“I have another flight landing in twenty minutes, sir.”
“Steve.”
“Take it to the cops, Steve,” says Carlos.
“You’re not curious?” Steve asks.
“I’ll be curious about whether you’re smuggling drugs in your back passage if you don’t let this go,” says Carlos.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” says Steve. He pulls his Ponies of the New Forest notebook from his bag. “I’m going to write down the name of the greatest ever Van Halen song in this notebook. You do the same in your notebook. And if we both choose the same track, you let me take a look at the CCTV, which you’re dying to look at anyway?”
Steve starts to write, and then hands his pen to Carlos. Carlos hesitates, but Steve knows that most people find it impossible to resist the opportunity to voice their opinion on this sort of thing. He also knows that Carlos is going to choose “Unchained”; he can read him. Carlos sighs, pulls his small notebook from his shirt pocket, and starts writing. Got him. Carlos finishes writing and hands back the pen.
Steve opens his notebook, places it on the table, and spins it to face Carlos. There, in capital letters, is “Unchained.”
Carlos nods, and places his notebook on the table too. He spins it, and then he opens it. It reads “When It’s Love.”
Steve looks at the name, then at Carlos.
“Come on, man.”
“I like the gentler stuff,” says Carlos. “Sorry, Steve. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got some more billionaires to pretend to frisk.”
The door to the security office swings open, and a young woman pokes her head into the room.
“The Cessna from London’s delayed by an hour—why don’t you take your break, Carlos?”
“Sure, ma’am,” says Carlos.
“Y’all done here?” she asks, looking at Steve and his bag.
“Pretty much,” says Carlos. “Few more questions and I’ll have this gentleman on his way.”
The woman disappears again.
“Okay, Steve,” says Carlos. “I’ll give you twenty minutes with the CCTV, but you have to fill me in on everything.”
In every investigation there is a first step, a little toehold to start you on the climb ahead.
François Loubet, Joe Blow, Letchworth Garden City. It’s all in there somewhere.
32
In the boardroom of Maximum Impact Solutions, Susan Knox, Jeff’s right-hand woman and head of HR, is looking through Jeff’s file on François Loubet. Bloomberg News is on the conference room TV. They are bemoaning the stubborn problem of high interest rates.
There must be a clue in here somewhere.
Susan has no idea if Jeff is alive or dead. If anyone else’s car had been found riddled with bullet holes and soaked in their own blood, you could be fairly sure they were a goner. But Jeff?
She tries his numbers constantly. Jeff has so many phones, but at the moment she is getting zero response from any of them.
Susan Knox has also accessed a few of Jeff’s bank accounts; he has many different accounts for many different purposes, from a high-yield tax-free investment account in the Cayman Islands to the NatWest account his granddad started for him with five pounds nearly forty years ago. That account’s got more than five pounds in it now. Susan looks at the balance: something just over two million. But, more importantly, she looks at “recent transactions.” Nothing, except for his regular payments, gas, broadband, five thousand a month to Save the Children. The most recent transaction is for fuel at a petrol station in South London several days ago. In account after account she finds the same pattern. Balances in the millions; recent transactions, none. The two accounts she is most familiar with are empty, but they have been for a while, so no clues there either.
So if Jeff is alive, he isn’t using his phones, and he isn’t spending his money. Though he will have phones and money hidden away somewhere, surely?
With Jeff absent—missing, presumed neither alive nor dead but pending—who can she turn to? Most of the work at Maximum Impact Solutions is done by freelancers, out in the field, and the office is deathly quiet this late. Her old boss, Henk? Jeff’s best friend for so many years. Surely he would help out if Jeff has been killed?
She continues reading Loubet’s emails to Jeff: they become increasingly threatening, yet they’re all written in that strangely jolly tone of his. Who is this man? There must be something that gives him away? A turn of phrase, anything?
Throughout the file are little scribbled question marks. Clearly Jeff has tried to do what she is trying to do right now: work out the identity of François Loubet. There is also a row of question marks next to the reference to “Joe Blow.”
The last two pages of the file are François Loubet’s “Client Identity Form.” It is laughably brief: Loubet’s name, the name of an Indonesian bank, and blank boxes. She has been through the whole file. The man is a ghost.
There is nothing here she can use to identify Loubet, and nothing that will help to identify Joe Blow.
What to do next?
She can’t talk to Jeff.
Susan looks at the boardroom mirror that hides Henk’s secret den. She’s not a hundred percent sure she should trust Henk van Veen either. But does she have a better option? Amy Wheeler?
As Bloomberg News continues to chatter behind her, Susan decides that Amy has to be worth a shot. Somebody else needs to read these files, before anybody else dies.
33
“I want you to think about your fears.”
Amy rolls her eyes. Rosie whispers to her.
