The Legacy (3 page)

Chapter 6

Heathrow was crowded as Lucy Masters headed towards the Air India check-in desk. She was dressed in skinny jeans, climbing boots, polo shirt and blue micro-fibre fleece. Her hair was tied in a ponytail and threaded through the gap at the back of her baseball cap. Her sunglasses were hooked into the V of her polo shirt but kept falling to the floor as she struggled to push the trolley containing her enormous North Face climber's bag towards the neatly dressed girl at the check-in. She'd made the decision to wear the boots because they were heavy and she was worried about her baggage allowance. She was regretting it now as she realised that she'd have to take them off to go through security. Isobel was already in Nepal and had been texting her repeatedly, telling her about the people she was meeting in the hotel she was staying in. Lucy couldn't wait to join her. An hour later, she was bracing herself as the airplane accelerated down the runway and lifted off for the thirteen-hour journey to Nepal.

‘Excuse me,' she said to a passing stewardess when the seatbelt lights had gone off and the cabin crew had started to move around the aircraft. ‘Please could I have a bottle of water?'

The Nepalese stewardess smiled at her. ‘Of course,' she said, disappearing off into the galley. She returned a few minutes later and gave Lucy the water.

‘Thank you,' said Lucy, looking up at the stewardess just as the blond head of a man disappeared into the toilet a few rows ahead. She hadn't noticed him before. The struggle with her bag had been all consuming and she was only now taking in the people around her.

A few minutes later the man reappeared from the toilets and started back towards his seat. She could see him clearly as he stepped over the legs of a middle aged man to get to his chair. He looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties with blond straggly hair and a tanned, unshaven face. She couldn't see the colour of his eyes but she did notice a recent scar that ran across his right cheek. He was wearing a grey t-shirt and faded old Levis held up with a Kenyan beaded belt. He braced against the back of a seat to lift himself over the man's legs and, as he did so, Lucy noticed the well developed muscles of his arms and shoulders tense with effort. And then he was gone, sinking down into his seat three rows ahead. ‘I wonder where he's going,' thought Lucy with a smile. Her last boyfriend had lasted nearly a year but they had broken up eight months ago and she'd not met anyone she really liked since. Several well meaning friends had asked her to dinner to meet similarly aged single men but she could see why most of them were still single. ‘I suspect people say that about me,' she thought to herself. The problem, as she saw it, was that most men were not good at treating women as equals. They wanted to be admired by a lesser being and seemed to find it difficult dealing with someone who wasn't really very impressed by whatever they had done. For the sake of her friends, Lucy made an effort to be interested in what these potential boyfriends had to say but, most of the time, they were just very dull and rather full of themselves. Lucy's only real concern was what her friends must think of her if they felt she would be a good match for any of the endless succession of men that they arranged for her to meet.

After twelve hours the pilot announced that they were beginning their descent into Kathmandu International Airport. As she strapped herself in, she looked up and caught a glimpse of the straggly blond man as he reached up to put something in the overhead locker. His movements were fluid and his stomach, when the t-shirt lifted up, looked flat and hard. ‘Probably a climber,' she thought to herself, ‘wonder if he's going to Annapurna?' She was lost in thought as the plane came to a standstill. She looked out of the window and could see the mobile stairs being positioned against the side of the aircraft. A few minutes later, passengers were thanked for travelling with Air India and were asked to leave the plane using the front and rear exits. Lucy collected her belongings and walked towards the front of the plane and then out onto the top of the stairs that had been attached to the exit. As she started down towards the tarmac, she squinted her eyes against the bright sunshine and breathed in deeply. The smell of the Kathmandu Valley was distinct and just as she remembered it from her last visit twelve months ago. She loved Nepal. The people were friendly, the mountains were just incredible and the food was fantastic. She'd been five times in the last ten years and she was starting to pick up some of the language, enough at least to order a beer and find the nearest toilet.

‘Namaste,' she said in greeting to the Nepalese official at the passport desk.

‘Namaste,' he replied, smiling as he handed her passport back to her, ‘Enjoy your stay'.

Lucy smiled back and went to reclaim her luggage. The blond man was standing by the carousel waiting for his bag to arrive so she stood back, waiting to see whether he collected a rucksack or a suitcase. If the former, then she might go over and strike up a conversation with him; if the latter, then she would go to the other end of the carousel to wait for her bag. After five minutes, the man bent down to pick up a bag similar to hers. Lucy started to smile as she watched him lift the big bag easily onto his shoulder and then turn and start walking towards the main exit. Lucy was keen to follow but her bag didn't arrive for another ten minutes. By the time she'd picked it up and walked out to the front of the terminal, the blond man had gone. Lucy sighed for what might have been. Kathmandu was a bustling city with a population of nine hundred and ninety thousand people. The chances of bumping into the man again were slim indeed. A taxi pulled up and Lucy climbed in, dragging her bag after her. She gave the driver the address of Isobel's hotel and sat back to enjoy the journey through one of the world's most interesting cities.

