TURKISH DELIGHT Barry Faulkner (i love reading txt) 📖

Nevis – see who else we might net in the Rambarts’ circle of business partners. So it could be useful having you on the inside with Eve Rambart. But just remember that as far as my department goes, you don’t exist.’ He stood and brushed down the back of his coat. ‘Good day, Nevis.’ He stopped at the door and turned back. ‘Oh, and as far as I personally am concerned, well done.’ He gave me the briefest of smiles and was gone.

The first thing I thought was that Woodward hadn’t taken back his mobile; people like him don’t forget things like that, crafty bugger.

The second thing I thought was, how the hell did Eve Rambart get back to the UK without Gold knowing? I took a burner from the drawer and dialled her number.

‘Yeah?’

‘You okay?’

‘Wonderful, my clothes are beginning to smell as musty as the bed. Hang on, I’ll go outside – too many people in this café. Everybody’s on edge; there’s a fifty thousand lira reward for information leading to an arrest.’

I could hear a babble of talking and chairs scraping on a tiled floor as she left the cafe.

‘Okay, all clear now.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me Rambart had flown out?’

There was a brief silence. ‘She hasn’t, she’s still here.’

‘Woodward says she flew into London last night.’

‘He’s wrong – I’ve seen her go into the Defence Ministry again and she hasn’t come out yet.’

‘So who did his men see in her apartment last night?’ I was asking myself the question as well.

‘It wasn’t Eve Rambart.’

‘Something funny going on here.’

‘Perhaps she’s sent a double to take the heat away from here? She must realise she’s in the frame for illegal arms-dealing after the freighter and warehouse explosions; pretty obvious to her that somebody’s trying to disrupt the business. She’s definitely still here.’

‘Okay, I think I’ll go and get a visual at her apartment – see who it is.’ I could hear sirens in the background over the phone.

‘I’ve got company, I’m fifty metres from the cafe and a jeep full of armed police has just stormed in. I’m off – I’ll give the hotel a miss, I’ve got my passport and cards with me so I’ll go to the airport and see if I can get a flight out; if not I’ll mingle with the departure crowds – it’s a busy airport so I should be able to blend in.’

‘Okay.’

‘I’ll call you, don’t call me.’

Click.

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CHAPTER 18

Knightsbridge was busy – isn’t it always? The jostling crowds of shoppers made it impossible to see if I had a tail. Gold would have spotted one in an instant. I was taking a chance but I needed to know if in fact Eve Rambart was back home or somebody else was being used to create a diversion for her.

The street door into the office block we watched from was open; it was only 3-o’clock, business hours, I made my way up the stairs to the first floor and checked the office we’d been in before; it was still empty so I used my debit card to slip open the Yale lock on the door and went inside. I left the door ajar so anybody seeing it would think I was a prospective tenant taking a look; the landlord wouldn’t be around – these places are owned by major investment companies and they do everything through agents.

I looked across the road to Eve Rambart’s apartment and took a small pair of binoculars from my pocket and homed in on the windows. The blinds were open and I could see through the lounge into the kitchen where she was sitting at the breakfast bar, drinking a cup of something and reading a magazine. Woodward was right, she was home – Gold had missed her somehow.

I could do the job right now: walk across the road, up the stairs, ring the bell and bang bang – be a million pounds richer when Nicholas Rambart paid me out. If he paid me out, I certainly wouldn’t be meeting him to collect the promised fee – probably collect a bullet not a cheque if I did. No, he could do a bank transfer and then I’d make good my debt to Eve Rambart, you see I have got some principles, kill him and be safe. But I wasn’t going to do the job right now; as I said before, I plan jobs, plan them to the slightest detail. I knew where the bodies would end up: a council crematorium in Streatham. I had a cash deal with two of the workers. Money talks, even in death.

My phone rang. It was Gold.

‘I’m on a local flight back to Cyprus.’

‘Well done, you got out alright then?’

‘Yes, so much confusion at the airport it was quite easy.’

‘Good, I’m in that Knightsbridge office overlooking Rambart’s place –  she’s inside, Woodward was right.’

‘He wasn’t.’

‘What do you mean, he wasn’t?’

‘Eve Rambart is on this flight sitting four rows in front of me.’

I was silent for a moment checking the binoculars. There she was, sitting at the breakfast bar. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Totally.’

‘Then who am I looking at in the apartment?’

‘Or who am I looking at sitting four rows in front of me on the plane?

‘Two Eve Rambarts?’

We both said the obvious in unison. ‘Twins?’

My mind raced. ‘That’s brilliant, bloody brilliant. One acts normally and is on show, whilst the other’s hidden in the background doing the dirty deals. Jesus, it’s brilliant!’

‘What do you want me to do, stay with her? What if she gets a flight from Lanarka to Heathrow?’

‘Let me know. I think she probably will – nothing in Cyprus to interest her. Just let me know and I’ll pick her up at Heathrow and see where she goes,