NATIONAL TREASURE by Barry Faulkner (life books to read .TXT) 📗

‘And obviously it wasn’t Randall – he was dead.’

I agreed. ‘No, and it wasn’t Harry Cohen either – with a gun pointing to his head he would have folded and given the money back. He was killed because he was no further use to the Bogdans and knew too much about how they and Randall got the drugs into Romania. So whose account is it in the Isle of Man?’

Gold shrugged. ‘Don’t know, can’t get any details. Offshore tax haven banks have the strongest security available – even your mate Clancy won’t get anything from them, they sit outside UK legal jurisdiction. If they don’t want to give you the information, they aren’t obliged to.’

‘If Harry Cohen knew whose account it was, he would have told the Bogdan brothers – and like you said, once they realised he didn’t know, he was of no further use to them. Bang bang, goodbye Harry. So who is this account holder, the mysterious third person? Is it the same person who was with Randall on the night he was killed in Epping Forest? What are we missing here?’

Gold laughed. ‘That’s exactly what we are missing – the name of the third person. Randall’s partner, that’s what we are missing.’

I took a sip of my coffee. It was stone cold; a bit like any leads to the missing person. I grimaced. ‘Urgh.’

Gold held her thermos towards me. ‘Top up? It’s hot.’

‘No, I’m fine. If we don’t get any leads at Janie’s tonight, I’ll go and see Marcia Johnson tomorrow and get her to rack her brains and see if we can come up with any names Randall was close to. Let’s hope she has a good memory.’

Gold checked her watch. I don’t know why; habit I suppose, because there’s a BR clock the size of Big Ben hanging from the concourse roof about fifty metres in front of the cafe.

‘Gotta go.’ She stood, put the folder back into her shoulder bag and slung it over her shoulder.

‘Business?’ I knew it would be.

‘Yes.’

‘Who’s the lucky gent about to part with a small fortune?’

‘Confidential information.’ She tapped the side of her nose. ‘But if he doesn’t come up with my very reasonable demands, his colleagues in the House of Lords will be amazed by the pictures in the Sunday tabloids and on social media.’ She smiled. ‘And so will his wife. What time tonight?’

‘Late, I think. If there’s a welcome home party waiting at Janie’s flat they’ll be tired and fed up after sitting there all day. Meet you in the car park at eleven.’

‘Which car park?’

I rented two car parking spaces at both my office and my apartment block; one for me and one for Gold.

‘Home.’

‘Okay.’

And she was gone. I must be the only private detective with a gold-digging blackmailer for a partner. Each to their own.

CHAPTER 11

We got to Janie’s about eleven fifteen. The night had thrown its dark canopy over London and thankfully Janie’s street wasn’t well lit. None are these days; council funding cuts.

We were both in our black gear. I had my trusted Beretta 9mm in my pocket with a silencer fitted; made it a bit cumbersome, but a 9mm shot without a silencer would wake the whole of Fulham.

Gold drove her dark Lexus slowly along the street as we checked the inside of the parked cars; they all looked empty. She turned round at the end of the road and we came back and took another pass through, just in case we’d missed something. We had; a white van, no driver or passenger but a sign written on the sides and back: ‘West London Cleaning Co.’

‘Interesting,’ I said, and pointed it out to Gold.

‘Yes, very.’ She took a left turn at the end of the road, made a three point turn and came back into Janie’s street, pulling in and parking about sixty metres behind the rear of the van. She reached behind to the back seat and passed me the Nocoex night vision binoculars from her shoulder bag laying there. I flicked on the night vision mode and focused on the back of the van. These binoculars are like a small box with a LED screen at the rear; no holding them to the eyes, the screen shows what you are looking at. The van showed up with a green hue around it; no bright spots showing a heat source. That van must have been there for some time, or the tyres and exhaust would show up brighter than the rest. It was cold.

I passed the box to Gold. ‘That’s been there a long time.’

She agreed. ‘Trouble is, we don’t know if anybody’s in the back.’

She was right. Body heat would only show up when looking directly at the body, not through the metal van. I switched to normal mode and took another look. The rear windows were blacked out. Nothing happening, or was there? I focused on the side of the van; light puffs of smoke were coming out of the passenger side window. I smiled, gotcha. Somebody inside was a smoker. The passenger window had been left open at the top for the smoke to escape! I passed the box to Gold. ‘Passenger side window.’

She looked and a smile crossed her face as another puff of smoke left the gap. ‘Filthy habit.’

‘Smoking can kill you,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’

We left the Lexus; Gold crossed to the other side of the street while I stayed on the van’s side and we walked in parallel towards it. No balaclavas this time; didn’t want to scare the life out of any Fulham resident walking their dog. I sauntered past the rear of the van, looking as normal as I could in case somebody inside was watching through the back windows. They probably weren’t, as Janie’s