Due Diligence: A Thriller (53 page)

“That’s right.”

“Can I see this announcement?”

“On Bloomberg,” said Wilson. He almost wanted to laugh in despair.

“At ten o’clock, correct? I’ll be watching.” Prinzi chuckled. “When you look into the camera, Mike, think of me.”

Wilson closed his eyes.

“Tony?” he said. “What about the girl? Holding’s girlfriend.”

“What about her?”

“You know … he’s in London…”

“Apparently she’s there with him. I’m afraid, Mike, that puts her in the line of fire. I don’t understand young men today. A man takes his woman into such a situation? A woman should be at home where she’s protected. Although we did have an unfortunate incident at her apartment, I have to say.”

Wilson barely dared to ask. “What kind of unfortunate incident?”

“Let’s just say that Mr. Holding’s friend is not the only person to have been killed.”

“For God’s sake!” For an instant, Wilson couldn’t breathe. It just kept getting worse. “I thought you said you didn’t kill anyone else!”

“One of my own employees, Michael. A very good man. Very reliable. Shot by the police. You don’t think I’m unhappy? Normally, this would cost you. But in this instance I can’t say we’re without fault.”

“So now the police have got one of your guys, and they’re going to trace him to you, and—”

“Michael, be calm. He’s dead. Dead. What’s he gonna tell them? They can trace what they like. You think
I’m
gonna tell them something? Be calm. What am I telling you? Be calm.”

Wilson nodded. He took a deep breath. “Okay.”

“We’ll look after this. Relax. Get a good night’s sleep tonight. You ever use pills? To sleep?”

“No.”

“Me neither. Sometimes, if something’s really on my mind. Get a good night’s sleep, Michael. You want to look nice on the camera. Tomorrow, we’ll be there. Don’t worry, Michael. If Mr. Holding thinks he’s gonna come along and make a noise at your party, he’s gonna find a welcome committee waiting.”

58

They had left the hotel that morning. Rob made a point of stopping by the front desk to ask what the weather was going to be like and how they could get to the nearest subway station, and he mentioned that they’d be back late that evening. He managed to mention it at least five times. He wanted it to stick with the clerk, in case anyone came asking for them. He paid for another day in advance. Then he and Emmy walked out, with no intention of returning.

Outside, it was a bright, blustery day. Cool, but the wind had blown the clouds away. The subway station was at the junction of a couple of big roads and nearby there was a long strip of shops. They kept walking until he found what they wanted. It was a grimy shop, with worn, threadbare carpet, but there were rows of computers inside. Rob paid for an hour’s Internet surfing from a guy who sat behind a cash register near the front of the shop and was handed a paper slip with a password. They went to the row of computers at the back of the shop.

After that, it took all of about two minutes. As Emmy watched over his shoulder, he typed “BritEnergy” into Google, got their home page, clicked on the button called Investor Relations, a couple more clicks, and there it was. Press conference tomorrow, Friday, three
P.M.
, in the Raleigh Room at the Royal Gloucester Hotel. London W1. Rob glanced at Emmy and wrote the details down. Easy.

He went to the Royal Gloucester website to find out where the hotel was. The home page came up with a picture of the facade, a set of steps leading up to big doors with polished brass handles attended by a pair of top-hatted doormen. Rob imagined himself walking up those steps tomorrow. He pulled up a map. Curzon Street. He noticed Berkeley Square near the hotel on the map, an oblong with a green oval at its center, and remembered swinging around a parklike area in the cab the night before. But it had been dark, and he hadn’t noticed much else. Then he did a search on other hotels in the area and checked their locations. He found one a couple of blocks away, the Norton, that didn’t look too obtrusive, but not a dive like the places they had stayed in for the last couple of nights.

“What do you think?” he said to Emmy.

“Can’t we stay somewhere really horrible again?”

Rob smiled. He went on the website and checked room availability. He started to make a reservation, but stopped when the screen came up for his credit card details. He’d have to put his name down. His real name. He didn’t want to do that. He’d pay cash. He wrote down the phone number of the Norton instead and took a note of the nearest subway station. Then he went back to the map. He asked the guy at the counter if he could print a web page. On the map, he marked the locations of the Norton and the Royal Gloucester. A couple of hundred yards from one to the other, he estimated. If that.

