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Tryon didn’t reply. He appeared to be studying the boats, and his pipe had gone out again.
‘By the way, how was Jacques?’
‘His sight’s gone,’ Max replied, happy to let his question hang. ‘Had to get his daughter to help him copy paintings for Pallesson. The cunning little shit worked that out – that’s how he blackmailed both of them.’ Max walked over to one of the larger boats and stroked its sleek side.
‘This is probably my favourite place in the world,’ Tryon said, watching him. ‘I still row a couple of times a week. There’s no better feeling than being on the water in an eight. Going full tilt. I rowed in the Boat Race one year, you know.’
‘Oxford?’
Tryon nodded.
‘Did you win?’
Tryon nodded again.
‘Of course you did. This would hardly be the best place in the world if you lost, would it? I never went near the river at Eton. Apart from crossing it to get to Windsor Racecourse.’ He swung round to face Tryon. ‘So why on my own?’
Tryon paused as if he was confirming in his own mind what the plan should be. After a few seconds spent hunched over his pipe, he had clearly decided.
‘He’ll use this painting to get into a drug deal – as he did in Moscow. You saw him holding something by the lake where he liquidated Corbett. He’ll be using the painting as collateral to cut himself into the deal with van Ossen. Same pattern. But we need to know where this deal is taking place. We’ll have to hide a tracking device on the second copy of the painting.’
‘How do we bust him?’
‘How do you bust him, you mean. We can’t rely on the Dutch police – they’re riddled with informants – but there is one officer we can work with.’ Tryon set himself to relighting his pipe. ‘This has got to be completely out-of-house on our side. Who knows who Pallesson has got to? Just you. Go and see Pete Carr. Get a tracking device from him.’
‘Who’s our mole? Why are you only telling me all this now?’
‘Grow up, Ward – you know how these things work.’
He handed Max a worn business card. Max read it a couple of times then handed it back to Tryon.
‘He’s not that secure, by the way. Chequered past. Don’t tell him anything. But we’ve got to take this outside the Office and he’s our best option at this stage. Then get down to Gassin. Fast. Did Jacques give you his address?’
‘No.’
‘Doesn’t matter. I’ll email directions to the drop box. No satnav please. Get a flight back down there tonight. Commercial. Without your girlfriend. We’ve only got one shot at this. If you don’t steal that painting in the embassy before Pallesson, we’re cold.’
Max had one more question. ‘What happens if I get caught? Could be a bit embarrassing, to say the least.’
‘You won’t. But if you do, I didn’t make contact and we’ve never discussed this.’ He took several short puffs on his pipe and looked Max straight in the eye. ‘I’ve never even heard of The Peasants in Winter. Or in any other season, for that matter.’
Wevers van Ossen treasured his Sunday mornings. At eight thirty every week he bundled his eight-year-old daughter, Anneka, into the back of their four-by-four and strapped her in securely.
The drive to the stables where Anneka’s pony was kept only took ten minutes. And those minutes were packed with talk about which jumps Anneka was going to take on.
Van Ossen loved watching Anneka ride. But he was less keen on the jumping aspect of it.
‘Perhaps you should concentrate on your flatwork,’ van Ossen suggested. He’d even learnt the lingo they used at the stables. Anneka knew flatwork meant trotting and steady cantering – which wasn’t to her liking as much as jumping.
‘Mustang likes jumping, Daddy,’ Anneka objected. She knew she’d get her way. She always did.
Mustang was probably the most expensive pony ever sold in Holland. It hadn’t helped that Anneka had told the world that she was in love with Mustang before van Ossen could do the deal. He’d had to break all his principles to buy it. If it hadn’t been for Anneka he would have wiped the smirk off the stable owner’s face and walked away. Instead he gritted his teeth and wrote out the cheque.
Van Ossen pulled a couple of sugar lumps out of his pocket for Mustang, and placed them on the palm of his hand. He’d have liked to strike a deal: My daughter’s safety guaranteed, or no more sugar. (It was a bit late to couch the deal in more severe terms: Mustang was already a gelding.) Since there was no hope of the pony understanding the deal, he settled for a straight gift and a friendly pat on the neck.
As usual, van Ossen inspected Anneka’s tack thoroughly. He trusted no one with her safety. Reins, cheekpieces, girth, neck strap – each item was subjected to scrutiny. Then he went over her equipment, making sure her crash helmet was done up properly and her body protector zipped up.
