Hot Ice (6 page)

Abruptly she turns left, away from her home and hurries back towards the main road. So what if it takes her five minutes longer. She’s almost running by the time she reaches a narrow alleyway, stretching between two tall blocks. She makes it in a dash. Now she’s on the high street where wet pavements reflect a lurid glow from shop windows and neon signs. But where is everyone? Even the restaurants are closed. She slows down and finally pauses, pretending to gaze into a shop window.

Listening intently, she hears a dog barking in the distance, a cat scuffles in refuse bags, far off an owl cries. She feels chilled and depressed. A car passes with a whoosh of tyres on wet tarmac. Nearer the sounds are unmistakable: a crunch of a stone dislodged and then a short skid from a misplaced step. Someone is creeping on rubber-soled shoes on the wet pavement, not more than thirty metres behind her. Then there’s silence. She’s being followed and it’s for real. All the murders she’s read about over the past few months crowd into her mind. Does she have anything at all to defend herself? Only a small pair of nail scissors.

Chris peers sidelong into the gloom. The night is full of deep shadows but none that seem to have any living form. Then something moves. A tall figure walks slowly into a pool of light from the street lamp. He knows she’s seen him and he
doesn’t care. He’s moving towards her, but suddenly she feels a surge of courage. She’s identified the enemy. She knows who she’s dealing with. He’s just one man and she’s a trained kick boxer. She’s not helpless. Far from it. She might even send him packing. And then? How would she know who he was? Ahead of her she catches sight of Timmins, the jeweller’s, where a night-vision security camera is above the window.

Hurrying forward, she gazes into the shop window, lingering long enough for the camera to get a good shot. The stalker is getting much closer now, bolder, more menacing. He’s deliberately intimidating her. She moves on, but not too far, and pauses at the dress shop. He pauses, too, standing tall and undecided in front of the jeweller’s window.

Two blocks away, on the other side of the street, there’s a seedy, old hotel, which caters mainly for immigrants. Could she make it? She waits long enough for him to be caught on camera before making a sudden dash across the road just ahead of a passing car. The driver hoots, swerves and shouts through the window at her. Footsteps are gaining on her as she reaches the entrance. Thank God the front door is unlocked. Her hasty entrance wakes the security guard who had been dozing at his desk, the lights are on and suddenly she’s safe. She struggles to catch her breath.

‘Someone’s stalking me,’ she says eventually in a remarkably calm voice.

The guard gets up and stares into the street. ‘No sign of him, Miss. Shall I call the police?’

‘No.’ She remembers Ben’s instruction not to involve the police unless absolutely necessary. ‘I’ll call a taxi.’

‘You’d best wait in here until the cab arrives.’

Half an hour later she pays the cab and unlocks her front door. The house is in darkness. Mum and Bertram are asleep.

She’s soon in bed, but sleep evades her. Who was he? Why was he stalking her? He looked so threatening in his long grey coat, with his face
half-hidden
by a scarf. Was Ben right in blaming al-Qaeda for the kidnapping? Could she be in any danger? More likely her stalker was merely an unhinged man on the loose. After all, how could he possibly know she would be emerging from the tube station at exactly that time. Perhaps he’d been waiting for any woman to walk the streets alone. Slowly she reassures herself and after a while she even believes her comforting ideas, until she falls into a restless sleep.

The IT department of FI is amazingly well-equipped for hacking. Chris has left some highly specialised software running overnight in the hope of discovering Prince Husam’s computer password. Arriving at seven a.m., she hurries to the IT room to find that the programme has been completed and there is the password on the screen: 24-05-53. Strange password…someone’s birthday perhaps. Triumph surges bringing goose-pimples to her arms. ‘Ha! Gotcha,’ she says aloud.

Hyped up and trembling, she enters the Provident Trust’s financial records. There it is…everything she needs, a mass of transactions from every African branch. Sighing with relief, her fingers race over the keyboard. Hardly noticing her discomfort, she sits hunched over the screen. Occasionally she pauses, stretches, makes a few notes, calls for coffee and a biscuit and returns to the screen.

