However, this was not one of those occasions.
Spread-eagled full length on the floral patterned bedspread was the seventeen stone weight of Vince Sharp; an old leather bush hat was parked over his face.
Chapter 19
“Steady, big man — it’s only me.” The words came muffled from somewhere under the bush hat and the sentence ended in a chesty cough. All of Vince Sharp’s sentences ended in a cough. A hand removed the hat from his constantly jovial round face. I straightened up, feeling ever so slightly foolish.
“How did you find me, and what the hell did you tell that character with the bad case of halitosis downstairs?” I asked.
“I told him that I was your personal psychoanalyst and that I’d come to take you back to rehab.” Vince stood up and produced a silver and glass hip flask, full of a fine Scottish single malt, from his coat pocket. He poured us both a drink, using the two plastic glasses from the sink in the corner of the room. “Here’s mud in your eye.”
“After the revelations of today this is very welcome,” I said.
I’d not found out how, but by some ingenious articulation of the finger joints, he was able to drink and smoke virtually simultaneously. He coughed, smoked and drank for a few seconds.
“Surprised I found you?” he coughed. “Astute, eh?” Some more coughing.
“Not really, you know. That young woman you’ve been working with in Dorset, what’s her name, oh yes, Fiona Price, she phoned me this morning. I reckon she fancies you,” he said with a wink and a nod. “Anyway she was asking me to cover for you should LJ start asking where you were. She let it slip that you’d come back to London under a false name. Well, after that it was easy to get her to tell me what you were up to, and as for what name you’d use, James Fisher has raised his head twice before, so I just guessed he would again.” He coughed loudly. “Perhaps you’re getting a little bit old for this game, or maybe you’re love sick?”
“We all are, and no, is the answer to that last jibe, Vince,” I said, “we all are.”
Vince nodded and continued to cough and drink, in that order.
“LJ would like to see you tomorrow morning, 8.00am prompt, that is if you’ve nothing better to do,” he said with a grin.
“Yes, he’s always so dammed polite, isn’t he?” I said.
“He’s all right, really,” said Vince, and poured us both another. “Oh yes, and I’m to tell you that Tatiana is awaiting instructions, whatever that means.”
“Perhaps you could also find the time to call her as soon as you can.”
He picked up his hat and downed his drink in one smooth motion.
“Anything I can do for you?” he asked. “I’m going back to the office shortly.”
“Yes, I think there is Vince.” I pulled out an A4 sheet of paper from my overnight bag and gave him Robert Flackyard’s personal and business email address. “Let’s intercept his emails, unofficially of course”.
“And phone?” asked Vince.
“Yes, let’s do the lot,” I said, smiling at the thought, and passed him another sheet of paper, this time with Flackyard’s home address and telephone number on it. “Let’s tap his phone, but be careful, he has monitoring equipment installed at the house.”
“Um, bloody nuisance that, in that case we’ll have to twist the arm of one of our friendly spook agencies who owe a favour or two. I can use one of their satellites and link up via my own laptop, less traceable that way. I’ll see you later,” he said.
I heard him coughing his way down the stairs and out into the street. I began packing my bag. Before I saw LJ the next morning, I hoped to have something up my sleeve.
Chapter 20
I got back to my apartment around six thirty. I ground coffee beans and turned up the heating. Outside, it was raining again, and lines of cars below moved slowly out of the city through a gauze of traffic fumes. The attractive thirty something woman reading the weather was worried about the amount of rainfall for the time of year, attributing it to the effects of global warming.
The laptop had to be set up and connected to the scanner in the study.
This done I left the room and locked the door behind me.
I was drinking a second cup of coffee as Tats arrived. Her lips were cold.
We rubbed noses and exchanged hellos in between kisses, then I brought her up to speed with the business in Bournemouth and Jasper Lockhart. Tats said, “Buy it,” but I didn’t want to do that. If I showed any interest it would reveal more than I wanted to reveal, especially to Jasper Lockhart. Tats thought I was being paranoid, but then she hadn’t been in the business long enough to develop that sixth sense that I was always telling myself I had.
Jasper Lockhart sat in his new pearl blue metallic convertible Jag across the road for some time before coming to the front door. It was very professionally done. I took his overcoat and poured him a drink. For twenty minutes we sat and made small talk while waiting for Vince Sharp to arrive.
Jasper Lockhart had the diary in a sealed envelope. When I’d thought the tension had built up a little I asked him if I could look at it. He went over to his overcoat and pulled it out of a pocket, passing the envelope across the dining table, I tore the top off quickly and extracted a leather bound diary with gold edged pages. The surface was a little scuffed and it looked as if it had been well used.
Jasper Lockhart was about to open his mouth to protest, but I kept the diary shut and he kept his mouth the same way. I put it back into the envelope.
“Looks genuine to me,” I said. Jasper Lockhart nodded. I turned the envelope slowly around handling it between forefinger and thumb. I got up, walked across to where the coat was hanging. I folded the torn envelope top and pushed it back into the pocket. He smiled sheepishly.
“Tats will keep you company,” I said, “I’ll just go and phone Vince Sharp, he’s probably stuck in the traffic or still at the office.” I went to the phone in the study.
It had been simple to drop the diary out of the torn end of the envelope into my lap and not very difficult to substitute a small book of approximately the same size. Luckily Jasper Lockhart’s description earlier in the dance bar had been fairly accurate, but I had two variations handy had it not been.
Lifting the scanner lid I placed the open diary face down onto the glass surface. The white light went backwards and forwards numerous times. I turned each page over either side of the one Jasper Lockhart was offering me. Now everything depended upon Tats keeping our guest occupied.
She could reasonably ask him not to barge his way into my study, but if he got that envelope out of his pocket and found a well used edition of “The Traveller’s Pocket Guide to France,” my copying was liable to be interrupted.
By 10.30 the last copy was off the printer and a backup disc made. Jasper Lockhart had long since departed, with his diary back once more in his jacket pocket. I went back into the lounge. Tats had slipped her shoes off and was dozing on one of the sofas. I leaned over the wide leather arm and kissed her softly on her cheek. She woke with a start.
“You were snoring,” I teased.
“I don’t snore.” She looked at me in the mirror. “And you told me I was the only man on the whole planet in a position to know.”
Tats ran her long fingers through her hair, dragging it high above her head.
“Do you think I should wear my hair up like this?”
“It looks great just as it is,” I said
We were looking at each other in the mirror. She said, “You’ve put on weight, it must be all that sea air and Mrs Rumple’s home cooking while you were in Bournemouth. I’ll bet you haven’t been to a gym in weeks?”