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4

London

Max was used to curious looks when he was stuck in slow traffic. Most people had never seen a DMC-12 before.

John DeLorean had manufactured the light sports cars in Northern Ireland in the early eighties. The gull-wing doors and stainless-steel panels of the DMC-12, combined with a chassis designed by Colin Chapman at Lotus made the car totally unique. And as the company had gone bust fairly quickly, not many of the cars were now driving around London.

One of the punters who used to bet with Max’s dad had given him the keys when he couldn’t settle his account. Which was a slightly double-edged sword. On the one hand, the car was worth a few bob. On the other, Houston, Texas, was the only place you could get spare parts for it after an American company bought up the wreckage of the company. But the car had memories for Max and he wouldn’t drive anything else until the day the spare parts stopped arriving.

As he sat in the West London gridlock, Max’s mind drifted back to his first meeting with Tryon in a dimly lit vodka bar under the Leninsky Prospekt in Moscow. Tryon, the elusive overlord who had no title, but seemingly no superiors either.

After Max had witnessed Corbett’s execution, he’d thought long and hard about his course of action. In the end he’d gambled on Tryon being the right superior to inform. Because if he’d chosen the wrong man – one potentially compromised by Pallesson – he would place himself in dire danger. But it had been Keate who had introduced the two of them, so he felt safe knowing that he was dealing with a friend of his old tutor.

Tryon hadn’t said much. He’d acknowledged that he’d received an anonymous allegation that Pallesson had murdered Corbett. He’d refused to divulge why he was certain it came from Max. Having listened to the whole story with an impassive face, the old hand had simply stood up and left.

Until Max’s orders had come through to move from Moscow to The Hague, he’d wondered whether Tryon had been running Pallesson from the very beginning, and still was. But if that were the case, surely he wouldn’t still be alive?

The reason given for Max’s addition to the Netherlands team – that they needed someone who could unravel local chatter across six different languages; chatter that centred on Dutch drug cartels that appeared to be doing business with Saudi-backed terrorists – seemed plausible. Whether Pallesson, who had made the same move six months before Max, had bought the story, he couldn’t be sure.

As a bus carved him up, Max’s mind went back to the school library at Eton. The vast dome-shaped room lined with learned books and populated by nerds who spoke in whispers. Max avoided the place like the plague.

He remembered the exact table where Pallesson had arranged to meet him. It was right in the centre of the building and very visible. He’d been baffled at the time as to why the slimy toerag wanted to see him, though his surprise quickly evaporated when Pallesson laid out the full financial record of Max’s gambling syndicate on the table in front of him.

‘Where did you get that?’ he’d asked, without looking at him.

‘You know I can’t reveal my sources,’ Pallesson had replied smarmily.

Needless to say, Max had wanted to thump the smug seventeen-year-old. He knew what Pallesson’s angle was. Blackmail, plain and simple. But Pallesson had been wise to a hot-headed reaction – hence meeting him in a public place where any lack of decorum wouldn’t be tolerated.

‘I have copies, just in case you have anything rash in mind,’ Pallesson said quietly.

Max had felt disgusted by Pallesson’s cold, grey eyes, his slightly greasy black hair and his immaculate appearance. His tails, waistcoat and stiff white collar always looked brand new. Unlike his fellow pupils, whose uniforms were always frayed around the edges.

‘I’m going to be your partner,’ Pallesson had told him.

‘No, you’re fucking not, Roderick,’ Max had replied.

Pallesson had imperceptibly winced at the sound of his Christian name, but hid it quickly. No one used his first name, and that was how he liked it.

‘Look, we could make a great team. And I’m not just talking about now. We have a great future. Max. You and I can go as far as we like.’

‘You and I are going fucking nowhere,’ Max had replied, loud enough to attract the attention of one of the library wardens.

Max suddenly realized he was gripping the steering wheel like a maniac. Stop it, he told himself. Relax. Stay focused. After all these years, maybe this was his chance to nail Pallesson.

Yet again, Max went through the few details Tryon had told him when they’d met a week earlier in Amsterdam – ticking off each fact as he scrutinized it for subtext and gloss; anything that would give him even the smallest insight.

Pallesson, it transpired, was blackmailing a French forger, Jacques Bardin, who had contacted Tryon through the French security services. No one had asked how or why. So, nothing out of character there, as far as Max was concerned.

The forger was alleging that he had copied The Peasants in Winter for Pallesson. After a few enquiries, the painting had been traced to the British Embassy in The Hague. On loan from the Dutch Government. The only possible conclusion, Max told himself as he edged forwards in the traffic, was that Pallesson was going to steal the original and substitute the copy he’d had made.

When Tryon had first outlined the art theft, Max was very happy. After all, they got Al Capone for tax evasion. Serious theft would end Pallesson’s career. Although Max knew that was only scratching at the surface.

