EG03 - The Water Lily Cross (26 page)

With the bobbing pool of light ahead, he could see that they were on a cement path edged with mown grass. Where the light dissolved into blackness he could make out tall dark shapes on either side, but he couldn’t distinguish whether they were hedges or small buildings. The silence was as brooding as the dark. He strained for sounds that might come in handy later as markers: trains, traffic noise, running water, farm sounds. But all was still.

Soon they stopped in front of a large building, a warehouse of sorts. Facing them was a solid door that had “security” written all over it. To the left, he could make out an industrial-sized roll-up steel door. Opening the smaller door, the driver stood aside to let Kingston and the other man enter, then followed them in. The door slammed shut and locked behind them, the sound echoing around the dark interior. In seconds, a single light came on, its source not visible. The meager light was barely sufficient for Kingston to see that it was a warehouse. They continued in file across an open space, flanked by floor-to-ceiling metal racks stacked high with containers, wooden crates, and other indistinguishable materials.

Reaching the other side of the cavernous room, they passed through another door and down a low-ceilinged corridor with closed doors on both sides. The lights in this area were also dimmed, leading Kingston to believe that it was prearranged—probably alerted by the mobile call from the car—to make it harder for him to get a good look at the two men. They stopped at what appeared to be the last door in the corridor. The driver, careful to avoid Kingston’s gaze, took out a key and opened the door. He stepped aside, motioning with the flashlight for Kingston to enter. Kingston was a few paces into the room when he heard the door slam behind him and the key turn in the lock.

TWENTY-ONE

K
ingston rubbed his eyes and looked around the small room. It had obviously once been an office, now converted into living space. A single made-up bed was snug against the wall in one corner. A leather sofa and coffee table, piled with magazines, took up most of the space on the opposite wall. The only other items in the room were three black filing cabinets, an empty bookshelf, a steel desk, and a bottled-water cooler. Kingston was comforted to see another door, hoping it was a bathroom. He crossed the room and opened the door. It was as expected: a loo, a small sink, and a wall rack with two fresh towels. Two minutes later, relieved and refreshed, he was back in the room.

He hadn’t noticed it when he had first looked around, but next to the bed, alongside a brass table lamp—the only light in the room—was a plate with a cling-film wrapped bagel, a napkin, and a Mars bar. Next to it stood a bottle of water and, of all things, a small bottle of white wine, a glass, and a corkscrew. He went to the table and picked up the bottle: a Bordeaux Entre-Deux-Mers. How odd, he thought. Paradoxical.

He uncorked the wine, put it on the coffee table with the glass and slumped onto the couch. Filling the glass partway, he took a healthy sip. A morbid thought crossed his mind. Was this akin to the prisoner’s last meal? He dismissed the idea immediately, savoring the young fruity wine. It wasn’t chilled, but went down well anyway.

Why bring him to a warehouse, he wondered, looking up at the waffled ceiling panels. On the drive, he’d tried to construct a plausible explanation by connecting tonight’s events to everything that had happened in the preceding weeks. Kingston was sure now that Viktor Zander was the man behind it all. Zander, Stewart, Walsh, Everard, Marian Taylor alias Alison Greer—they were all intertwined in the conspiracy like a girdling of old wisteria vines. The more he tried to unravel the tangle, the more snarled it got and the more frustrated he became.

He went over it again, as he had on the bench at Chelsea Physic. Stewart enlisted Walsh’s help, who in turn, according to Marian Taylor, brought in Everard as a partner. Gavin Blake worked for Everard and was also, as he claimed, a friend of Viktor Zander. But how were Everard and Zander connected, or were they? Marian Taylor, an inveterate liar and impostor, had insisted that Everard was at Walsh’s house, yet Everard—if that’s who it had been whom Kingston talked to on the phone—swore that he knew neither Walsh nor Alison Greer or anything about the desalination project. Yet Alison Greer’s visit to Everard’s office at Bakers Landing contradicted that. Was it just coincidence that both she and Kingston were there on the same day? And was it Everard she was meeting or someone else? If it turned out that Everard
was
murdered, what was the motive? And who had done it? Far too many questions.

