Payback (28 page)

Minutes
later, they were hurrying through the entrance, Barton’s portrait photograph as usual beaming down. A young woman met them, her face telling them something major had gone wrong. Tom wondered whether it had something to do with Hortense, Mitchell’s agent. He also wondered if the damn place was safe. ‘This way!’ she called, running in.

The
lab had two wings, broadly split between Blacher’s work and Rybinski’s. But she led them to the rear of the building and towards the loading bay. Then she stopped, panting.

‘
What is it?’ demanded Barton, his face blotchy, breathing hard.

‘
Through there.’

Barton
slid open the big double doors, and immediately cried out loud in shock. Inches from his face was that of Ladislas Blacher, the noose and rope creaking as he swung. Blacher was suspended from a gantry high above the bay; his bulging eyes stared accusingly at Barton, following him as he swayed, and his mouth hung in open-mouthed horror.

It
was the face of an old man who had just seen hell. ‘Somebody cut him down!’ Barton screamed.

Chapter Fourteen

The call from Maddie had surprised her. There was a big problem at the agency over her attempt to snow Metropolis. The DIY client had found himself sitting next to the TV sales contractor at some Marketing Society dinner. Unsurprisingly the £6 million spend with Metropolis had quickly been raised, to the obvious confusion and embarrassment of the client. Unable to track down Lydia at the package holiday hotel, Philip had in desperation called Madeleine with whom, he saw from Lydia’s electronic diary, she had recently lunched. The Media Director was demanding to speak to Lydia, furious. And the high-profile client was close to firing the agency, something that
Campaign
, the industry trade magazine, had already picked up on. A big, damaging story was being threatened.

‘
I simply can’t get excited about some bloody DIY shed right now!’ she exploded. ‘Whether they spend £6 million or six pence flogging their poxy mixer taps and paint brushes...’

‘
Don’t yell at
me
!’ Maddie responded. ‘I’m just the poor messenger. And anyway, I had kind of been expecting a call from you, you know? All things considered.’

Lydia
came down off the ceiling. Maddie was right, of course, and she suddenly felt guilty and selfish. ‘I know. And I’m sorry. Really I am. But if you knew...When I get to tell you everything, then you’ll understand.’

Maddie
got the coded message that she did not want to talk on the phone. ‘Sure. When you’re back we’ll fix a lunch. But what do you want me to do about this Philip man? I said either I’d ring him back if I didn’t track you down, or I’d get you to.’

‘
I’ll call him. Don’t worry about it.’

‘
Fine. James’s back in Europe now, I gather. With Tom.’

‘
Yes. They flew on to Portugal.’

‘
When’s Tom due back in London?’

‘
Tomorrow, I think. Why?’

‘
Oh, nothing. And you call me as soon as you’re back, you hear?’

With
that Maddie was gone, and while the mood took her, Lydia checked her watch, and realised she would have to talk to Philip at home.

‘
Philip. It’s me. Sorry to call you so late,’ she said.

‘
Lydia! Where are you? Still in Belize?’

‘
Sure am. And my wicked stepmother’s been on saying everyone wants to congratulate me on the Metropolis deal.’

‘
This is serious.’ Lydia’s half-hearted flippancy fell flat. ‘The chairman’s hopping mad. And the account’s about to walk.’

‘
It was walking anyway. To a media independent. I was just trying something to keep them in.’

Philip
did not know what to say. Her job was on the line, and he knew she had fought to keep the DIY account largely to protect him. ‘What do you want me to do?’

Lydia
was getting mad now. ‘I’ll tell you what to do. You call Mike for me, and tell him we want £2 million at the same discount. If he asks why the hell he should agree, just tell him because of “Sleepless in Sienna”. Got that?’

‘“
Sleepless in Sienna”. Sure. But what does it mean?’

It
means I’m really not much better than my father, she thought. Perfectly capable of using blackmail to get my way. A year earlier, there had been a European media congress in Tuscany, and rather than stay at the usual boring conference hotels, a bunch of mates had decided instead to rent a villa and make a week of it. They had found a Renaissance castle on the outskirts of Sienna. On their last drunken night, Mike had staggered into her room naked, and—not wanting to scream the monastic place down—it had taken all her strength to fight off being raped. In the morning each, for their own reasons, had wanted to pretend it never happened. And neither had referred to it since, despite almost weekly telephone contact. ‘Never mind what it means,’ she said wearily. ‘Just tell him.’