He parked in a wide, nondescript Chiswick back street. The pavement was like a skating rink. As he buttoned his thick black Russian overcoat, he wondered why they didn’t just chuck some grit on it. He tried walking down the road, but it was no better.

At the end of the street there was a narrow alley leading down to the river. An officious-looking sign informed the public they had no right of way after six in the evening. Max checked his watch. It was four. He was going to be late. The alley ran between two large houses whose owners clearly didn’t like the public wandering about, either. A CCTV camera with a red light glowing was trained on his route. Max wasn’t overjoyed at being filmed, but he had nothing to fear, he told himself. And at least the path was dry.

Max timed how long it took him to walk halfway down the alley: two minutes and thirty seconds.

Where the alleyway met the river, Max had no option but to turn left, as he’d been told to. To the right was a metal fence with spikes and a STRICTLY PRIVATE sign glaring at him. Max cursed again. The river was lapping across the path.

When he’d turned the corner on to the towpath, Max stopped and checked his watch. The Thames was in full spate, bursting at its banks. It looked cold and hostile. Not a boat in sight. No one would survive a minute in there. He wondered where his body would be found. Maybe it never would.

He checked his watch again. One minute and fifteen seconds had passed. He felt suddenly exhilarated as he poked his head around the corner. But the alley was empty.

Trying to stick to dry land, he made his way along the footpath, but it was futile. By the time he’d gone fifty feet to the edge of the boathouse slipway, his feet were sodden.

Max paused and looked up the concrete slope. The boathouse was Art Deco simplicity. The whitewashed walls were cracked. And the big green metal shutters had seen better days. The place looked locked-up and sullen.

He imagined the frenzy of Boat Race day. The bleak concrete slope teeming with cameras and a macho Oxford crew carrying their boat down to the water. The boathouse bursting with last-minute nerves. All a far cry from this cold, damp, deserted winter evening.

Max was feeling increasingly on edge. It wasn’t an evening for hanging about. His feet were already freezing. He gingerly walked up the slipway to the left of the boathouse and looked for the door. When he reached it, he could see that it was ajar. Tryon’s bicycle was propped up against the wall. That was a good sign. The old hand had showed.

Max stepped tentatively inside. There wasn’t much light coming in through the high windows. A mass of fragile-looking boats were stacked on metal shelves. He walked stealthily between them towards the back of the boathouse. As he’d been told.

He thought about shouting a friendly ‘hello’, but decided against it. It really wasn’t the right way to announce your arrival at a clandestine meeting. Although he was a bit out of practice on that front. These days he spent more time poking around for a scrap of phonetically transcribed Flemish.

Max smelt the unmistakable aroma of pipe tobacco. Again, he was relieved. Not that he had any need to be. He was on home turf this time, after all.

‘You’re late, Ward,’ barked a voice from behind a stack of boats.

‘And wet,’ replied Max with a deliberate lack of subservience. There was no point in producing an excuse, because there never was one. Never had been, in fact.

‘What the hell were you doing at the bottom of the alley?’

‘Just checking. How did …?’

‘CCTV. There’s only one way into this place when it’s locked up. And I like to see who’s dropping by.’

Tryon was sitting on an old wooden folding chair. He was digging away at his pipe with a look of focused intensity.

‘Anyone follow you?’

‘No. Couldn’t we have met in Amsterdam again? Would have been a lot drier.’ He looked down at his feet to reinforce the point.

‘Very funny. The op’s now live, and one never runs an off-books op from inside the theatre.’ Tryon finally looked up from his pipe. ‘So how did you get on in Monaco?’

Max looked around for something to sit on. There was a workbench just to Tryon’s right. It was the bench of a very tidy craftsman, Max noted. He picked up a tin of varnish and sniffed it.

‘Didn’t know they still used this stuff.’

‘They don’t. Must be for an old boat. All carbon fibre now. How did it go?’

‘Pretty good,’ he replied airily. He studied Tryon for a moment. He was thin and gaunt, but on closer inspection as hard as nails. Still sporting the same scruffy brown raincoat and battered green trilby he had worn a week before. The same rustic tie and heavy cotton shirt. But today he looked tired, something employees of the Racket spent years cultivating the ability to hide.

‘Jacques seemed happy with the canvas I took him. And Cornelissen’s had sent the paint they asked for. All good.’

‘Gemma enjoy herself ?’ Tryon asked flippantly, as if to pass the time while he fiddled with his pipe again.

‘I think so. No hassle in her jet. Nice hotel.’

‘Ask much? About what you were up to?’

‘Not really. Told her I had a wee mission. Chance to get my feet out from under the desk. She didn’t seem that interested.’

‘Did she mention anything she might have been up to herself ?’

‘No. Up to what? Forget about her. Look, we’re dealing with a bloody traitor. A murderer. And I have to walk into an office every day and pretend he’s a valued colleague. It’s pretty pathetic that all we’re going to do is nail him for some sort of art theft.’

