exchanged the baggy white tent shirt for a baggy black tent shirt. He stared at Ava, making no pretence that her breasts weren’t his main interest.
“It’s time,” she said.
Robbins stopped at the door to shove his feet into his sandals, his hands pressed against his belly so he could see them.
“We need to talk to Reception before we leave,” Ava said.
“About what?”
“Maid service. We don’t want it.”
“I called downstairs already. It’s cancelled until further notice.”
Ava was surprised he’d remembered.
Davey was waiting for them, the Crown Victoria the largest car in sight. He smiled at Ava as he opened the back door for Robbins.
They left Wickham’s Cay and drove into town. In daylight it was at least as pretty as it had been at night, clean and compact, with well-paved narrow streets with actual sidewalks and sections of picket fencing. The town was a mix of British colonial and Caribbean architecture, all on a scale that suited a territory of about fifty small islands and cays with a population of around twenty thousand. Davey kept up a laconic running commentary as they went. He pointed out the two-storey Legislative Council building, with its ground floor fronted by five arches and the second by a balcony that ran its length. “The court is on top,” he said.
Ava listened, none of it really registering. It was nice not to be in Georgetown, but that wasn’t going to help her with the bank.
Fyfe Street was in the middle of town, the bank housed in Simon House, a four-storey powder blue stucco commercial building. The street was predictably narrow, the sidewalk meagre. Davey drove the car onto the sidewalk and parked it so close to a wall that Ava doubted he could open his door. But then, he didn’t have to leave the car. She looked at her watch. It was five minutes to ten. “I have no idea how long this is going to take,” she said to Robbins.
“We’re not going anywhere,” he said.
The bank was only one of a large number of tenants in the building. On the outside wall, on both sides of a white double door with elaborate brass handles, were lists of the occupants. There were two signs in brass, Barrett’s and an insurance company. The insurer had the third floor to itself and Barrett’s had the fourth. The other businesses, about twenty of them, each had a white-painted wooden sign about the width of a sheet of paper. They all seemed to be involved in offshore registration, providing a legal address and a cubbyhole for mail for God knows how many firms.
Ava stepped through the door into a small lobby with corridors running off on either side. There was an open elevator that looked as if it had been built in the 1950s. She got in, hit the button for the fourth floor, and then waited for the door to close. As the elevator creaked its way upward she realized it wasn’t air-conditioned; she felt sweat beading on her forehead. She swore as she wiped at it, not wanting to look nervous.
The door opened onto a reception area that had two red leather couches along the wall to the left and a coffee table stacked with magazines. The wall on the right had pictures of London: Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London. Between the walls there had to be ten metres of Persian carpet. Straight ahead, also about ten metres away, a young woman sat behind a massive mahogany desk that was bare except for a phone and a magazine she was leafing through. Behind her, a wood-panelled wall ran from floor to ceiling. The Barrett’s logo — cast in bronze — occupied its centre; it was at least a metre across and two metres high. Behind and to either side of the desk, two steel-plated doors, painted beige to blend with the walls, barred any further entrance into the bank’s premises.
There was no one else in the room. There wasn’t a sound save for the woman turning the page of her magazine.
It gives the right impression for a private bank, Ava thought. Spacious, unpretentious, elegant in a subtle and solid kind of way, certainly quiet, and no hurly-burly, nothing screaming at you to take out a car loan or refinance your mortgage. It looked like the kind of place where you’d have to know someone before becoming a customer, the kind of place that knew how to keep secrets.
The woman looked up from her magazine and Ava saw that it was People. The Economist would have been more appropriate, she thought. “Hello, my name is Ava Lee. I have an appointment with Mr. Bates.”
The woman smiled. “Mr. Bates is expecting you. Actually, you and a Mr. Seto.”
Not many drop-ins here, Ava guessed. “Mr. Seto is indisposed. I’m here by myself.”
“I’ll let Mr. Bates know. I’ll be back in a minute.”
The woman left the desk and walked to the door on the left. She punched in a six-digit security code, turned, and disappeared.
Ava looked through the magazines on the coffee table and found an Economist as well as a week-old copy of the Financial Times. She was debating which one to read when the beige door opened and the woman reappeared. “Could you follow me, please,” she said.
Ava trailed her down a hallway lined with closed doors. At the end, standing in an open doorway, was a tall, slim young man who bore a remarkable resemblance to the actor Jude Law. That can’t be Bates, Ava thought. The man managing the bank’s interests in the world’s largest offshore tax haven had to be more senior, tried, tested. Ava had the feeling she was being sloughed off. A ripple of panic danced in her stomach.
“Hello, I’m Jeremy Bates. So pleased to meet you,” he said.
Ava took his extended hand, assessing his off-white monogrammed shirt, blue and yellow Ferragamo silk tie, slate grey light wool tailored slacks with their sharp, straight crease, and glistening black lace-up shoes. Those shoes are handmade, Ava thought, and Bates is no working-class boy.
He was just over six feet, and as he looked down Ava saw that he was eyeing her just as closely. She gave him her shyest smile and said, “Thank you so much for seeing me.”
“I was expecting Mr. Seto as well,” he said, stepping aside and motioning for her to come into his office.
“He is terribly ill,” she said.
“We’ll sit at my conference table,” said Bates. “Nothing serious with him, I trust?”
“Food poisoning. We ate a hurried meal before getting on the plane yesterday and something did not sit right with him. He’s been either in his bed or in the bathroom since we arrived, and either running a fever or experiencing chills.”
“So he’s here in Road Town?”
“Oh, yes, just not mobile.”
She sat, her eyes wandering around the office. It was massive, as large as the reception area, designed to impress. More mahogany in the desk and credenza, another Persian rug spread over wooden floors. A high-backed, heavily padded green leather chair sat behind the desk, with two smaller ones in front of it. There were three picture windows on the back wall and the side walls were lined with bookcases filled with what looked like company minute books. Then her eye caught something a bit more modern. In the upper right-hand corner, where ceiling met wall, she saw a tiny camera. She had no doubt that every meeting in this room was recorded.
“My business card,” he said, passing it to her.
“Thank you,” she said, noting his title: DIRECTOR, PRIVATE BANKING, BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS.
“Now, I have tea, coffee, and water. Do you have a preference?”
“Oh, nothing, thank you,” she said, finding herself still taken aback by his youth and good looks. His hair was dark blond, short, receding at the temples. He had brilliant blue eyes set a bit far apart, and his nose was long and slender.
“Fine,” he said, pouring himself a glass of water. “Now tell me, Ms. Lee, in what capacity are you affiliated with Mr. Seto?”
She took her business card from the Chanel bag and held it at two corners as she presented it to Bates. “Our firm is the accountant of record for Dynamic Financial Services. Dynamic finances purchase orders and letters of credit and generally facilitates trade among Southeast Asia, Europe, and North America. One of Mr. Seto’s companies, Seafood Partners, has used Dynamic’s services extensively over the past six months and the principals have developed a close working relationship. About two months ago, Mr. Seto decided to take an equity position in a scallop and shrimp plant in Yantai, on the northern coast of the Yellow Sea. He used Dynamic to broker the deal, and now we’re getting ready to close.”
