Shroud of Concealment (Jake Dillon Adventure Thriller Series) (6 page)

They went out to an Italian restaurant in Covent Garden. It was somewhere they both enjoyed going to when neither of them could be bothered to cook. Dillon had got to know the owner and head chef, Giovanni, over the years and he always ensured that Dillon got the best table in the house; one which enabled whoever was sitting there to have a clear view of the entrance.

“So where’s your Porsche?” Issy asked casually, as she swung her long slender legs under the table.

“Manufacturer’s re-call. Something to do with the traction control system. Bit of a bore really, they tell me that it could take up to a week to get the parts from Germany. That’s why they’ve given me that Cayman to drive around in. Not a patch on the Carrera, but it’ll do.”

Dillon lied easily, broke his bread roll in two and helped himself to an olive from the dish in the middle of the table. Issy said no more, and he felt that he’d got away lightly with such a simple explanation. Dunstan had done his job well with the press black-out, because there hadn’t been any mention of a car being blown to bits in any of the press, radio or television.

“What’s the name of that man you deal with for Charlie Hart?” Dillon asked, as he bit into another green olive. Since the car bombing he’d been doing a lot of hard thinking.

“Gideon Lihiri. Why?”

“Indian? I suppose that shouldn’t surprise me, especially as Hart made his fortune in India.”

“Well it would seem logical, wouldn’t it? As he’s most likely to still have business interests over there. By the way, he gave me a potted history of himself during our first telephone conversation. Born in the UK, was sent to a top public school and got top grades in nearly all subjects. Went to Oxford where he gained an English degree with honours. And I have to say, his use of the English language is not only eloquent, but also as it was intended to be used. Unmolested by the vagaries of modern day clichés and buzz words.”

“Thank you; I wasn’t expecting so much information. So, where is Mr. Lihiri based?”

Dillon picked up a slender glass and sipped the crisp white Italian wine.

Issy looked across the table at Dillon and saw his dead-pan expression – the one she knew all too well. The one he knew was the perfect foil for hiding his true thoughts. She savoured her wine slowly, before saying, “He has an office just off the Bayswater road. Overlooks Hyde Park.”

“Sounds expensive. Did he tell you, or have you been there?”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“To make sure it was true and that it wasn’t some sort of ‘name plate only’ set-up he’s given you. Surely you check out your clients before you take them on?”

“Of course, we check them out, but not if it’s one of the firm’s highly respected clients recommending someone to us, it is just not the done thing. It would be seen as a lack of trust.”

She smiled wanly, and then added, “I know it’s a bit Dickensian, Jake. But we lawyers still do certain things in certain ways, I’m afraid. Hell, some clients won’t even give us their addresses, let alone allow us to visit them there.” She laughed.

“When we get home you can give me his address, and I’ll get Vince to check it out. At least we’ll both know for sure who we’re dealing with.”

“The word paranoid comes to mind, Jake. Let’s face it, Charlie Hart has you wound up like a spring and you don’t like it. Why don’t you just admit it? You’ve met your match and call it a day.”

Met his match. What the hell would she say if she knew about the letter bomb and the real reason why he wasn’t driving the Porsche? She had a right to know, especially if she was at risk. He wanted to tell her but he was hesitant for many reasons. Mostly because he didn’t want to alarm her with a possible jeopardy that might not exist. Then he simply said, “Issy, the Porsche hasn’t really been re-called by the dealer. It was blown up outside the theatre this afternoon. That’s why I’ve got a hire car. And I’m almost certain that it was a warning from Hart.”

“What makes you so sure it was a warning?” she asked, hiding her alarm, and slowly winding long strands of spaghetti around the end of her fork.

“Let’s call it a gut feeling and a long time of looking over my shoulder. It’s what keeps me alive.”

He could feel her foot gently rubbing against his leg under the table, and caught a brief glimpse of her left breast under her blouse, as she leant over towards him.

“I’d like to go home, Jake.”

“Why? We haven’t even had pudding yet.”

“Because all of a sudden I’m a little scared, and I want to give you that address.”

Exactly what Dillon didn’t want – Issy being unduly worried and going on the offensive as her way of protecting him.

“We’ll do pudding first and I’ll more than likely forget the whole thing.”