He logged off the computer, paid the extra fee for the printing, and they left.

Outside, he went into a phone box. As Emmy waited, he called up the Norton and asked if they had a room for a couple of nights.

“What name, sir?” asked the woman on the phone, after she had confirmed availability and price.

Rob thought. They were Leopard. What was he?

“Poacher,” he said.

“Mr. Poacher,” said the woman, typing the name in. “Initial?”

“B,” said Rob at random.

“Good. Thank you, Mr. Poacher. We’ll be expecting you.”

Rob left the phone box.

“You need fresh clothes,” said Emmy, looking him up and down.

“You think so?”

She nodded. There was an old-fashioned kind of men’s store nearby and they went in. What would a journalist wear? Emmy picked out a pair of blue trousers, a pale blue shirt, a black jacket as a pair of old men who ran the store danced attendance. Rob added fresh underwear.

“That’s you,” she said. They found a women’s clothing store and Emmy came out with a black suit, a pale purple blouse, and black shoes.

“What do you think?” she said. “Journalist?”

“Secretary.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“One more thing,” said Rob. He went into a supermarket and bought a whole bagful of snack bars.

Then they headed for the subway.

Half an hour later, Mr. Bernard Poacher paid cash over the counter and checked into the Norton Hotel. They went straight to the room, hung the
DO NOT DISTURB
sign on the handle, and locked the door behind them.

One more day, thought Rob. Three o’clock tomorrow afternoon. All he had to do was make it to the Royal Gloucester alive.

He sat down at the desk and examined the map he had printed. Emmy lay on the bed, propping herself up on an elbow and watching him. The map showed a crowded area, lots of little streets. Rob traced out the route with a pencil. Left out of the hotel, and he would come to a street called Chesterfield Hill. Right at Chesterfield, then over Hay’s Mews, then Charles Street. At Charles Street, it looked like a kind of dogleg into Queen Street, then down Queen a short distance to Curzon. Lots of little streets, but not far. The Royal Gloucester would be right across Curzon from Queen, according to the map, almost diagonally opposite the corner.

Emmy got up and looked at the map. “So that’s the route we’re going to take?”

Rob glanced up at her. He had known what she was planning ever since she had bought herself the new clothes. Now he hadn’t missed the “we,” and she knew that he hadn’t. It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

She gazed at him steadily.

Rob nodded. “That’s it.”

Emmy smiled. “Good. Looks easy. How far do you think it is?”

“Couple of hundred yards.”

“We should try it.”

“Good idea.”

That afternoon, they walked the route. In less than five minutes they were standing at the corner of Queen and Curzon, looking across the street at the steps of the Royal Gloucester Hotel and the top-hatted doormen from the picture on the Net.

They went up the steps, past the doormen, and inside to find the Raleigh Room.

59

The four men came up the steps just after nine o’clock on Friday morning. They wore suits. Three of them wore ties, the fourth a gray turtleneck under his jacket. He was a large man, broad-shouldered, with a nose that had been broken one way and then another. The other three hung back as one of the doormen opened the door, making space for him to go through first. Then they followed, a thin man with a rodentlike face, then a man of medium height with a plaster cast on his left wrist, and finally a younger man with a shock of blond hair.

They stopped and looked around the lobby.

First impression, gilt and marble. Reception desk on the left. Bank of elevators directly in front of them. Wide stairway on the right leading up to a mezzanine floor. Farther to the right, down a couple of steps under the overhang of the mezzanine, a big space with low tables and chairs and a bar beyond.

The man in the turtleneck glanced meaningfully at the thin man, who went to the concierge desk. He had a short conversation with the concierge and came back.

“It’s up the stairs,” he said. “Those ones over there.”

“And it’s three o’clock this afternoon?”

“Yeah.”

The man in the turtleneck turned to the other two. “It’s busy here on a Friday?”

They shrugged.

“Okay,” he said. “You wanna have a look outside? Right around? See where else you can get in or out.”

“If that’s what you want,” said the one with the cast. “After all, we’re here to help.”

