Dick Francis's Damage (18 page)

“Hmm,” he said. “You may be right.” He didn't sound overly convinced, but he said nothing more to me.

As the other Board members packed up their papers and put on their coats, I looked around at them. Had I felt a slight frisson earlier in the meeting? From whom had it emanated? And what had been said to cause it? I tried to remember but nothing surfaced.

It must have been my imagination.

I
t was not just another note that arrived from Leonardo at the BHA office early on Monday morning in the mail, there was a cell phone in the packet as well.

Crispin Larson called me at home just before eight o'clock and suggested we meet at El Vino for breakfast at eight-thirty.

“Make it nine,” I said. “I'm not dressed yet.”

“Idle tyke,” he said. “You need to get up in the morning. All this working-from-home nonsense is making you lazy.”

Maybe he was right, but, on this occasion, laziness had nothing to do with it. Lydia and I had been out for a late night and we'd been up until well past two in the morning.

I had been rather down when I'd returned home to Willesden from the Board meeting. Even though I'd not been sacked, I did feel that I'd achieved little or nothing and that hurt my pride. I'd been so sure I would be able to find the person, or at least get some way towards it but I had learned absolutely nothing about him. Nothing more than a few guesses.

Lydia had done her best all afternoon to cheer me up without any great success, but she had finally convinced me that we should go into central London to see a new high-tech spy movie that had opened in Leicester Square. She was desperate to see it before her friends at the realtors.

“It will cheer you up,” she said, “and you can tell me all the things that are wrong in it.”

We laughed. I was always saying to her that no real secret agent would ever dress like James Bond or drive an Aston Martin. He would stand out too much. And as for the drinking—well, 007 wouldn't have been able to see straight, let alone shoot accurately, and all that lovemaking to gorgeous birds just made us real secret agents laugh with incredulity, and perhaps a bit of jealousy.

The film had all the usual mistakes and many new ones as well, with science-fiction killer-ray guns and the ability to scream and be heard across the vacuum of space. It was, however, very entertaining, And, of course, the hero saved the world by defeating the bad guys, cheating death in the final scene by floating down from orbital speed at the edge of space with nothing more than a Union Jack parachute and a pair of fancy plastic goggles. It conveniently ignored the fact that, in reality, he would have been burned to a crisp by the heat generated or asphyxiated by the lack of oxygen at such a height. Probably both.

We came out of the cinema laughing and joking.

“So ridiculous,” I said.

“But wonderful fun,” Lydia said. “And no more ridiculous than Hugh Grant playing the Prime Minister.”

“That's true.” We laughed again. “I'm hungry. Fancy a meal?”

We went to Balans restaurant in Old Compton Street and quite simply stayed until one o'clock in the morning, eating and
drinking, but mostly just talking, and then we caught the night bus home for more wine and sex before sleep.

Things between us had been really good since our night out at
Les Misérables
, and we seemed to have rediscovered the art of communication. It was just like old times, and, thankfully, not a word from either of us about marriage.

“Who was on the phone?” Lydia asked as I went along to the kitchen.

“Crispin Larson,” I said. “I have to go and meet him. I'll have breakfast there.”

“Trouble?”

“No more than yesterday.”

“Good luck,” she called as I went out the front door.

—

CRISPIN WAS
at El Vino ahead of me, with coffee and buttered toast in front of him.

“What does he say?” I asked, sitting opposite him and helping myself to a piece of his toast.

“He wants the down payment.”

“Does he indeed? How much?”

“He wants two hundred thousand down on two million.”

“He's beginning to think he'll get nothing. He's trying to cover his costs and make a bit of profit straight off.”

“You think so?” asked Crispin.

“Otherwise, why would he ask? He must know the most dangerous time for him is the drop. Why have two drops when one would do? He's getting twitchy. What do Howard and Roger Vincent say?”

“They're keen to pay. And so, apparently, are most of the Board. Anything to prevent another incident like Saturday's.”

