Tom straightened his tie and knocked on the dark blue door set in the white stone facade of the Belgravia townhouse. The place was worth a fortune, though he was not surprised by the size or location of Robert Greeves’s London residence. He knew from his briefing that the assistant minister was extremely wealthy, in addition to being a successful politician.
Greeves’s family was old money and, unlike many of their breed, they knew how to make a quid as well as spend it. Greeves’s wife, Janet, also came from a well-off family, although hers had made their money in trade, running a nation-wide chain of supermarkets. She came from a long line of party faithful and Tom had read that she had served on the executive.
A girl in her late teens opened the door. She had a pierced nose, a studded leather collar around her neck, jet black hair and a long black dress on. ‘Dad!’ she yelled. ‘I think it’s your bodyguard.’
‘Protection officer, ma’am,’ Tom said. The girl rolled her eyes and turned without a word of greeting and walked down a corridor. Tom smiled. It seemed the picture-perfect political family had at least one gothic sheep.
Greeves appeared, shrugging on his suit jacket and stuffing a piece of toast into his mouth. ‘I want you in by eleven, Samantha,’ he called back through his breakfast. ‘Even though I’m not going to be in the country, I’ll call you.’
Tom looked over his shoulder to make sure all was well on the street and saw Greeves’s official driver, Ray Butler, in the car with the engine running. Greeves had a briefcase and overnight bag in the hallway, ready to go. Tom made no move to pick up the bags, and he’d instructed Ray to stay in the ministerial vehicle.
Sally, the other protection officer who worked with Nick on Greeves’s UK team, was standing next to her BMW five series, its exhaust curling around her legs as the chilly morning breeze caught it. She nodded to Tom. Sally was acting as close protection officer, while Tom was the PPO — principal protection officer. In Nick’s absence he was also the team leader.
‘Hello. Robert Greeves,’ the minister said politely, though completely unnecessarily. ‘Don’t mind my daughter. She can be almost civil when you get to know her well. She’s at college, stays here in the London house when she’s not out clubbing. My wife Janet’s at our country place in Buckinghamshire.’
‘Detective Sergeant Tom Furey, sir.’ Tom shook the minister’s hand. It was the strong grip and eye contact, Tom thought, of a man who had spent a large proportion of the past twenty years shaking people’s hands for a living.
‘You and I should have a word, Tom, about how things are going to work between us. It’s a busy day, as usual. Where’s Ray?’
‘In the car’s the best place for him, sir. With the engine running.’
Greeves looked at him for a second, then down at his bags, before picking them up. Tom wasn’t fazed. If Nick did things differently — let the chauffeur act like a bellboy — then that was his business. Tom moved to one side as Greeves walked out past him. Tom pulled the house door closed, then said into the microphone of his radio, ‘Moving now, Sal.’
‘Okay, Tom.’
Tom moved ahead of Greeves, opening the back door of the dark blue Jaguar saloon. Greeves tossed his bags in ahead of him and climbed in. Tom closed the door. He’d once been protecting a newly promoted minister who’d insisted that he should sit in the front seat, next to the driver, and that Tom should sit in the back. Also, he’d told Tom he didn’t want his protection officer opening the door for him, like a footman. Tom had politely but firmly explained that the reason he acted as he did was not out of courtesy. ‘I control the door, sir,’ he’d said. ‘I don’t get in until I know you’re secure and the street is clear, and you don’t get out, sir, until I know it’s clear outside.’
Tom took another look up and down the street. ‘Clear, Tom,’ Sally said into his earpiece. When they were talking on the back-to-back channel, for interpersonal communication, it was first names. Tom looked back and saw she was waiting outside her car until he was in the front of the Jag. She was good, even if Nick had let things slide. The Jag indicated and pulled away from the kerb, with Sally following in the BMW.
Tom scanned the road ahead, looking for anything unusual — cars or vans double parked, people on the street who took an interest in them.
‘Funny business about Nick,’ Greeves said from the back seat.
‘Yes, sir,’ Tom said, without looking back at the minister. ‘We’ve got detectives out looking for him and following up leads.’ Tom checked the wing mirror and saw Sally was close behind them.
‘I’m starting to become concerned about his welfare, Tom. Nick seemed a bit of a lad in his spare time, but he was never a second late for a job, and that counts a hell of a lot to me. What he got up to in his own time was his own business, but I’m alarmed at hearing reports of investigations in strip clubs and so forth.’
Tom was surprised that Greeves had that much detail on the investigation, although he certainly had the clout and the motive to keep himself informed. A threat to his protection officer could mean a risk to Greeves himself, if someone was trying to get at Nick or compromise him in some way. Greeves had enemies the world over, as well as plenty at home.
‘Nick and I got on,’ Greeves went on, ‘because he was good at his job and he was always ahead of the game. I know of your background — it’s similar to Nick’s — and I’m sure you’ll do just as good a job.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Tom said dutifully. It was the sort of welcome he’d expected. Robert Greeves might be well known, rich and powerful, but he was just a man to Tom, flesh and blood who could fall to a bullet or a bomb or any number of other threats as easily as anyone else in the street. It was simply Tom’s job to see that it didn’t happen on his shift.
‘What did you think of Africa?’
That took Tom by surprise. ‘Very nice, sir.’
‘A man of few words, I see, but well chosen. Are you hooked by her?’
‘Her, sir?’
‘Africa.’
Tom thought of the drinks under a setting red sun, hearing the lion calling in the distance, seeing the leopard and its prey. He thought of Sannie van Rensburg, even though they’d parted on frosty terms. ‘Could be, sir,’ he said.
‘Well, if poor old Nick doesn’t show himself soon this won’t be the last time you get to go to the dark continent.’
Tom pulled the printout of the day’s schedule from the inside pocket of his suit coat and glanced down at it. As Greeves said, it was a typically busy day for a minister, even though parliament had risen the previous day. Their first appointment, where they were headed now, was a fundraising breakfast in the city, aimed at garnering and shoring up donations for the coming election campaign. After that was a last-minute briefing from the defence company vying to sell aircraft to the South Africans, followed by a media conference at the company’s offices with its chairman; a visit to an HIV-AIDS clinic in Islington — a cheque presentation of some sort; afternoon tea with selected constituents in the Westminster office at Portcullis House; and then, finally, off to Heathrow for the evening flight to Johannesburg. Tom’s bag was in the boot of the police car. He wouldn’t see home again for another five days. He’d call Charlie Sheather in Cape Town to make sure things were ready there. It was another reminder that this was a shoestring operation. Sally couldn’t come to Africa because she was due leave and had a daughter about to go into hospital to have her tonsils out.
The breakfast function was Tom’s first opportunity to see Greeves address an audience in the flesh. Tom had sat through hundreds, maybe thousands of these types of speeches while protecting various politicians over the years. He considered himself a cynic when it came to politics, believing there was little to differentiate either of the main parties. He would have classed himself a left-leaning conservative, and that meant he might as well close his eyes and use a pin to pick the people he voted for. It was rare that someone could hold his attention in a speech, especially as part of Tom’s job was to keep a weather eye on the audience, catering staff and anyone else in the room other than the person doing the talking. This crowd were invitees who had paid five hundred quid a head to listen to Robert Greeves. They were blue pinstripe to the core. While Tom didn’t drop his guard he did keep an ear open to the words coming from the man behind the lectern. He wanted to learn as much about Greeves as he could during the day.
‘Does it really matter,’ Greeves was saying, leaning forward, elbows on the lectern in a bid to get closer to his suited audience, ‘if there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq — chemicals, poison gas bombs, Scuds full
