He raised a pint of Harvey’s to himself. He was doing all right, yeah. Life was sweet. A bit quiet in here for a Friday night, he thought. The barmaid he fancied was off sick tonight. But everything was all right. Very sweet.
Yeah.
Out of slight boredom he studied a framed photograph on the wall showing the members of a football team. Written at the bottom in large letters was WIVELSFIELD WANDERERS.
Suddenly he felt a vibration in his trouser pocket. He pulled out his iPhone and checked the display; it was a withheld number. He brought it to his ear and answered quietly. ‘Yeah?’
‘Ricky Moore?’ asked the caller.
‘Yeah.’
The caller hung up.
He frowned, and waited some moments, in case whoever it was called back. But the caller had no intention of calling back. He had all the information he needed to confirm the man’s identity. He was standing out in the darkness, outside the pub, watching through the window as Moore pocketed his phone and drained his pint. His identity proven.
Ricky Moore put his glass down on the counter, then looked around for someone to play bar billiards with, but didn’t spot any of his regular players. Deciding to head home soon, he ordered another pint – one for the road – and another whisky chaser.
His missus, Kjersti, the beautiful Norwegian woman whom he had finally decided to settle down and spend the rest of his life with – after two acrimonious divorces – hankered after a Rolex watch. Now, thanks to the McWhirter house, he had the dough to buy one – and with any luck he’d buy a stolen one, below retail, from a bent jeweller he knew.
She’d go nuts when she saw it!
He downed his drinks and left the pub with a smile on his face. He’d phone her when he got to the car; tell her to get her kit off and be waiting in bed for him.
*
Had Ricky Moore been sober, he might have been more aware. But four pints, accompanied by whisky chasers, had dulled his wits. As he stepped out into the darkness, pulling his cigarettes out of his pocket, he didn’t notice anything out of place. If he had looked around the car park, he might have wondered about the Mercedes limousine with blacked-out rear windows that really did not belong in a rural pub car park. Nor, above the rasp of a passing motorbike, did he hear its engine start.
He was preoccupied with thoughts about what he was going to do in bed with Kjersti tonight. She had a very dirty mind; and right now, loaded with drink, he was feeling increasingly rampant.
As he made his way, unsteadily, towards his elderly BMW estate, he stopped to light a final cigarette for the evening. Kjersti did not let him smoke indoors. A strong wind was blowing and he had to cup his hands over his lighter to prevent the flame being blown out. He heard a car slowing down alongside him, but concentrating on the cigarette, he ignored it. He ignored the sound of the door opening, too, as he clicked the lighter for the third time.
Then he dropped the lighter and the cigarette fell from his mouth as an agonizing vice clamp gripped his arm so hard he cried out in pain.
‘Sorry,’ said the Apologist, yanking him into the rear of the car, across his knees, and slamming his head into the offside door, dazing him. Then he pulled the door shut. ‘I’m very sorry,’ he said, as the car shot forward.
The interior of the car smelled of leather and stale cigar smoke.
‘What the—?’
‘I’m sorry. I truly am. You have to believe me. I don’t like hurting people.’ Then he gripped the man’s left thigh, trapping the nerve. Moore screamed and writhed in so much agony he was unable to speak.
‘I’m sorry. Don’t know my own strength.’
Moments later, Moore felt his phone being removed from his pocket.
‘Hey!’
The Apologist was six foot seven inches tall and weighed three hundred and forty pounds, most of which was muscle, and not much of which was brain. The last time he had been in prison, he’d thrown a full-size fridge up two flights of stairs. Because he was angry. It wasn’t good to be around him when he got angry.
Moore was panting and sweating. In the glare of oncoming headlights, he saw the man’s face above him. He looked almost Neanderthal, his high forehead capped with a fringe like a monk’s tonsure. ‘What do you want?’ he gasped. All he could see of the driver in front of them was shaggy hair beneath a chauffeur’s cap.
‘Nothing,’ the Apologist replied. ‘I’m just doing my job. It’s not a nice job. I need the code for your phone.’
Moore screwed his eyes up in agony. The car was turning left. More streetlights flashed past. ‘You’ve made a mistake. I think you want someone else.’
The Apologist squeezed his leg, making Moore scream again. ‘Please trust me, I haven’t. I haven’t made a mistake. You’ll have to trust me on that. I need the code.’
Now the car was turning left again. ‘Where – where are we going?’ Ricky Moore gasped, both in agony and terror.
‘I’m sorry,’ the Apologist said. ‘I can’t tell you. You have to believe me. I’m truly sorry.’
He noticed for the first time music playing. A choral sound. ‘Ode To Joy’, although he didn’t know its name, nor did he appreciate the irony. Classical music wasn’t his thing. It sounded sinister and creepy. He saw the tail lights of a vehicle ahead, through the windscreen. They seemed to be following it along a dark country lane.
Then he felt the vice-like grip on his left thigh again.
‘Stop!’ he screamed.
But the grip kept tightening.
‘I’m sorry,’ the Apologist said, ‘but I have to make sure you don’t try to run away. I’m sorry if I’m hurting you, I really am. The gentleman who wants to see you won’t be nearly as gentle. Trust me. Now the code, please.’
Moore gave him the four digits. He saw his captor tap them in and the display came alive.
The vehicle in front, a Range Rover, halted and the Mercedes stopped behind it. A man walked up to the rear window, and Ricky Moore became increasingly afraid. He heard the window go down, felt the cool breeze on his face, smelled freshly mown grass, heard the rumble of the Range Rover’s engine. He saw his iPhone being passed through the window, then it closed again.
‘Hey! I want that back,’ he said.
His captor said nothing. Several minutes passed. The Range Rover remained static in front of them. Then, suddenly, it drove off. The Mercedes followed.
‘My phone!’ Ricky Moore said.
The Apologist squeezed his thigh again, even harder, and he shouted out in pain, anger and fear.
‘Sorry.’
21
A half-smoked cigar, with undisturbed ash on the end, lay in the large glass ashtray, beside a crystal tumbler of Midleton whiskey, Gavin Daly’s regular tipple, for which he paid £267 a bottle. The thought of what the rare Irish whiskey cost gave him even more pleasure than the taste. It meant there was a little bit less of his fortune for his idiot, debt-ridden son, Lucas, to get his hands on after he was gone, although he had no problem leaving it to his sister’s granddaughter and family. But at this moment, for one of the few times in his adult life, his son was proving useful.
Dressed in his blue smoking jacket, Daly was seated at his wide, leather-topped desk in the study of his magnificent Palladian mansion, ten miles north-east of Brighton, blinking away tears. Trying to occupy his mind by focusing on the rare J. J. Elliott clock he was checking for a client before freighting it later this week to an important auction in New York, while he waited for some of the people he had phoned today to call him back.
There were only a limited number of dealers in the world who handled really high-end vintage clocks and watches. Most of them were straight, but over the years he’d had a good relationship with the straight ones and the crooked ones. He’d put the word out and reckoned there was a strong chance that if any were approached by someone trying to sell his father’s watch, most of them would phone him.