Jim Orr, senior investigating officer in Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs, for once looked ruffled. Nothing too obvious, but the signs were there in the way he fussily aligned and realigned the papers on his desk.
‘Sorry about the short notice, Deborah.’ He sounded weary. ‘Bit of an emergency in our Tenerife office. We’re sending you and your cat to help them out.’
‘So, it’s undercover in the sun for me, and a specialist drug-detection job for Gorgonzola, eh?’ I quipped. After my previous chilly assignment in the cold and mist of a Scottish summer, that sounded a bit of all right.
There was no answering smile. He broke the news about the murder of Bill Gardener. I opened my mouth to speak, but he hurried on. ‘With our carefully planted mole suddenly taken out, Operation Canary Creeper has ground to a halt. Many months of careful planning are about to go down the drain.’ He fell silent, mulling over the seriousness of the situation, softening me up for the request he was about to make. ‘Then I thought of your cat Gorgonzola. You see, Ambrose Vanheusen, the target of this money-laundering investigation, has an Achilles heel.’ His thumb riffled the corner of the stack of papers. ‘To be more exact, he has an obsession with that pedigree Persian cat of his. And that’s where your cat will come in.’
‘Well,’ I laughed, ‘G’s definitely a Persian, but as far as appearance goes…’
A short silence fell as we both called up a vision of the decidedly moth-eaten Gorgonzola.
‘Yes, well…’ He gave the stack of papers another quick riffle. ‘After Bill Gardener’s unfortunate er… we’re going to need a replacement mole inside Vanheusen’s organisation. In his last report, Gardener said that he was on the verge of being able to prove that large amounts of cash were being couriered to this man Vanheusen by clients on inspection visits to his various properties in Tenerife. So his company, Exclusive, is almost certainly a front for money-laundering. By happy coincidence, Exclusive has just advertised for an assistant PA Leisure. I’m hoping that your ownership of a Persian cat, together with your experience in client hospitality, will convince Vanheusen that you’re the one for the job. Interviews are set for the end of the month. How do you feel about it?’
‘Well, er…’
‘In view of Bill Gardener’s murder, we’re not instructing you to take this assignment in Tenerife, Deborah.’ His grey eyes regarded me steadily. ‘It’s entirely voluntary.’
A week later, as the plane made its final approach to Reina Sofia airport, I looked down on Tenerife, the scenario for Operation Canary Creeper. White fluffy clouds left their negative images on the surface of a sea rippled and silvered like frosted glass. Through the small window I could see the snow-capped peak of Mount Teide, the browns and greens of its jagged foothills, and nearer the coast, the shiny rectangles and rhomboids of plastic-roofed banana and tomato plantations. It seemed a paradise of year-round sunshine, warm seas, subtropical rainforest and savage lava moonscapes, all presided over by the dramatic cone of Teide.
But Eden had its serpent. That’s why Bill Gardener had come here. That was why I was here. Vanheusen’s current venture, the sale of luxury properties to wealthy clients, was almost certainly a money-laundering front for heroin and cocaine profits. On several occasions HM Revenue & Customs had come close to nailing him. And each time, fancy manoeuvres by his lawyers had got him off the hook. The Department had moved fast with the application for the post of assistant PA Leisure, complete with an armour-plated CV. Now it was all up to me.
In a last-minute attempt to find something that would give me the edge at that all-important interview, I flicked once more through the dossier on Vanheusen – police reports, newspaper cuttings, pages from a Sunday supplement. I pulled out the Lifestyle article and browsed through it for inspiration… All the usual stuff about the successful businessman… and a double-page photo captioned Ambrose Vanheusen relaxes in his Orangery. There was no sign of potted oranges, but the place was a jungle of exotic passion-flowers, pale blue plumbago and assorted unfamiliar tropical plants. The lacy fronds of a magnificent clump of tree ferns shaded a mass display of white moth orchids in antique pots – and a large black Persian cat lounging on a white velvet cushion. My prospective employer was sitting at a wrought-iron table. He was in his early thirties, mid-brown hair flecked with gold, beard and moustache closely trimmed. Except for those eyes, astute, calculating, pale against the tan of his skin, there was no sign that he was a twenty-first-century Al Capone, a smooth operator who’d run rings round both the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Fraud Squad.
