ammunition. At the top of the steps he put his head and shoulders through the hatch, reached and found what he wanted at once.
But there was no weight to the box. Nothing was inside. He took off the lid. Not even the cloth was in there.
Impossible.
He groped around the plasterboard where the box had been. Dust and cobwebs. Nothing else. No other box, no Smith & Wesson .38 wrapped in cloth.
Deeply worried, he collected a torch from downstairs and replaced the light bulb. Spent the next hour searching the whole of the loft, struggling with old suitcases, among unwanted rolls of wallpaper and discarded carpets. He tried to remember if anyone except himself had been up there. A plumber, to look at the cold storage tank? Electrician? TV aerial man?
Not to his knowledge.
What in Christ's name was going on?
10
The two men talking in a London taxi knew only as much as the media had told them about the shooting of Stephanie Diamond, but after the shock wave of a killing there are ripples washing up on some unlikely shores.
'It's beautiful, Harry.'
'It always is at the beginning,' the voice of experience spoke. 'I hate to disillusion you, old friend, but the beauty soon wears off. By the end it's revolungly ugly.'
'Not this time, I promise you.'
'Would you care to take a bet on that?' Harry Tattersall gazed out of the window at the traffic in Piccadilly. At forty-two, he'd seen many a pretty plan turn to dross. 'Who else is in?'
'That's the beauty,' Rhadi said. 'We are a small, talented team. Five only.'
'Who?'
'Wait and see.'
'I don't work with failures.'
'These are pros. u're going to be impressed.'
'Where's the meeting?'
'This is a top job, Harry. Top job needs a top meeting place.'
The cab wound its way around Trafalgar Square, under Admiralty Arch and up the Mall towards the Victoria Memorial. Tourists stood snapping the sentry at the gates of Buckingham Palace.
'Not there?' Harry said, only half joking. This was such a weird set-up, he was ready to believe anything.
'No, not there.'
They were driven up Constitution Hill to Hyde Park Corner and came to a halt outside one of the more exclusive hotels. A white-gloved hand opened the door.
'Didn't I tell you?' Rhadi said.
'It takes more than one flunkey to impress me,' Harry said. He had been to a good public school and liked everyone to know it.
A doorman ushered them in and a black-suited young man wished them good afternoon in a way that asked to know their business.
'We're expected,' Rhadi said with a princely air. 'The Napoleon Suite.'
'Very good, sir.'
In the lift, Rhadi said, 'What do you think? An improvement on the Scrubs?'
'So long as it isn't a short cut back to the Scrubs,' Harry said. He'd done one six-month stretch in an otherwise unblemished fifteen-year career of confidence trickery, and he hadn't cared for it one bit. 'I'd better warn you, I'm not going to be bounced into anything.'
'Lighten up, old friend.'
Rhadi knocked and the door was opened by a Middle Eastern man.
'What's this - Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves?' Harry said.
He'd known Rhadi so many years that he never thought of him as an immigrant. Wasn't even sure where he came from originally. Confronted now by two more Arabs in expensive suits, he felt outnumbered. Rhadi hadn't said a word about the nationality of the personnel involved.
'Is there a problem, Mr Tattersall?' one of them asked, a near-midget with a set of teeth that wouldn't have disgraced a camel.
'I didn't expect . . .' Harry started to say, and let his voice trail away when he saw the second Arab's hand slip inside his jacket.
'This is Ibrahim,' the teeth said, 'and I am Zahir. You were not expecting to be involved in an international enterprise, I dare say.'
'If it's terrorism, I'm leaving.'
