‘Clever stuff,’ Slider said.
‘Well, if you’ve got the equipment and the know-how, it isn’t technically that difficult. Communications satellites are easy enough to get into – that’s their purpose in life. And he’s certainly got the know-how. Whether he’s now got the equipment I can’t say.’
‘He seemed to know you. Sent you his regards.’
Hutton made a disgusted sound. ‘I met him a few times at trade fairs and so on. I didn’t know then he was anything but honest. He put up a good front – and he was working for the American trade delegation. Well, you know what that means.’
‘Yes,’ said Slider. It was the accepted cover for the intelligence agencies.
‘It occurs to me,’ Hutton said, ‘that he’d have had plenty of opportunities to set up remotes in America during his trips over there. He’d have had access to the satellites and as much kit as he could ever want. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a little place or two tucked away over there, an office in Washington, New York, maybe Seattle for the west coast. It wouldn’t need to be big – a single room with a computer and a telephone and a good lock on the door. He could have rented any number of them. If you could find them, or any one of them . . .’
‘Yes,’ said Slider. ‘Probably easier to find him.’
Swilley was sitting on Slider’s windowsill with her notes. He told her the rest of what Hutton had said, and she frowned. ‘But, boss, why would he mullock about with that mobile when he’d set up the safe landline?’
‘Just to amuse himself,’ Slider said. ‘He said he wanted us to chase our own tails for a bit.’
‘Do you think he could be back in his house? He’d got the kit in there, and those massive aerials. He could do all that stuff from there, easy.’
‘It’s sealed and guarded.’
‘But suppose he had a way to sneak in—’
‘A secret passage, you mean?’ said Atherton from the door. ‘Gosh, little Anne, fancy you thinking of something as clever as that. You’re nearly as brainy as Uncle Quentin.’
Swilley defended herself. ‘It’d be the last place we’d look for him, wouldn’t it?’
‘With reason,’ Atherton said. ‘Anyway, his kit was taken out, according to Notting Hill. So he’d have nothing to Famous Five himself back in there for.’
Norma gave him a look and flounced out.
‘This Bates business is making everyone scratchy,’ Slider said. ‘You’d better go and do some paid work to put you in a better mood. You can interview Freddie Bell.’
‘You know how I like hanging out with the rich and shameless,’ Atherton said.
When Slider was alone again, the phone rang, and it was Joanna. At the sound of her calm voice, something in him unknotted. At least she had got there safely.
‘I did what you said,’ she reported, ‘changed lanes and watched the rear view, but I didn’t see anything suspicious – not that I’m entirely sure what something suspicious looks like, but nobody obviously followed me. I even,’ she added with pride, ‘went up an exit ramp and straight back down the other side on to the motorway.’
‘Very inventive of you.’
‘That’s what I thought. Anyway, nobody who followed me off followed me back on. So I think I’m clean.’
‘I think you are too,’ he said. ‘But still be careful.’
‘Always. But you be careful too. I hate to put it this way, but on the evidence it’s you he’s after.’
‘On the evidence, he wants to frighten me. If he wanted to kill me he could have done it by now.’
‘Doesn’t mean he won’t try to kill you after he’s frightened you,’ she said, sounding deadly serious. ‘Is everybody doing everything they can to catch him?’
‘All my people are. And the SOCA must want him very badly indeed. Try not to worry, darling—’
‘I know. Bad for baby Derek.’
‘You’ve decided it’s a boy, then?’
‘I just don’t like the name Rebecca. I sat next to a Rebecca at school and she used to pick her nose and eat the bogies.’
‘Lifelong prejudices are born that way. Let’s call it Gladys if it’s a girl.’
‘Deal. Anything new?’
So to give her something to think about, he told her about Atherton and Emily Stonax. She was not as surprised as he expected her to be. ‘I could see she was interested in him.’
‘But on the very day she finds her father’s been murdered?’
‘That’s the very day you most need comfort. I hope for his sake that’s not all it is. But I had a long chat with her and she’s got the intellect he needs, and the same sort of interests.’
‘Funny, I’ve never heard him say, “Phwoah, look at the brain on that!” or “I wouldn’t half like to give her a game of chess.”’
‘Scoff away, my lad. But don’t forget you’re talking about the man who once dated two solicitors.’ Someone spoke behind her, and she said, ‘I’ve got to go. They’re calling us. Shostakovich five waits for no man. Love you.’
‘Me too,’ he said, seeing McLaren hovering in the doorway.
‘Chicken!’ she laughed, and rang off.
Freddie Bell’s gaming empire was run from his headquarters offices over the Lucky Bells Casino on Leicester Square. Above the offices there was reputed to be a penthouse flat of surpassing magnificence where Freddie himself lived, when he was not at his manor in Gloucestershire, his stud in Wiltshire, his castle in Aberdeenshire, his villa in Monte or his apartment in New York. The man was seriously rich. He had casinos wherever they were legal, ‘arcades’ on high streets and sea fronts, fruit machines in every pub and chippy, betting shops, hotels and motels, plus an interest in several London theatres and a promotional company that specialised in musicals and operas. Atherton had done his homework before heading for Leicester Square. Despite naming his casino empire after himself, he preferred to be called an impresario, which suggested either a desire to become respectable or delusions of grandeur; although, Atherton thought, he was so rich and powerful it probably wasn’t possible for him to be delusional about it. In his younger days, though, he had been so famous for settling disputes with his fists, it had been suggested his empire ought to have been called Seven Bells rather than Three.
The Lucky Bells was his largest casino in the UK, though he had one in Las Vegas that made it look like a corner shop in Droitwich. All the same, it was big, and Bell owned the whole building on a long lease, which given the value of real estate in central London ranked it high among his assets. It had the gaming rooms downstairs; entertainment suites, restaurants and control room on the first floor; and the offices of Three Bells Entertainment Enterprises Ltd on the second. It was one of the grand old buildings in Leicester Square, stone faced, with a fancy frieze all round under the roofline depicting dryads, puff-cheeked Bacchuses and fat bunches of grapes, and false columns between the vertical window lines which ended in busty caryatids. All rather louche and appropriate, Atherton thought. The casino wasn’t open yet when he arrived, but he found one door at the end unlocked and went in. With its prosaic main lights on and the cleaners patiently mowing up and down the vastness of hideous carpet, its night-time glamour was exposed as tawdriness, its luxury fake, glittery and naff. It was sadder, Atherton thought, because it had obviously cost a lot of money to get it to look like a WAG’s dream. To have spent so much on chandeliers like those, and a carpet like that, made the crime against taste all the greater.