Shroud of Concealment (Jake Dillon Adventure Thriller Series) (22 page)

“Absolutely out of the question.”

He quickly scribbled a series of numbers and letters onto one of those sticky note things, folded it in half, and then, as if absentmindedly, left it on the top of his desk. He stood up and moved across to the door.

“I’ll just go and see where Rachel is with the coffee.”

He closed the door quietly behind him. Dillon unfolded the piece of paper, took out his mobile phone and using the built-in scanner, copied the information to the phone’s memory. He immediately sent it along with a short text message explaining what it was, to Vince Sharp. Two minutes later Havelock walked back into the room with a tray of freshly made sandwiches and a pot of coffee.

“I don’t know how you do it, Jake. But it’s just dawned on me that I not only seem to break the law, but also the oath of loyalty that I took like everyone else when I joined the service. But I do appreciate that you have taken an enormous risk by coming here tonight. It intrigues me as to what would be so urgent as to make you do that?”

“As the Home Secretary’s personal adviser, Dunstan, you carry a huge amount of knowledge and do a lot of highly confidential jobs best not done in Parliament. And who are you trying to kid here anyway, Dunstan? You even have the highest level of clearance, next to the Home Secretary and the Director General of the security service. This is something a good many MPs would resent.”

“Well, now you’ve lost me. What’s this all got to do with Latimer.”

“I believe that Julian Latimer has used his position to get himself into something that makes him vast amounts of money. He couldn’t give a monkey’s about allegiance to the crown or serving the people who voted him into office. I think that it dates back a good way which is why this is all so difficult.”

“But even if some or all of the other addresses did have the same cache of gold, wouldn’t it still be unlikely that Latimer would knowingly be involved? Having said that, if there were similar amounts at the other addresses, it would make a small mountain of the stuff. You’re not suggesting that he and Trevelyan are in cahoots together, are you?”

“No.” Dillon was thoughtful for a moment, and then Rachel came in with more coffee. After she had gone the subject seemed to lose impetus for a bit until he said, “No. I’m suggesting that he’s inextricably involved with all of them. Trevelyan, Hart and Hammer.”

“Now that would be something.”

“Forget sifting through the files on the database, I’ll get Vince to do that. But I’d like you to take a look at what committees or advisory boards Latimer was sitting on during 1982 and 1983.”

“Anything in particular?”

Dillon finished his coffee and stood up.

“Transportation of precious metals. To move six thousand eight hundred bars of gold, Brinks Mat, would have had to notify someone in a Government or police department. The police report at the time of the robbery clearly state that it was an inside job. There were fifteen people involved with the planning and execution of the heist and only a handful of men were ever arrested and put inside. My hunch is this, Dunstan. That one or maybe all of them were involved with one of the biggest gold heists of our time. Now, it may not have been directly, of course, but if we dig deeper, we may just strike lucky and find something to link them with the robbery.”

“It sounds too fantastic to be believable. But I’ll grant you this, finding that gold hidden in the depths of the Dorset countryside was a masterstroke on your part. I must say that these four men are all of the right age to have been involved then. But I’m still dubious of Latimer’s involvement. But I’ll do what you ask and take a look at his files for that time.”

“Thanks, Dunstan. I’ll slip out quietly. Give Rachel my love.”

Havelock rose, too. “She’ll expect you to say goodnight.”

“Do it for me. I don’t want to lie to her about what I’m working on and I don’t want her to think that you’re in any danger.”

“Am I?” asked Havelock as they walked down the stairs and stood in the spacious hall talking, their voices lowered to almost a whisper. Dillon replaced the wig and moustache, looking in the oval wall mirror to ensure they were correctly in place.

“You have far too many powerful political and security service friends for you to be in any real danger. But if Hart or Trevelyan discovered that you were my contact in the Government, they might try to get to you and leave you with something to remember them by. I don’t think they would go so far as to kill you. Not because they wouldn’t want to, but because it would attract too much attention.”

“That’s a real comfort, Jake. It will make me sleep much easier tonight.”

“Best you know, Dunstan. I’ve always said that you’re not too hot on security.” Dillon held out his hand.

“Don’t come out onto the step – just show me out. I’ll be in touch.” He picked up the canvas holdall.

Havelock opened the door for Dillon to leave and said with a slightly raised voice, “Thank you for dropping round. Give my regards to your department head.”