Later,
not now feeling energetic enough to spend her day exploring on horseback again, Lydia decided to take one of the ranch’s open Jeeps for a leisurely drive into the hills to find some cool air. Dressed in comfortable, loose-fitting khaki chinos and a matching cotton shirt, wearing her Ray Bans pushed into her hair, she asked the houseman for some general directions before setting off. Countless pairs of eyes from the security contractors and mercenaries followed her bra-less figure as she climbed in the Wrangler. She realised this and tartily played to the gallery a little. Praying she would not ruin her image by pathetically stalling the left-hand-drive 4X4, she was relieved when she accelerated hard away, the wind feeling good in her flowing hair.

Approaching
the end of the long driveway, she slowed to join the road towards town. Fiddling with the radio, she found the Friends music station and turned up the volume to the old Rolling Stones hit, ‘
Honky
-
Tonk
Woman
’, joining in at the top of her voice. It was then that she saw him, sitting under the Temple Ranch sign. His skin tone blacker than most locals, he was wearing only a tanget made from fraying denim. Embarrassed at being caught singing, she smiled at him. Standing now, the small man bared his upper teeth, in a kind of submissive smile. Then he waved a piece of coloured paper and came towards her. She knew she should drive off, but a lifetime’s polite English conditioning and a liberal’s fear of appearing racist or patrician fatally delayed her. Banto was sitting beside her before she knew what had happened, thrusting at her the now hopelessly torn and rotted picture. ‘You’ father? You’ father?
Wantok
?’ he asked excitedly, still with his ingratiating grin.

Taken
aback, her common sense still deserting her, she nodded, recognising the standard company portrait. ‘Yes. Yes it is. Do you work here?’ she gushed.

But
at her words, the grin evaporated and the knife was at her throat. ‘Go town. Over river. Go town. Go!’

Ashen,
and cursing her stupid gullibility, she did as instructed, turned right and headed the few miles to San Ignacio. All her attempts to communicate further with him were met with fractionally increased pressure from the knife on her neck, so that with every pot-hole she feared it would puncture the skin. As they approached the town, he moved the knife to his right hand and pressed it now against her side, hiding it with his folded left arm. ‘Over river. Over river,’ he repeated.

He
could only mean one thing. Cross the Hawkesworth Bridge towards Santa Elena. She was much too afraid to call out to the people pressing around them as they drove down Burns Avenue towards the junction. But in her head she screamed to them. Could they not
see
she was being kidnapped? But the stupid men were just ogling her bouncing tits, not the terror in her face. As they approached the bridge she did think about simply throwing herself out of the moving car, figuring that once they left the town, she had no hope of rescue or escape. As if he had read her mind, his left hand moved over, grabbed her leather belt firmly, and she felt the knife pressed a fraction harder in her ribs.

It
had to be kidnap and blackmail, she kept telling herself. He obviously knew her father was rich. And kidnapping, she knew, was endemic in South America. Was he part of a gang, or working alone? Would he treat her well while negotiating? Or would he rape her...Rape! Her skirmish in Sienna with Mike now seemed very tame in comparison. Glancing over at him, she began to think through her chances of fighting him off. Probably about her own age, he was much shorter than her. That was something. But he was obviously extremely strong. There was not an ounce of fat on his naked upper body, his sculpted pectorals glistening with sweat, arm muscles bulging, the thick neck bull-like. His wide face was showing no tension, the large, liquid unblinking eyes looking confidently ahead, his naturally curled, black hair buffeting in the breeze. It seemed hopeless. He looked the kind of man she could hit with a baseball bat and still not be able to hurt.

His
directions were curt but effective, and two hours later, with Cristo Rey and San Antonio behind them, she could see the carpet of rain forest towards which they seemed to be heading.

*

The key Hortense had given him felt heavy in his hand. Heavy like his conscience at his duplicity. However much Tom had right on his side, entrapping his long-standing business friend still felt dirty.

