Hider/Seeker (19 page)

‘Possibly.' Oscar topped up Harry's glass with more rum before refilling his own. ‘Do you have pictures of the woman and her son?'

Harry took from the suitcase two passport pictures of Angela Linehan and Peter.

While Oscar examined them, Harry wondered whether she might have changed her looks again. She had cut her hair short in London deliberately because the men coming after her would only have old photos to work from. Even he had trouble recognising her when they met in the Italian restaurant to discuss terms. Her crimper knew exactly what she had wanted – a complete image change.

‘She's not going to be alone long on this island with all those horny Russians around,' said Oscar. ‘They'll find her before us.'

‘She won't show her face for some while yet.'

‘Men have a habit of finding women or haven't you heard?' He put the pictures on the table and continued eating.

‘They won't in her case. She knows how to stay invisible. I've shown her.'

‘You're in a strange line of work,' said Oscar. ‘It has a sort of primeval quality about it, hiding and seeking people.'

‘I didn't plan it, I just drifted into it. People come to me because they're usually afraid for their lives. Some are nice, some not so nice. But they all have one thing in common.'

‘What's that?'

‘Running away is their only salvation.'

‘And is it?'

‘Only on rare occasions is it the right thing to do – sometimes the only thing to do.'

‘Why do you do it?'

‘It's the only thing I show talent in.'

Oscar smiled and returned to the matter in hand. ‘How are we going to handle the boy?'

Harry didn't want to contemplate the boy not possibly being Peter. But he was playing a game of chess that would end in sudden death. There was only time for a limited number of moves to find Angela Linehan. There had to be total efficiency in whatever game plan he decided upon. No single move could be wasteful. Finally, he responded, ‘First, we need to make sure it's him.'

Licking the curry from his fingers, before drying them on the table cloth, Oscar picked up the picture again. ‘You know once we start asking questions about her and the boy, people will get curious. In a small place like this, they'll start to talk and it might reach the wrong ears.'

‘That's a risk I'm going to have to take.' Harry knocked back the rum in his glass. It felt good, but he knew it would be the last drop of alcohol he'd touch until it was all over.

Harry thought it best he remained in the car while Oscar went into St Ignatius School to show his friend a picture of the boy. He needed to be certain that the new boy and Peter Linehan were one and the same.

The Ferrari was parked on the shaded side of the street only twenty yards from the two storey school block, near King George V Gardens. Harry couldn't have looked more conspicuous if he'd tried, wearing a canary yellow aloha shirt in an open top 275 GTS. All that was missing was a funny hat.

While he waited, he began to feel that he was being watched. He adjusted the rear view to see three parked cars on the other side of the street close to a tumble-down shack with a rusty corrugated roof. All the vehicles were without occupants, in fact there was no one on the entire street. It was all motionless, apart from a stray dog and two old men sitting in a variety shop, chewing the fat.

Harry was about to get out and nose around when Oscar emerged from the school. Time stood still for Harry as Oscar stopped to light up a cheroot. A puff of smoke and then a gentle nod told Harry his search was over.

Adrenaline rushed through him. He'd soon be looking Angela Linehan in the eye again. Bethany would be safe and life would go back to normal.

Oscar returned to the car and sat behind the steering wheel. ‘What do we do now?' he asked, with the cheroot sticking out of the side of his mouth.

‘We wait for him to come out.'

‘Can't sit here all day, we'll be had for loitering.'

‘Your friend in the school knows what to do?'

Oscar flicked some ash out of the window, and said, ‘He'll call if anything unusual goes on.'

Harry didn't want to take any risks losing sight of the boy, but neither did he want to attract the attention of the cops by hanging around the school. It was a sleepy part of Castries and they'd look like a couple of paedophiles. His shirt alone, was a good enough reason to be arrested. It was disturbing the peace.

Oscar turned on the engine and headed to a hotel he knew on a tree-lined hill top that served the best seafood in the capital. Harry still felt they were being watched and looked over his shoulder at every turn. But no one was following them, and Oscar told him to lighten up; his ordeal would soon be at an end.

Over a meal of green figs and salt fish, Harry made it clear to Oscar that he was not expecting him to stick his neck out any further, now that they had found the boy. Harry told him he could manage the rest on his own. But Oscar wouldn't hear of it. He couldn't remember having so much fun.

‘I mean it Oscar, this could still turn nasty,' said Harry, taking in the panoramic view of Castries below and the two passenger ships shimmering in the harbour. ‘When you're already living in paradise, why risk it?'

‘Because it's like being in a movie that I never got to make.'

