‘I’m Claire,’ she said, in a polished, privately educated voice. ‘I suppose you might say I’m your superintendent, care officer, concierge and private nurse all in one.’ Her eyes sparkled at ‘private nurse’ and he wondered if she was consciously flirting. If she even knew she was doing it.
Let’s find out.
‘Were you the one who changed my underwear?’
‘Ah, now that would be telling,’ she grinned, and he decided that she knew she was flirting. She was accustomed to being desired, and revelled in it.
She placed her briefcase on the coffee table and stood with her hands on her hips. ‘You’ve worked out that we have you under surveillance, then?’ she said.
‘Yes. Why do you need to do that?’
‘Don’t they tell you these things?’ she said, with mock irritation. ‘They really should, you know. You’re the prize in a high-stakes game and your identity is closely guarded, your whereabouts a secret. The only thing our players know about you is that you’re a Royal Marine commando. Thus we have to make sure you’re kept free from any interference or communication.
We don’t want to give any of the players an advantage now, do we?’
‘It’s a competition?’ asked Shelley.
‘Bloody hell, I’m going to have to have a word with Tremain – he really didn’t tell you anything, did he? Yes, of course it’s a competition, with quite a purse for the winner. Mr Miyake is the current holder, but there’s a few who will be hoping to claim his title.’
‘Where does all this take place? Here?’
‘No, in the woods somewhere. I trust you’re an outdoorsman?’
‘You have to be, in the Marines.’
‘You should be in your element, then.’
Shelley pulled at his overalls. ‘Where are my clothes?’
‘We’re having them fumigated. You can have them back when the game is over, if you like. I mean, if you insist.’
‘Yes, I do insist,’ he said. ‘I’d like my clothes back.’
‘You’ll be able to afford some new ones when this is all over.’
He looked at her, seeing through her façade, seeing how much she was enjoying herself, and then forced himself to grin. ‘Yeah, of course. Old habits.’
She returned his smile. ‘And you play in the overalls, of course.’
‘Am I supposed to look like a prisoner?’
‘It’s not intentional.’
‘So I’m not a prisoner here, then? I can come and go as I want?’
She furrowed her brow. ‘Well, no, of course you can’t. There are all those pesky security issues I was talking about. But first you might want to know where “here” is. Can’t go into geographical detail, I’m afraid, but it’s an old reformatory school. These buildings were the staff dwellings. There’s a main school building and there are education blocks. There is also a gym, a swimming pool, a cinema and a library. Most of the complex is abandoned, but what bits you need are fully kitted out for your exclusive use. You are invited – one might almost say “required” – to use the swimming pool and gym on a daily basis. Use the cinema and library as you like, but we do insist that you maintain an exercise routine, eat well and abstain from alcohol and drugs, which is just as well, because of course there will be no drink or drugs available.’
‘And I’m forbidden to leave the complex?’
She laughed. ‘’Fraid so.’
‘What if I change my mind and don’t want to be a part of it any more.’
‘We hope that won’t occur.’
‘But what if it does?’
‘Then we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Now,’ she said, changing the subject, ‘it’s time for your medical. I’m going to need a urine sample and your fingerprint, for programming internal security.’
‘My fingerprint?’
‘Yes, we need it for internal security,’ smiled Claire. ‘I’ll also be taking blood, but before we start . . .’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘How about I give you half an hour to take a shower?’
She left and he watched her go, his mind on what he knew about hostage situations. Be courteous with your captors, but remember that any warmth they show you is purely procedural. Don’t let them get too close and, above all, whatever you do, don’t get too close to them.
Why? Because at some point you might have to kill them.
CHAPTER 18
IN A DIMLY lit room in the bowels of a private members’ club in Soho, the key members of The Quarry Company were meeting: the company’s head of security, Tremain, and the two owners, Curtis and Boyd.
Curtis and Boyd liked to refer to themselves as ‘administrators’, since there was nothing of The Quarry Company to own, not in the conventional sense. What they had was more precious than bricks and mortar, brand-name recognition, copyrights, trademarks and patents. They had information. And information, as they and their clients knew, was power.
They were both in their early forties and wore jeans, polo shirts and sweaters. If it looked as though life had been good to them, then that’s because it had. They were both the recipients of expensive educations and favours that had sped them up the career ladder in multinational investment banks.
With such an effortless ascent came boredom, and the two Chelsea housemates compensated the usual way: hookers, drugs and, in the down time between hookers and drugs, watching videos on YouTube.
One night they were watching videos of homeless men being paid by film-makers to fight. Not long after that, Boyd and Curtis staged their own ‘bum-fights’ for their friends, and what they quickly noticed was that their friends rarely talked of them, and even then only in the most guarded terms. Other illicit activities were fair game for a good laugh in the pub, but not the bum-fights.
One of the participants was killed, and for months Curtis and Boyd were terrified the death would be investigated. As it turned out, neither of them needed to work their contacts in the police force; there was no investigation. And that gave them the idea for The Quarry Company.
The rest, as they say, is history. It turned out that the omertà they’d noticed in their days organising bum-fights was multiplied a hundredfold when it came to the activities of The Quarry Company. They soon had a respectable client base who knew the rules; who even saw the activities of The QC as an act of insurrection against the political-correctness lobby, the do-gooders.