“So what are the instructions for the drop?”

“Our friend's letter said to get the money ready in a secure brightly colored canvas bag and await instructions. He'll text them to this phone.” Crispin handed me a basic black Nokia cell. “It came with the letter.”

I had a good look at the phone. It looked innocuous enough. I removed the back. Someone had scratched off the serial numbers from both the phone itself and from the plain yellow SIM card it contained.

“Does it have a phone number?” I asked.

“It must have, but how do you find it? The settings are password-protected. You can't make a call out—it simply says it's
Out of time
—and you can't add time without the number.”

The pay-as-you-go phone. The bane of policemen and security services worldwide. Bought for cash with a false name, there was no means of identifying the owner. It is the communication device of choice among villains and terrorists alike.

“Did the letter say when we are to pay?” I asked.

“This afternoon.”

“That's ridiculous,” I said. “How can we get two hundred grand in cash by this afternoon?”

“And all in used fifty-pound notes. Roger Vincent is working on it. Apparently, he has a very accommodating bank manager.”

“We could always use flash money,” I said.

“‘Flash money'?” Crispin asked.

“Police slang for
dummy money
—you know, newspaper cut into bundles made to look like cash with a genuine banknote at either end.”

“Would that be wise?”

“Probably not.”

“You are to make the drop,” Crispin said, “with me in close proximity.”

No doubt to make sure it wasn't him or me who ran off with the money.

“We need to mark the cash in some way,” I said, “so that it can be traced. And also we ought to have a tracker device with it.”

“The letter says that the cash should be placed in the bag with nothing else.”

“Well, it would, wouldn't it? But it doesn't mean we are going to comply with his wishes. I think I'll go and see an old friend of mine from the army. He now runs one of those spy gadget shops in Kensington High Street. I'll deal with that, you just get the cash.” I looked at my watch. It was twenty to ten. “Meet you back here at two with the money?”

“I'll try.”

—

“THIS ONE
should do well,” said my ex–army mate. He produced a small black box about two inches by one inch and half an inch deep. “Best tracking device on the market. Range of about four miles.”

“Don't you have anything smaller?” I asked. That black box was going to be far too visible in a bag of used fifty-pound notes. “Something small enough that you wouldn't notice?”

“Hide it,” he said. “Best in a car. It's got a magnet on one side so that it will stick in a wheel well.”

“I need something flat that no one would see.”

“Sorry, mate, no can do. The electronics are pretty small, but you need a decent battery for the range. Those little watch-sized batteries aren't up to it. This little beauty will go on working for
thirty-six hours before the battery needs replacing. What do you want it for anyway?”

He held up the receiver, a silver box the size of a TV remote, with a loop aerial attached at one end and a lead to an earpiece at the other. It made a reassuringly continuous electronic beeping sound in the earpiece when the loop faced towards the little box. It was, however, not as sophisticated as a James Bond tracker, which would almost certainly have had a moving-map display as the receiver and would have worked from outer space for a whole month using a self-charging battery hidden inside a playing card.

“Checking up on the little lady, are we?” He grinned.

“Something like that.” I could hardly tell him that it was to hide with a stash of ransom money. The ransom for racing.

“Then put it inside something that won't raise her suspicions, like in an empty cigarette pack or a chocolate candy wrapper.”

Lydia didn't smoke, and chocolate was definitely not on her current diet's allowable food list. Both items would have been instantly suspicious if I really had been “checking up on the little lady.”

“Or just hide it in her handbag. Women's handbags are so full of stuff, she'll never notice it at the bottom.”

“I'll take it,” I said. “And the receiver.”

He switched them both off and put them back in their boxes.

“Do you have any pens that write with ink that only shows up under ultraviolet light?”

“Security pens,” he said. “For marking your property with a zip code. Loads of them. Thin ones or thick ones?”