The door closed behind Dillon who stood on the step buttoning up his tweed jacket and turning the collar up. He went down the path slowly, paused to decide which way to go, and then set off. The streets were discreetly quiet at this time of night in Kensington. He didn’t hurry and he already knew that someone was behind him. Keeping his pace constant, he turned corners as they came.

Suddenly he turned round and walked back the way he’d just come from. The man following him had no option but to continue walking towards him and as they passed each other, Dillon hit him hard in the stomach, dragged the gasping stranger into the nearest garden and went through his pockets to find a police identity card. Special Branch doing MI5 a favour, no doubt.

Dillon said in his most public school voice, “I’m ever so sorry. By the looks of it, we appear to both be on the same side of the fence. But I genuinely thought that you were going to mug me; official secrets and all that. Although it does pose the question of why you were following me.”

“My mistake. I thought you were someone else. Sorry. Bit of a mix up, but no harm done, eh?” The words came quickly between strangled gasps for air.

“Well be more careful next time. Or I’ll have to report you.”

Dillon strode off before the police officer could recover enough to stand up and start questioning him.

He went straight to the nearest tube station, entered the public toilets, and in one of the cubicles, removed the wig and moustache again. He rummaged through the canvas holdall and pulled out a black hoodie and beanie, put them on and stood pondering on why only one man had been following him. He then decided that the look of an eccentric academic had thrown them – it had worked. They must be watching Havelock around the clock and had dispatched only one man to follow him on the you-never-know basis.

* * *

Charlie Hart was starting to worry about himself. For the first time since moving into the luxury waterside mansion, he was finding it too large and too empty. As he wandered aimlessly through rooms and along hallways he decided that the place was without a soul. Mrs. Pringle had gone out for the evening with a friend. Even when she was in she would usually remain in her private apartment, but he could hardly trouble her with his woes of worry. After all, he knew that she had a soft spot for him and to lean on her emotionally would almost certainly not be without some kind of repercussion.

The house had the space and minimalist qualities that he’d always wanted. Nobody crowded him and that was extremely important. He could change bedrooms as the mood took him, eat his meals in a formal dining room or usually in the breakfast room adjacent to the spacious kitchen, or by the indoor pool. Weather permitting, there was always alfresco on the pontoon which jutted quietly out from the lower gardens into the harbour. In fact, he only ever used the breakfast room, but the option was there. Freedom. What a magical word. But he felt like he was creating his own prison, physically and emotionally. Shackled by the chains of his past.

He had retired to the first floor living room with its uninterrupted view of the water, and was sitting in one of the cream leather reclining chairs that faced the panoramic wall of glass. The plasma screen was awash with vivid colours. A documentary about the global effects of a major American bank going to the wall was on and, at about the same time, Dillon was visiting Havelock. He wasn’t watching or listening to the commentary, because it wasn’t going to have any effect on his personal life – not with his wealth running into many tens of millions. He gazed through night vision binoculars at Brownsea Island, a large brandy on the occasional table next to him.

His thoughts had turned to Jake Dillon, whom he believed he was beginning to know in spite of the very real fact that they hardly knew each other at all. Dillon, he felt sure would understand. The Trevelyans of this world were, what the Americans call, trailer-trash, and as for people like Latimer: he only despised them. They only ever took, never gave anything back. So much had changed; values had fallen to an all-time low. Fighting to survive he had always understood. To make money for money’s sake was something he had never comprehended, even though he’d made far more than he would ever need in his lifetime. But was it enough? Would it be enough to protect him should the need ever arise? That was the question that always came back to haunt him and only time would be able to give him the answer.

He leant back in the reclining chair, savouring the fine spirit from the large brandy balloon glass. He reflected and always struggled with the finer points of morality; his mind became argumentative and then his thinking process collapsed in an exhausted and agitated state, leaving him confused and angry with himself. He knew part of the reason for this and those reasons were sound, and he did not have to excuse them. There were other factors too, over which he had no control and which he had been forced to fight for survival. But he had always come through. Yet it now seemed to be starting all over again. Admittedly it was on a very different playing field, with different people, and he wondered if he had the strength left to fight it. He had wondered that virtually all his life.

