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  Faith accepted without question that we were in real danger. I think Julia must have confided in her enough about the degradation she’d experienced in Florence for Faith to understand.

  Her nearest neighbor was Mark Stone, a local huntsman who kept a pack of beagles in kennels at the rear of his cottage just down the hill from the farmhouse. He was good with a rifle. I didn’t think I’d ever get on well with a man like him but in our annual visits to the farmhouse, we’d become friends. He saw the funny side of my determination never to hunt with him and teased me with good-natured banter about how town-dwellers had no idea of the realities of life in the countryside. When I told him I had to leave on a matter of urgency and I was concerned at leaving Julia and baby Simon here, he was quick to want to know the details. I told him that in a weak moment we’d taken out a pay day loan at an interest rate that made it unrepayable and I’d received threatening letters from them. Two suspicious men had been seen looking over Faith’s property and it was a near certainty they were sent by the loan company. The police were of no help since what the loan company had done was within the law and no offence had yet been committed. These lies would come back to haunt me.

  Stone, who was incensed by the idea of the loan sharks sending heavies to intimidate a decent family, was keen to help. He knew amongst the local men he hunted with there were a number he could depend on. He agreed to keep a close watch on the farmhouse. I had confidence that he would make a professional job of this.

  It had been one of the most difficult decisions. How to weigh the odds of my chances of success in discovering the truth about what was driving the Landos – and to find a way of outwitting Craven – against the risk of leaving Julia and our child at the farmhouse. Mark Stone and his men were skilled shots while I had no such training. Julia and baby Simon would be safe with their protection. I could defend them best by cutting off the threats against them before they materialized. No one knew they were there. If I made it known I was in London, it would draw attention away and make Julia and the baby safer where they were.

  That’s what I told myself, over and over.

  That’s how I made one of the worst mistakes of my life.

  As the train thundered through the outer London suburbs, I turned my thoughts towards what I wanted to achieve there.

  I had no intention of meeting Inspector Hendricks yet there was information I wanted him to know. The plan was to phone him on arrival at Euston from a pay phone and not overstay time on the line.

  The priority was to find Adam Weston and enlist his help and gain assistance in discovering Craven’s plans.

  Then, I planned to make the cross-channel journey to Florence.

  As the train drew into Euston, I gathered myself for the confrontation with Hendricks.

  I found a pay phone on the main concourse and dialed.

  It was the police station sergeant who replied. “You say you have information for Inspector Hendricks. You know he’s a very busy man.”

  “He’ll want to speak to me.”

  “And you are?”

  “Mr. Blake. James Blake.”

  He asked me to hold the line.

  In less than a minute, Hendricks came on. “Mr. Blake. I’ve been expecting to hear from you. I thought you might pay me the respect of a visit in person.”

  I could tell that nothing had changed his readiness to assume the worst of everyone he came in contact with, including me. “There’s no need for me to take up too much of your time, Inspector. This is much more convenient.”

  “As you wish, Mr. Blake.”

  I realized his men would be seeking to trace the call. I knew I’d have to make this quick. “I have information about the killing of Martin Craig in the Allegro Hotel. A case I know you’re investigating.”

  He took a deep breath. “You’re going to surprise me by telling me it was no coincidence that we met at the hotel the day after the killing. When you told me you were there to look for a replacement room. When all along you had an altogether more compelling reason to be there.”

  I was unsurprised he’d lost none of his flair for understatement. “If you say so, Inspector.”

  “And your wife had also been there.”

  I could picture him sitting there at his desk relishing the opportunity to keep me on the line a little longer. When I didn’t reply he continued.

  “We’re not as naive as you might think, Mr. Blake. Of course, we checked the CCTV record from the hotel in the days before the killing. We identified you and your wife when you registered. In fact, the identification was made by myself. The hotel staff recognized you as John and Elizabeth Meredith. So, why the assumed names, Mr. Blake?”

  “You don’t need me to tell you that.”

  He laughed. “Oh, of course. The Weymouth police records show you were visited by a DI Reid concerning the death of an FBI man. What was his name? Agent Franks? And you told Reid a lie and headed for London. Did you know that DI Reid is now missing, whereabouts unknown, and we’re beginning to treat his disappearance as suspicious? You wouldn’t know anything about it, Mr. Blake?”

  I didn’t like the inference. “I had no idea Reid was missing. We only saw him one time back in Weymouth.”

  “And that was enough to make you leave?”

  “We were running for a different reason.”

  “And what was that?”

  “We ran because of unfinished business.”

  “Unfinished because of what?”

  “Because of what happened in Florence three years ago.”

  He didn’t sound impressed. “The case is closed. I put Clinton Ridley away for the London killing. I put good time and resource into setting you up in witness protection with new identities and you say the case is ongoing?”

  “That’s what I have to tell you. There’s unfinished business from that case. Craig’s death in the Allegro is part of it. If you want to find his killers, look back into that case and at what the Lando family is doing now.”

  “And that explains why the hotel manager told me the murdered man was your wife’s brother when it’s clear he was no such thing?”

  “He was protecting her.”

