He left the hotel, meandering through streets, wandered along the famous Ashton Lane, just off Byres Road. Cobbled narrow paving. Quaint, colourful buildings facing each other, housing expensive restaurants and bars. He stopped at an ultra-trendy coffee house, with a façade of black and crimson planks of wood, and sat outside under a soft blue awning. He ordered a coffee at triple the usual price. He watched people go by, paying them scant regard. Students, mostly. Some tourists. Time drifted. It was late afternoon. He took a deep breath. Time to go. The afternoon had dulled, the sun flickering behind drifts of cloud the colour of grey gauze. Rain was looming. The place was still busy. Black wondered if anyone ever worked in this part of the city. He headed back to the hotel, went up to his room, got himself organised. He’d parked the BMW a short walk away. He carried a gym bag. Not with gym equipment. Two Desert Eagles, a Walther PPK, boxes of cartridges. He packed the Glock in the holster, the silencer in his inside jacket pocket.
He had already picked his spot. He’d reconnoitred the previous evening. A street just off the main road, adjacent to the target’s home. A good surveillance point, to watch the front entrance, but discreet.
He arrived at his destination. He parked the car, sipped from a polystyrene cup of hot coffee, switched the radio on, and waited. It might take a while, but Black had nothing but time.
It was a gamble. Black’s hunch could be entirely wrong. But if he were right, and his guess correct, then the person he waited on would lead him into the stuff of nightmares.
Which meant one thing – Black would become a nightmare right back.
51
Lampton was expecting praise from Falconer, and got it. The auction had gone well. No tears, no obvious sulkiness. The kids were well behaved, if a little subdued. Lampton had no idea what type of money changed hands, though if Falconer was happy, then it was easy to surmise a good profit had been made. The biggest test was still to come.
Falconer had arrived down to see him. They were in Lampton’s room. It was late morning. Falconer had come without the bean-counting freak, Sands. Lampton felt more at ease when it was one to one. Falconer, however, was not his irascible self. He seemed distracted. Preoccupied.
“You did well, Lampton. You got them all sitting up and looking good. Like ducks in a row. Easy pickings. You have a skill.”
“Thank you, Mr Falconer. I aim to please.”
“And No. 4? Our Japanese benefactor will be here tomorrow evening. I understand there’s good news?”
“All good. No sign of measles. The doctor says she’s fit and strong. It was just a heat rash, but he’ll call out again, to make double sure.”
“I’ll bet he will,” muttered Falconer. “For double money. I’ve made that man a fucking millionaire.”
“Clean bill of health,” continued Lampton.
“That’s good.”
“Without being presumptuous, I assume our Japanese gentleman will be taking No. 4 back with him, when he returns?”
“You are being fucking presumptuous,” replied Falconer, without any real anger in his voice. “Yes, he’s taking the merchandise with him on Wednesday morning. Which means he’s staying over on Tuesday evening. Why the fuck do you care?”
Lampton was always faintly amused at Falconer referring to them as “merchandise” or by their allotted number. The word “child” never seemed to enter into his vocabulary.
“Well, if he intends to sample while he’s here on the Tuesday, then I have to make preparations. Timescales are important.”
“That will not be happening,” snapped Falconer, genuinely angry. “He can see her. But there’s no touching. No sampling. He does his business elsewhere. He takes it away, and does what he does. But not here.”
Lampton nodded. “Of course. Sorry to have suggested such a thing, Mr Falconer. If he’s leaving on Wednesday, I assume then I can have my little bonus?”
Falconer looked at him, brow creased in puzzlement. Then his face relaxed. “The merchandise from the UK? That was the deal, Lampton. It’s all yours. But if there’s any fuck-ups, then change of plan.”
“There won’t be.”
“What you do with it is up to you. As long as I don’t get to hear about it. And if you do what you did last time, then you clear up the mess. Don’t lay it on my doorstep. Bury it in the desert. Just don’t tell me. You understand that?”
“There won’t be any mess to clear, Mr Falconer. This one’s different.”
“Different?” Falconer chuckled. “You in love?”
The sarcasm in his voice did not go unnoticed. Lampton looked away, at the monitors on the wall. Such a question did not merit a response. People like Falconer would never understand. His gaze strayed, inevitably to monitor 7. She was sitting at a miniature desk, staring at golden dolphins cut from painted cardboard suspended from the ceiling by golden thread. He had made them himself.
Falconer got up to leave.
“You’re very kind to me, Mr Falconer. I don’t know where I’d be without you.”
Falconer stared back at Lampton.
“Probably the electric chair,” he said.
Falconer got the elevator to the ground floor, the trip taking about three seconds. He went past the security guard, ignoring him, punched in the code, emerged into a hallway. To be met by Sands.
“How long have you been waiting here?” Falconer asked.
“Long enough. I’ve just received an email.”
“And why the fuck are you
