the wall. He punched it with his gloved hand and it popped off, clattering to the floor. Terry looked up to see if anyone else had noticed.
Inside was just a brown manila envelope, nothing else, but it had once been considered valuable enough to hide. He stuck it inside his jacket and climbed back out of the crater.
The day dragged by. He could feel the heat of the envelope in his pocket. At home later that afternoon, disappointment set in as he opened it and tipped out the contents. A couple of insurance policies, three birth certificates, for Thomas Porter, Irene Porter and their son, William, and some house deeds to a building long gone. He read the typed print. Number 11, Camley Lane, freehold and valid in perpetuity. Did it mean that whoever held the deeds owned the land?
The next morning, he went to Camden Council on his lunch break and did some research. The ownership of the plot in Camley Lane continued according to the original registration, providing that no other sole tenant had occupied the land for eleven years. Which meant, by his reckoning, that the Porter family still owned it.
Terry Delaney was broke. He was behind on his child support, and hadn’t taken his little girl anywhere nice in months. He did not want to go through life getting into a financial hole every time his van’s insurance came up for renewal. But it would not be right to claim the land for himself. It wouldn’t hurt to check up and see if the Porters were still in the area. Terry knew what was going onto the site of number 11, Camley Lane, and how much it was costing. The deed might be worth a fortune. Better, he thought, that the Porters should have what was rightfully theirs than let some faceless corporation get away with stealing it. Perhaps they would even reward him for bringing the document to light. And if they didn’t want it, or he couldn’t trace them, maybe the ADAPT Group would pay for the find.
¦
The casual phone call left Maddox Cavendish in a cold sweat.
Ever since he had realised that the documentation for Plot BL827 was missing, he’d been praying that no-one would pick up on his mistake. He’d been working on the project for almost thirteen years, and still couldn’t believe he had managed to overlook the plot of land, despite all the tabulating and cross-referencing he had painstakingly carried out. The system was so complex that Sammi, his assistant, left him with all the data inputting.
And now this call, from a moronic bloody workman of all people, saying that he was in possession of a valuable property deed, and was having trouble returning it to the rightful owner.
Cavendish had managed to talk him into a meeting. He would go in with an offer and strike a simple deal in hard cash. Workmen wanted everything off the books, didn’t they? The deed could then be filed and forgotten, and he would trim the cash payment from the accounts system.
He would take Delaney to lunch – that was it. Buy him a fancy meal and a couple of bottles of wine, loosen his tongue, put him at ease. Cavendish pushed back in his office chair and started to relax. The worst was over. The mistake could be rectified. All he had to do was stay cool and treat Delaney like any other client who needed winning over.
¦
He booked Plateau, on the fourth floor of Canada Square in Canary Wharf – glamorous white furnishings, floor-to-ceiling glass, fabulous food, what could go wrong?
The lunch was disastrous. Cavendish had appeared arrogant and dismissive, and Delaney wasn’t impressed by the restaurant’s good taste. Cavendish realised that he had underestimated Delaney, who had clearly done his research. He had left the deed at home, but had written down the wording to prove it was in his possession. When asked about the expiration date, he cheerfully informed Cavendish that there wasn’t one, and that the property rights would pass to whoever held the deed in perpetuity. The only good thing was that Delaney didn’t seem to know about the eleven-year ownership rule.
So, how much was ADAPT willing to pay for it?
When Cavendish named the figure of ?2,500, Delaney laughed in his face. No deal, he said, swigging back his wine with a vulgarity that made Cavendish wince. Not unless the amount could be quadrupled. But to do that, Cavendish knew he would need to seek permission from the company accountant, and that meant telling Marianne Waters what had happened. It was bad enough that his assistant might already know about the problem; he had foolishly left the planning permission files open on his computer.
“You’ll have to give me a few days,” Cavendish warned him. “I can’t get that kind of money together overnight.”
“I don’t care if you have to draw it out of your personal savings,” Delaney countered. “If you don’t come through in the next couple of days I’ll find a way to pass the deed to the owners, and the entire project will come to a halt.”
“You’ll get nothing that way.”
“I don’t care,” said Delaney. “Two years ago you called me in to carry out a demolition, and fired me halfway through the job. I couldn’t get compensation because you’d kept the job off the books. I’ll be happy enough just repaying the compliment.”
Cavendish returned to the office and went to see the accountant, who referred him to Marianne Waters. No money could be authorised without her signature. He paused outside her door, but could not bring himself to go in. His entire future was at stake. He looked down at the contact number Delaney had given him, and realised that the construction worker wasn’t so smart after all. He had scribbled it on the back of his business card.
Which meant that Cavendish could get his home address.
Stopping by his office to grab his coat, he headed out into the streets of King’s Cross, to find someone, anyone, who would be prepared to commit a burglary.
? Bryant & May on the Loose ?
40
Complications
Longbright was awakened by the sound of rain in a bedroom that was clearly not hers. She raised her head and looked across the pillows. Liberty DuCaine was lying on his back snoring faintly. Oh, my God, she thought, I didn’t, and knew at once that she had because her underpants were hanging on the side-table lamp. Her next thoughts were, in swift succession: We have to work together, he’ll be so embarrassed he won’t even be able to look me in the eye, I’m not going to get into a blame spiral, best just to leave before he wakes up and never mention it again because men hate women who want to talk about it. And something else stirred at the back of her mind, something dark as molasses, mysterious as night, faint as a ghost. You must hold on to this, said the ghost. This will not happen again. He will soon be gone. Remember the good.
“How can I save him?” she asked the ghost.
“You cannot,” came the reply.
“How will I know when he is in danger?”
“It will happen when you call his name.”
Then DuCaine woke up and saw her looking back. He raised himself onto an elbow and studied her slowly, carefully. “What time is it?” he asked with a thick voice, pausing to clear his throat.
“Seven-fifteen.”
“We have to be at the unit by eight.”
“Yes, I know.” She nodded.
“Let’s save time by showering together.” He grinned, reaching for her.
¦
At seven-thirty a.m. on Sunday, Banbury was still collecting evidence at the closed-off ground-floor offices of ADAPT. The story had now broken in the national press, and photographers were lurking in the courtyard outside, waiting to snap any further grisly discoveries.
“Somebody must have seen him,” insisted Renfield, watching as Banbury continued to painstakingly remove