* * *

Dillon had stayed the night at The Old Colonial Club. Waking early, he decided against breakfast, instead leaving quietly by one of the staff exits and went straight to the nearest tube station. In a toilet cubicle he reverted back to the blonde wig and moustache and from there went to the north-London home of an old friend and retired journalist. He didn’t recognise Dillon at first, but Jack Logan was extremely pleased to see his old friend. Dillon spent most of the day with him, sifting and reading through his handwritten notes and some of the old saved newspaper cuttings of the Brinks Mat robbery at Heathrow in 1983. Jack Logan had worked for The Times newspaper; he’d covered the story for them and, what had started out as a bit of a scoop for him, eventually ended up as a life-changing obsession, even to this day. But he was pleased to be of help, even though Dillon admitted to him that he didn’t know what it was he was exactly looking for.

At around 4.00 p.m., Dillon thanked Logan for his time and hospitality, caught a cab to the nearest tube station and made his way back into the city. He found a seat on his own by an exit door. At the next stop, a large smiley-faced middle-aged woman came and sat herself down beside him and promptly started to tuck into a chocolate bar and two bags of crisps. Dillon’s thoughts drifted and mulled over the assignment; at each stop the odd whiff of cheese and onion crisps wafted pass him as the doors opened. He was still not a hundred percent certain about where his enquiries were leading him. Was the notion of the gold bars in Dorset being part of the Brinks Mat robbery at Heathrow merely something he had conjured up in his own mind? He didn’t have time to answer the question. He was jolted back to reality as a stop approached and the large woman sitting next to him struggled to get herself onto her feet and out through the exit door as quickly as possible. Dillon got off at the next stop and went straight to the rest room to remove the disguise and to change out of the tweed jacket and corduroy trousers into something else. From there he went straight back to The Old Colonial Club.

Meanwhile, Vince had been trawling every public register and database in the forlorn hope of finding more information about Rosie Poulter. For this he was using a piece of software that he’d written during his social engineering days. This hacker’s software was able to be left to its own devices; accessing databases easily through firewalls, entering side and back doors, or any other weak point of entry, any Government or agency computer and search for whatever it could find. After eight hours it had only collected what they already knew.

Issy had been working all morning on case notes for one of her clients, sending everything back to her office over the Internet. In the afternoon she’d had a call from one of her friends and had gone out for a late lunch, returning to the apartment at around 6.30 p.m.

She entered the apartment. Someone closed the door behind her and someone else placed a gloved hand over her mouth. She had almost passed out with shock, but they had held her upright and dragged her into the living room. The man behind her whispered in her ear, “My friend will remove his hand if you promise not to scream. Nod if you agree. If you make any sound it will be your last. Do I make myself clear?”

Issy, weak at the knees and feeling a little nauseous, nodded slowly.

“That’s good. Now go and sit down in that chair over there and keep your hands where we can see them. And keep very quiet and still.”

Issy eased herself into the armchair and placed her hands on her lap as she was told. She couldn’t help the trembling or make the feeling that she was going to be sick, go away.

They stood on the other side of the room, giving her time to recover, and then one of them said, “This shouldn’t take up more than a brief moment of your time, Miss Linley. We just want to know where Jake Dillon is. Tell us and we’ll leave.”

The words were spoken quietly, but with an edge to them.

Issy was trying to muster up her courage. She could see that these men were roughnecks, but did not speak as she would expect a hardened criminal to do. She had been so frightened that she had hardly taken any notice of them, but now she was taking in everything about them. She raised her hand up to her mouth as if she was about to be sick.

One was slightly shorter than the other and had cropped dark hair, but there was a basic likeness. They were both wearing well-cut suits that could have been purchased from any high-street tailor. The one who had so far done all the talking spoke quietly but with a badly disguised northern accent. It was blatantly obvious that they worked out and that there was no way she could deal with them physically. She guessed they were in their mid to late thirties. During this quick appraisal she realised that even if she did scream she doubted whether anyone would hear. There were five apartments in the building and none of the other residents ever returned home until well after 7.30 p.m.

“Do not underestimate us, Miss Linley. If you lie, I’ll know. And the consequences to you will be extremely severe, I assure you.”

It was the one who had grabbed hold of her as she’d come through the front door who spoke.

Her eyes roamed from one to the other and it was then she saw the butt of a pistol protruding from under one of the jackets. Her heart missed a beat.