Payback (41 page)

Ten minutes later the Greek emerged,
seemingly without the bag. He hailed a cab and Trent knew he could rely on his team to continue the tail, having kept them fully briefed on the situation. He was going to stay behind and press on with investigations.

The uniformed doorman looked dubiously at his baseball cap, blouson, jeans and trainers.

‘I need to talk to someone about a resident.’

‘
Put it in writing.’ The man was well used to paparazzi and celebrity-watchers trying to talk their way in. It needed Trent’s badge, pinned inside its case, to make progress.

‘Go ahead. To the desk,’
the doorman said at last, looking at him properly for the first time. He walked him over to the hotel-style reception desk on the right in the marbled, mirrored entrance hall.

The doorman whispered something briefly to the senior-looking man before resuming his station at the door. ‘What can we do for you Officer?’ the concierge asked in a loquacious Philadelphian accent. Trouble at
29 River Views was unheard of. Residents paid handsomely for discretion and security, and got it.

‘The fat guy with the hat. The Greek. He just came in here. With a package. I need to know who it was for.’ Trent felt self-conscious in his street clothes as
a couple of elegant residents and guests arrived, a porter following with Louis Vuitton travel cases worth more than his year’s salary.

‘I’ll need your folds again, sir. And I need to make a call.’

‘Go ahead. But make it so I can hear you.’

The concierge spoke to a senior supervisor in their security hierarchy, told him of Trent’s request, gave his badge number and a general description of him. There was a little banter and then he hung up. ‘We have to verify these things.’

‘Sure. Wise move.’ Trent was impressed, guessing they were checking that he had not shown soft creds — the kind issued fairly widely to Agency support employees and which look similar enough to those of field agents. Hoover had even given a set to Elvis Presley as a publicity stunt. And it was an established fact in all the world’s security services that clerks are always making out to be field agents, whereas real agents pretend to be clerks.

After a wait of just a couple of minutes the phone rang and the concierge spoke quietly into it. Then he put the handset down, having first switched it over on to a shout-box. ‘Special Agent Trent.
29 River Views is always pleased to co-operate with the authorities. This
is
an official request you’re making? In the parlance of my security colleague here, you
do
have creds?’

‘It’s official.’

‘Very well. The Greek gentleman had a small package — like a book — for one of our residents. But he refused to leave it with us to deliver, insisting on someone coming down. The package was in fact collected on behalf of our resident by Miss Jane Field. Miss Field is a close associate of our resident, and often stays here.’

‘Has the Greek made similar deliveries over recent months?’ Trent asked, holding his breath, praying for the right answer.

‘Yes, he has.’

‘How many?’

‘To my own knowledge, four or five.’

‘And you’re on
duty, what, half the time?’

‘About that.’

Trent was feeling heady with elation after so many months of nothing going right on the case. ‘I’ll need the name of whoever replaces you on your shift. It’s important for me to know if he can confirm a similar number of visits by the Greek.’

‘Oh but he
can
,
’
the concierge replied archly, twitching his aquiline nose. ‘We’ve spoken about him.
Not
a 29 River Views person. Not at all.’ The last two comments were made in a heavily mouthed whisper so as not to be picked up on the shout-box.

‘Finally, I need you to confirm the identity of your resident — to whom the Greek delivered the package.’ Trent already knew, but he needed to hear it.

‘That would be Mr Sool.’

Yes. Yes! Trent shouted inwardly to himself. He felt like punching the air.

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