CHAPTER 50
Ritchie arrived outside the Asher & Asher office on Edgware Road just before 7am. He pressed the security code buttons at street level, climbed the bare wooden stairs to the third floor and opened the door to the warmth and smell of computer servers and electronics. Ching was staring at two computer screens. She looked up, said nothing, pointed behind the partition and carried on.
Behind the screen was Colin Asher, dishevelled, hair on end, staring at another bank of screens from an ancient swivel chair padded with a flattened old cushion. The table was covered with screwed up paper balls, photographs and greasy old, sandwich wrappers. Around his bare feet were three overflowing bins. The wall was covered in Post-It notes and bulldog clips holding wads of printed paper. Asher himself was scratching his ear with the end of a cheap ball pen but didn’t look up.
Ritchie looked around. There was nowhere to sit so he returned to Ching’s side, dragged Else’s vacant chair back around the partition and sat down. After a full minute of silence, he yawned loudly.
“Jet lag, Ritchie?” Colin Asher asked without taking his eyes off the screen.
Green numbers were flowing down both screens like a waterfall until Asher hit the keyboard. Then everything stopped. More keys were pressed and the screen did something spectacular. A photograph appeared – a passport-type head shot of a dark haired, slightly balding man staring ahead with wide eyes. Another key was hit and the screen showed the immigration queue of an airport with a sign: ‘Border Control’. Asher leaned forward moved the mouse and the screen enlarged and focussed in on someone standing in the queue: a man wearing an overcoat, pulling a bag on wheels and holding something in his hand.
Ritchie coughed.
“Dry throat, Ritchie?”
Ritchie leaned back with his hands behind his head and the chair creaked. The screen changed; the man was now being viewed from a different angle. It beamed in on his face and the passport photo appeared next to it with dots and criss-crossed lines and Colin leaned in, closer still.
“There you are,” he said without looking up. “There’s the man who likes to be known as Maxim Novak - though whether that’s his birth name or not no-one knows. It doesn’t matter for now because he’s just used the Maxim Novak passport to fly from Zagreb, Croatia to Heathrow Airport Terminal 2. Note the limp, the stick and the nose. He’s probably broken it sometime. He’s also got eyes that look in two different directions so please don’t tell me you won’t recognise him.
“We’ll now follow him on CCTV as far as possible though he’ll probably head for Wimbledon. He has a nice house on Lambourne Avenue currently on the market at a mere £7.25 million. Join his club, Ritchie, and you too can afford such luxuries, although if it was me, I’d knock down the spiral staircase leading to the seven en-suite bedrooms. It’s so, seventies. Know what I mean? How are you, young man?”
He still hadn’t looked at Ritchie so Ritchie spoke to the reflection in the screen. “Knackered, but feeling good.”
“Good man. Did Mark give you the interesting facts about Vital Trading Ltd of Wallingford, Oxfordshire being behind Easy Trading, the Vital Cosmetic’s import agent, and the even more interesting names of the company’s directors?”
“He called me.”
“Good, so no point in me going over it again. While you wait for Novak or whatever his name is to call you, Ching’s going to continue your in-house training with a beginner’s guide to phone and computer hacking.”
“Not AshHack317, 318 and 319, is it, Colin? I’m so excited. I’ve been so looking forward to that.”
“No, no. We’ll move straight onto the much improved AshHack 320 if that’s alright, Ritchie. No point in wasting tome with outdated software. Now go and see Ching. I’m busy.”
It was midday when Ritchie’s phone buzzed with a text message. He excused himself from Ching’s demonstration of how to hack Holiday Inn hotel guest lists, picked it up and read it: “Mr Magic. Meet outside East Putney Tube Station at 14.00 today.”
“I’ve got to go,” he told Ching, but a voice came from around the partition.
“Where is it, Ritchie?”
“East Putney Tube Station.”
“That figures,” Colin said appearing from behind the partition and looking at Ritchie for the first time. “Just up the line from Wimbledon. Before you rush off, I’ve got you a present. I hope you like it.”
He handed Ritchie a big bundle of cloth which, when Ritchie shook it out, turned out to be an old navy-blue anorak. “I used to wear it every day,” he said. “It’s warm and waterproof but it shrank at the dry cleaners. It also smells a bit mouldy but should fit you nicely.
” That’s very kind Colin but do I really need it?”
“Entirely up to you, young man. Discard it if you want to but there’s a tracking device inside the toggle which we’ll follow. If you’re shot whilst wearing it at least we’ll be able to find your body.”