Vanheusen’s obsession with his pedigree Persian cat was his weak point… How to bring up at the interview that I was a lover not only of cats but, in particular, of Persian cats? It would have to be done so subtly… I studied the picture again, seeking inspiration… The cat’s coat was thick, shiny and luxuriant, and against the white of the cushion very, very black. I glanced over to where Gorgonzola was lolling in post-breakfast slumber. Pure Persians come in a limited range of colours, a good red being one of the rarest. G scored there, but the texture of her coat left much to be desired. To be honest, everything to be desired. She’d inherited the characteristic Persian face, but her coat was fluffy only in patches. One of her parents had been a full-pedigreed Persian, no doubt about that. The other must have been a scruffy gingery creature. Even as a kitten she had looked moth-eaten – no amount of brushing had made any difference.
Which reminded me… I put aside the dossier and retrieved the grooming comb from the drawer. ‘C’mon, G, time for your morning brush.’
Before I’d finished speaking, she yawned, stretched and leapt lightly onto my knee. At the first stroke of the brush, her eyes closed. A slow rumbling purr vibrated in her throat. Perhaps at this very moment Ambrose Vanheusen’s cat was undergoing the same pleasurable ritual. While I worked on G’s tangles, my mind was teasing away at how I could plausibly introduce the subject of cats at the interview, but ten minutes later all I’d achieved was a brush clogged with ginger fluff.
I scratched her gently behind an ear. ‘OK, that’s your lot.’
No response. She sat there swaying gently as in a hypnotic trance, the opening gambit in what could often be a lengthy battle of wits. Something I wasn’t in the mood for today.
‘Gerroff, G.’ Before she could dig in her claws, I stood up.
She surrendered to the force of gravity with a half-hearted miaow of protest.
Game, set and match to DJ Smith. All very well, but the interview was getting close and I still hadn’t thought of anything. Abstractedly I picked at some stray fluff on my jeans. Fluff. Hairs, cat hairs. The very answer I’d been looking for. If there happened to be a few hairs from a red Persian on my jacket at the interview…long, silky, red hairs, guaranteed to make the owner of a black Persian salivate…
Gorgonzola’s reddest hairs – distinctively long and silky – were to be found at the end of her moth-eaten tail. Through narrowed eyes I gazed speculatively at her already recumbent form. Always a mind-reader, she twitched her whiskers, curled her tail round her and rested her chin proprietorially on its tip. Those hairs would have to be plucked. Cutting them would not give the natural effect I needed. Sensing my continued scrutiny, she opened one eye and shifted uneasily. The eye closed to a thin slit. A clear Do Not Disturb notice had been put up.
I tried bribery. I tried blandishments. All failed, even tuna chunks, her favourite. She merely sniffed suspiciously at the saucer and clasped her tail even more firmly to her. I’m ashamed to admit it, but it was then that I resorted to Unscrupulous Underhand Means, re-enactment of that eighteenth-century poem The Rape of the Lock, or in twenty-first-century parlance, The Snatching of the Hairs. I fetched G’s on-duty collar with its miniaturised transmitter. Once I’d fastened it round her neck, she stood expectantly, tail erect. I pounced. One quick yank and I’d got my hairs.
I’d expected the ear-piercing yo-ow-l of outrage. What I wasn’t prepared for was the stunned look of betrayal in her wide-open eyes. In a gingery blur she disappeared under the bed.
‘Sacrifice in the Line of Duty. Sorry, G,’ I muttered, overcome with guilt.
