Private London Read online

  ‘Something like that.’

  She shook her head. ‘When, Dan? When did you get the message?’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘You already knew, didn’t you? Last night, all the time you were fucking me, you knew! And you didn’t tell me.’

  Kirsty slapped me across the face. Hard.

  Felt like old times.

  ‘They said they’d kill her if the police were involved.’ I had to shout to be heard above the noise. ‘What was I supposed to do?’ I said.

  ‘Maybe you could have trusted me.’

  ‘The person who called it in – man or woman?’

  ‘Man.’

  ‘Accent?’

  ‘I don’t know, Dan. The woodentop who took the call just wrote it down and stuck it on my desk. Didn’t think it was important.’

  ‘“Woodentop” was an expression the kidnappers used.’

  ‘What, you think it was me?’ she snapped sarcastically.

  ‘Of course not – just thinking out loud.’

  ‘Seems to me you’ve left it a little late for thinking. We had a chance here. You should have told me.’

  ‘I would have done if I could.’

  ‘Doing the right thing isn’t exactly your strong point, is it, Dan?’

  ‘You didn’t seem to have any complaints last night.’

  Kirsty snorted angrily. ‘I wondered how long it would take you to bring that up. You got me drunk on cheap brandy, is all. Doesn’t change anything.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me!’

  ‘And you have got more serious things to worry about.’

  ‘Yeah, I do know that.’

  ‘Do you, though?’

  ‘You got a point to make, Kirsty, how about you spit it out?’

  ‘Somebody told us where the exchange was going to take place.’ She looked across at Sam and Suzy as they forced their way towards us through the crowds. Brad Dexter was following behind with more of his security team trailing in their wake.

  ‘Yeah, so what’s your point?’ I had to shout again. Hundreds of the protesters had produced those vuvuzela horns from last year’s World Cup and were blasting away behind the perspex wall that the police had formed.

  ‘It wasn’t whoever took the girl who phoned us, was it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So who else knew?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘Just you, Dan. You and your team of superheroes.’ Kirsty did practically spit the last couple of words out. I took in what she was saying but she spelled it out for me anyway.

  ‘Someone’s rotten on your team, Dan. Someone set you up.’

  Chapter 67

  HARLAN SHAPIRO WASN’T much to look at.

  But then, what are multibillionaires supposed to look like? He was a small, quiet man. Dustin Hoffman’s shy cousin, perhaps.

  He had been angry, naturally, when I explained what had happened at Parliament Square but hadn’t gone ballistic, which surprised me a little. One thing all billionaires have in common – they’re used to getting their own way.

  Del Rio was exactly as I remembered him, though: hard as nails and a man of few words. But when he spoke people listened, or they did if they knew what was good for them.

  I hadn’t told Harlan what Kirsty had said to me but I outlined it to Del Rio who was with me in my office drinking black coffee. Their flight had been delayed and hadn’t landed until just after ten o’clock. About the same time the blacked-up Morris dancers had disappeared into the crowds. You would have thought their distinctive costumes would have made them easy to spot. But by the time the chaos had been brought under control they had long gone.

  I held a hand to my cheek, remembering the slap Kirsty had given me. Maybe she cared after all.

  Del Rio put his cup down. ‘Your ex-wife reckons we’ve got a rotten apple in Private?’ he said.

  ‘It makes sense.’

  ‘You got any theories?’

  ‘No, and I can’t see the point in the play. What do they get out of it?’

  ‘How many people here knew about the drop?’

  ‘We took a big team out there, covering all the exits.’

  ‘So it could have been pretty much anybody in your outfit?’

  I nodded. ‘Or Stateside,’ I said.

  ‘How do you figure?’

  I opened a desk drawer and flipped a picture of the dark-suited American who’d been with Brendan Ferres and Ronnie Allen at his pub last night.

  ‘I kept thinking this has nothing to do with the original kidnapping. Nothing to do with America. But now I don’t know.’ I tapped on the photo. ‘Do you know this guy?’