“Very thoughtful, Colin. I suppose it’ll keep the rain off. The furry lining inside the hood is a bit seventies, though.”
“That’s the spirit. If it wasn’t raining you could have borrowed my tartan beanie. Now then. A last-minute instruction. This came from Mr Dobson so don’t blame me.”
Colin didn’t say what the instruction was immediately but stood there scratching his ear with his pen. Ritchie lost patience. “So, what’s the last-minute instruction?”
“Keep up the act.”
“Is that it?”
“That’s it. Oh, and he told me to tell you he’s taking a young lady called On out for dinner tonight at a nice restaurant in Bangkok so don’t call him until the morning.”
“The bastard,” said Ritchie. “I’ll see you later I suppose.”
“Barring disasters,” Colin said following him downstairs. He opened the door onto Edgware Road for him and then put an arm around his shoulder. “We’re not far away, Ritchie. Keep up the good work.”
Then he shut the door.
It was overcast and raining in south west London when Ritchie arrived at East Putney Tube Station. Unsure whether he was expecting to meet a train passenger, a car or even a taxi, Ritchie waited in the shelter beside the coffee shop. At 2.20pm a black Mercedes drove slowly past. At 2.25 it returned and stopped by the roadside and a short, squat, middle-aged man in a dull, brown suit got out and came over.
“It eez Mr Magic?” he asked.
Ritchie shook his head. “Na. Wrong person, mate.” The man looked puzzled. He walked back towards the Mercedes, took a phone from his jacket pocket, pressed buttons, put it to his ear and waited. Ritchie watched. The man returned.
“It eez Mister Meeky. Meeky Parker?”
“That’s better, mate. Who the fuck is Mr Magic? I’ve never heard of him.”
“Sorry. Eez a problem wid ze communication.” he said in an accent that Ritchie knew he could easily imitate.
“OK, what’s the schedule, my man? Don’t waste any more my time, OK? But with this weather it’s lucky I brought my coat with the hairy tit fer tat, ain’t it?”
Brown Suit, with his short legs and around five feet five, looked up at Ritchie He hadn’t understood, of course. “Yah, we go see da boss. You know him I zink.”
“Never met the geezer, mate. Only the supporting staff. Where is the old bugger?”
“Get in ze car.”
Ritchie tried getting in but the front passenger seat had been pushed so close to the dashboard he couldn’t. He pushed it back to its furthest setting. “Who sat here, before me? A dwarf?”
“Boss have ze dog, sit on ze seat.”
“Nice. What’s the dog’s name?”
“Maximllian.”
“I like it,” Ritchie said as if delighted. “Million-dollar Maxim with a dog called Maxi Million.”
“Yah, it eez good,” Brown Suit replied as Ritchie now saw white dog hairs everywhere and could smell wet dog as well as stale cigarette smoke. “Where are you taking me?”
“There,” Brown Suit said stabbing the sat-nav with a short, fat middle finger.
“And where is that? I like to know where I’m going, you see.”
Brown Suit switched the wipers on, peered through the windscreen at the rain and then said, “Hi Vickum.”
“Never heard of it. Could it be High Wycombe?”
“OK, eez the same. Then ve pass Hi Vickum.”
“I’d have found it a lot easier to meet on Finchley Road but I’ll leave it to you, mate.”
Ritchie pulled off his damp anorak, lay it on the floor, plucked off a tuft of white dog hair and made sure the toggle on the hood cord was on top. Then he looked at Brown Suit. “So, now I know the dog’s name what’s yours?”
“Erik.”
“Well, never mind. None of us get asked for opinions at that age.”
Ritchie noticed a square pattern of bright blue threads woven into the cloth of Erik’s brown suit. He felt the material of the sleeve. “Nice cloth,” he said. “You buy it in Russia?”
“Zagreb,” Erik said, pushing strands of pale ginger hair from his greasy, round forehead. He then loosened his chocolate brown tie from around the collar of his beige shirt. “Smoke?” he said fishing for a packet of cigarettes and a lighter from deep inside his jacket pocket.
“No thanks, but don’t mind me,” Ritchie said looking out of his side window to hide the disgust on his face.
The M40 London to Oxford motorway was a road that Ritchie remembered only too well from his training day with Mark Dobson and Erik’s sat-nav took them past High Wycombe as if Oxford was where they were heading. But then Erik turned off the M40 and switched off the satnav.
“So, you know the way, now, Erik?” Ritchie asked noticing a sign for Wallingford.
“Sure, sure.”