Whatever their reasons, whatever inspired them, the clients looked to The QC to provide them with something the outside world could not. And Curtis and Boyd were happy to provide it.
Over the course of three hunts, so far they had made around £120 million profit, but more importantly they had accrued undreamed-of influence. It was no exaggeration to say that they had the Establishment in their pocket, and as far as Curtis and Boyd were concerned, there was no reason it shouldn’t stay there.
‘How is the quarry?’ asked Curtis.
Tremain replied, ‘Claire reports excellent progress. He’s adapting well to life at reform school.’
‘Good. Will he be ready for this weekend?’
‘Oh, he was ready before we met him; according to Claire, he’s an excellent physical specimen.’
‘Good. Well done. Pleased to hear it.’
Boyd leaned forward to where his briefcase rested on a low table. He opened it, momentarily fiddled with the laptop inside, then closed it again.
‘I hope you don’t keep details of hunts on that thing,’ said Tremain.
‘The bare minimum, and it’s all encrypted,’ replied Boyd. ‘Our main archive is safe in a deposit box.’
‘That where your bodies are buried, is it?’
‘It’s biometrically protected. Basically you need to be me or Boyd to see it. Everything else is up here.’ Curtis tapped the side of his head. ‘Why do you ask? What’s the interest?’
‘You have to be able to drop everything and walk away, if needs be. Nothing incriminating. No paper trail.’
‘Of course. But why bring that
up now?’
‘Well, it could be something, could be nothing, but we have an issue.’ The two men looked sharply at him, so Tremain kept it simple. ‘It’s information from Kenneth Farmer. Sarah has become suspicious and she’s been talking to a third party.’
Curtis made a disgusted sound. ‘That idiot, Farmer. What kind of third party?’
‘She corresponds with a “Simon”, initials “SC”. It would seem likely that this is Simon Claridge, an MI5 operative. They had a relationship at Cambridge and have remained close ever since.’
‘You know this man Claridge?’
‘He’s in another section, different floor. I see him in the lift occasionally. He’s younger but older, if you know what I mean. He has a decent rank and a reputation as a good man. If he does suspect anything, then he’s too clever to go making a song and dance about it. What we need to know is if he can link Farmer to anyone else in the organisation. You two, for instance. Have you ever met Farmer?’
‘We did, once,’ admitted Curtis.
Tremain grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘That was a little reckless, if I may say so.’
Curtis shrugged. ‘Kenneth Farmer is one of those who offers us favours, in order to supplement his fee. Occasionally we have to meet him to discuss this. Besides, you taught us well, Obi Wan. We made sure of using the CCTV dead zones.’
‘Well, if you’d been identified, your names would have come up on the grid and I’d have been alerted. So let’s assume, for the time being, that Claridge hasn’t made the connection. In that case, he’s a man with a suspicion, and not much else.’
‘He’ll start digging,’ whined Boyd. ‘This is just the start of the investigation. Farmer’s playing at the weekend. This man Claridge could follow him to the hunt. Look, this is all getting too hot for me. Oakleigh’s death, and now this. We should call it off.’
Curtis sighed. ‘We have over seventy million riding on this hunt – we’re not going to call it off. If there’s a leak, we plug it.’
‘You’re both right,’ said Tremain. ‘We need to neutralise the threat ahead of this weekend or we will have to cancel.’
‘We’re not cancelling,’ insisted Curtis. ‘It’s your job to sort it, so sort it.’
‘Yes. For fuck’s sake, Tremain,’ blurted Boyd, sweat glistening on his forehead, ‘do what you’re paid for. Kill Claridge. Make it look like an accident. We can’t afford any leaks.’
Tremain looked at the two of them, trying to keep the distaste off his face. ‘Look, don’t panic, either of you. We need to take Claridge out of the equation, but equally the last thing we want to do is to raise Sarah Farmer’s suspicions. The obvious course of action is to bring Claridge on board.’
Tremain did his best to calm the two bankers, but even so, he was beginning to form suspicions of his own. What he heard from the reformatory was ringing alarm bells. He’d be making some investigations of his own before confronting Claridge.
‘And if he doesn’t want to come on board?’ said Curtis. ‘You said he was a good man. What if he just wants to bring us down?’
Tremain smiled. ‘Claridge has a family. We’ll be sure to use the carrot and the stick.’
CHAPTER 19
SHELLEY STAVED OFF the boredom of his days at the reformatory school with exercise, Bruce Willis movies and paperback novels.
He was virtually alone. The guards he saw kept their distance, restricting contact to a cheery wave. Surveillance was conducted via CCTV cameras. Shelley occupied himself with trying to spot them all.
Forming the perimeter was a sturdy partition wall. From the outside it would look like just another long-germinating suburban development, and even if you managed to bypass the CCTV and security guards to get inside, you wouldn’t see much. Most of it was as Claire had described, a vision in rack and ruin. The walkways and service roads were cracked and strewn with weeds and litter; the buildings were run-down, almost every window smashed.