It seemed so long ago now that Kingston had almost forgotten about the helicopter incident—not that he ever would. Given everything that had transpired since, speculation on how it happened wasn’t hard to figure. The helicopter had merely been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was just bad timing. If he hadn’t made the snap decision to go back and videotape the village it would never have happened. Seeing it circling at low altitude and then spotting the video camera suspended under the nose like a red flag, one of Zander’s men had panicked and taken a pot shot at it from somewhere near the house. Kingston imagined the man getting all kinds of hell from Zander for doing something so senseless and dangerous that it could have shut down the whole operation right there and then. As if trying to down the helicopter hadn’t been enough, Zander had to worry that revealing video footage might have been taken of the reservoir. If it had, and the videotape fell into the wrong hands—namely, the police—it could spell trouble. There was the chance that people on the ground might be identified, hence the phone call from “Patrick” and the video snatch in Hammersmith.

It was Marian Taylor who perplexed Kingston the most. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out why she had stepped forward to help him in the first place, then gone purposely out of her way to deceive him in such a convoluted way. For reasons he couldn’t explain, he couldn’t see her mixed up in a kidnapping and a possible murder case. Then again, he’d never prided himself on being the greatest judge of character.

He took a long sip of wine and topped up the glass. Zander, or whoever had selected it, had good taste. It didn’t come as much of a surprise though, given the eclectic library and expensive furnishings at Foxwood House.

He kicked off his shoes and stretched out on the couch, arms folded. What about Stewart? Was he still alive? Kingston prayed he was. If so, how much did he know about what was going on? Was he aware of the kind of people he was dealing with? Kidnapping was one thing but for the person kidnapped to be useful in one form or another—as with Stewart—all manner of round-the-clock care, support systems, constant surveillance, and security had to be enforced. Kingston couldn’t help thinking of Kate Sheppard, the young woman who had been kidnapped five years ago and held hostage for two weeks. She and her husband had discovered a rare and valuable blue rose in their garden and had asked Kingston to help them. In a series of bizarre incidents, the rose was stolen, her husband Alex became a murder suspect, and Kate was held ransom for the rose. In her case, her captors had taken good care of her and she had finally managed to escape, only to be recaptured by them. She had told Kingston, when he had last visited the Sheppards at their lovely home and garden in Wiltshire, that, to this day, she was still haunted by recurring nightmares of that experience. Thoughts back in the present, he reached over, picked up his wineglass, and drained the contents.

Escape had clearly been impossible for Stewart. One alternative that Kingston had mulled over earlier was that he might not want to escape. If so, why would he help Zander of his own volition? Had he been promised vast sums of money if the desalination process proved practical on a large scale, and if he cooperated willingly? If that were the case, why would Stewart have gone to the trouble of leaving the clues? It didn’t make sense. What else? Coercion seemed unlikely given the duration of his captivity. The only other explanation Kingston could think of, diabolical as it might be, was that Stewart could be sedated constantly, kept in a drugged state, yet still able to function for their purposes. On further thought, he dismissed that scenario as being far too “Hollywood.”

Since being locked in, the only sound he had heard was the roll-up door being raised and lowered. He sat up and reached for the bagel, unwrapped it, and peeked at the filling: smoked salmon, with cream cheese and capers. He devoured it along with half the water in less than a minute. He glanced at his watch: ten thirty. Might as well try to get some kip, he said to himself. He removed his jacket, switched off the light, pulled aside the sheet, and climbed into the small bed. Lying there, staring at the shadowy ceiling, he felt mummified between the snug blankets and head-to-toe fit of the bed.

He kept staring at the acoustic ceiling panels. Was this section of the warehouse the only part of the building with a false ceiling? From what he recalled, most of the warehouse was open-beamed. Was this a way of escape—crawling along ventilation ducts? He knew it was wishful thinking but he got up anyway and stood on the bed. He was tall enough to reach one of the panels easily and tried to push it up. At first, it didn’t budge but after a second try, it loosened and popped up. He slid it to one side and looked up into the empty space above. It was a typical T-bar frame installation, suspended from the existing roof, rigid and sturdy enough to support the tiles but by no means a man of his weight. Disappointed, he replaced the tile and crawled back into bed. It always looked so damned easy in the films, he thought.