‘It goes a bit deeper than that – quite a lot deeper, in fact.’ Tryon lit his pipe. ‘While you were having lunch with Jacques in Monaco, do you know who Gemma was meeting?’

Max could literally feel his blood defying gravity and flowing to his head. ‘What are you talking about? She didn’t meet anyone.’

‘I know people down there, Ward. It’s how Jacques found me in the first place. Through them,’ Tryon said evenly. ‘Gemma met someone behind your back. Someone we’re really not sure about.’

‘She probably just ran into them. She knows people everywhere.’

‘She ran into him on his yacht in the harbour.’

Max had learnt to appreciate the old hand’s desert-dry wit, though not so much when he was the intended target.

‘She did say she was going down to the harbour for a walk. Who did she meet?’ asked Max, conceding defeat.

‘Alessandro Marchant.’

‘Rich?’

‘Rich! Either Marchant has psychic powers that enable him to see how currencies and stock are going to move – or he’s one of the biggest financial insider dealers in the world. And guess who he deals through?’

‘Go on.’

‘Casper Rankin. Whose wife you happen to be sleeping with. We’ve been intercepting their emails, and listening to their phone conversations. But we can’t nail them. They’re careful how they pass information around.’

‘Are you suggesting …?’

‘I’m not suggesting anything, Ward.’

‘Look,’ Max said intensely, ‘if I can’t trust Gemma, I can’t trust anyone. Not even you. Gemma is—’

‘I know,’ Tryon interrupted. ‘You told me. It’s just that I’m not entirely sure whether I sign up to your version.’

Tryon had made it plain that he suspected Max might have been targeted by Gemma. Which amused Max no end – or at least it had until now – as it couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Max had first clocked Gemma at the opening of some dull art exhibition at a gallery in St James’s. He’d then persuaded a mate of his, who also happened to know her husband, to have her to stay in the country for the weekend. Thankfully, her husband had been away.

It was a typical, wild Gloucestershire weekend party. Everyone drank far too much and a few people ended up doing things they shouldn’t. Max remembered flirting with her and having no idea whether she was responding to him. One minute she seemed to be fascinated by him – the next, totally oblivious. Max had followed her upstairs to bed. By the time he knocked on her door, she was wearing the skimpiest of nighties. She’d let him in, and then resisted – to start with. But then she’d cracked. Once she had, Max remembered being taken aback by her urgency. She’d literally ripped the buttons off his shirt. His back had scratch marks for days.

‘Well, if we’re lucky, this relationship of yours could be very useful to us. Or you’re being set up. Because guess who Casper Rankin’s best mucker was at Cambridge?’

‘Go on.’

‘Surprise, surprise. Your old pal, Pallesson. Gemma tell you that?’

‘This is all a bit tenuous. She might not know.’

‘So she hasn’t told you.’

‘No. How do you—’

‘You can be certain that Casper Rankin has laundered the proceeds of Pallesson’s Russian enterprises. By now the money’s probably found its way to Montenegro. Rankin has been investing in property down there. He seems to have second sight as to what the Montenegrin government is about to do. Gemma mention anything about that?’

Max didn’t answer. He pushed himself off the workbench and landed on both feet. They were numb now.

‘She has no idea what her husband does. And less interest. They’ve drifted apart. He works and works. Never in the same place for that long. She goes where she likes. Does up rich people’s houses for them.’

‘Pallesson is up to a lot more than art theft,’ Tryon interrupted, as if he suddenly wasn’t interested in Gemma any more.

‘I’m not fucking stupid, Tryon. ‘Of course he is.’

‘We have a mole inside the operation of a nasty piece of work called Wevers van Ossen, based in Amsterdam. He’s into trafficking, prostitution, protection.’

‘What do we care?’

‘We didn’t – until now. He’s moving into drugs in a pretty spectacular way.’

‘So?’

‘The source of his drugs is using the proceeds to fund operations in Somalia, which we care about a lot. More to the point, guess who’s lined up with van Ossen to move the gear over here.’

‘Our old friend?’

‘Exactly. He’s brought his unpleasant habits with him from Moscow. And you’re going to nail him. All on your own.’

‘Why all on my own?’

Tryon didn’t reply. He appeared to be studying the boats, and his pipe had gone out again.

‘By the way, how was Jacques?’

‘His sight’s gone,’ Max replied, happy to let his question hang. ‘Had to get his daughter to help him copy paintings for Pallesson. The cunning little shit worked that out – that’s how he blackmailed both of them.’ Max walked over to one of the larger boats and stroked its sleek side.

‘This is probably my favourite place in the world,’ Tryon said, watching him. ‘I still row a couple of times a week. There’s no better feeling than being on the water in an eight. Going full tilt. I rowed in the Boat Race one year, you know.’

‘Oxford?’