Long and silky and red, the stolen hairs clung tenaciously to the sleeve of my green linen jacket as if they’d been glued there. If the smiling man lounging on the black hide sofa realised that I’d planted them as part of the HMRC operation to infiltrate his organisation, it would undoubtedly cost me my life. Bill Gardener had come under suspicion and…
Everything about him and the room murmured wealth. From his expensive Armani suit and heavy gold watch-strap, to the white alpaca skins draping the two black hide sofas, from the brushed-steel chamber of a striking hole-in-the-wall fire where pale flames flickered over grey ceramic pebbles, to the dramatic red, blue and gold Howard Hodgson abstract, spectacular against black silk wall coverings. On a black lacquered table beside him, an ethereal white moth orchid floated out of an authentic Lucie Rie ceramic pot. Beside it, neatly arranged, were a laptop, a telephone and a leather-bound appointment diary, the only evidence that this room was an office rather than an art-lover’s salon.
‘As you must be aware,’ he flicked a microscopic speck of dust from a dark silk tie shot with muted iridescent colours, ‘the clients of Exclusive (Tenerife) are aristocratic, privileged, moneyed – the elite of society. So those who work for us must have special qualities too.’ After a stage-managed pause: ‘There have been many applicants for the position. But you, Ms Smith, have the X-factor, something which gives me confidence that you are indeed the right person to be personal assistant to my PA Leisure.’
‘Why, thank you, Mr Vanheusen.’ I was jubilant. Phase One of Operation Canary Creeper had been initiated. These people don’t play around, a cautionary voice said. One slip and…
‘All the applicants on the short list are intelligent, personable and experienced in the travel and holiday trade. However…’ His thumb caressed his upper lip. A moment’s silence hung between us.
I replaced a warm smile with a raised eyebrow.
‘However, only you have demonstrated that you are a lover of that prince of animals – felis catus persica, the Persian cat.’
‘How…how on earth do you know that?’ I widened my eyes in astonishment, careful not to overdo the surprise.
He grinned. ‘The evidence is there on your sleeve.’
Remember to look at the wrong arm. I studied my jacket, frowning as if in bewilderment.
A glint of amusement surfaced in those pale eyes. ‘I haven’t got psychic powers, Ms Smith.’
Thank God for that. From my repertoire of appropriate expressions I selected an uncertain smile.
‘Try the other sleeve.’
‘Ohhh…’ With a suitable intake of breath I brushed frantically in a doomed-to-failure attempt to remove the long red hairs.
‘I shouldn’t worry about it. Those cat hairs singled you out for the job.’
Things were going exactly as I had hoped. It had been a near certainty that he’d home in on those cat hairs. I summoned up an embarrassed little smile. ‘Do I take it, Mr Vanheusen, that you yourself are the owner of a Persian cat?’
‘His picture’s on the wall behind you, Ms Smith.’
I swivelled round to look. Glowering down at me with malevolent orange eyes from a satinised steel-framed oil painting was the fluffy black Persian cat featured in the dossier. A disagreeable bad-tempered mouth indicated that The Prince, like his owner, was nothing more or less than a beautifully groomed thug.
‘Samarkand Black Prince. Champion of Champions.’ Pride of ownership warmed his voice.
‘He’s wonderful!’ I breathed. ‘So sweet!’
I’d said just the right thing.
‘Most valuable – and most valued – cat in Tenerife,’ purred the owner of the Brute of Samarkand. He leant back. ‘And now, Ms Smith, tell me about your cat.’
I visualised moth-eaten Gorgonzola. She too was a Champion of Champions – as drug-detector for Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs in their war against heroin and cocaine.
‘I have to admit that she is not at all in the same league as The Prince.’ My voice carried a ring of unmistakable sincerity that I couldn’t have counterfeited if I’d tried. ‘Her name’s Persepolis Desert Sandstorm.’
He ran a finger thoughtfully over his lip, calculation lurking under those lowered lids. He reached over and pressed a keypad on the lacquered table. ‘Well, I think I’ve heard enough. Your background in travel and client hospitality is just what we’re looking for. I’d like you to start next week, if that’s convenient.’