‘Just how late are you staying?’ Janine calls out some time later.

Chris looks up in surprise. It seems that the day has hardly begun, yet Janine is going home.

‘Don’t mind me. I’ll lock up,’ Chris tells her.

Three days have passed since Ben left and Chris has spent hours each day examining the prince’s financial records. She’s also seen the local branch of an American NGO and listened to their plans to launch a worldwide diamond boycott soon, if the industry can’t keep blood diamonds from the market.

Chris has masses of information on Arab investment in Africa, but nothing that indicates large cash payments for illicit diamonds. The hours pass too quickly. Sometimes Chris goes out for a coffee and a snack around six p.m., otherwise she works through, leaving around one a.m.

It is eight p.m. and Chris is alone in the IT room. She stands up, stretches and performs a few karate
katas
until she feels more relaxed. She is about to get back to work when the telephone rings. It’s Ben calling from New York and the sound of his voice makes her feel warm and happy.

‘They treating you well over there, Chris?’

‘Everyone’s great. How are you doing?’

‘Rather well. I’ve managed to locate Jon’s dealer. His name is Moses Freeman. I have some data for the file. Better switch on the recorder.’

‘OK. Ready.’

Chris listens as Ben gives the addresses of Freeman’s two sisters, in New York and Johannesburg. ‘Moses Freeman is Liberian-born,’ Ben continues, reading from his notes. ‘He’s descended from a freed slave, Benjamin Freeman, who was repatriated to Africa from the United States in the 1820s. Moses converted to Islam three years ago, and he often wears a fez and robes, but he has retained his family name, which is strange. I have the feeling that his religion is merely a status symbol. His American sister, Lydia Jasmen, is a devout member of a local Christian-African sect…she wears a crucifix and a long blue robe, but they seem to get on well together. She owns a house in the Bronx and Freeman stays with her when he’s in town on one of his frequent selling trips.’

‘How did you get all this so quickly, Ben?’

‘Ah. I’ve been devious…’

Chris can hear the satisfaction in his voice.

‘When Freeman is about to arrive in New York, he places a cryptic message containing the word “diamonds”, plus a post office box number in the classified advertisements. Dealers interested in buying from him have the opportunity to write to his box. Then Freeman can check them out before contacting them to make an appointment. I had to rope in a friend of Jon’s to provide me with a jeweller’s background and a letterhead.’

Chris listens in silence, feeling anxious. Ben was
never designed for cloak and dagger work. He’s too candid and trustful. ‘Please be careful, Ben.’

‘Sure. I met Freeman in the New York Palace Hotel. He twigged that I wasn’t a dealer in no time and gave me the slip. Fortunately I’d arranged to have him followed. He unwittingly led us to his sister’s home. I tried to barge in on Freeman, but he was out. His sister made an appointment for me to see him tomorrow morning. Hope he shows up. If not I may have to fly to Liberia and dig him out of his burrow. I got his Liberian address from Immigration.’ Ben read it out for the files. ‘Apart from Jon’s problem, Freeman can help us a great deal. I’d say he knows exactly what’s going on.’

‘So how’re you progressing with the hacking, Chris?’

‘I have all their financial transactions for the past six months. I’ve been analysing them every possible way, but I haven’t found anything suspicious. As you said, there are millions of dollars
en route
to Africa. They have masses of cash at their disposal. Most of it goes to charitable groups, schools, hospitals, medical research and so on. I haven’t found any major cash withdrawals and I guess they’d have to pay for diamonds in cash. I can see no trace of purchases of arms either.’

‘OK. Keep trying. It was only a flyer.’

Chris can hear the disappointment in Ben’s voice as she says goodbye. How can she fail Ben? At the same time, if the group has been set up merely to
hand out freebies to Africans, what else could she hope to find? Suppose they really are buying illicit diamonds, laundering them, and selling them at ultra high prices, what sort of evidence could she find? Massive cash withdrawals obviously, yet there’s nothing shown in their accounts. What she needs is a closer look from the inside. There’s nothing more she can do tonight, so she locks Ben’s recorded tapes in her office safe and goes home.

