The Camelot Code Read online

  ‘Can we get eyes and ears in the house, preferably in this front room?’

  ‘She’s nervous about that, but I’ll push her again once we’ve got the tracker in play and we start working his phone.’

  ‘Do it within the next twenty-four hours, Gareth. Myrddin is in a sweat and you know what that means.’

  ‘Visions?’

  ‘Bad ones. The worst I’ve known him have.’

  97

  CALEDFWLCH ETHICAL INVESTMENTS, LONDON

  Mitzi takes a black cab over to the CEI offices, while Bronty heads for a train from London to Ilfracombe and then, if he’s lucky, the last ferry out to Lundy.

  Mitzi hates boats. She gets seasick just lying in a bubble bath. Nic Karakandez, her ex-partner in the LAPD, had a boat and regularly took the girls out on it, but she always declined and went grocery shopping or holed up in the harbour coffee shop with a book. Karakandez was a great cop and a more-than-decent guy. Handsome enough for her to have a serious crush on him. Had she not hung on to the remnants of her tattered marriage, life might have been different and he might not have spent all his money on that old tug of his, jacked in his job and set off to sail the seven seas.

  She thinks about him and the whole world of might-have-been as she waits in the vast CEI reception full of expensive wood, antique leather and people talking English with accents she’s only ever heard on TV.

  A glass-fronted lift slides into view and gradually reveals Melissa Sachs’s elegant black shoes, suntanned legs, fashionable orange skirt, white frilly-cuffed shirt and finally a head of perfectly cut shoulder-length dark hair.

  By comparison, Mitzi feels like a beaten up bag lady as she heads her way.

  ‘Lieutenant Fallon, I’m most surprised to see you here.’ The PA flashes a friendly smile but her eyes are full of questions. ‘We don’t have any meetings with you in the diary, so how can I help?’

  ‘I need to speak to your boss and to George Dalton.’

  ‘I’ve no idea where Mr Dalton is. I understand you have some numbers for him so you could try those, or go through the embassy.’

  ‘It’s easier to communicate with the dead than get an answer from an embassy. What about Sir Owain?’

  ‘Not here, I’m afraid. He’s gone to his home in Wales and will be working from there for a few days. Would you like me to give him a message?’

  ‘Yeah, tell him I’m coming to see him.’ Mitzi starts to head to the exit.

  ‘That’s not a good idea.’ Melissa follows her. ‘He has a strict policy on not mixing his personal and professional lives. I’ll call him and ask him to get back to you with a time that you can meet in his office. That will be more convenient for everyone.’

  ‘Listen, lady; your boss and his boy George are up to their very British stiff upper lips in a homicide. Now, I guess if that was made public, it wouldn’t do either of their reputations any damned good.’ She opens her arms and turns slowly in a circle. ‘To say nothing of what it would do to the value of this fine company.’

  ‘Lieutenant, I suggest —’

  ‘Don’t! Suggesting is a really bad thing for you to do.’ She glares at her. ‘Call your boss and tell him I’m mad as hell. So mad I’m gonna trek to the middle of freakin’ nowhere to see him, and when I arrive I expect decent black coffee and honest answers.’

  Mitzi doesn’t wait for a reply.

  Outside, the noise of London hits her like a slap. She’s had enough of this case now. She wants to go home and nurse her sick daughter, wants to make peace with Jade, wants to hold her sister’s hand, pour a glass of wine and help her sort her marriage out.

  What she does not want is to be going to some country named after a mammal to get jerked around by Sir Lah-De-dah.

  ‘Taxi!’ She walks in the road with her hand held high.

  A cab pulls over and a window slides down revealing a bald-headed old Londoner in a Chelsea shirt. ‘Where do you want to go to, Mrs?’

  ‘San Francisco.’ Mitzi pulls open the door. ‘But take me to Dean Street, and hey, buddy, just ’cause you hear an American accent, don’t think you can go the long way round and make a mug outta me.’

