Chapter 60
Thursday August 14 th 2008
I woke up early but had nothing to do and all day to do it. I borrowed fifty quid from Rachel and decided to do the tourist bit. I waited until the rush hour had gone and picked up a Zone card that would give me travel all day.
I had no plan so I drifted through the centre of London seeing much but taking in little. My head played around the upcoming encounter with Dupree but the event seemed distant and unreal. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I caught up with him, but doing anything was better than this nothing.
I walked up the stairs at Bank tube station and went for a wander around the financial city. You could almost feel the money in the buildings around me but you could also feel the tension. There was change in the wind. A few days ago the French bank BNP Paribas had signalled some serious financial problems and the issues over the summer with the US markets didn’t bode well.
I wound my way up to Holborn and then walked along to Tottenham Court Rd. I cut through Leicester Square and took my time crossing Trafalgar Square before I made for Hyde Park and some green.
I found a bench and watched the lunch time people become the mid afternoon people. I got bored and stiff before deciding to go back to the hotel.
I grabbed a sandwich from a corner store. I wasn’t hungry but I forced myself to eat it. God alone knows what might happen tonight and the last thing I needed was to be low on energy.
I lay on the hotel bed until six thirty and then headed back out. I found a phone box and, at bang on seven, I phoned Giles’s number. It rang half a dozen times and then the answer machine kicked in. I was about to hang up when he picked up and apologised.
‘I was in the toilet. Your French man has an office on Lloyds Avenue in the city. He operates his business under the company name King to Ace Ltd. I don’t know the number on Lloyds Avenue but it isn’t that long a road. I don’t expect to hear from you again.’
Before I could say thanks he hung up on me. I didn’t know Lloyds Avenue but there was a Food and Wine across the road from me and, after a quick transaction, I owned a shiny new A to Z.
The book told me that Lloyds Avenue was not a spit from where I had been earlier in the day. It backed onto Fenchurch St station and was a short walk from the Tower of London.
I went back to the hotel to find that Rachel was out. I scribbled a note and pushed it under the door. I didn’t know whether Dupree would be at his office and I suspected a phone call at this time of night would prove fruitless.
I tried to look up the company in the hotel phone book but there was no entry under King to Ace. I borrowed the reception phone and tried directory enquiries but the people with the answer didn’t have an answer. My best bet was to pay a visit and suss out the lay of the land.
I took the tube across town — still busy with late workers and night shoppers — before exiting at Bank. This afternoon I had turned left at the top of the exit — this time I turned right. The light was fading and the streets were quiet. Office lights were on all around me and the bulk of the city work force had split for the day.
I found Lloyds Avenue. It was short and unobtrusive. Not off the beaten path but certainly near the verge. I walked down the right hand side and scanned the few doors that there were. I completed the trip and repeated the walk, scanning the other side. I came up blank. I started again but this time I walked up to each door regardless of what the wall plaque, or sign outside, read.
About half way down there was a double door entrance. The reception area beyond was small and functional but the building had the feel of quality. The sign outside read ‘Cranchester Aggregates plc’.
At the back of the reception, unmanned, was a list of the divisions and which floor they occupied. Most were a variation on Cranchester — Cranchester Equipment, Cranchester Haulage and so on. Right at the top, the style of sign writing changed.
All the bottom floors were written in simple capital letters — each in the same typeface. The top one differed in two ways. Firstly there was no letters and secondly there was a picture of the King of Hearts and the Ace of Clubs.
I pushed at the door and found it locked. There was a buzzer on the wall but I left it be. I placed my face up against the glass and squinted to get a better view of the sign but at this distance my eyes couldn’t focus. Even so I was sure I had found the office. Now I just had to get in.
I stepped down the stairs and ducked out of sight from the reception. There was a CCTV in the lobby pointing at the door and I didn’t need to advertise my presence anymore than I had to. I waited on the off chance that some one was working late.
I heard footsteps behind me and I ducked down, pretending to tie my shoe laces.
A pair of shapely legs glided by and turned up the stairs. I stood up and walked behind the owner of the legs. She took out a plastic fob and waved it below the buzzer; there was a click and she pushed the door open. I stepped forward and held it open for her. She stopped and looked at me.
‘I’m looking for King to Ace? Is this the right building?’
‘Top floor but you are supposed to use the buzzer.’
‘Sorry I didn’t know.’
‘There’s another buzzer on the reception desk. Donald is on night duty. If you press it he’ll come. He might take a while but he will come — the buzzer is linked to his walkie talkie.’
‘Can’t I just go up and see them?’ I said pointing at the sign on the top of the board.
‘No. They have a key for their floor. Without it the lift won’t go up that far.’
‘Thanks.’
She walked to the lifts and I stopped at the reception. I waited while she got in and, as the doors closed, I walked towards the fire stairs at the rear of the lobby. I had no intention of calling Donald.
A quick look at the board confirmed King to Ace were on the seventh floor. I pushed open the door to the stairs and began to climb.
I was certain that the fire exit to the seventh floor would not open from the outside but with a bit of manipulation fire doors can be opened.
Six floors later and I was breathing heavily. I had met no one on the staircase and now a pair of fire doors lay between me and the next flight of stairs. It didn’t look too legal to me. Why place a set of doors on the fire escape? To my left was the exit to the sixth floor. I opened it and looked in.
The whole floor was carpeted in thick wool — not cheap and not very practical. I suspected the sixth floor was the domain of the privileged few that ran Cranchester Aggregates plc.
Beside the lift doors there was a glass panel and glass door. Beyond this was a series of doors running off a corridor. The corridor was dark and there were no lights from the offices. I closed the door and turned my attention to the double doors that blocked my way to the next floor.
The fire doors had no handles and I suspected they had push bars on the other side to allow people out in an emergency. I tried to prise my fingers into the gap between the doors but they were tight to each other and a metal plate, that ran from floor to ceiling, covered the gap between the doors. The locking mechanism that sprang the doors when you pushed the bar was hidden from sight behind the metal plate.
I took out my tool kit and selected a small strip of metal that had a bend at right angles about two inches from the end. I slid the bent part behind the metal plate and ran it down until it met resistance. I left it hanging there and took out another strip of metal — this time with no bend — and inserted it below the bent piece of metal and pushed up until it stopped. Holding the straight piece steady I pulled down sharply on the bent strip and there was a click. I pulled at the door with the bent metal strip and it opened.
Grabbing the door I pocketed the two small jimmies and slipped through the gap, pulling the door behind me.
As expected the stairs continued up and, two flights later, I was faced with a gunmetal grey door. I turned the handle and the door gave. Beyond the door lay the lobby that serviced the solitary lift and beyond this there was another door.