Early the next morning, Chris calls the personnel officer at the Provident Trust to ask if the company has any vacancies. All their hiring is handled by an agency, she’s told. Next, she calls the agency, but there are no vacancies. She seems to have reached a dead end.

‘If you give up now, you might as well quit the job,’ Chris tells herself sternly.

‘Use your head, Chris. You’ll find a way.’

She hurries into Jean’s office. ‘What would Ben do if he needed to check on someone’s routine?’ she asks.

‘Get a detective maybe. The company normally uses Jeff Jennings at the Browning Agency. Shall I get him on the line?’

‘Thanks, Jean.’

‘I’m Ben Searle’s PA,’ Chris explains to the detective. ‘I need information concerning the movements of someone and I’m in a hurry. Can you see what you can do in twenty-four hours?’

‘I’ll certainly have something. Let’s have the details.’

After spelling out her requirements, Chris hesitates for a moment.

‘There’s something else. Someone’s been stalking me. I’m not sure, but I think I managed to get him to pause in front of a jeweller’s in Finchley long enough for their security camera to get a good shot of him. It was around midnight. I stood there seconds before, so it might follow after a shot of me. Timmins, the jeweller, knows me. He’s a friend of my mother’s. I need to take a look at this stalker. Is there some way you could perhaps identify him?’

‘I’ll give it a go. Will tomorrow do?’

‘That’s fine. Thanks.’

Chris spends the rest of the day rechecking the building society’s financial transactions to find out if she has missed anything. Her very last job is to cable FI’s Bombay office, asking them to get hold of a review of Mohsen Sheik’s company’s past weeks’ cash transactions. ‘We’re looking for large and regular cash payments, probably amounting to a million dollars a month…or more. Or any sign of a large cash withdrawal.’ Surely they would know that his holding company is called Jewelrex, but then she adds the name to be on the safe side.

She works late into the night and goes to bed with a sore neck and burning eyes.

The following morning, Jennings calls back before nine a.m. ‘OK, Chris, here’s his routine. Got a pen handy?’

‘Sure. Go ahead.’

‘Yesterday, Prince Husam Ibn al-Faisal, manager of the Provident Trust Building Society, drank a sundowner at the Cedar, a club close to his office. The barman said he goes there most evenings and that sometimes he goes on to Shumi’s. Yesterday he left the Cedar at seven p.m. to dine at Tramps, another habitual watering hole. At half past nine he called Elle, an exclusive dating escort agency…one of the better ones…to send him an escort. He’s a regular client, but he only asks for good dancers. He took the girl dancing at China White, after which he sent her home in a company taxi and walked six blocks home to his apartment in St James.’

‘Is he gay?’

‘Just choosy, I think. I chatted up the girl at the escort agency. He had a French girlfriend for a few months, but they split in April…there’s been no one since then, as far as anyone knows. I took a few discreet pictures which I’m sending over by messenger, together with my report. If I had more time I could get you more information.’

‘Thanks. This is all I need right now.’

After lunch, Chris searches New Bond Street’s shops for a dress to wear…not just any dress, but something clinging and low-cut, yet demure. Not an easy project, but she finds exactly what she’s looking for. Marcasite clips for her hair and glittering black sandals seem absolutely right. Leaving at four p.m., she goes home, bathes, changes and douses herself with costly perfume.

As she creeps downstairs, Chris can hear her mother and Bertram talking in the living room. She reaches for her black coat hanging on the hall stand, hoping she won’t be seen, but her shadow falls across the doorway.

Mum is appalled. ‘You look like a tart.’ She seems deeply hurt.

‘That’s good. I have to pick up an Arabian prince,’ Chris teases.

‘Well, don’t come crying to me when you get into trouble. Is this the best you can do after all those years of studying…a pseudo spy!’

‘Mum, this dress is very expensive. It was featured in a top fashion magazine.’

‘It looks like a black satin petticoat…the sort I used to wear in the Seventies.’

