Bonnie Gregor can’t sleep. She’s just had a thought. About what her mum said the other day.
That moment when they ask, “Did you pack these bags yourself?” What happens if you say no? She’s never heard anyone say that, so she doesn’t know.
On reflection, it’s probably best to say that she did, isn’t it?
Yes. That’s probably what people do. Go back to sleep, Bonnie.
• • •
Eddie Flood can’t sleep. He has become a prisoner to the alarm setting on his iPhone.
Once Eddie set a seven a.m. alarm for seven p.m. by mistake and, as a result, was late for a prison-van hijack. Tonight he has set the alarm on his phone for five a.m., and he keeps rolling over and rechecking that he’s set it properly. Then he checks that the alarm will work even though the volume is off. He dozes briefly and, half asleep, tells himself that his alarm has gone off, but when he checks he sees it has only just gone midnight. What if he does fall asleep, dream that his alarm has gone off, and then, in his sleep, actually turn it off?
Whether he does eventually fall asleep, or whether “alarm-related sleep anxiety” keeps him up all night, he will rise at 5:00. Wherever Rosie D’Antonio goes tomorrow, Eddie will go.
He decides to read up on undetectable poisons to send himself to sleep.
• • •
It’s four a.m. in Dubai and Max Highfield has no intention of sleeping anytime soon. He was delighted to find that the VIP room at Ekwinox Night Club had its own even smaller VIP room, and that is where he is now, snorting cocaine with a boxer, a diamond dealer, and a billionaire. He is sure he has read somewhere that you’re not supposed to take cocaine in Dubai, but they say you’re not supposed to take cocaine in London either, and it’s virtually compulsory there.
And, besides, if it was illegal, would a billionaire arms dealer and a boxer be doing it?
Henk has given him a bodyguard. She is only five foot two, but she has already shown him how to mine for Bitcoin.
Billionaires and celebrities. Max is glad that he is one, and looks forward to being the other.
• • •
Amy Wheeler is fast asleep in the guest wing of Gary Gough’s country home, about as safe from police officers as it is possible to be. There are busy times ahead. She will do her job, and she knows that Steve and Rosie will do theirs too.
PART THREE
From Dubai to a small bench by a quiet pond
80
He can’t stay as François Loubet for much longer, that’s clear now. It was a good run, but there’s too much heat. Time for a change of identity. What will it be this time? Colombian? Turkish? Change everything, numbers, emails, the lot.
Merci beaucoup, though, François, you’ve had police the world over looking for you, and you never even existed.
Things change, things stay the same.
The man who was François Loubet smiles, pours himself a whisky, and opens his emails for the final time.
81
On the flight from St. Lucia to Dublin, when Steve first started to suspect Max Highfield, he’d read an interview in which Max had named The Rose of Sarasota as his finest film. It had taken Steve a while to track it down, as none of the usual streamers seem to have shared Max’s opinion.
Having just watched the first eight minutes of The Rose of Sarasota, Steve understands why. He only made it as far as eight minutes in, because it was at that point that Max Highfield had revealed that his character, an army explosives expert, had the nickname “Joe Blow.”
A nice thing to add to the pile of evidence, as he and Rosie fly out to Dubai. Steve sits back in his seat, but it’s not as comfortable as some of the other private jets they’ve taken.
Steve remembers that he used to buy Trouble his cat food from the local shop in Axley. You got it in pouches, twenty or so in a box. There was a duck flavor, a salmon flavor, perhaps a beef one, something like that. Trouble never stopped to ask; he just loved food that he hadn’t had to catch or scavenge for himself.
Then one day Margaret next door made a roast chicken for her family and brought Steve the leftovers. Steve fed some of the roast chicken to Trouble, just as a treat, and, as anyone with a cat could have told him, from that day forward Trouble refused to eat cat food.
If you try him with it, he’ll tip his head and look at you in utter incomprehension. We both know I only eat roast chicken, mate, come on.
And that, Steve realizes, is how he is now about private jets. This private jet—it’s a Learjet—is slightly smaller than the ones he has become used to in the last week and he is feeling a little cramped. He’s also just found out that there is no private chef, and he had really been looking forward to a bacon sandwich.
So, just as cat food has been ruined for Trouble, so air travel has now forever been ruined for Steve.
Which is actually fine by him, because as soon as they trap Max Highfield and talk to Rob Kenna, and as soon as they work out who François Loubet is, Steve intends never to fly anywhere ever again.
He sits opposite Rosie, knees almost touching, because of the slightly reduced legroom.
“So we know for sure that Max Highfield is Joe Blow,” says Steve. “All of the influencers we know about were recruited to Maximum Impact through his recommendations, the connection with Felicity Woollaston, and now the name.”
“Bang to rights,” agrees Rosie. “Thanks to you. Is this private jet a bit too small, do you think?”
Steve shakes his head in shock. “Rosie, I’m not the sort of person who goes around thinking that private jets are too small.”
“Oh my God,” says Rosie. “You do think it’s too small. You’ll be complaining there’s no chef next.”
Steve waves this away but, not for the first time, feels utterly naked in front of Rosie’s gaze. “We just need to be able to outwit Max Highfield.”
“How are we going to get to him, though?” Rosie asks. “According to the Tatler, Max Highfield is the world’s fourteenth biggest film star.”