They didn’t speak again until they entered Wallingford and took the old stone bridge over the River Thames. Two white swans sailed peacefully by underneath and three ducks flew overhead before skid-landing on the water. Despite the grey sky and cold drizzle, the scene looked innocent and tranquil enough but Ritchie’s thoughts were on Vital Trading, Easy Trading, Vital Cosmetics and meeting a cross-eyed man with a walking stick.
They turned left following the river and then slowed. “Eez here.”
Erik slowed and turned through an open gate onto a gravel driveway that led to a large, red brick bungalow surrounded by lawns and mature trees. Beyond the house was the river. “Eez here,” he aid again.
“Nice,” Ritchie said. “You been here before, Erik?”
“Yah. Come.”
Ritchie got out, stretched and yawned to look casual. He looked around. The rain had stopped and he wondered about his anorak, but it was a tracking device not a recording device like the one he’d used in Bangkok. He decided it could stay on the floor of the Mercedes.
“Come.”
Erik led him along the gravel pathway. A grey and black Range Rover was parked at the side. Erik pressed a brass button to the left of a big front door and then stood back as the door opened slowly. It was Olga.
Ritchie’s heart stopped momentarily.
“Micky!” Olga stepped outside onto the door mat. “Welcome.”
“Yeh,” Ritchie said trying to conceal his horror. “Well. That’s a surprise.”
“Yah. Surprise eh? Come in, come in.” She pulled him by the sleeve of his blue shirt into a hallway bare of any furniture except a black leather armchair tucked in the corner beneath a window. “Come. I give big hug? Like Russian bear, huh?” And Olga’s arms wrapped around him almost lifting him of the parquet flooring
Ritchie tried to grin. “Well, well. Olga sweetie. Fancy that. When did you arrive?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it was last night.”
“We get around, huh? You and me.”
“Sure, sure.”
“It must have been the white vapour trail from your plane that we followed from Bangkok. I said to myself somewhere over Kazakhstan, I reckon Olga’s in that plane. up front. I can smell her perfume.”
“You joke too much Micky. Come. Sit down. Drink? Vodka?”
A cup of tea would have been nice but Ritchie said, “Why not. But mustn’t overdo it. A pint will do.”
“Ha-ha. Come.”
She led him into another sparsely furnished room – bare, wooden floors, a long, black five-seater sofa and two black leather armchairs around a glass-topped coffee table with a full ashtray and rings of dried coffee or, more likely, beer and vodka stains. One wall was made of exposed red brick surrounding an empty fire place and chimney. Wide French windows looked out onto a poorly maintained patio with weeds. More trees and a lawn of long grass crying out for a gardener with a scythe sloped right down to the riverside. It could have been delightful but it wasn’t. It was cold, spartan and didn’t look lived in.
Olga disappeared somewhere and Ritchie thought he heard the car leaving with Erik, meaning he was alone with Olga. He sat in the middle of the long sofa but sensed it was a mistake. She returned with a bottle of Smirnoff and two full glasses, put the bottle and her pink-covered iPad on the table, sat beside him and handed him a glass.
“Yah, chin-chin, Micky. How you say?” She was well made up, Olga style. Puffed up hair. Red lips, red nails, red shirt and a white skirt that was too short for her build.
“Ah, that tastes good,” Ritchie said. “Not had a drop for two days. How are you sweetie? What a surprise. Bottoms-up and all that. I was expecting to meet Mr Novak.”
Olga lay back and slid the wet rim of the vodka glass across her lips. “He come soon. You relax, Micky. Put feet up, no?”
“You come here often?”
“Sometimes.” Olga crossed her legs and the skirt rose way above her big knees. Then she swept a hand through her thick mop of hair. “It is a - what you say? – a company house. Nice, huh? Can go fishing. Can have boat all the way to London. A top up?”
“No rush. When’s Maxim coming?”
She looked at her big watch. “Soon. He very look forward to meet you. I tell him many thing - I say Micky this, Micky that. Since I see you first time at Peacock, I say to him this man Micky he have good idea, good spirit.” She stroked his arm with her red finger nails, draped her arm across the back of the sofa and edged her thighs towards his. Then her phone rang. She picked it up.
“Dah? OK.” She switched off. “Five minutes. Sooner than I expect. Never mind.” Without asking she topped up Ritchie’s glass.
Two minutes later Ritchie heard a car and the crunch of tyres on gravel. The Mercedes was back. “This him I think. You wait.” Olga got up and went out.
Ritchie needed somewhere to put the vodka but there was nowhere except back in the bottle so he unscrewed it and tipped most of it back in. Then he heard voices. Amongst them was an English accent.