Harry understood the yearning for adventure, but he didn't like Oscar blurring the lines between fiction and reality. All his clients suffered from that affliction, and it often ended badly for them.

‘If you're really certain?'

Oscar nodded he was and finished off his glass of chilled Chablis. Then he had a question of his own. ‘What are you going to do when you meet up with her again?'

‘Make her see reason.'

‘Is that going to work with someone like that?'

‘I still have to give it a shot.'

‘And if she doesn't agree to hand back this grand fortune that doesn't belong to her. Then what?'

‘I don't know yet.'

‘Well you haven't got long to think about it.' Oscar poured some more wine into his glass. ‘Sure you won't have some?'

Harry drank a long glass of water in reply.

Oscar looked disappointed and downed his wine. ‘After lunch, I'm having a little snooze in the car before we drive back down to the school again. That'll give you plenty of time to come up with a spectacular plan.'

Later that afternoon, they returned to St Ignatius to find a group of teenagers fooling around in the street where they had previously parked. They weren't from the school and looked like they were going to make trouble as they drifted towards the car as soon as it drew up near the kerb.

Before long they were crowding around the car, examining the shiny grille and spoke wheels, as if they were rare pieces of art. Harry and Oscar looked at each other, wondering how to get rid of them as they would get in the way when the school broke up for the day. Oscar focused on one of the youngsters in a Knicks jersey with a six on his chest, and told him the entire history of the Ferrari GTS. Where he found it, how he restored it and whether the boy wanted to make him a decent offer for it, seeing he was so interested. That caused the kids to snigger and step even closer, patting the car as if it were prized livestock.

‘I don't have no money to buy your wheels,' said the youth, lowering his head to take a good look at the car's red interior, his fuzzy dreadlocks falling across his face. He glanced at Harry and said, ‘Cool shirt, man,' before running his hand along the leather trim. ‘I like Italian cars, they're real pretty.'

‘Like their women,' added Oscar smiling.

‘Doing her up must have cost you,' said the youth, straightening his back.

‘A fair bit. More time than money.'

‘You look rich enough to have both. How about opening your wallet and sharing some of what's inside?'

The doors of the school opened and the kids poured onto the streets like a burst water main.

‘Bugger off now, we're busy,' said Oscar, with a smile.

‘Not until you give us something first.'

An SUV drew up in front of the school and a stocky driver wearing sunglasses got out, sliding open the passenger door. The man's shaven head shined in the sun while he waited akimbo for his passenger. Harry left the car to get a better view of the SUV as there were too many kids standing around. More cars stopped outside the school, turning the street into a parking lot. He pushed through the crowd, his eyes fixed the whole time on the bald driver standing by the school entrance. Harry felt as if he was wading through a river of children, their heads bobbing around him. Amid the commotion, he saw the bald man step back and clunk shut the door of the SUV. Harry hurled himself forward and pressed his face against the vehicle's window – the passenger was a twelve-year- old girl in pigtails.

Harry turned around and scoped the crowd of kids, hoping to spot Peter's face. Maybe the boy had walked home from school, but that was unlikely as his mother would be living in a fancy villa away from everyone. Harry went from car to car looking in the back seats for Peter. Then, as the street began to clear, he spotted at the far end of the road an eleven-year-old boy getting into a taxi. Harry raced back to Oscar who was examining his empty wallet, having generously shared its contents with the youths.

‘Follow that cab,' shouted Harry, jumping into the passenger seat and pointing to a Toyota.

Oscar gunned the engine. ‘You're sure it's him?'

‘Positive.'

The Toyota zigzagged through the traffic, making it difficult for Oscar to keep up. Peter was in the back seat, his head rolling from side to side. Oscar was losing ground, but managed to keep his eye on the Toyota joining the John Compton Highway that ran alongside the harbour where the two passenger ships they'd seen earlier were docked.

All the time they were gaining on the cab. Then without any warning or signals the Toyota swung hard left into the wharf and drove up to a wooden jetty lined with long boats. Seconds later, the taxi was reversing out, almost hitting Oscar's Ferrari as it entered the wharf, brakes squealing.

Peter was running along the jetty, swinging his school bag without a care in the world. He waved to one of the men in the boats, jumped aboard, and was immediately whisked out into the harbour before Harry could even open his door.

‘Who would have thought,' murmured Oscar as he switched off the engine.

They watched Peter's boat disappear from sight, skimming away from the harbour and into the deep blue sea.

Harry sat back in his seat. ‘We'll be ready for him tomorrow.'