“Thick,” I said. “I'll take a couple.”

My friend placed the tracking device, the receiver and the
pens in a bag before relieving my credit card of an extortionate amount of money.

I hoped the BHA was still paying my expenses.

—

I WAS
back at El Vino just before two o'clock and there was no sign of Crispin.

I checked once again that the Nokia phone was properly switched on and I placed it on the table in front of me. The icons on the screen showed me that it had full power and a five-bar signal. All I had to do was wait for the instruction text to arrive.

Crispin appeared with a small battered grip in his hand and stood by the bar, looking around.

I waved at him, but, at first, he took no notice.

Eventually, after more waving on my part, he came over.

“Jeff?” he asked.

When one wears a disguise, you are the only person who doesn't see it. Everything looks normal from within.

“Yes, Crispin,” I said. “Stop staring and sit down.”

“Why the masquerade?”

“I think it would be better if it's you who makes the drop while I shadow you. If Leonardo is a racing insider and if he knows what we normally look like, I thought it might be to our advantage if one of us became anonymous, that's all. There was nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

“I suppose you might be right.”

“Have you got the money?”

He removed a bright orange canvas bag from the grip.

“It's a tent-peg bag,” Crispin said. “I bought it at a camping shop.”

“But is that it?” I asked, surprised. “I thought two hundred thousand pounds would be bigger.”

“It's only one hundred thousand,” Crispin said. “That was all the banks would provide. Bloody money-laundering regulations. What a nightmare. As it is, we had to get it from three different banks, and, even then, they weren't at all keen about it. Roger Vincent has been pulling in favors from his banker friends all morning to bankroll even this amount.”

“At least it's not two million,” I said. “Or five. A hundred thousand will have to be enough.”

“It's only a down payment.”

“Not if we manage to catch the bastard as he collects it.”

“What's with the rugby ball?” Crispin asked, pointing at the ball beside me on the table next to the Nokia phone.

“I'm not really sure,” I said with exasperation. “I had a crazy idea but now it seems totally mad. I tried to get an electronic tracker we could hide amid the money, but that's impossible as they're all so big and would be seen far too easily. So I've spent much of the past hour putting a tracking device into this.” I held up the old, battered, deflated rugby ball. “I found it in a bush in Kensington Gardens and I had the thought that if we could somehow put it with the money, he might just take them both.” I held up my hands as if surrendering. “I know it's stupid, but we have to try something.”

“It's no more stupid, dear boy, than giving someone a hundred grand with nothing to show for it. Our friend could go and do the same thing next Saturday. And the Saturday after that, for all we know. We need to catch him.”

“Did Stephen Kohli call his police friend?”

“He's apparently been in court all day. Stephen's left him a message, but I wouldn't hold your breath.”

“Why didn't he go to the court and see him when they broke for lunch?”

“He's giving evidence at the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh. It's mostly a Scottish case, but there was a constituent murder in London.”

“Then we must find somebody else in the police to contact,” I said. “We could really do with their help this afternoon.”

“You're not going to get it. Howard and Roger Vincent have decided to wait another day in the hope that Stephen can make contact with his friend this evening.”

“What did Neil Wallinger say about that?”

“He doesn't know.”

“Madness,” I said. “Now, grab one of these and let's get marking.”

I gave him one of the invisible-ink pens and together we sat in a secluded corner booth writing
BHA
in big invisible letters on one side of the fifty-pound notes and the office phone number on the other. It was a very long shot, but just maybe someone in a bank somewhere would be curious enough to call.

There were two thousand fifties in the bag, ten bundles each of two hundred notes wrapped in a paper sleeve. We had marked about half the notes when the Nokia phone emitted a beep-beep. A text had arrived.

Both of us looked at it.

Go to Trafalgar Square and wait.

“He's going to give us the runaround,” said Crispin, “in case we're being followed by the police.”

“I wish we were,” I said. “This could be a long afternoon.”