  Del Rio tilted his chin slightly and worked his jaw muscles as he looked at the picture. ‘Wiseguy, name of Sally Manzino. East Coast. Importer and exporter.’

  ‘I take it we’re not talking coffee beans.’

  ‘He’s on the payroll of the Noccia family. Not the mobile-phone people. Sally Manzino is their East Coast connection. Private has had dealings with the family before. What’s the connection?’

  ‘This man’ – I pointed to a photo of Brendan Ferres – ‘was seen entering the university where Hannah was studying, a couple of hours before she was abducted. He works for a piece of work called Ronnie Allen.’

  ‘I’ve heard the name.’

  ‘He denies any connection with the kidnapping.’

  ‘You buy it?’

  I shrugged. ‘It’s not his usual line and if he knew what Harlan Shapiro was worth, then if he had taken the girl he’d be asking for a lot more than a million pounds’ worth of pretty stones.’

  ‘It’s not exactly chump change, but I take your point. So what’s his story?’

  ‘Snake Ferres reckons he was making a delivery.’

  ‘Drugs?’

  ‘Yeah. Tertiary-educational institutions in our country are not exactly immune from drug abuse. And in the main the students at Chancellors come from money. They can afford the good stuff.’

  ‘And Ronnie Allen can provide it?’

  ‘He certainly can.’

  ‘I’ll speak to Jack. Check them out.’

  ‘If Noccia is involved in the kidnapping, is he likely to say so?’

  ‘Depends how you ask the question,’ Del Rio said.

  He had a point. I finished my own coffee and my mobile rang as Sam came into the office. I waved him in, looked at the caller ID and saw that the number had been withheld. I answered it, clicking it to loudspeaker.

  ‘Dan Carter.’

  The same mechanical voice as before boomed out.

  ‘You were told not to talk to the police, Mister Carter.’

  ‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘You’ve got to listen to me …’

  ‘No, you have to listen to me,’ he said. ‘You were told not to speak to the police and you were told what the consequences would be if you did so.’

  ‘It wasn’t us,’ I said, keeping my voice level.

  There was a pause. ‘You get one more chance, Mister Carter.’

  I sighed quietly. ‘Go on …’

  ‘As is traditional in these kind of negotiations, when instructions are ignored you get penalised. The fee has gone up to five million. Same deal. Flawless stones. Five million pounds’ worth.’

  ‘Where and when?’

  ‘Two o’clock this afternoon. Eastbound platform for the Metropolitan Line. Finchley Road Tube station. Have Harlan Shapiro with you. Anyone else and the consequences will be terminal. Her father is to make the drop.’

  ‘If I can arrange—’

  ‘He’s in the country, Mister Carter. Please don’t take us for fools. That’s the deal. It is not negotiable.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Trust us, this is your last shot. Sit on the second bench heading towards the end of the platform and put him on the first Metropolitan train to Baker Street. Not a Jubilee Line train.’

  ‘How do I know Hannah Shapiro isn’t already dead?’

  ‘Check your email, Mister Carter.
There’s all the information you need.’

  Chapter 68

  THE LINE WENT DEAD.

  I walked around my desk and sat down, pulling my keyboard towards me and angling my monitor so Del Rio and Sam could see it.

  I opened my mailbox and there were three new messages.

  Two of them were unrelated but the third was from a similar random numbers and letters address as the first YouTube message I had received. The subject line read Last Chance Saloon.

  I opened the email and sure enough the message was the same as the first – another hyperlink to a YouTube address.

  I clicked on the hyperlink and it opened to a dark screen in the video panel. I clicked on the play icon and after a second or so it faded up on the same room as before. This time, however, Hannah Shapiro was sitting on a chair. She was still wearing the same black underwear, and her face was scrubbed clean of any make-up. She looked like the girl I had first met. Young, vulnerable and very afraid.

  She had good reason to be.