There was more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice. Together with the blond man, he had picked up the other two off the red-eye from New York earlier that morning, taken them to a hotel, waited around while they freshened up, then brought them here, all so they could do what he believed he and his associate could manage perfectly well themselves.

The man in the turtleneck glanced at him for a moment. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll meet you back here. Down there.” He pointed to the tables near the bar.

The two men walked away.

“Let’s go up, Frank,” he said.

They went up the stairs. There was a lobby area in front of the elevators, and corridors leading off the space to the left and right. In the lobby were tables stacked with urns and cups and pastries on plates, ready for the morning breaks of the groups that were using the meeting rooms on the mezzanine.

“It’s over there,” said Frank.

They went into the corridor on the right, past a plaque listing the names of three rooms, the Drake, the Hawkins, and the Raleigh. They passed the first two, each with its name in gold lettering on the door. They came to the Raleigh Room.

The man in the turtleneck tried the door. It was locked.

“Anything else down there?”

Farther along were a ladies’ and men’s bathroom, and then the corridor ended blind. They went into the men’s bathroom and looked around and came out again. The man in the turtleneck glanced meaningfully at Frank. Frank went into the ladies’ bathroom to check it out.

They walked back past the Raleigh Room and stopped in the lobby again.

Frank glanced around. “He’s gotta come past here, Nick. This is the only way to get there.”

Nick’s eyes narrowed. “We wanna take him outside.”

“So we wait outside?”

“Here and outside. What if he’s in one of the hotel rooms right now? What if he comes down the elevator?” Nick looked around a little longer. “Better if we can, we take him outside. Come on. Let’s go down. See what those two morons found.”

Frank grinned.

They went down the stairs and took a seat at a table near the bar in the lobby. The other two men weren’t back yet.

“Go ask at the desk. See if he’s booked in. Might have been dumb enough to use his own name.”

Frank went to reception and asked. He came back to the table, shaking his head.

Eventually the others returned.

“So?”

“There’s a side entrance.” It was the man with the cast who replied. “Over there, past the reception desk.” He pointed. From this angle, it was possible to see that there was a corridor on the far side of the reception desk. It opened into the space in front of the elevators, directly opposite the stairs that led to the mezzanine. “There’s a few shops and then it comes out into the street.”

“What’s out there?” said Nick. “Some kind of alley?”

“A side street. Then there’s a staff entrance and a loading bay around the back.”

“Is that two entrances round back?”

“Not really. The staff door is right next to the loading bay.”

“Okay.”

There was silence.

“I think we should—”

“Shhh,” said Nick. “Please. I’m thinking.”

“Yeah, but we could just put a man—”

“Mr. Prinzi’s thinking,” said Frank. “Huh? Let him think. Maybe he can sort this out. If you guys could’ve done that yourselves, we wouldn’t have to be here, would we?”

“Who asked you to come?”

“Well, we wouldn’t, if you hadn’t fucked up.”

“Excuse me, who fucked it up?”

Frank tapped the cast on Kevin’s wrist. “That doesn’t look like a fuckup?”

“What was your friend doing on our manor?” demanded Eddy. “What kind of a fuckup was that?”

“We had the wrong information. You at least had the right information.”

“At least we didn’t kill the wrong guy.”

“At least I didn’t get my arm broken.”

“At least—”

“Hey, hey,
hey
!” said Prinzi. “Enough. Shut the hell up, the all of you. Jesus fucking Christ … Frank, shut the hell up here!” He paused, looking peremptorily at Frank, then at the others. “All right, listen up. I wanna take him outside if we can. Away from the press conference. We put two guys out the front. Around the back, one guy should be enough.”

“You think so, Nick?” said Frank.

“It’s an insurance policy. He’s not coming through there. He’s smart. He knows we’re looking for him. He knows we’re going to be waiting for him. The whole reason he’s coming, if he’s coming, is because he wants the protection of being in public. So he’s not coming in through some alley at the back. Huh? Think about it. He’s coming straight in that front entrance where everyone can see him. We’ve just gotta get hold of him without anyone noticing. Subtle. Discreet. Move him quickly away and ’round to the car.”