Dean lay still on the water for as long as his breath allowed him. When he raised his head the boat was distant. Dean knew he didn’t have long in water that cold, but Arran couldn’t be too far back. Dean swam for his life thinking all the time of his family.
Chapter 74
Baker Street
6 p.m.
April 18th
Jaz and Shadz had parked and walked up to the Sherlock Holmes hotel. It was their first hotel check. They went into reception. They were greeted at the desk by an admonished receptionist, no longer eating her sandwich and silently fuming over the temp worker who’d dropped her in it with the manager. She fixed a smile on her face, but struggled to maintain it.
“Hello can I help at all?”
Jaz pulled out the badge and held it up for inspection along with the picture of Mason, captured from the recent CCTV footage in the area.
“Have you seen this man?”
The girl pushed her face closer and squinted at the slightly fuzzy black and white image. Recognition dawned.
“Yes I have. He was here fifteen minutes ago dressed in kitchen staff uniform.”
“Is he still here?” Jaz almost shouted fear suddenly tightening her stomach muscles.
“I don’t know. I could get someone to check.”
“No don’t.” Jaz fast dialled the DIC contact number and spoke hurriedly. “Yeah it’s Jaz at the Sherlock Holmes on Baker Street. Get the rest of the teams here we’ve found Mason.”
The reply was simple. Sit in reception, look unobtrusive and wait for the other teams to get there. Jaz told the girl to say nothing and she and Shadz took places at a table, seated on a small comfortable sofa, backs to the wall.
Half a mile away one of the DIC teams was entering reception at the Bickenhall when they got their call to the Sherlock Holmes. The other teams with five negatives on hotels between them turned and honed in on their team mates on Baker Street.
Mason had spent the fifteen minutes prowling the corridors holding a plate of sandwiches avoiding do not disturbs and had already tried three rooms to no avail. Everyone must have been using the self service combination safes in the top of the wardrobes. He finally entered a room and was about to call out ‘room service’ when the sound of the shower indicated an occupant too busy to hear him. He didn’t close the door, padded on the balls of his feet past the closed door to the small bathroom and came across personal effects on a dresser. He picked up the wallet, put down the plate of sandwiches, turned about and was about to leave when the screech of car tyres in the road below, heard from the slightly open window, drew him across the room. He peeked through the edge of net curtains to see two cars illegally parked outside and busy, hurried looking people getting out. Security, he knew it.
The ceasing of the shower focussed his attention, he padded quickly to the door, lifted the fawn mackintosh and tweed hat from back of the door and left, quietly closing it. The room’s occupant emerged a micro second later and began drying himself, looking at himself in the full length mirror. It was whilst putting on his pants that he suddenly noticed the sandwiches.
Out in the corridor Mason recalled that his clothes were in the gents’ toilet near reception. He pulled the coat around him and sure from the map in his mind that the lifts were opposite the toilet he took the lift to ground floor.
DIC staff were gathered in the foyer. The decision not to call police had been made higher up. Shadz was given the job of watching the reception area, others were sent to the exits and Jaz with another was to sweep through the hotel floors. The DIC teams split to their tasks as Mason, hat on head, emerged from the lift and went into the toilet. Locked in a cubicle he began changing as quickly as possible.
Shadz stood in reception looking around, somewhat tense. He kept the image of Mason in his head and suddenly noticed from the mental image that Mason was dressed as a temp worker, kitchen clothes. Shadz decided to check the toilet to see if he had changed there. Learning the lesson from Glasgow bus station he drew his Sig as he entered only to find himself pointing it straight at Mason’s head as he emerged fully dressed from the cubicle.
The two stood staring at each other and Mason grinned as he saw the slight shaking of the hand holding the weapon and the slow gulp Shadz made as he swallowed his nervously rising bile.
Mason tensed his muscles, then relaxed them and took a single step towards Shadz.
“Don’t move Mason! Put your hands in the air!” Shadz spoke nervously.
“Or what?” Mason’s reply came with a wry smile.
“I’ll shoot. I swear I’ll kill you.”
“Shoot an unarmed man? You don’t have the balls.”
Mason stepped towards Shadz and made a scissor movement with both hands, sweeping them into Shadz’ gun holding wrist. The impact knocked the Sig from his hand and Mason followed with a forward kick to the stomach. Shadz folded exhaling through his teeth. Mason grabbed his head, rammed it down onto his up coming knee, rocking Shadz with a powerful blow and smashing his nose. Mason swept his hand under Shadz’ head, tilted his chin up and broke his jaw with a ram rod downward blow. Shadz crumpled. Mason watched the body slump, picked up the Sig, slid it into his belt below his coat, checked his reflection and walked straight out. There was no-one to be seen. He walked out of the hotel and hailed a passing taxi.
Time for that rest and relaxation he thought to himself as the taxi drove away in the direction of Camden.
Back in the hotel on the second floor Jaz found a man standing outside his door holding a plate of sandwiches and talking to a member of the waiting staff.
“… gone and my coat and my hat and these were on the table. I want the manager, now!”
Jaz pulled out her badge.
“What’s going on?” She asked.
The man was half way through his story when Jaz connected the theft, the temp worker at reception, the sandwiches, the man’s words as she approached and the flash image of a man in a coat and hat entering the toilet from the lifts just as she left the foyer. She pulled out her phone and called Shadz on fast dial; it rang twice before she leapt to the stairs and tumbled down them into reception.
She dashed across to the toilet door, drew her Sig, off safety, and entered the toilet. Shadz lay in a pool of blood on the floor. Jaz nearly cried out and pulling herself together and holding his wrist felt a flood of relief feeling the weak, but regular pulse. Once more on the phone she called an ambulance and then the rest of the DIC team. Then she checked Shadz. He was unconscious, damaged, but clearly alive.
She waited with him and called DIC centre. The check on CCTV was stepped up. A trace on the taxi was begun too.
Chapter 75
Claridge’s Hotel Mayfair London
6 – 15 p.m.
April 18th
Claridge’s hotel in Mayfair was just what the doctor ordered for Cobb. The contact had dropped Cobb off at the grandiose entrance and had the porter pull a glossy set of luggage from the boot of the Honda. Cobb out of place in his rough looking clothes, carrying the lumpy black bag with weapons in it, drew disparaging looks from the severe receptionist until his reservation under a diplomatic booking, no less than first class and a suite at that, quickly changed her mind.
Cobb’s luggage was carried ahead of him into the lift and onward into the well designed and impressive one bedroom Claridge’s suite.
Cobb tipped the porter, though not too generously and waited for the man to leave. He took a turn around the rooms, found the mini bar and poured some Bourbon into a glass and dropped some ice in. He took a long drawn out swallow from the drink to feel the ice rest against his top lip before it dropped back into the glass.