“If Hart will let you. You said that yourself.”

* * *

The last time he had been to this part of town was in search of Holy Willy, a class-act conman and hustler who occasionally, when it suited him, impersonated a minister of the Church of England. Dillon drove the hired Porsche along the Bayswater Road as far as Marble Arch, turned around and came back on himself. Eventually, he found the Lihiri Import & Export Company at the address Issy had given him. Vince had confirmed the address almost immediately from one of his many databases. He’d yet to make contact with Gideon Lihiri and had decided not to phone him in the first instance.

The building was just like all of the others in the street – imposing with the hint of shabbiness about it. Dillon had parked the car around the corner and walked back to take a closer look at the Lihiri Import & Export Company. A highly polished brass plate by the black painted door listed three companies; Lihiri was on the second floor. Surprisingly, the street door was open but above it was a tiny CCTV camera positioned to record anyone entering the building.

That made things tricky. Dillon was reluctant to be caught on camera and in the process inform Hart that he was still snooping around. Of course, the camera could belong to any one of the three companies in the building, but Dillon would have put money on it belonging to Lihiri. Issy was right, Hart had him wound up like a ball of string, or was effectively manipulating him like a puppet on a string.

Dillon had made sure that he was out of camera angle as he passed the building the first time. Now he was on the other side of the street walking back towards the parked Porsche. On the corner was a pub and he went in, ordered a lime and soda with ice and a round of beef and horseradish sandwiches. He looked around for a table, found a small round one in the far corner of the bar where he could observe anyone coming in, and the lighting was more for atmospheric effect rather than being functional. No sooner had he sat down, than the girl who had served him at the bar came over with his food. Dillon slowly ate the sandwiches, all the time thinking about what his next move should be.

The pub was like many around the capital: an old place that had seen better days. The furniture was disagreeable and looked like it had been purchased from a second hand shop, with no expense or thought spared for the customer’s discomfort. Dillon couldn’t help smiling at his own joke. And then, with sobriety, thought about how he’d rarely felt so agitated by a situation. The only thing that had surprised him since embarking on this assignment was the extreme measures, and with such vehemence that Hart had taken to warn him off. Why was he going to such lengths? He now knew that getting near to this enigma was virtually impossible. Hart had sealed himself as watertight as a clam, and confronting him about the stolen Vermeer did nothing to prise him open.

He was on the brink of phoning Dunstan Havelock and LJ to tell them both to stick the job where the sun didn’t shine, and he wasn’t having these thoughts for the first time either. But there was something holding him back from actually doing it. It may have been his annoyance at being beaten by someone he considered to be an unworthy opponent, or the fact that Hart intrigued him, which made him think again: the Porsche. He had really liked that car. It had made his adrenalin flow and given him the notion that driving could be fun again whenever he’d got into it. Something that Issy had never appreciated – she always had to point out that a car was simply a machine to get you from one place to another. But Hart knew different, a thoroughbred like a Porsche was something else. It was more than a machine, it became a part of you – the reason why he’d had it blown to smithereens. And the reason why Dillon was not about to give up the chase.

He finished his sandwich and emptied his glass, and was about to leave the pub when he noticed for the first time the Indian man standing alone at the bar. The thing that caught Dillon’s eye was what he was wearing a pair of camouflage combat trousers with a country style hacking jacket over a black t-shirt. He was in his late thirties, tall with a fit-looking physique and well-groomed shoulder length black hair. Every now and then he would take a swig of his mineral water, taking care to replace the tall glass in exactly the same position on the beer mat.

As Dillon walked by, the man said without looking, “Have a nice day, Mr. Dillon”.

“Sorry, do I know you?” Dillon turned to face the man. “How do you know my name?”

But of course he knew. Hart had warned Lihiri to expect a visit at some time and he had not been careful enough to avoid being caught on the CCTV camera.

The tall figure finished his drink, smiled at Dillon, and, without saying another word, went to leave the bar. It was as if there had been no need for him to reply to Dillon’s questions and felt no fear from him either. Dillon took one step forward and grabbed the sleeve of the hacking jacket, but his grip was easily broken with a lightning quick movement. Dillon immediately felt the strength of the man. It would have been stupid to brawl in a crowded London pub and he had already got a glimpse of the gun butt tucked in the waistband of the trousers as the man’s jacket shifted open. He wouldn’t put it past the man that the revelation was a deliberate attempt to goad him into doing something impetuous. Instead, he allowed him to leave quietly and without any fuss.