  What was different this time was that she had explosives strapped around her body. Wires connecting the various packages, suicide bomber-style. Rope hung again from one wrist and the other hand held a typewritten note.

  She looked at the camera, her voice trembling.

  ‘They want you to know,’ she said, ‘that this bomb I am wearing can be triggered remotely. Any attempt to do anything other than what you are instructed to do and it will be detonated. Likewise if you attempt to deliver fake diamonds. They will be examined and if they are not genuine the device will be detonated. If police are there again as they were this morning, the device will be detonated.’

  She let the paper fall to the floor as tears welled in her large, terrified eyes.

  ‘Please help me,’ she added in a desperate whisper.

  The screen faded to blackness and I rewound the video and paused it. Looking at the devices strapped to her body.

  ‘They look genuine to you?’ asked Sam.

  ‘Yup,’ I replied.

  ‘We have to tell the police, then.’

  ‘Can’t do that,’ Del Rio said softly.

  Sam held his hands up. ‘We can’t let a walking bomb get on the London Underground.’

  ‘We go to the police and they’ll kill her,’ I said to Sam.

  ‘What is it they call it – collateral damage?’ he persisted.

  ‘They’re not going to do anything, Sam. They want the money, is all. It’s business.’

  Del Rio worked his jaw muscles again. ‘We have to protect the client,’ he said. ‘That’s our job here. We save the girl.’

  Chapter 69

  HARLAN SHAPIRO HAD barely said three words to me since our first meeting earlier that morning.

  Sam and Del Rio had driven us to the Finchley Road Tube station and we had been sitting on the seat as we’d been told, for some twenty-five minutes. It was five minutes to two. I had looked at my watch seconds earlier. But I checked it again, anyway. Hard to be perfectly calm when a bomb is thundering up the Metropolitan Line on its way for a date with you.

  We had been put between a rock and a very hard place. If Hannah was indeed on the train then theoretically we could have placed operatives at all stations on the Metropolitan Line between Finchly Road and the four terminuses it finished at: Uxbridge, Watford, Chesham and Amersham.

  We had the manpower for that. But the Metropolitan Line intersected with other lines on the Underground at many stations and with the overland mainline services at Harrow-on-the-Hill. Meaning that the kidnappers could start their journey potentially from anywhere in London and still end up heading towards us on the eastbound train that was due in five minutes. Private had a lot of resources but we didn’t have enough for that, not in the time available to us.

  We could have done what Sam wanted and informed the authorities. But that would have resulted in the entire Tube network being closed down and we would have had no way of protecting Hannah Shapiro.

  I didn’t believe they would set the bomb off – if, indeed, it was live. But I could understand the logic of it. They had to make sure the merchandise we were using for the exchange was the genuine article. Hannah was their security. If they handed her over before they could check, they had no way of knowing whether the ransom paid was genuine.

  This way they did. It would take time to disarm the explosives strapped around Hannah. Through my work with the RMP I knew a thing or two about bombs. None of it good. But in the RMP we didn’t disarm them, we simply marked and secured them for the experts to get in. And we didn’t stay too close when they did!

  Sam and Del Rio were now waiting at Baker Street. We had received a further email saying that if everything was as it should be then Hannah and her father would disembark there. The journey from Finchley Road gave the kidnappers time for their expert to get his loupe out, I guess, and examine the stones. They would find them genuine. Not easy to get five million pounds’ worth of gems on a Sunday afternoon. But, like I said, Private has resources and reach.

  Del Rio had also talked to Jack Morgan who had spoken to a high-ranking member of the Noccia family on the West Coast.

  The word had come back that the Italian-American we had seen with Ronnie Allen, Sally Manzino, was a made man, and highly placed in the family’s operation. He had nothing to do with Hannah’s kidnapping and we could take that as cast-iron. Jack Morgan had some kind of deal with the Noccia family, I don’t know what. Apparently he had helped them out over some turf war of their own a year or two back so there was some kind of mutual back-scratching.