  98

  SAN FRANCISCO

  Tess and Chris Wilkins appear to be your typical childless couple. Married for twelve of their fifteen years together, they’ve put on a little too much weight and grown lazy with age. Their money comes from a modest business that involves collecting, refilling and reselling ink-jet cartridges and it’s successful enough to afford a semi-decent four-bed in a semi-decent LA suburb.

  San Francisco is a place they know and love. In the past, they’ve done all the touristy things from driving the Bay Bridge to sailing out to Alcatraz and watching the sun go down while eating the world’s best shrimp gumbo on a deck at Fisherman’s Wharf.

  Chris has dark, hippy biker hair and a big curly beard. He’s thirty-nine years old, stands six-two and crushes the scales by three hundred pounds. Tess is three years younger, five inches smaller and a hundred pounds lighter. She was once a cheerleading blonde who could do the splits, but those days have long gone. Her hair is now a frumpy charcoal colour, needs layering and a good four inches cutting off. She tells friends she’d do it but Chris is a bit of a caveman and likes her to keep it ‘long ’n’ natural.’

  Taylor Swift plays on the radio of the six-berth RV they rented at the airport. They’ve brought a lot of stuff with them: snacks, drinks, a whole closet of clothes. The twenty-seven-footer is just about right for their many needs.

  Chris pops another couple of pieces of gum as the six-litre V10 roars up a long San Franciscan hill. ‘We anywhere near, yet?’

  His wife screws the cap back on the bottle of Coke she’s been swigging and checks the sat-nav stuck to the windshield. ‘Another mile or two before you turn off, then about the same again.’ She pulls at the top of her pink T-shirt and fans air down into her cleavage. ‘You think the air-con is working in this thing?’

  ‘I put it on hot, so you’d have to take your top off.’

  She laughs at him and rolls it up just below her breasts. ‘I take this off while you’re drivin’ we’re gonna end up in a ditch.’

  ‘Sounds good to me.’ He wobbles the wheel playfully.

  ‘Dead I mean.’

  ‘Now that don’t sound so good.’

  ‘Seriously, can you get any more chill out of those vents?’

  Chris thumbs the fan button but it’s as high as it’ll go. ‘There’s somethin’ wrong with it. May as well wind down the window and let the wind blow back that fine hair of yours.’

  She gives him her sexiest smile, lowers the passenger door glass and leans back against the headrest.

  Chris enjoys a glance at her long locks being wind whipped off her pretty little cheeks. He wants to pull over and jump her right here, right now, with the big RV blocking the highway and everyone honking their horns in a ten-mile tailback.

  ‘Eyes on the road, darlin’,’ she says from behind big black shades. ‘Drive nicely and as soon as we get parked up, I’ll sort out that little pecker problem you have there.’

  99

  SOHO, LONDON

  Mitzi tips the doorman. She worked hotels in her teens and remembers all too well how much she depended upon the generosity of guests to beat the minimum wage.

  She enters the coolness of the hotel and walks past the front desk to the lifts. Her mind is on making arrangements to get over to Wales as quickly as possible. As soon as that’s done, she’s going to wrap things up and head home.

  ‘Excuse me, Mrs Fallon,’ says a fat-faced man in a smart suit. ‘I am the hotel manager, Jonathan Dunbar.’ He hands her a business card as the elevator announces its arrival with a ding. ‘Please, after you.’ He gestures for her to enter the box of polished steel and mirrors. ‘Let me accompany you to your room.’

  She steps in and studies him suspiciously. ‘I’ve been here over twenty-four hours, I know where my room is.’

  ‘Of course you
do.’ He presses the button. ‘I would just like a discreet word with you, if possible.’

  The elevator jerks its way up. ‘I don’t do discreet,’ says Mitzi. ‘Discreet can be translated in all languages to mean cover up, fuck up or shut up. It’s my least favourite word in the whole world. Except maybe “overdue”, that’s probably a full shade shittier than discreet.’

  Dunbar sees his own face in the mirrored walls and it’s full of apprehension. This woman is going to be trouble when he tells her what he has to tell her.

  The lift pings. Doors slide open. He puts a hand through the gap and smiles. ‘Here we are.’

