‘Yes, you said.’ Harry resisted the urge to snap back at Jennings. He was counting on future work, and in spite of his dislike of the lawyer, he didn’t want to be responsible for jeopardizing it. He explained patiently, ‘While we were waiting for confirmation of a lead on Silverman, we got lucky with Param. It was too good a lead to miss. We’ll leave him if you want, but I wouldn’t bet on him hanging around. There’s also a problem with the money.’
But Jennings ignored this. ‘Wait one.’ The phone went silent. Moments later he was back. He sounded furious, his words coming down the line with more than his customary snap. ‘Do nothing, you hear? Nothing. Stay away from Param. I’ll be in touch.’ The phone went dead.
From somewhere in the distance, the wail of an emergency vehicle cut through the quiet. The old lady stuck her head out from the doorway to the kitchen to listen, before disappearing again.
Harry put his phone away and relayed the gist of the conversation to Rik, who had snagged the newspaper. It was open at a half-page photo showing a scene of destruction, with armed men in uniform and an armoured personnel carrier set against a background of smoking rubble and torn buildings. It was a rehash of a bombing in Baghdad ten days or so before, with renewed speculation about those responsible. A VIP had been killed, and he caught the word ‘cleric’ in the headline but little else before Rik folded the paper and tossed it to one side.
‘So we get to go home early. Did he say anything about payment?’
‘No.’ Harry stood up and left some money on the table. The call to Jennings had left him with an odd feeling of unease. There was something shadowy lurking at the edge of his brain, but he couldn’t put a finger on it. An inner warning, maybe — a feeling caused by the change in Jennings’ voice and the abrupt ending to the call. ‘Let’s go check on Param.’
They left the car where it was and walked back the way they had come. When they turned the corner of the street where Param was staying, they stopped dead.
The scene was a hive of activity. A number of police vehicles and an ambulance were gathered halfway down, their roof lights creating a ghostly display across the face of the surrounding buildings. A crowd of onlookers had formed along the pavements, and two constables were reeling out crime scene tape and forcing people back. Another officer was ordering motorists to turn around and find other routes to their destinations. It was clear that the house at the focus of all the activity was the one without a car in front.
After the tranquil scene earlier, it was a dramatic contrast. Harry swore softly. They had lost the initiative. Param had fooled them and taken the only way out.
‘What’s happening?’ Rik stopped a man walking down the street away from the police cordon. He was in slippers, a local resident who’d come out to investigate the commotion.
‘A mugging, they reckon,’ the man replied succinctly. ‘Bloke answered a knock and got knifed. Dropped him right on the doorstep. He hadn’t been living there long.’
‘How bad?’
The man shook his head and moved away. ‘Depends how bad you think dead is.’
SEVENTEEN
Jennings was in a foul mood the following afternoon. He had instructed Harry to stand by until called, while he looked into the situation surrounding Param’s death. Harry took this to mean he would be quizzing his contacts in the Met for details not yet made public. Whatever he’d discovered didn’t seem to have pleased him; the skin around his eyes was puffy and dark, as if he hadn’t slept well, and he seemed to be reining himself in with difficulty as he glared across the bare expanse of his desk.
From the moment they had walked in, it was clear something had angered him, and the little Harry had said about Param or his violent death seemed to improve matters. Beyond a brief acknowledgment of Rik’s presence, Jennings had ignored the younger man, addressing all his comments directly at Harry.
‘What the hell were you doing there?’ Jennings demanded, as if they had been laying waste to the Home Counties with a flame thrower. ‘You were supposed to be finding Silverman!’
‘I told you,’ Harry reminded him heavily, ‘we found a lead to Param’s whereabouts and it paid off. At least we now know it’s not Param your clients should be looking for, but Yvonne Michaels.’
Jennings’ jaw flexed briefly before he seemed to backtrack slightly. He tapped his fingers on the edge of his desk. ‘Very well. It appears to have been a mugging, according to the police. What were the local residents saying?’
Harry wondered why that should matter. Local reaction around a crime scene usually follows a pattern: it spreads furiously, feeding on itself like a bush fire, is invariably wrong and heaped with lurid speculation and ill-informed gossip. He explained what the neighbour had said, which seemed to make Jennings relax a little.
‘I see. Did you notice anything?’
‘We didn’t stay long enough. It’s possible we were seen going in earlier, so we’ll have to wait and see. Either way, Param claimed the girlfriend has the money and he’d been screwed. Do you want us to find her?’
Jennings shook his head. ‘Forget it. It’s a non-starter.’ He leaned back and said authoritatively, ‘I suppose it’s possible she killed him; she might have gone back for something after you’d left and they had a falling out. Still, that’s for the client and the police to worry about. Your part’s done.’ He blinked as if making a mental adjustment, and asked, ‘What about Silverman?’
‘We tracked him coming through Heathrow,’ said Rik, shifting impatiently in his chair and making the spindly back creak in protest. ‘We’re waiting to find out where he went afterwards. He was met in the terminal by a young guy and they took a cab from there but we don’t know where to.’ He fixed Jennings with a stare, then asked, ‘Are you sure he’s a professor?’
Jennings allowed a few heartbeats go by before responding. ‘That’s what he was described as, and I see no reason why anyone should have lied. Have you any reason to think otherwise?’ His glanced flickered between the two of them.
Harry shot Rik a warning look and stood up. ‘Not really. He didn’t look much like a dusty professor, that’s all.’ He smiled tightly, wanting to be out of there where he could think clearly. ‘When we find out where he went, we’ll let you know.’
It was as they were walking back to the car that Harry realized Jennings hadn’t shown any interest in how they had fastened on to Silverman and tracked him through the airport. That could only mean that he knew about their visit to Transit Support Services to access the airport tapes.
The only question was, how?
Rik closed the car door. ‘You didn’t mention about the blank we got on Silverman in the university,’ he said. ‘Or that the professor’s friend knows tradecraft. Is there something you’re not telling me?’
‘Patience, Grasshopper,’ Harry replied vaguely, his mind still on Jennings. There were only two ways the lawyer could have known about them viewing the tapes. The first and obvious one was if Karen had told someone. They had never met her before, but he knew Sandra wouldn’t have suggested it if she hadn’t trusted the woman — she had too much to lose. ‘Two murders, both people traced by us, yet all he’s fixated on is Silverman, as if he’s the answer to the Holy Grail.’ He pushed back the passenger seat and stretched his legs. ‘This is no more about a runaway professor than my Aunt Fanny.’
Rik was nodding. ‘He was more pissed that we’d gone after Param than at the fact that the poor bugger got knifed. You want me to go back in and poke something sharp up his nose? I’d enjoy that.’
‘Tempting, but not yet. Best make sure we get paid first.’ He was considering the second way Jennings could have known what they were up to. At the same time, he was trying hard not to connect dots which might have no relationship to each other. Paranoia was a deadly result of this game — of any game where secrets were a major part of the background, a currency, almost. He’d got used to it in MI5, managing to compartmentalize each part of the job so that he didn’t indulge in pointless speculation. Others he’d known had not fared so well, ending up with careers and marriages in ruins, fearful of their own shadows. But a pattern was beginning to form around everything they were doing which he didn’t like the feel of, and all his antennae were now quivering. First Matuq, then Param. . and the growing feeling that Jennings wasn’t as put out by the deaths as he should have been. And if he wasn’t put out, it meant he wasn’t surprised. That only led to one conclusion.