  Either way, Manzino was out of the frame. This was looking like a totally home-grown operation.

  I looked at my watch again. Three minutes to go. Harlan Shapiro turned to me. His eyes were sunken, haunted.

  ‘My daughter is very precious to me, Mister Carter,’ he said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I made a very grave error of judgement some years ago, and Hannah had to pay a terrible price.’

  I nodded. He was right.

  ‘My wife, of course, paid the ultimate price. And if I could change events in time I would gladly have taken her place. Do you understand me?’

  ‘I do, sir,’ I said. And I did.

  ‘These animals who have taken my daughter. If anything goes wrong on this train journey … I want you to track them down and slaughter them.’

  He looked at me, his eyes animated now. ‘Will you do that?’

  ‘You have my word: we won’t let this lie, Mister Shapiro. But these people are businessmen. They have a perverse logic to what they are doing. The logic means that they will keep you alive, Mister Shapiro. You and your daughter.’

  ‘They are terrorists, Mister Carter. I don’t believe logic is the driving force here.’

  ‘They are acting like terrorists but they’re not the same thing. If they detonate any explosive device on a London Underground train they will have the full and focused attention of the national police forces bearing down on them. Together with the Home Office, the anti-terrorism squad and your own Homeland Security department. They don’t want that. Believe me.’

  He nodded. His eyes weak, unfocused. ‘I guess we have to believe that.’

  Chapter 70

  THE OVERHEAD MONITOR showed that the train would be arriving in one minute.

  As I looked up at it a train clattered into the platform. Jubilee Line. False alarm.

  It was very warm. One of those days you get in May which are like a glorious early summer and I was wearing polarised aviator sunglasses against the brightness of the sun.

  Finchley Road is an open-air station. From there to all destinations west, the Tube is actually overground. It is at Finchley Road station heading east that the Metropolitan Line enters the tunnel network. The underground labyrinth connecting all parts of London. The Jubilee Line train left. Thirty seconds later the Metropolitan Line train came in.

  It was crowded, particularly for a Sunday. But there was a big concert on late
r at the O2 Arena, the re-formed Take That were headlining and thousands of people were heading east for it.

  Harlan Shapiro and I stood up as the train pulled to a stop, and headed to the door which opened opposite the seat we had been told to wait at.

  Harlan Shapiro stepped aboard.

  I scanned the carriages and what faces I could see I didn’t recognise. The doors closed and the train began to pull out.

  I let the carriage go, then jogged alongside the train and leapt in between two of the carriages where there was a small gap for the guard to walk through.

  The train picked up speed and as it went into the tunnel the lights dimmed and it became dark.

  My feet flew from under me and I fell backwards towards the gap.

  Chapter 71

  LUCKILY SOMEONE HAD opened the window on one of the doors.

  I managed to grab its top edge before I was sucked under the train.

  I pulled myself upright and opened the door. A group of middle-aged women looked at me, startled. I smiled apologetically and tried to make my way through.

  It wasn’t easy. I wasn’t sure what I’d hoped to achieve by getting on the train but I couldn’t just do nothing. I’d made a promise first to Hannah Shapiro and now to her father, and I intended to keep it. I made my way about halfway down the carriage when the train stopped briefly, as it often did on this stretch of track. I walked on to the end of the carriage and it started up again.

  I looked through the windows between the carriages but there was no sign of Hannah or her father. I opened the door again, apologising to the people who had to move out of the way. I considered flashing them my card but decided against it. Given the circumstances, it was probably best not to let people know who I was or who I was working for.

  I worked my way down through the next carriage. It was just as packed as the others. Mainly women – a lot of them in their thirties or forties. Dressed a lot younger and giggling like schoolchildren on their way to their first concert.

  What would happen if the kidnappers detonated the explosives didn’t bear thinking about.

  I had been entirely rational in my reassurances to Harlan Shapiro. But logic was one thing and human emotion another, and emotion was a far stronger force than logic. As I was just about to find out.