He closed his eyes. Unable to sleep, his thoughts prowled back and forth like a caged animal searching for a way of escape. Until now he had been subconsciously avoiding it but he started to think about his own imprisonment and what the coming day might bring. Another fifteen minutes of tossing and turning produced not a glimmer of optimism. Eventually, he managed to steer his mind to more encouraging thoughts and finally dozed off.

The room was dark when Kingston woke. For a moment he couldn’t recall where he was, then it all rushed back. He held his watch up close to his face and could just make out the luminescent hands: eight fifteen. Surprisingly, he had slept quite well, and longer than he expected. He switched the light on, got out of bed, and went into the bathroom. With no razor or toothbrush, he did the best he could to make himself presentable for whatever was about to happen. He wasn’t going to speculate on that, though. Right now his mind was on a pot of tea or at least a cup of coffee. Returning from the bathroom, he sat on the sofa and checked out the magazines on the coffee table, pleasantly surprised to find a recent issue of
Autosport.
Leafing through it, reading the Monaco Grand Prix results, he realized how out of touch he was with the sport. The only driver names he recognized were Michael Schumacher, Jacques Villeneuve, and Jenson Button. Back in the seventies and eighties, Kingston had followed the Grand Prix circuit, making annual trips to Europe. He and Megan had attended Monaco, the German, Spanish, and French races, and had been regulars at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix. He had owned more than a dozen sports cars and collector cars over the years, including a Jaguar, Bristol, Morgan and his favorite, a 1934, 4.5-liter Lagonda Sports Tourer.

Kingston’s mind flashed back to his prized TR4. Surely the police would have found it by now and would have tried to reach him. It might be too early for him to be considered a missing person but that would surely be the case in the coming hours. With luck, his car hadn’t been vandalized and was now locked safely in a police garage. In turn, he thought about Carmichael, wondering whether the inspector had made any progress questioning Blake and Zander. Then he remembered that Carmichael had said “the case would most certainly involve the Metropolitan Police.” Perhaps Inspector Crosbie would be in charge. He was with the Met and the connection with Kingston—the rainy day interview—was already established, as he was the officer investigating Everard’s death. Kingston put down the magazine, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. Why worry about all that now, he said to himself. He was in serious trouble and his prospects were dimming by the minute.

Another two hours dragged by during which time Kingston had read all the magazines. Stretched on the sofa, his catnap was interrupted by the sound of a key being inserted in the door lock. He turned and reached for his shoes—one had found its way under the bed. He felt foolish, standing in his socks, holding one shoe, about to confront one of his captors.

The door opened a few inches, enough for whoever opened it, to place a cup of coffee and a napkin-wrapped pastry on the floor. As quickly as it had opened, the door closed. Kingston crossed the room and retrieved the coffee and pastry, returning to the sofa. Taking a bite of the pastry and washing it down with the hot coffee, he realized how ravenous he was. If this was breakfast, he hoped lunch would be more substantial.

The morning dragged on into afternoon. Kingston, with nothing left to read or amuse him, stretched out on the bed and soon dozed off again. He had no idea how long he had been napping when he was awakened by the sound of the key in the lock once again, and a surly voice. “Get dressed and come with me,” the man said.

“I’ll be right there,” Kingston replied.

“Make it quick.”

A few minutes later Kingston was walking along the same corridor as the previous night, the man close behind. Reaching the door at the end, they passed into the warehouse. Kingston held a hand up to shield his eyes. After the dark room and corridor, the bright sunlight slanting through the skylights high above temporarily blinded him. It struck him as being incongruously cheerful, considering the gravity of things.

Moments later they left the warehouse and were headed along a path toward another, smaller building, about fifty yards away. Now in the open and considering a run for it, Kingston took a quick glance over his shoulder to size up his chances. As he did, the man spoke.