‘You can be sure of that. I have an idea, but you're not going to like it.'

He didn't. It went against all Harry's instincts as it would mean widening the circle of trust beyond Oscar. But time was running short and corners had to be cut. He had no choice but to agree.

The light turbine Sikorsky swung over Soufriere Bay and headed north. Bob Sampson was an American golfing buddy of Oscar's who ran helicopter trips for tourists. He gave a running commentary over Harry's and Oscar's headsets of the sights below as he flew them along the coast.

Oscar had fed Sampson a line that Peter was Harry's son and that his ex-wife was preventing him from seeing his boy. They were doing a recon, so that Harry's lawyers were armed with enough intelligence to get the boy back. How long this story would hold up for was just one of Harry's concerns because all lies eventually unravel and things never seem to fit so perfectly as the truth.

As the Sikorsky banked above Castries' harbour, one of the passenger liners was preparing to set sail. The long shadow of the chopper followed them inland over the government office blocks and across the rooftops of the shops and houses. They hovered briefly over the school. In ten minutes it would be home-time and pure pandemonium would break out as the kids got away. A black man in a parked VW waved at the helicopter. It was Felix, one of Oscar's security guards from the hotel. He was Harry's other main concern.

‘Why the hell is he waving?' crackled Harry's voice over the speaker to Oscar.

‘Just wants to show he's on the case.'

‘He's drawing attention to us.'

‘Relax, everyone waves in St Lucia.'

Oscar had not told Mordecai Baptiste why he'd borrowed Felix for the day. Felix had been told the same story about Peter being Harry's runaway son. Harry was worried that Felix wouldn't keep his mouth shut and would tell Baptiste everything, which although was not much, could invite an unwelcomed curiosity.

Sampson circled the hillside hotel where Harry and Oscar had lunched the previous day. It now looked nothing more than a match box. During a second lap of the hotel, Oscar received a call from Felix on his mobile that the kids were starting to trickle out of school.

It was time to put their plan into action. The chopper headed back over the rooftops of Castries, across the harbour and out into the blue bay.

Felix stayed on the phone describing everything that was going on outside the school. He started to panic as there were too many young faces to watch, none of them so far, Peter's. For a while he stopped talking altogether and Oscar made a doubtful face at Harry as they waited for a sighting of the boy. Then Felix's voice came back on, sounding like he'd won a prize. He'd spotted Peter in the crowded street waiting for his lift. A minute later Felix confirmed that a Toyota had picked up the boy and that he was tailing him. He continued the commentary on his mobile, updating Oscar about the taxi's progress through the heavy traffic. The taxi was on the highway – the wharf leading to the jetty – the boy was on the boat.

Sampson spotted the boat crossing the harbour and began to position his aircraft to follow at a safe distance so as not to arouse suspicion. Oscar told Felix he'd done a grand job; he should return to the Debeaumont, reminding him not to tell anyone what he'd been up to in Castries.

There were a few narrow fishing boats returning to shore and a scattering of yachts anchored close to the grey sandy beaches below. Peter's boat sped past them, skimming the tops of the waves and ploughing a white furrow in the deep blue sea.

Harry lowered his binoculars and told Sampson to keep back because they were gaining too much on the boat. Raising the lenses to his eyes again, he spied on Peter squatting at the front of the boat, his white school shirt flapping in the wind. It looked as if life in St Lucia was agreeing with the boy as he appeared a little rounder since the last time Harry saw him. The man at the tiller was just a local boatman and no one to worry about.

‘They're heading for Marigot Bay,' said Sampson, pointing to the moored yachts and cruisers, twinkling like diamonds in the lagoon ahead.

Peter's long boat was slowing down and heading towards the southern side of the channel. It cut its speed to just a few knots as it navigated around a sandy reef with coconut palms. The lagoon was sheltered by steep forested hills punctuated with white villas. Peter's boat phutt-phutted past several moorings before cutting its engine and coasting to the marina's jetty set among the mangroves.

Harry was puzzled why Angela Linehan had chosen a resort of the rich and famous, rather than something more remote and less conspicuous. She'd paid him all that money and still ignored his advice. He figured she picked it purely because of its practicality as Castries was only a few miles by sea, an easy daily commute for Peter. Marigot Bay offered every type of luxury and recreational amenity she could ever desire. Lucky for Angela Linehan, he'd found her first because in a small place like that word of her whereabouts would have eventually reached the ears of the Marottas.