  ‘Is that an affliction that you’ve got?’ She steps past him.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Your habit of stating the freakin’ obvious. Is it some kind of disease you’ve picked up?’ She jams a keycard into her door slot and pushes it open. ‘Look, here we are, again.’

  ‘May I come in for a moment?’

  She sees he’s genuinely worried about something. ‘Sure. But don’t even think about giving me some crap about charging a higher room rate, or say my credit card’s been declined.’

  ‘It isn’t that. Not at all.’ He shuts the door behind him. ‘I’m afraid the mistake is entirely ours. Mine, to be more precise.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Earlier today we were visited by two police officers who asked to search your room and Mr Bronty’s. They were from the terrorist unit – I mean the counter-terrorist unit – the police obviously don’t have a unit of terrorists. Only they weren’t.’

  Mitzi looks confused. ‘They weren’t what? They weren’t cops, or they weren’t anti-terror cops?’

  ‘They weren’t cops. Police, I mean.’

  ‘So what were they, and why did you let them into our rooms?’ She glances around to see if anything has been stolen.

  ‘The real police say they must have been confidence tricksters of some kind. Very professional ones because they had official-looking ID.’

  ‘Jeez, that must have taken them all of twenty minutes to download from the internet.’ Her mind is on the memory stick sitting safely in her purse, but she checks her trolley bag to see if anything else has been taken. ‘If stuff’s missing, your face is going to end up a bigger mess than mine.’

  He shifts nervously and watches her search the small bag.

  Mitzi squashes clothes down and refastens it. ‘You got lucky; what little I have is still there.’ She looks at him like she does when one of the girls has pulled a brainless stunt and the other has snitched on her. ‘Didn’t you think of calling the station house and checking things out before you let them in here?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. I didn’t. Not until afterwards.’

  She rolls her eyes. ‘For the record, Dumbo —’

  He corrects her, ‘Dunbar, not Dumbo.’

  She smiles, ‘No, I think I was right first time. For the record, Dumbo, checking only ever works as a precautionary measure. That means before something happens.’

  He feels himself redden. ‘I know. I’m very sorry. To make up for your inconvenience I’d like to have some champagne sent to your room —’

  Her mind is locked on the incident. ‘These so-called cops, they have names?’

  ‘Yes, they were DCI Mark Warman and DS Penny Jackson.’

  She scribbles the names on a pad by the bed.

  ‘There really are officers with those names at Scotland Yard, but they weren’t in your room.’

  ‘You’re doing that thing again.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He smiles thinly. ‘Obviously they weren’t in the room.’ A thought hits him. ‘Did you have anything in the wall safe?’ He looks towards the open door above the mini-bar.

  She nods solemnly. ‘Cartier bracelet. Rolex watch. Some diamond earrings I bought at the Elizabeth Taylor auction. Not much.’

  Dunbar’s face is white.

  ‘Relax. I had nothing in the safe.’ She checks in the bathroom. Her toothbrush, paste, cleanser and pads are all still there. She shouts out to him, ‘You said they searched my colleague’s room – have you told him?’

  The manager looks embarrassed. ‘I’m afraid he checked out while I was out of the hotel and we don’t have a forwarding number for him. Perhaps you could have him call me?’

  ‘I’ll talk to him later. Now, if it’s all the same with you, I’d like you to leave. I’ve gotta make some calls, then I’m checking out.’

  ‘I understand. I’m very sorry.’

  ‘You think you can keep strangers out of my room for the next hour?’

  ‘I’m sure we can.’

  ‘And you mentioned champagne.’

  He relaxes a little. ‘I did.’

  ‘Make it whisky. The best you have and send cake with it, the most sinful and fattening your chef has baked.’

  ‘It will be our pleasure.’ He heads for the door, feeling relieved. ‘Thank you for being so understanding.’

  ‘Oh, I’m still a long way from understanding, so tell the front desk that when I check out, I expect a discount. The kind that will make me feel discreet all the way back to California.’