Dillon came out of the pub, spotted the man walking back up the street towards the Lihiri Import & Export Company, and followed him. He wanted to be satisfied that the Indian man was returning to their building.

He walked straight past Lihiri’s and continued on until Dillon realised that they were retracing their steps over and over again, and were now heading towards Paddington. This man would walk all day and at the end of it Dillon would have learnt no more.

Dillon decided to head back towards Lihiri’s, taking a number of shortcuts that he’d spotted earlier. He positioned himself out of sight and a safe distance from their building, but where he could keep an eye on the front door and clearly photograph anyone coming or going. It took the fit-looking Indian man longer than he had expected to return, but when he did he went straight in and Dillon was satisfied.

He picked up Issy from her office that evening; she usually travelled by underground or taxis. As soon as she was seated beside him, he said, “You must drop Gideon Lihiri and Charlie Hart and have nothing more to do with them.”

“I thought that there must be something wrong for you to collect me like this.”

She smoothed back her long hair and used the illuminated vanity mirror on the reverse of the sun visor to check her makeup.

“So what’s happened to bring this on?”

“Let’s just say that Lihiri is not what he appears to be, all right.”

“Well you’re going to have to do much better than that, Jake Dillon.”

“Okay.”

Dillon told her about the Indian man in the pub and how he’d followed him around west London for most of the afternoon.

“So what of it? Perhaps he thought you were going to attack him or something.”

“No, Issy. He had a gun and I have no doubt that he would have used it. There is also the little matter of who this man is.”

“So, who is he?”

The evening traffic was at its worst and they were making little progress. Dillon carefully weaved the Porsche through a gap left by two large vans, and entered a side street, eventually joining the main road further along where the congestion had eased.

“A gun-for-hire by the name of Bharat. Remarkably, Vince was able to get a definite match from the image I sent from my mobile phone. He found him on the metropolitan police database and Interpol have him as well. He’s apparently quite notorious throughout Europe. Works for anyone who will pay his ‘two million pound a time’ fee.”

“Wow, I’m obviously in the wrong job. But why do you think he’s working for Lihiri? Just because he went into their office block means absolutely nothing. After all, you said that there were three companies in that building.”

“Because men like that do not casually stand in pubs and wish complete strangers by name, to have a nice day. That’s why.”

“Perhaps he was being friendly.”

“No. He was sent as a warning and not because of this stolen painting thing. I don’t think for one moment that he was ever intending to harm me. What does concern me though, is that I’m being manipulated and drawn into something that is starting to look more sinister by the day. I wonder why Gideon Lihiri would need the services of a heavyweight killer like Bharat. Only something serious and involving vast sums of money would warrant it. This whole thing stinks of the gutters of Delhi, but doesn’t necessarily mean that they are the real issue.”

“But, Jake, this is all supposition. You don’t have any firm evidence, and this man Bharat could just be a coincidence. After all, how could Charlie Hart know that you were going to be in that pub at that time today?”

Dillon smiled wryly. “Hart would know that. In fact, Hart would know quite a lot about me by now. Get rid of them, Issy; I’m dead serious.”

“I know you are and I will. But it does seem to be a little ridiculous. Especially as they both know where I work.”

“You’re a junior partner, take some holiday. Surely you can tell your office that you’re going to be away for a few days? Delegate your workload to another partner. I’m sure that someone would help you out.”

“It’s not that easy. If I pass my workload to someone else it’s to the detriment to their own work. Everything has a knock-on effect and I just can’t do that, Jake. I must go in.”

Dillon shook his head; his eyes never left the road.

“I must insist, Issy, that you do take some time off. Work from home if you have to. If I have to lock you up in a room with no windows to make sure that you don’t go to work, then that is what will happen. You call Lihiri from your mobile phone, and don’t forget to withhold the number. Tell him that you can’t undertake anymore work for them. But that you’ll obviously finish off everything to date after which they’ll have to find another firm.”

“And what reason do I give him for this sudden turnaround?”