  “From what?”

  “From the Landos.”

  He wasn’t about to believe me. “Mr. Blake, let me give you some advice. The best thing you can do is to come into the station and make a clean breast of everything. You must know we need to interview you and your wife. Don’t make this any more difficult for yourselves.”

  I realized time was up but I had one more thing to say, something Julia was convinced was in need of investigation. “By the way, Inspector, check into the death of Peggy Westland. It wasn’t an accident.”

  Hendricks had been skillful in keeping me on the line and I had overstayed my welcome. I didn’t know how much I’d told him that was new to him. It was clear from what he’d told me that he’d made the connection between Craig and Julia before I spoke to him. But I’d made sure the connection to Florence was now in his mind.

  Hendricks had left me puzzled about the significance of the disappearance of DI Reid.

  I replaced the receiver without saying farewell and walked away, mingling with the crowds of passengers on the concourse, waiting for departing trains.

  As I looked back from within the safety of the crowd, I saw a squad of six uniformed officers surround the pay phone I’d been using.

  I’d avoided being picked up by Hendricks by just a few seconds.

  Chapter 4

  Miles Blake sat at one of the tables outside The Green Flash and looked at the rolling waves of the Pacific Ocean. He’d come this far to honor a promise to a dying man.

  He’d made it all the way to San Diego without being apprehended by Agent Craven but it didn’t feel good.

  The way the Town Lake bombing had played out in the press and on TV left no doubt that Craven was in control of a misinformation campaign and it was succeeding. The atrocity had been attributed to a newly-identified j
ihadist group operating out of the Horn of Africa who it was claimed had admitted responsibility. All of which meant the public was getting the kind of truth that Craven wanted. The cover-up appeared to be complete.

  When he’d left his brother, James, at Dallas Fort Worth airport, Miles had avoided the security blanket mobilized in response to the bombing. He’d retraced his steps, taking a taxi back to the rail stop at Fort Worth and checking into a small hotel near the station. Next morning he’d taken the Texas Eagle to San Antonio. It was a seven hour trip but he didn’t need ID traveling by train.

  It took time to realize he was not a wanted man in the accepted sense. There was no manhunt, no request for information from the public. It was Craven and his operation within the FBI who wanted him and by definition Craven needed to keep that dark. But that wasn’t to say Craven wouldn’t be using every back door request for information and assistance he could muster. If Craven was out to fit him up it would be nothing to do with the Town Lake atrocity. More likely it would be concerned with Miles’ attempts to get information from the State Department on the drugs trade out of Mexico. Yet it was just as probable Craven would go straight for a quick kill and dispense with such formalities. Outwitting Craven was the life and death priority.

  In San Antonio, Miles had made contact with a freelancer he could trust. Annabel Kelly was one of the best photographers he’d worked with. They had faced danger together. She was unquestioning when he told her he needed her help with money. It took two days to raise the cash he needed. When she handed it over she would not hear of anything about when Miles would pay her back. Their trust for each other was enough. Annabel also asked no questions when he told her that no matter who might ask, and on whatever pretext, she had not seen him.

  Miles had traveled west from San Antonio aboard the Sunset Limited. It took him to Los Angeles. From there it had been simple to get a bus to San Diego.

  The journey across the border to Tijuana would be short with no need to show documentation on crossing into Mexico.

  He took in again the Pacific waves crashing ashore. They were certain and sure. As sure as he was that he would respect the last wish of Luiz Reyas as he lay dying in Miles’ arms in the abandoned railway station in East Texas. He would find Luiz Reyas’ son and tell him what he knew about his father’s mission.

  Chapter 5

  Inspector John Hendricks was annoyed he hadn’t kept James Blake on the phone the minute longer it would have taken to apprehend him at Euston station. There was much more he wanted to ask him about the killing at the Allegro Hotel. Yet Hendricks was more disturbed by what had passed between them regarding Peggy Westland. What Blake told him appealed to the old copper in the Inspector, the part of his make-up that couldn’t let an idea go without teasing it to death once it had taken up residence beneath his balding skull.

  He called in DI Franklin, his second-in-command, and made it clear what he wanted. “Get me the autopsy report on Peggy Westland.”

  The report was on his desk in twenty minutes. It made inconclusive reading. The woman had died in her own bed by suffocation, but the coroner was not able to rule out self-suffocation. Hendricks knew this was rare. Yet it was possible. It was also possible that a killer who knew what he was doing could have suffocated her and made it look like self-suffocation. If that were the case there would need to be a motive. Hendricks could not find one. There was no sign of forced entry at the apartment near Sloane Square. Nor was there indication that anything had been stolen.

  Was it material that Peggy Westland had been married to Richard Westland, the well-known artist, and he’d been killed in a car accident just three weeks before his wife’s death? Not that Hendricks recognized what Westland produced as art. For him, it was a denial of art not to picture the world as it is.