But
he knew this was his chance. The place was deep in confusion over Blacher’s suicide. An ambulance and the police had already been called by the staff before Barton had got over from the restaurant, and as the emergency services arrived, within minutes of each other, Tom realised he had to grasp the opportunity to get into Rybinski’s private laboratory. The two men were giving statements to the police, and he figured that the Russian in any case would keep out of his lab while they were around, for fear of giving them a reason to enter the place.

The
yellow and black radioactive warning symbol on the door and the red light glowing above added to his nerves as he fumbled the Ingersol key into the sophisticated security lock. Looking constantly to each side, checking the corridor, he let himself in the room. Low-energy blue lighting gave a science fiction feel to the standard-looking lab. On the long central bench were rows of labelled test tubes, presumably containing cultures, and a large electronic microscope. The lighting was too dull, however, to make out very much else, even as his eyes grew accustomed to it. Cursing himself for not bringing a flashlight, he knew he had to risk turning on the light. Taking off his jacket, he laid it carefully along the bottom of the door, blacking out the gap, and switched on.

The
ancient-looking filing cabinet was by the far wall, and he took out the second key he had been given. Sweating heavily now, he fumbled it into the brass lock, freed it and, trying to steady his hands, opened the top drawer. It was packed with papers and buff files. And so were the other two drawers. More than he could possibly carry or get out. Nervously, he janked a couple of files out, dropping one, which hit the floor like a rifle shot, spilling its bulging contents. Scanning at random he found papers in a variety of languages: Portuguese, English, Russian, French...Some were mostly in words—written reports, others in figures—accounts. It was a hopeless mission, with far too many things to look through. His mind swam with uncharacteristic indecision. What to do...?

The
loud bang on the door made him start.

‘M
eester Rybinski! Meester! You there?’

Tom
froze. The female Portuguese voice sounded servile. It was obviously some lab assistant looking for the Russian, someone who knew better than to try and enter. Holding his breath, he heard her call just once more before muttering some expletive and rushing away down the corridor.

Swallowing
deep breaths of air, he focused his consultant’s mind once more on the precise task in hand. He decided he wanted to be in there no longer than another ten minutes. Maximum. There were perhaps thirty files in there.

A
twenty-second scan each. Go!

Working
diligently, he soon realised the majority of the paperwork was irrelevant—the last few years’ accounts, old lab trial results, tax and legal documents required to be kept by the pedantic Portuguese authorities. Discarding these left just three files that interested him. One in English, detailing orders and shipments of materials and equipment from mainly British and French suppliers. He removed the last dozen pages. The next was in Portuguese and from the little he could make out, seemed to be detailed medical reports on a series of men. They included photographs of organs, presumably taken at a post-mortem. The last file was hand-written in Russian, and listed rows of figures, each followed by annotated comment. The entries were dated right up to the previous day. He once more took out the last dozen or so pages from these two files, before stacking them with the rest back in the drawers. Shoving the papers inside the back of his trousers, like a schoolboy facing a thrashing, he stuffed back his shirt tail, turned off the light and put on his jacket.

Easing
the door open, he froze as he saw Rybinski standing at the end of the long corridor, talking to two people. From his body language, he was obviously trying to get away from them to head for his lab. Tom closed the door, feeling the panic rise in him again. There was no other way out of the room. And nowhere to hide. When Rybinski came in, he was finished. If the police were still there, perhaps he could shout and get their help...Or should he hit the Russian? Knock him unconscious, and escape? His mind played over the options. All frightening, and fraught with danger.

Then
his eye fell on the phone, and an idea came to him. Dialling 0 for the switchboard, he told them to send an urgent pager message to Rybinski: ‘Meet Sir James now in his office’. Inching open the door again, he risked another quick look down the corridor. The group had already broken up and the Russian was striding rapidly towards him...

But
then, there it was. Surely! Or was it just wishful thinking? Tom was convinced he had heard a faint, persistent electronic bleep. Closing the door, he grabbed a small, heavy pestle from Rybinski’s bench, and waited, quaking. Far from sure he could bring himself to sink the thing into the man’s skull, he prayed for his diversion to succeed.