  100

  NEW YORK

  For several minutes, Zachra Korshidi stands in silence and watches her father sleep in the back room of their Bronx row house.

  His rickety chair is positioned near the dirt-streaked sash window that overlooks the small yard where her mother tries to grow olives. It seems that the warm afternoon sun and the large meal he’s just eaten have conspired to send him into a deep slumber.

  Zachra looks at the food splatter in his grey beard and on his white dishdasha and hates every inch of him, right down to the cheap rubber-soled shoes he has left in the hallway near the front door.

  She has been sent to collect her father’s dirty plate and take it to the kitchen for washing. But her mind has turned to more important matters. In her pocket, she touches the tiny tracker tack. All she has to do is jam it into the heel of his shoe.

  She listens closely to the rattle of her father’s snores and feels her heart tighten with anxiety as she leaves the room and heads over to the footwear. Her mother is running water in the kitchen, plates clatter on the metal drainer. She puts her father’s tray down and moves quickly. The tack is less than the length of her small fingernail and she almost drops it. One end is needle sharp, the other rounded.

  The rubber heel on the brogues is rock-hard. Try as she might, she can’t force it in.

  The floor of the hallway is made of old boards so she puts her foot in the shoe and uses her weight to press the tack into the rubber. The pin sinks in but the heel clacks noisily against the wooden board. Zachra takes off the shoe and looks at it. The tack is in.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Her father’s voice spins her round. He is in the doorway staring at her.

  She picks up the other shoe and the tray. ‘I came to collect the dishes and on the way back saw your shoes were dirty.’

  He moves towards her, his eyes full of questions.

  Zachra studies his hands. Fists so familiar to her. ‘Please don’t hit me. You told me it is sunnah to keep one’s clothes and footwear clean. I was going to polish them for you.’

  He knocks them from her hand. ‘Take the tray to your mother. Never touch anything of mine unless I tell you.’ He watches her move past him and then slaps her hard across the side of the head.

  The blow makes her ear explode with pain and leaves it buzzing but she doesn’t cry. She won’t give him the satisfaction. Not now. Not ever again. Zachra hopes the Americans catch him. Catch him and kill him for what he did to Javid and what he would have let happen to her.

  101

  SAN FRANCISCO

  Coyote Point is a big spread of park and woodland, barely ten miles from the city airport, jutting proudly into San Francisco Bay.

  Chris and Tess Wilkins set the RV down on an approved site. They turn on the radio, shut curtains and make their big old bus rock and roll for a
full hour and a half.

  Afterwards, they shower and while Chris barbecues steaks under the veranda, Tess clears a batch of paperwork and makes calls. They eat outside on a fold-up table and chairs saying hi to people drifting by, then they share a few beers with a couple of old-timers to the left of them, seniors from Wyoming who’ve been coming to Coyote for twenty years.

  After dinner they walk through a grove of eucalyptus trees down to the edge of the water where otters and bobcats scuttle in and out of their habitats.

  ‘We get time, we should go see the zoo,’ says Tess. ‘The leaflet I picked up says they’ve got a big aviary there as well.’

  ‘You seen one zoo, you’ve seen them all. Besides, you know how I feel about cages.’

  ‘You shouldn’t. Bars are in your mind. Think you’re free and you are free.’

  ‘You ain’t never done time, little Miss Philosopher, so that’s easy for you to say.’

  ‘Well, you ain’t never doin’ time again, so you better learn how to start sayin’ it.’

  ‘Let’s start by not even talkin’ about this shit.’

  ‘That’s fine by me.’ She squeezes his hand. ‘I love you, baby.’

  ‘Love you too, sweetcheeks.’

  ‘You think we’ve been out long enough?’ She swings his hand up and down like a pendulum.

  He sees a cheeky smile on her face. ‘More than.’ He unfolds his fingers from hers and grabs her ass. ‘Let’s make that bus rock some more.’

  102

  NEW YORK

  SSOA operatives Bradley Sullivan and Jessica Lanza are parked in separate cars at opposite ends of the street where Khalid Korshidi lives.