  There was nothing to indicate that Richard Westland’s death had been anything other than an accident. Perhaps, Hendricks thought for a moment, he should be looking at the art world but he could deduce no motive there either. A shiver passed down his spine as he recalled that Julia Blake was a known friend of Peggy Westland and that the Blake woman was at the center of his investigations into the Allegro killing. Julia Blake was involved in art and, as the events in Florence three years earlier had shown, there was deception and corruption in that world. James Blake had made a point of mentioning the Landos but, again, without more to go on, Hendricks could make little of these connections.

  The breakthrough came from an unexpected source. There was a phone call from the front desk. Sergeant Billy Smith, duty officer at Charing Cross police station, wanted to see Hendricks.

  When Sergeant Smith came in it was plain to see he had a lot on his mind. Hendricks knew the man as outgoing and confident. Today, he was withdrawn and hesitant.

  “I don’t know where to start with this, John. There’s stuff here you’re going to find out about me that you’re not going to like. Stuff I wouldn’t want to go outside of this room. You know what I mean?”

  Hendricks could guess. Sergeant Smith had been on the take again and something had gone wrong with the arrangement. “It’s all right, Billy. You can trust me. It will go no farther.”

  Smith started to look more relaxed. More like his old self. “That’s a relief, John. You see, there’s events concerning your Allegro investigation you need to know. Martin Reid asked me for a favor. I knew I shouldn’t have helped him but he insisted.”

  “How much did he offer you?”

  “Eight hundred.”

  “So, something important then.”

  “He told me he was here in London doing this for a friend who had a wife who was playing around. Reid thought she’d booked into one of the hotels around here with her fancy man but he didn’t know which hotel. All he wanted was a list of any couples who checked with no ID, looking suspicious.”

  “You got the information for him?”

  Smith nodded. “I didn’t believe it was the real reason he wanted the information, but I got it for him anyway. One of the contacts I gave him was for a couple who’d checked into the Allegro. Thought I’d need to let you know, now it’s become a murder scene.”

  “Do you remember the names?”

  “John and Elizabeth Meredith.”

  Hendricks smiled. These were the names used by the Blakes when they’d checked in. “When was this, Billy? In relation to the killing at the hotel?”

  “When I gave Reid the list it must have been a couple of days before the killing.”

  Hendricks thanked him. “OK, Billy. You’ve done the right thing to tell me. I appreciate it. As far as I’m concerned, I didn’t hear anything about any eight hundred changing hands. You’re all right with that.”

  He called Franklin once more and instructed him to search again the surveillance footage from the CCTV camera at the reception desk at the Allegro Hotel.

  “What are we looking for, Inspector? We found the Blakes checking in.”

  Hendricks shook his head. “Not the Blakes this time. Go back forty-eight hours and check on DI Reid. You can get his mug shot from the material we’re putting out to try to find him.”

  “I don’t get the point, Inspector.”

  “Just do it.”

  Franklin returned with images from the tape running on a laptop and showed Hendricks the vital link. “Here it is, Inspector.” He pointed to the screen. “Reid was at the Allego. Here he is entering the hotel and being taken to the back-office by the hotel manager.”

  Hendricks knew this was important. “And what time was this, Franklin?”

  “Thirty-seven hours before the murder.”

  Hendricks thanked him and returned to his thoughts. Reid had been based in Weymouth. That’s where the Blakes had been relocated in the witness protection program. Now Reid and the Blakes turn up at the same time in the Allegro where a murder takes place. The conclusion was clear. Reid had followed Julia and James Blake from Weymouth to London. What could have been his motive for that?

  And now Reid
had disappeared and was a listed missing person. Whatever Reid was involved in, it didn’t look good.

  When Hendricks called at the Allegro Hotel he asked to see the hotel manager. He showed the man a photograph of Martin Reid.

  The hotel manager had no doubt. “I recognize this man, Inspector. He’s Detective Inspector Billingham.”

  Hendricks was puzzled. “You’re sure?”

  “I’m confident. He showed me his police ID card. That was the name. DI Billingham. He told me he needed to search our CCTV footage, that he was on a missing person case.”

  “You didn’t mention this when we interviewed you.”

  “No one asked.”

  What was Reid doing using a false name? Hendricks knew his chances of saving Reid’s reputation and the reputation of the Force were fast fading.

  It got worse when Hendricks established a link between Reid and Peggy Westland.

  Reid’s vehicle was found abandoned in a street close by an old warehouse complex near Canary Wharf. In the glove compartment of the car they found a notebook. He’d been using this to record names and addresses. One of the names and addresses was that of Peggy Westland.

  Hendricks didn’t like where this tugging away at the truth was leading. Reid must be involved in something that any policeman in his position should run a mile from. This required further investigation, starting with why Reid’s vehicle had been abandoned so close to those derelict warehouses.

  It proved to be difficult to get permission for a forensic team to be established. Everything these days came down to a question of money. Cutbacks in the police budget were biting deep. He had to be insistent. A police officer, one of their own, had disappeared. There was a possible connection to multiple murder. He told his superintendent the cost of sending out the team would be insignificant against the need to find the officer and clear his name. To achieve that, a ten-man case team would be required to search the derelict warehouses near where DI Reid’s vehicle had been abandoned. Hendricks won the argument and the team was sent out.