For the next hour, Anneka did what she bloody well liked. Her instructor would have loved to grind some discipline into her. But he knew that wouldn’t be wise with Mr van Ossen leaning against the rail. The plastic safety rail that he’d bought to replace the old wooden fence that encircled the school.
Occasionally, van Ossen took his BlackBerry out of his pocket and surreptitiously went through a few emails. Anneka was alert to lapses of attention on his part and taking a call would inevitably spark a tantrum, so the constant calls coming in from Piek that morning irritated him. His man knew that he never took calls of a Sunday morning, so why did he keep ringing? There had to be a reason. In the end, van Ossen cracked and answered his phone.
‘We have a problem, boss. The new guy. He was seen in the wrong company last night. We’ve got him at the warehouse.’
Before van Ossen could reply, Anneka – having seen her father’s lack of concentration – furiously gunned Mustang at some poles that were far too big for him. The pony very sensibly jinked at the last moment and ducked out to the right. Anneka, however, failed to anticipate Mustang’s jink and flew out of the saddle. She hit the poles as she flew through the air, and then landed on the deck like a rag doll.
Van Ossen vaulted over the plastic rails and ran, heart in his mouth, to Anneka. Her instructor was already leaning over her. She was winded, and struggling for breath. The instructor was trying to loosen her body protector, but van Ossen pushed him out of the way.
‘Idiot! Why did you let that happen?’ van Ossen raged as he fell to his knees. His hands were shaking as he fumbled with her zip. ‘What have you done to her?’
The instructor was speechless with terror. Van Ossen’s eyes were bulging out of his crimson face.
‘If anything has happened to her …’
Anneka started gasping for air and groaning. The instructor could see she was fine, but he didn’t dare do or say anything.
‘That was your fault,’ Anneka finally said as she got her breath back. ‘If you’d been watching properly, it wouldn’t have happened.’
‘I’m so sorry, my baby. I’m so sorry.’
Van Ossen picked up Anneka and cradled her in his arms. Mustang had been caught by the instructor, but van Ossen didn’t once glance towards them. He carried Anneka towards the car. She could have perfectly easily walked, but she was enjoying being the priority.
No sooner had van Ossen dropped Anneka at home than he was on his way out again. Anneka promptly burst into tears – her mother’s sympathy wasn’t anything like as satisfactory as her father’s – and only calmed down when van Ossen promised he’d be back within the hour.
When he got to the warehouse, he was still steaming. How close had Anneka come to cracking her head on the wooden poles? Would the crash helmet have saved her? Why had the instructor left the jump in place? Van Ossen felt sick as he mulled over the near miss.
The ‘new man’ had worked for van Ossen for three months. He wasn’t one of the back-door army recruits but a drop-out from the police academy. Right now, he was a mess. His arms and legs were secured to the metal chair he was sitting on by leather straps. His face was swollen from the beating Piek and Fransen had enjoyed handing out.
‘Who was he with?’ van Ossen asked, expecting the answer to be the police.
‘He was in the Dice Club. We watched him with them for a couple of hours.’
For the second time that morning, van Ossen could feel the blood pumping to the back of his head. Anger raged inside him. How had he been taken in?
‘Who put you into us?’ he asked the terrified traitor. ‘Those Dice scum?’
‘No one, boss. I was trying to get some information from them.’
That was when van Ossen snapped. This episode had nearly claimed his daughter’s life. And someone was going to pay.
‘I HAVEN’T GOT TIME FOR THIS. I SHOULD BE WITH MY DAUGHTER. NOT HERE WASTING MY TIME.’
His eyes scanned the room for the metal bolt cutters, his preferred instrument of torture.
The traitor tried to broker a deal. ‘I can infiltrate them for you,’ he desperately babbled.
One glance at the boss’s face and Fransen knew what was coming next. He grabbed the traitor’s hand and pulled the thumb out as far as it would go. Van Ossen rammed the blades of the bolt cutter either side of the man’s thumb, and slammed them shut with a vengeance.
The ex-police cadet screamed his head off as his thumb was crushed. The bolt cutters failed to cut cleanly, so the severed thumb hung by a thread of skin. Blood spurted across Fransen’s face, and then gushed on to the floor. Then the traitor passed out.
‘I haven’t got time for this,’ van Ossen said impatiently. ‘Finish it off. Bring him round and cut his fingers off one by one. Let him bleed to death. Then dump him somewhere his friends will find him. Every finger,’ van Ossen screamed over his shoulder as he left the warehouse.
