her hand swing wearily away to the side. Her face was long and angular and adorned with heavy makeup; in the fading light, her arched eyebrows and mascaraed eyes were like black ink strokes, and her thin mouth, painted with some deep colour, made a dark gash across her face.

She stared along the length of Peregrine Road for a minute or two then turned and strutted slowly back, stopping once to call the dog.

Daisy eased herself back into the passenger seat and watched as the woman paused by the door in the wall, called the dog to her and snapped a lead onto its collar. Then, walking as briskly as her heels would allow, she disappeared around the corner into the main street, jerking the loitering dog after her.

Daisy gave a report to Campbell. A few minutes later he came over and got into the car beside her. ‘She locked up as she left, did she?’ he asked.

Daisy didn’t answer. She knew where this was leading. But since she knew it, she had to ask herself why she had allowed this watching exercise to go on for so long, and why indeed the two of them were here at all if she didn’t intend to let Campbell progress the thing to, what was for him at least, its natural conclusion.

Campbell tried again. ‘No lights at the front. None at the back either, eh?’ He had taken several looks at the rear windows, but now he craned forward to stare again. ‘No one home at all.’

‘Campbell, this isn’t like breaking into Portakabins. No talking our way out if things go wrong. No hedges to dive into.’

‘Och, I wouldna’ be so sure of that.’ His confidence had driven him to an unnatural heartiness.

The place seemed crowded suddenly: a couple came round the corner and walked briskly past; a hunched man shuffled slowly over the junction; a lone cat trotted by. The long wall, black with shadows, its upper features lost against the dark mass of the buildings, was beginning to pick up dull reflections from the shop lights, and the door itself, far from getting lost in the gloom, seemed remarkably prominent.

‘I don’t like it,’ she said.

‘Have I led you wrong in the past?’

‘Our criminal partnership hasn’t lasted that long, thank God.’

‘But what could happen, eh? No one home. All closed up for the night. And a Sunday at that.’

‘Why am I so bloody scared then? My hands are shaking.’ She held them up accusingly.

He laid a rough hand on hers and patted it briefly. ‘You’ll be all right once we’re in.’

‘I’ll be better once we’re out.’

‘I could go on my own,’ he suggested.

She looked up at the dark walls of the building, towards the invisible windows and the offices beyond.

‘No …’ she said. ‘You might miss something.’

‘Don’t go sayin’ I didna’ offer.’

‘I’ll tell the judge,’ she sighed.

‘A helicopter? Go on.’ Hillyard removed his gaze from an intriguing smooth-skinned creature on the far side of the restaurant and, addressing his dessert once more, dragged curls of ice-cream off the top with a spoon.

‘Couldn’t find out where it was going,’ said Biggs defensively. ‘Tried a touch of financial persuasion, but no go. Too few in the know, and they weren’t talking.’

‘So what’s Phillips doing now?’

‘Asking around some more.’