adapted to the change in circumstances and got away in the Suzuki.
The one thing he couldn’t tell was whose blood was on the wall down the stairwell. Unless the killer had taken a hit on the way in. The two guards had been prepared, but hadn’t reacted fast enough. The outside man got caught in the open and this one had been standing flat-footed at the top.
Harry checked each room for papers, personal effects — anything that might tell him what had happened and why. What it revealed was an old house that had been largely uninhabited, with the majority of living space confined to the kitchen and two bedrooms. The main ground floor rooms were untouched, while the utility room showed signs of some use, with washing in the tumble dryer and dirty footwear on the floor.
But there was nothing about the men who had been staying here.
The bedrooms were the same. One room contained two sleeping bags on the bare boards and spare items of clothing heaped on two hard-backed chairs. Evidently the guards’ quarters. Rucksacks in one corner showed the men had not planned on a lengthy stay, and the wardrobe and a cupboard hadn’t been used. The labels on the bags and the few clothes inside were all high-street chains, readily available, cheap and disposable. A couple of DVD players lay on the floor, the accompanying discs bearing cheap, pirated labels.
The other room held a single bed against one wall, with a sleeping bag in place of bedclothes. A dent in the mattress showed the bed had been used recently.
Harry flicked open the sleeping bag. A faint smear of red showed against the fabric at the top, with a heavier patch on the inside. More blood. But this was dry. He guessed it had leaked from Silverman’s hand, and might account for the blood on the stairs. Down by the side of the bed he found a grubby wad of gauze with bloodstained cotton padding on one side. Silverman had changed his bandage but hadn’t had time to dispose of the old one. There was no sign of the dark coat or the sports bag they’d seen him carrying at the airport.
It looked like Silverman had been given the prime spot — such as it was — while he was here. Yet he clearly hadn’t made himself so comfortable that he’d been unable to pick up at a moment’s notice when necessity demanded. Harry wondered what the man had been thinking of as he lay here, guarded by his two colleagues.
Or had they been his captors?
He checked the window. It looked out over the rear of the house on to a patch of garden and more trees. It was now too dark to see anything clearly, but the window showed a small gap at the bottom, as if it had been closed in a hurry. It slid up with only the faintest protest, and he noticed a shine in the sash runners. He rubbed his finger along the groove and sniffed.
Soap. Someone had been prepared, then. But not the guards. Had Silverman escaped out the back or had he gone with the gunman?
As he turned to go, he noticed some marks on the wallpaper alongside the bed. Somebody had written on the paper. But the marks were odd, almost Cyrillic. Or were they?
He lay on the bed with his head on the pillow and looked up, studying the marks against the light. The scribbling was upside down. He was looking at a mobile phone number followed by the letters ‘J.A.’
He felt a buzz of excitement. The same letters and numbers he’d seen on the scrap of paper in Silverman’s briefing file! Without some additional information to clarify them, he’d dismissed them as useless. Now here it was — the missing half of the number.
He made a note of the number and initials and slid off the bed. On the way past, he checked the body on the landing. The man’s pockets produced a French passport in the name of Henri Taoub, a thin wad of Euros and Sterling and a mobile phone. Other than that, Mr Taoub had been travelling light.
He left the money but took the passport and mobile for checking later. Back outside, he checked the body at the front of the house. This also revealed money and a French passport in the name of Marcel Yamouh, but no mobile. It pointed towards Taoub being the one in charge. He stood up, reflecting that since neither of the two dead men had the initials J.A., another person was involved — someone Silverman was intending to contact.
He hurried back through the trees to the car. If the shots had been heard and recognized, it wouldn’t be long before the police were on their way here. He waited until he was well away from the immediate area before ringing Rik and gave him the passport details, the number he’d copied off the wall and the number from the guard’s mobile phone.
‘Can you crunch that lot? I’d especially like a name and address for the phone.’
‘Should be easy enough. How do you know J.A. isn’t the guy on the bike?’
‘He might be, but I don’t think so. Silverman was hardly there long enough before the gunman turned up. Why write down the number? I think he was prepared for a longer wait. As soon as he heard the shooting, he was out the back and away.’
‘And if he wasn’t?’
‘If he wasn’t, and the killer took him, it’s because somebody wants him alive. For now, at least.’
TWENTY-ONE
‘Joanne Archer? Yeah, she lives upstairs — when she’s here. Who’s asking?’ The gaunt individual who answered the door to the large Victorian property was dressed in scuffed tartan slippers and a ratty brown jersey. His unshaven face had the appearance of soggy cardboard as he stood squarely in the entrance, squinting through the morning sunlight at Rik and Harry. A faint rumble came from the North Circular barely two hundred yards away, where it sliced through Finchley past St Pancras and Islington cemetery.
Harry gave the man a stony look and a flash of his old MI5 card. ‘Police,’ he announced. ‘We’d like a word with her.’
Rik had crunched the mobile numbers through his laptop and come up with this address for J.A. He hadn’t been able to get a copy of the call records, but that would have to come later if they needed it. After the two killings and Silverman’s disappearance from the farmhouse, Harry had decided not to waste any time watching the house, but to come straight in. It was risky, but so was losing the mysterious Joanne Archer to the killer before they could talk to her and find out what her connection was with Silverman.
‘She’s not in.’
The house was divided into separate flats and bedsits, with a line of bell-pushes and name cards to one side of the door. The plastic square for flat No. 3 was the only one without a card, the slot grimy and rimmed with dust.
‘And you are?’ Harry played the deadpan cop.
‘McCulloch. I own this place.’ The man looked unimpressed by the ID. ‘Jo’s a PA or something. Travels a lot. . sometimes away for weeks at a time. The first I know if she’s back is when she appears out of the blue. She doesn’t communicate much.’ He looked from Harry to Rik. ‘You don’t look like police.’
‘He’s undercover,’ said Harry.
‘Oh. I see. She’s not in trouble, is she?’
‘Nothing like that, sir. We need to speak to her, that’s all. It’s a private matter.’ He gave the landlord the kind of look meant to provoke instant respect for privacy. ‘Can we see her flat?’
‘I don’t know about that. Shouldn’t I see some sort of documentation?’ McCulloch scowled and straightened his bony shoulders, a lowly individual taking a stand against official invaders. Then he noticed the uncompromising expression on Harry’s face. ‘I mean, it’s only right.’
‘A warrant, you mean?’ Harry nodded. ‘Probably. But that would mean going to a judge and giving reasons for wanting access. We can do that, if you insist. It would give us access to every flat in the building, of course. And the rental records.’ He stared up at the walls and pulled a face. ‘Plus health and safety, fire regs. .’ He smiled coldly. ‘They’d be checked, too.’
McCulloch looked appalled at the idea of an official open season on his affairs. He stepped quickly aside. ‘You’d better come in, then. Not that I’ve got anything to hide, of course. Upstairs at the back. . number three. I’ll open it for you.’
They trooped upstairs, McCulloch jangling a bunch of keys and muttering beneath his breath. He pushed past them and bent to unlock a door at the rear of the landing. It opened directly into a tiny lobby laid with plastic tiles and contained a stiff-backed chair and a pair of walking boots. The soles and sides of the boots were crusted with dried mud, and a few pieces had fallen to the floor, like pale chocolate flakes.