‘There’s a certain resemblance,’ Chris murmurs, gazing in the mirror. ‘But it sets off my pale skin and my hair. Don’t you think so?’

‘I don’t recognise you, Chris. You’ve changed.’

‘Change is the only fact of life that’s truly inevitable.’

Mother sighs. ‘You’re a fool. I never thought I’d live to see the day…’ Mum is about to burst into tears, so Chris grabs her coat and leaves.

The Cedar’s ‘mod-Mayfair’ decor, as Chris has nicknamed it, is designed to attract rich clients, preferably foreign, and make them feel at home. From every nook, wall panel, floor and ceiling, exotic richness hits the eye with a wallop. Chris shudders as she hurries towards the bar, pausing to open her bag and gaze intently at Jennings’ pictures of Prince Husam. And there he is in person, leaning back in a tapestry armchair reading a newspaper with what looks like a glass of neat scotch on the table. Surely that’s taboo for him. He is alone, which is fortunate. A surge of adrenaline runs though Chris at the enormity of what she is trying to do.

She chooses an empty table near the prince, but not too near, and orders a glass of Bacharach wine. The prince, absorbed in the news, doesn’t seem to notice her. From time to time she glances at her watch and looks over her shoulder towards the entrance, as if anxiously waiting for her date.

Half an hour later, when nothing has happened, she risks another sidelong glance towards him. She takes out the photographs and studies them from behind a menu. Undeniably there are flaws: his eyes are set at different angles. From one side of his face a caring, romantic man stares back, but the other
half shows a fierce, nomadic Bedouin. The pictures don’t do him justice, Chris decides. He’s young and athletic, well over six-foot, with the type of looks that label him Arabic, like his smouldering dark eyes, an imperious nose in an otherwise perfect profile, sensuous lips and long tapered hands. His hair is thick, black and wiry, and cut very short.

She looks up, feeling startled, as a strange man leans over her, puffing alcoholic fumes and the stench of cigarettes into her face.

‘You must be waiting for me?’ He leers confidently at her, slightly drunk and thoroughly offensive.

‘I’m waiting for a friend. Please go away.’

‘You don’t mean that, darling. You’re waiting for the right guy. Well, I’m the right guy.’ He takes out a wad of notes, flips through them and shoves them back in his pocket.

So Mum was right. She looks like a tart. She’ll never wear this dress again. Leaping up, Chris grabs her coat and bag, but as she turns she almost collides with the prince who has miraculously and swiftly come to her aid.

‘Fuck off while you still can,’ he says menacingly to the drunk.

The drunk takes a few steps back, looking undecided. Moments later the club’s bouncer is escorting him to the exit. They look like buddies as they walk arm in arm through the tables. No one seems to notice the intruder’s arm twisted
behind his back. It’s over in less than a minute.

‘That’s a very efficient bouncer. Thank you so much. My friend is late. I think I’d better go.’

‘You look very pale. You’re trembling. Come and sit down with me until you feel calmer, then I’ll see you to a taxi, just in case that idiot is lurking outside.’

‘Thanks. I think I made a mistake coming here alone.’

‘You’re right there,’ he scolds her.

Wrong century, Husam, but quaint. She almost explains that this is England, not the Middle East, but that would give the game away, since his English is perfect. Instead she says: ‘Surely I’m not trembling…not for something so trivial.’ But she is and she knows why. She was so close to failing. She blesses the drunk, whoever he is.

‘The truth is, I was supposed to meet a man from one of the headhunters. He’s been trying to interest me in a vacancy at a rival company. We were supposed to discuss my requirements over a drink.’

‘He may still come.’ Husam looks pleased as he pulls out a chair. He introduces himself and gives her his card.

‘I thought you were English,’ she lies. ‘You sound English.’

‘Most of my schooling was in Scotland.’

That explains his slight brogue.

‘I have a lot of business friends here,’ he tells her. ‘Many of them are having difficulties finding the
right staff. I might be able to pass on some contacts. That is, if you don’t think me impertinent.’