Chapter 7

It was Thursday morning and the assassin had just showered after a long run round Arthur's Seat. He never tired of the view from the top of the mountain. It overlooked the Palace of Holyroodhouse and the Royal Mile as it climbed its way up towards Edinburgh Castle. He pulled on jeans, a t-shirt and old loafers and headed out of his flat and into the street. He knew Richards would be in Edinburgh by now and that he was probably watching him to make sure that the meeting hadn't been compromised. He had learnt that the best thing to do was to go about his normal business, knowing that Richards would contact him as and when he wanted to. The assassin therefore went into the Costa Coffee on Queen's Street and ordered a black Americano and a Danish pastry. He found a table overlooking the gardens at the foot of the castle and sipped his coffee as he watched the world go by.

After fifteen minutes, Richards pulled out a chair and sat at the table with his own coffee. ‘Good to see you,' he said. ‘I'm glad you're back home and not up in the hills.'

‘I was planning to head up to Skye tomorrow,' replied the assassin, ‘but there's a particular painting being auctioned by Sotherby's on Saturday that I'm keen to try and get before heading up North.'

Richards smiled. The assassin was without doubt the most proficient killer that Richards had ever met. Cold, efficient and utterly professional, it seemed odd that such a man would have a passion for nineteenth century Scottish landscapes. But it takes all kinds thought Richards as he contemplated his own passion for the exquisite young Bolivian woman he had recently met. She was about half his age and was married to a junior diplomat at the Bolivian Embassy. The unfortunate man clearly believed his job was more important than appeasing his sexually insatiable wife. Richards didn't care. She was young, pretty and extremely adventurous in bed. Married women always appealed to him. They were less likely to develop an emotional attachment to him and this suited him just fine. Indeed, it had been one such relationship that had led to him having to leave the British Army.

Richards spoke softly but quickly, explaining who Peter Fairweather was and briefing the assassin on the additional research he had been able to do since he'd seen Charles Highworth earlier in the week. He explained about the need for urgency and that Fairweather's death had to look like an accident.

‘He lives in St James' Square, near Piccadilly Circus,' said Richards. ‘This Saturday, he's supposed to be watching his team take part in a polo tournament at the Guards Polo Club in Windsor Great Park. I'm not sure what time it will finish but he usually goes out for supper after these sorts of events, normally somewhere in London near his home.'

‘Go on,' encouraged the assassin, listening intently.

‘The only event he's got in his diary for Sunday is an invitation to a private viewing of a new collection at the National Portrait Gallery. He'll be with people all weekend and I suspect it will be difficult to get him alone. He hasn't got a regular girlfriend at the moment but, if his usual form is anything to go by, he'll spend Saturday night with someone he meets during the course of the day. Whether she stays over Sunday night depends, I suspect, on how she performs on Saturday night.' Richards handed over a thick manila envelope containing the detail he'd been able to amass. Though time had been short, his extensive network of contacts had served him well and the product was impressive. ‘In terms of the price, I was thinking of something like eighty K,' said Richards.

The assassin smiled. Whilst he wouldn't describe Richards as a friend, he had known him a long time and he knew that the first price, which was rarely generous, was always subject to negotiation. ‘What worries me about this,' said the assassin, ‘is that I have no time to watch Fairweather before making the kill. Even if I leave for London this afternoon, I'll only have a few days to observe him before I have to finish him. As you know, this increases the risk significantly, particularly if it has to look like an accident.'

It was Richards' turn to smile. ‘I thought you'd say that,' he said. They discussed the price for a further ten minutes and eventually agreed on a figure of a hundred thousand pounds, fifty percent payable now, fifty after the event. This suited the assassin. The first fifty thousand would allow him to buy the picture he wanted, even if the bidding went to twice what was expected. The assassin gave Richards the number of the offshore bank account into which the money was to be transferred. Richards left the cafe and took a taxi to the airport. Once there, he sat in one of the departure lounge's cafes, turned on his laptop and transferred the first fifty thousand to the assassin's offshore account. The game was on.

The assassin went back to his flat and began packing. Excited by the challenge, he started to think through the best way of killing Fairweather. The tricky bit was making it look like an accident. He had Fairweather's address in St James' Square and he knew the area well enough to know that he could easily hide in the shadows near the house or in the Square's central garden and wait for an opportunity to get close to Fairweather as he either entered or left the building. It would be relatively straightforward to pretend to stumble into Fairweather as he walked past him, inserting the blade of a knife between the ribs and into the heart as their bodies came together. This would kill him almost instantly. If he wore dark jeans, a dark hoodie and kept his head down, there would be little chance of him being identified from CCTV footage after the event. But the problem with this approach was that it wouldn't look like an accident. St James' is an exclusive part of town and home to lots of expensive London clubs. It is reasonably busy at all hours and well patrolled by the police because of the importance of some of the people using the clubs. It is not the sort of place that people are routinely mugged and killed and any such murder would merit investigation by the police. He had to come up with an alternative plan.