Anneka was playing in the garden when he got home. She’d built herself a jumping course using her mother’s best cushions. And she was now pretending to jump them on Mustang. The whole lot would have to go to the dry cleaners tomorrow.
‘First prize,’ announced Wevers van Ossen, striding on to the lawn, ‘is a big tub of ice cream.’ And he presented Anneka with the chocolate ice cream that he’d bought on the way home.
‘What about Mustang?’ Anneka demanded. Before he could be chastised again, Wevers dashed back into the kitchen to get some sugar lumps.
Her fall had rattled him. He was going to have to do something about that instructor.
5 (#ulink_a46a6d32-1e7a-5f99-9867-cc2badd91c35)
Farnborough, Hants
Pete Carr worked out of a discreet industrial unit in Farnborough. The board listing the companies at the end of the road was full of electronic and aviation small businesses. But there was a blank next to Unit 46.
Max knocked and waited. A square of glass set in the door looked on to a narrow staircase. The place appeared to be empty. After a couple of minutes, a pair of feet descended the stairs. The door was unlocked and opened.
‘Carr?’ said Max.
‘Pete, please. Sorry about the delay,’ Carr said jovially. ‘Only me here this morning. Stuck on the phone. The boys are working on a tricky one. Someone’s nanny’s been a bit naughty. They’re out wiring up the kids’ schoolbags.’
Pete Carr didn’t mind what sort of business he took on as long as it paid. He sailed close to the wind. Broke the law, provided the client made it worth his while. Sometimes it was surprising who was prepared to sub-contract out illegal jobs. Governments, lawyers, even the police.
Max smiled. He liked him immediately. Carr was someone who clearly loved his job.
‘Come on through, mate. Coffee? Tea?’
‘Tea would be great, Pete. Thanks.’
Max followed him through to the back room. Got him talking.
‘Had a close shave yesterday,’ said Pete as he made the tea. ‘I was bugging a finance director’s computer – commissioned by his CEO. Wasn’t sure what he was up to. Anyway, bugger me, the bloke walks into his office as I’m halfway through the job.’
‘Trouble?’
‘Nah. Told him I was working on the IT system. So you’re one of Tryon’s spooks?’
‘Tryon? Never heard of him.’
‘Very good.’ Pete laughed. ‘I’ll tell him you said that.’
Max looked around the workshop. It was in stark contrast to the empty appearance of the front of the unit. The place was heaving with stuff.
‘How much is this kit worth?’
Pete did a comedy blow through his teeth.
‘Probably cost you four hundred grand at today’s prices. I’ve added to it as I’ve gone from task to task. Reason I get so many jobs is because I have everything here.’ Pete pointed around the room. ‘Bugging stuff, scanning gear, jammers, mikes, cameras … This jammer’s worth a few quid,’ he said, picking up a small box.
‘What would you use that for?’
‘I take it on the train. When some twat starts wah-wah-wah-ing it, I jam his phone.’ Pete grinned. ‘Doing loads of cars at the moment. The thieves have worked out where the manufacturers put the tracking devices, so they have them off and ship the cars over to Qatar before you can blink. They won’t find ours though. Only trouble is, most of the time it takes two trips. Nobody’s making bumpers out of metal these days, so we have to go round the night before and glue a metal plate inside the bumper. Then we fix the tracking device the next day with magnets. You see, the tracker has got to be able to see the sky.’
Pete would have chatted all day. He liked people. But he could see Max was ticking. ‘What can I do you for then, mate?’
‘How small a tracker have you got, Pete?’
‘What for? A human?’
‘A painting.’
‘A painting. Hmm. That isn’t so easy.’
‘And it needs to be hidden.’
‘Frame?’
‘No,’ Max said, shaking his head. ‘We don’t have access to the frame. Only the canvas and the wooden stretcher.’
‘You might be in luck. Got the very latest miniature tracker in, a couple of weeks back.’ Pete delved into a drawer, pulled out a few cardboard boxes and then held up something the size of a very thin box of matches.
‘How about this?’
Max nodded. He was pretty confident they’d be able to hide it.
‘That should be okay.’
‘Power, though. That’s the problem with trackers. They need power. How often do you need to contact it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, if you want a constant signal, the battery will run out very quickly. But if we programme it to give off a signal, say, once every five minutes, the battery will last much longer.’
‘Once every hour is more than enough.’
‘How about geo-fencing it?’
‘What?’