Peter waved goodbye to the man on the boat and made his way from the waterfront to a road that ran alongside the white buildings of the marina. A well-built white man on a motorbike was waiting for the boy. Harry got a good look at the man through the field glasses and knew at once he was hired security. Angela Linehan was wandering off piste again. Bringing in close protection was a definite no-no in his rule book. Angela Linehan had a price on her head by now, and it was going up by the day. The temptation to cash her in might become too great for a hired hand.

Peter strapped his case on the bike's rack and jumped on, throwing his arms tight around the man's waist. The bike shot-off and Sampson dipped the nose of the chopper in leisurely pursuit. They followed them from the tumble-down hamlets at the foot of the hill to the millionaire villas that sprung up on the higher grounds with swimming pools and views of the bay. One of them had to be Angela Linehan's hideaway.

It was difficult to keep sight of the motorbike under the interlocking branches of the trees, especially where the road twisted and turned. Sampson decided to take the chopper higher as the hillside road only led in one direction and that was to the top.

Like an unwelcome wasp at a picnic, the Sikorsky hopped from one villa to another, hoping to find Angela Linehan's lair. Some villas looked empty, others were filled with screaming kids jumping into pools.

Sampson hovered over a white villa with terracotta roof tiles. Below a balding man was floating in a pool on an inflatable armchair the same colour as his pink skin – a drink in one hand, a mobile phone in the other.

‘Runs a Russian investment bank in Moscow,' said Sampson. ‘Flew him around the island when he first arrived – the phone never leaves his ear.'

The banker looked up and Sampson pulled away to another villa with the shutters down. Sampson wasn't sure but he thought it belonged to a Saudi arms dealer who never used the place.

‘Where's the boy now?' asked Harry, his voice crackling on the headphones.

‘Somewhere over there,' replied Sampson, inclining his head to his left.

No sooner had they gained sight of the bike than they lost it again at a turning where the road became narrower and the forest thicker. They banked the hillside again, second-guessing the motorbike's progress up the winding road. Harry wondered where they could be heading towards as there were no more houses or villas, just woodland.

Peter's white shirt was spotted in a gap in the trees.

Sampson kept them in vision, but a glance at the dials on the dashboard caused him to make a face. ‘We're going to have to come back another time.'

‘You're kidding?' said Harry.

‘Fuel gauge is playing up; didn't want to worry you earlier but to be on the safe side we need to get back.'

‘They're running out of road. She's got to be close.'

‘What's the problem? You can tell your lawyers where she lives now. Someone at the marina will have her address.'

‘Another five minutes?' pleaded Harry.

‘Okay, but that's all you're getting.'

The road came to a dead end at the top. A rutted dirt track, partially hidden by green foliage, led towards the coast on the other side of the hill. The motorbike followed the dirt track until it reached a tall perimeter wall protected with electric wire and a steel gate. Beyond the wall was a three-acre spread with an oval shaped building that looked like a giant white egg sliced in half. It had front steps made of steel and glass that led up to a double door entrance. Attached to the house was a smaller egg-shaped capsule for cars.

‘You need me to get closer?' asked Sampson.

‘And let her know we're here?'

‘You've got two minutes left.'

A heavily-built man with short blond hair opened the steel gate to the motorbike. There were more men like him inside the compound looking busy. She'd bought herself a fort with its own army.

On the way back to Soufriere, Sampson kept apologising for bringing the recon to an abrupt end. He offered to take them back the following week once the fuel gauge had been fixed, but that was going to be too late for Harry.

After landing, he shook Sampson's hand and thanked him for his help. He told him not to worry as he could handle the rest on his own as it would now be down to his lawyers to figure out. But he doubted Sampson bought the whole story about Peter being his son, given the fortification of Angela Linehan's villa and the number of security guards she'd hired. There had to be a bigger back story to call for such elaborate protection.

Harry and Oscar got into the car and headed back to The Debeaumont.

‘I know what you're thinking,' said Oscar, breaking the silence between them. ‘Bob knows to keep his trap shut.'

‘But –'

‘Relax. He sees so much stuff going on in St Lucia, nothing spooks him. You can trust him.'

Harry looked out of the car window as a mother stopped her toddler from running into the road. The mother smiled in relief, Harry smiled back. They connected. ‘I'm going to need a plan of the villa,' he announced.

‘You're not thinking of breaking in?' asked Oscar. ‘That's plain crazy.'

‘There's no other option.'

‘Why not grab her on the streets?'

‘There's no time left. I'm going back up there to convince her to return the money.'

Oscar thought it over and said, ‘I know some people in Castries that may be able to help out on the plans.'

‘I need them straight away.'

‘I'll drop you off first, and then go on to see them.'