Mrs. Pringle always insisted he had a cooked breakfast, but this morning he really didn’t feel up to it. He did his best for her sake and left the house late morning, driving the Jaguar.
He was halfway across Bournemouth before he realised he should by paying more attention to his rear-view mirror. It was usually second nature to watch out for cars that stayed behind him for too long. In heavy traffic it was unavoidable, but he had been vigilant for so long that he believed he could pick out a car tailing him from somebody just driving along the same stretch of road. Like traffic cops who could spot the innocent drivers from the guilty ones by some almost indefinable difference of road behaviour.
Hart slipped back into normal routine and watched his back, satisfied that he wasn’t being followed. He reached Boscombe, drove up and down side streets to find a parking space, and then walked slowly back to the old florist shop where he had seen the woman come out.
These strange outings achieved absolutely nothing except more confusion. And yet he was completely unable to stop himself from coming. This time he took a table at the other end of the café, away from the main entrance and people coming and going. Whilst he waited he ordered and drank two white coffees and wondered, as he had before, just why he was doing it?
He was no wiser when the woman came out of the doorway of the building opposite — as she always did about this time, on this day of the week. The woman still appeared to be dressed poorly, wearing the same coat as before. Only this time she wore a hat which largely covered her grey hair. She seemed to be happier than the last time he’d observed her and when she walked off up the road, she had a bounce in her stride. Hart finished his coffee, leaving a five pound note under the mug. He went outside and followed her, staying on the opposite side of the road so that she wouldn’t notice him. When she reached the Roman Catholic Church, she went inside and Hart stood and watched as she disappeared into the building.
He crossed the road and this time went into the church just behind an elderly couple. He looked around and spotted the woman praying in a pew off to his left. He wanted to get near enough to be able to leave a wad of twenty pound notes on the pew nearby to where she was praying. He walked slowly down the aisle with one or two others and when he came to the line of pews directly behind the woman, he shuffled his way along until he was within a few feet of her. The woman continued with her prayer, only glancing up when another woman sat down beside her, making it virtually impossible for Hart to carry out his good deed. The act of leaving such a large sum of money on a church pew could also be misconstrued, he thought.
The woman hastily got up and as she went passed him towards the aisle, he had to lower his head as she briefly glanced over in his direction before hurrying off up the aisle towards the exit. Had she recognised him, or was it merely Hart being paranoid? A moment later, he too got up and left the church. Once outside, he looked up and down the road in a vain attempt to see the woman, but she’d disappeared into thin air.
He was feeling really stupid, even amateurish, and realised he could have put himself in an extremely compromising situation. Even had he succeeded in leaving the money, what would the woman have thought if she had found it on the bench next to her? She would more than likely have handed it to the Father for safe keeping. He felt the embarrassment wash over him as he accepted that he had acted like an adolescent schoolboy.
As he walked back towards the Jaguar he pondered on why he had been so reckless. The possibilities of what might have gone wrong inside the church were still running through his mind and had shattered his confidence. By the time he had reached the car, embarrassment had turned to bewilderment at his own actions. By the time he was halfway across town heading home, he had fully recovered and was forcing his thoughts ahead rather than behind. There was no future dwelling on what might have been. His only reaction now was that he should never forget it again. It had been a naive lapse which would never be repeated.
Then his mind drifted again and so did his concentration. Within a split second, the Jaguar was over the centre line and he very nearly hit the car heading towards him on the other side of the road. Thankfully, he was driving down a side street and not a busy main road, for he missed the oncoming car by only a matter of inches. Horns blared and the other driver shook his fist at him as he went pass. He should have pulled over at the first opportunity but he somehow kept driving even though he still felt shaky, although he was driving more slowly and being extra careful. The shock had woke him up, and his head felt clearer than it had done for a long time.
What the hell was happening to him? He knew, but was not ready to acknowledge it. His mind was in a state of turmoil to the point of not knowing which day or even which month it was. It was a situation he’d not been in before, and it terrified him. Past events came tumbling back to mix with the present, and they were all attacking him at once until there were times when he believed that he was going completely mad. The problem was compounded because he had believed that those days were long over and forgotten.
He knew what had triggered it, as it had done before. And with it came all of the other problems. Destiny was in his own hands. There was a point in life when he had firmly believed that to be true and he had proved it to be so. It was still true if he remembered the simple rules he had created for himself. But he was beginning to ignore them. He would overcome the problem, though. He always had. But he was reluctant to admit that this time it was different and largely self-created.
CHAPTER NINE
Paul Hammer lived in a white stucco-fronted luxury residence in what was said to be, by London estate agents, the ultimate piece of real estate within one of Belgravia’s world-renowned locations. The houses on Chester Square, like the church, overlooked a small green. Dillon walked along the pavement, spotting the ground floor curtains of one or two of the properties, twitching as he walked by on his way to the home of Paul Hammer. He tugged twice on the polished brass pull handle and waited. Eventually, a smartly-dressed woman, somewhere in her mid-forties, opened the door and in a clipped tone asked him what he wanted. Dillon introduced himself and produced the Worldwide Art Underwriters of London investigator’s identity card. The woman studied it, glancing up once to check that the image on the card did in fact match. After handing the card back, she said, “Mr. Hammer is not here at present. Was he expecting you?”
“My office made the appointment well over a week ago.”
“I don’t recall having had a conversation with anyone from your company. And as I’m Mr. Hammer’s personal assistant; they would have had to speak to me.”
“I’m sure they would,”Dillon mumbled.
“What was that?”
“I said I can’t think what could have happened. Look, it is important that I speak to Mr. Hammer. It’s about the security arrangements of his paintings. Where can I find him now?”
“As I said before, he’s out. And I’m late for an appointment. Now, if you don’t mind, goodbye.”
The next instant the door was slammed shut in Dillon’s face.
As he walked to have lunch with Jason Single at his fashionable Belgravia restaurant, he phoned Vince Sharp to give him an update on events and to ask him to look up everything there was to know about Paul Hammer.
Jason Single was not quite in the same criminal league as Tommy Trevelyan, who sat supreme in the South London area. And there were those who would dispute this pecking order, but not to Trevelyan’s face. Not unless they were looking for trouble.
Jason was fairly high up in criminal circles, had scuffled with the police in the past, nothing serious and not since his early twenties. But he had learnt the art of delegation at a very young age, so that others took the risks and the penalties whilst he stayed just ahead of the police and made a lot of money along the way.