He continued to think through the problem as he drove down towards London the next morning. He always preferred to drive if he was working in the UK as it meant that he could avoid public transport and the thousands of cameras that were now a feature of every train station, airport and bus depot. He'd stolen the car, a five-year-old silver Citroën, the night before from one of the rougher parts of Edinburgh, replacing the number plates with a set that he'd made himself early in the morning with a machine that he'd stolen years ago. The new set were exact copies of a number plate he'd seen on a similar vehicle the previous night. This vehicle had been parked in the drive of a smart looking house near the Botanical Gardens, one of Edinburgh's most expensive residential areas. His rationale for copying this car's number plate was that people living at such an address were no doubt wealthy enough to pay their road tax and to keep their car insured and road legal. It would therefore be unlikely that this number plate would attract attention if randomly checked by the police, although he was only too aware that he didn't know the name of the vehicle's owner and he would therefore struggle if stopped and questioned in detail. To avoid drawing attention to himself, he drove carefully, keeping to the speed limit all the way into London.

Chapter 8

Highworth sat in his office reading the
Financial Times
. Tokifora's shares had gone up again from 150 pence per share to 154. This was clearly good news but he sensed that they would soon start to plateau and then probably start to dip. If asked to explain why he felt this, he would probably say that the gradual acquisition of large volumes of shares by his fund would have led other speculators to start investing in the company. This would have created an unusual level of demand which would have inflated the price of the shares beyond their realistic worth. The dipping would represent nothing more than the shares settling at what he and others would consider to be a fair price. But he was not really interested in owning shares that had stabilised, particularly when he would need a fair amount of money readily to hand to start buying Bubble.com shares shortly. He called in his PA. ‘Tell the team to start selling Tokifora. Nothing drastic but I would like to have reduced our holding by twenty percent by Monday evening.' She nodded and left the office to issue instructions.

Highworth was an autocrat. He was rude, arrogant and, whilst charming to those he considered his peers, he bullied those who worked for him. His behaviour was tolerated because he was so successful at making money and because he paid his staff very well indeed, well enough for them to put up with being abused, at least for a few years. He was happy to be challenged by people when discussing investment proposals, particularly by members of his research team, but, following dinner with an old army friend, he had recently taken to telling his staff to defer to what he called ‘the hierarchy of wisdom'. This slightly Delphic utterance had been taken by his staff to mean that as he was at the top of the hierarchy, he clearly had the most wisdom and they should do what he told them.

He was using all of his hierarchical wisdom to work out when the best time to start buying Bubble.com shares would be. He was clear that their current price would drop rapidly once Fairweather had died. They were currently trading at 545 pence per share, having risen by over a pound in the last six weeks as the market's confidence in Mymate grew. The confidence was in part fuelled by Fairthweather talking the application up at every opportunity, even guaranteeing that, once launched, it would only be a matter of a few years before it had a greater market share than Facebook. The first part of Highworth's plan to make a killing was to ‘short sell' two million of Bubble.com's shares. Early next week he would enter into a contract agreeing to sell these shares in one month's time at a price of 450 pence, over 95 pence below their current value. The price had been carefully selected. It was sufficiently low that those looking to invest in the company would be keen to buy but not so low that the regulatory authorities would start to take a real interest in the offer. Billions of shares were short sold every day and he knew there would be plenty of takers given the current price. With the charismatic Fairweather dead, Highworth was effectively betting that the market would fast lose confidence in Bubble.com's ability to complete Mymate as planned and the share price would drop like a stone. He thought it would bottom out at about 250 to 300 pence per share within a week or so of Fairweather's death, allowing him to buy his two million shares at a knock down price before then honouring his contract to sell them for 450 pence. He hoped to make several million pounds almost overnight doing this, but the second part of his plan was where the big money would be made. He intended to buy several million more of the shares once their price had dropped because he knew from his research that provided Colin Pearson stayed with the company, Mymate would be delivered on time and the share price would eventually soar to an all-time high. He smiled. Short selling was a gamble. Indeed, in 2010, concerned about the impact of short selling on market behaviour, the US Securities and Exchange Commission had introduced a number of restrictive rules to try and constrain speculator opportunism. But the UK authorities hadn't, and provided you could influence events, the potential profits were so huge that the benefits far outweighed the risks.

Highworth's plan was beginning to fall into place. He picked up the phone and issued instructions to start short selling Bubble.com's shares. His team didn't demur. Whilst they might snigger about more wisdom cascading down the hierarchy, his track record was so remarkable that they simply did what they were told.