All, that was, apart from the area he considered to be his living quarters – the apartment, gym, swimming pool – which were disguised behind doors that looked ramshackle, but were in fact reinforced with steel bolts. The locks were operated using discreet fingerprint security, and he never quite got over the sense of passing through a portal, from an old derelict world into something modern and gleaming.
All of the doors he’d tried accepted his fingerprint, apart from one: the main gate, wide enough to allow for vehicles. He’d located the scanner and tried his index finger, but the gate stayed shut. Through a gap he could see a portable building that he took to be a guardhouse, and he pictured Claire inside watching him, enjoying the show. He half expected her to make an appearance, gently chiding him for his attempts to leave.
At night the complex was lit and he was able to use it just as he could do during the day, but he made sure to get his rest, sleeping at night. The daytime was spent preparing. Mentally, mainly, but also physically. When he was in the swimming pool and his hands were invisible to the CCTV cameras, he massaged them, working his double-jointed thumbs. If he was right, then slipping out of handcuffs would prove to be essential.
‘Hello, Captain Hodge,’ Claire said when she came at midday.
‘It’s Hodges,’ he corrected her.
‘Oh, I am sorry. And here was me, trying to find out how you’re getting on.’
‘Haven’t you been watching me?’
‘Watching you tells me what you’re doing. It doesn’t tell me how you’re getting on.’
‘Well, I’m getting on fine, thank you very much. How much longer will I be here?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that,’ she smiled.
He had to admit, it was disarming, that smile. The kind of smile that took your mind off what you’d asked in the first place.
‘Do you know?’ he asked.
‘I do. But I can’t tell you.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Security. Questions, questions . . .’
‘You’re the first person I’ve spoken to in two days, of course I’m going to have questions. When do I get my money?’
‘On completion of the job. In the meantime, you do know you’re being very well looked after, don’t you?’
‘All this, just for a game?’
‘It’s much more than just a game,’ she said, as though parroting a manual. ‘What we offer is a bespoke service. We offer excellence. Or at least the illusion of excellence. Which is why you need to be in good condition. Your medical has been a total success. The best I’ve ever had, in fact. No alcohol in you, which is very unusual. No drugs, either. You must be the most abstemious homeless man there ever was.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it.’
‘How did you end up on the streets?’ she asked, settling into the sofa.
He told her a well-rehearsed story, one that corresponded with the details on Captain Steve Hodges’ file, and she listened intently, nodding, smiling sympathetically. Every inch the confidante.
When he’d finished, her smile remained, but instead of following up with more questions or changing the subject, her eyes stayed fixed on his. ‘Can I ask you a question, Captain Hodges?’ she said. Her voice had dropped. It was a little more husky.
‘You can,’ he said, cautiously.
‘Why haven’t you made a pass at me? Every other contestant we’ve had here has tried his luck, but not you. Most of them . . .’ she waved a hand as though put off by the idea. ‘But you’re the first one I might have considered.’
‘What can I say? I’m a perfect gentleman. That and . . .’ He pointed upwards, indicating the camera.
For a moment he thought she was about to put a move on him, and he steeled himself to resist. He’d always had a soft spot for borderline-sadistic girls, especially when they wore it as well as Claire did.
But she stood, seemingly satisfied. ‘I’ll see you in a few days, Captain Hodges. Keep up the good work. I’ll need to appraise you for my employers, and at the moment you
can be sure it’ll be a glowing report.’
With Claire gone, Shelley sat and thought. He was being tested, no doubt about it. Were they suspicious? For the first time he wondered about the wisdom of staying clean. It marked him out, and not in a good way.
He found himself chewing his lip, wondering what they knew and what they were planning. If his cover were blown, they’d have confronted him by now. He’d be food for pigs.
Wouldn’t he?
CHAPTER 20
CLARIDGE HAD FINISHED watching CCTV film taken from outside the Ten Bells pub on Commercial Street. The only relevant footage was a brief glimpse of the back of a tan jacket as its wearer disappeared into the pub. Like the two men who had met Kenneth Farmer, this one had known to use CCTV dead spots.
Just then came a knock at the frosted glass of his office door, and he looked up to see a figure outside – a figure wearing a tan leather jacket.
Claridge closed the viewing application on his computer and went to the door. There stood Hugh Tremain of D Section, wearing the selfsame jacket Claridge had just seen on the CCTV footage. Tremain carried a laptop. ‘Might I have a word, Simon?’ he smiled.
Claridge swallowed, trying not to let his apprehension show. ‘Of course. You mind if I leave the door open while we talk? It’s getting a bit stuffy in here.’
‘I’d prefer that you didn’t. It’s a rather . . . sensitive matter.’
It was past seven in the evening, and the open-plan office behind them was almost empty. ‘We’ve more or less got the place to ourselves,’ said Claridge, and with a meaningful look at Tremain added, ‘I’ll leave it open, if you don’t mind.’
‘Sure, whatever you say. Your office.’
Claridge hurried back to his desk.
‘What did I interrupt?’ asked Tremain, placing his laptop on Claridge’s desk and sitting.
‘Oh, nothing too important.’ Claridge glanced nervously at Tremain’s laptop as his fingers danced on the keyboard.