I nodded, outwardly cool, inwardly elated. The couple of carefully arranged cat hairs had clinched it.
‘That’s settled then.’ He rose to his feet. ‘Monique, my PA Leisure, will set you right.’
The door opened. Tall, slim, elegant, Monique Devereux would not have been out of place in the salon of one of the leading European fashion houses. Jacket and skirt were impeccably cut, shoes manufactured from the softest leather, jewellery understated and expensive. It was power-dressing with an ultra-feminine slant. Her dark hair swept smoothly upwards in a stylish French roll, accentuating large brown eyes and perfect facial bone structure.
The hand-shake was cool, the smile perfunctory. ‘Welcome to Exclusive (Tenerife), Deborah.’
Was there a faint note of hostility? I didn’t care. I’d surmounted the first hurdle. I was in.
Half an hour later, as the electric gates to the grounds of the Vanheusen estate swung silently shut behind my car, I hummed a little tune. Operation Canary Creeper was up and running. The groundwork of the past couple of weeks had paid off – those dawn-to-dusk explorations on foot and in 4x4 of the island’s most spectacular locations, tucked away, unvisited, unseen, unknown to the madding tourist crowd in their air-conditioned coaches. I’d been able to enthuse from first-hand experience when Vanheusen had asked me what ideas I had for the entertainment of clients between their scheduled inspections of his luxury properties. But it was that last-minute inspiration of the cat hairs which had proved to be the trump card. I was returning to report success.
A flicker of unease pricked the bubble of my self-satisfaction. The hum triumphant faltered and died, withered on the date palm, so to speak. ‘You must show me a picture of Persepolis sometime, Ms Smith,’ Vanheusen had said. At the time it had seemed a polite response to my compliments, one cat owner to another, but now I could detect a hidden agenda. A good red Persian is extremely rare, a female even rarer. I’d glimpsed the covetous gleam in his eyes. Had I introduced a wild card, a factor I couldn’t control?
Pooooop pooooooooop. An impatient blare from a tour coach with protruding mirrors like the eye-stalks of a gigantic insect interrupted this rather unpleasant train of thought. Oh well, sufficient unto the day. Qué sera sera. Negotiating the rush hour traffic clogging the main route through Las Américas was enough to think about.
The Control Centre for Operation Canary Creeper was tucked away in one of the back streets of the old town. Perhaps ‘old town’ was a bit of a misnomer. Gone the fishermen’s cottages, elbowed aside by hotels and balconied apartments. Gone, too, the evocative plaintive mewing of seagulls on the lookout for edible scraps, drowned now by the roar of the ride-on street vacuum hoovering up cigarette ends, drink cans and leaflets.
HM Revenue & Customs in the guise of Extreme Travel Agency was sandwiched between a laundry and a solicitor’s office, one of three nondescript shops in a slightly seedy back street of drab entryphone doorways. So it wasn’t exactly hidden away. It wasn’t exactly conspicuous either, just another tourist agency among the many in Los Cristianos. An agency specialising in exotic holidays and personalised packages. Few stopped to look in the windows at the posters of emerald paddy fields in Vietnam, the eternal snows of Everest and K2, or a sailing ship battling its way through icy mast-high seas in the Straits of Magellan. Even fewer pushed open the door and made enquiries. Which gave Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs ample time to carry out their clandestine activities. It was perfect cover for their investigations into British national Vanheusen’s undercover activities.
In the chic minimal outer office – desk, telephone, fax machine, neatly stacked brochures – there was nothing to excite curiosity in even the most suspicious of minds. But there were those who would have been very interested indeed in what lay behind that plain white door at the back of the room. Stored behind the steel frontage of innocent-looking grey filing cabinets were the latest satellite communication systems and surveillance devices.
Parking at this time of day was not a problem, and I drew into the kerb right outside. The small notice on the outer door of Extreme Travel announced Closed 1300 till 1700. Untrue. HM Revenue & Customs never closes. Indeed, we’re at our most active when others sleep. As I inserted my key in the lock and opened the door, the muted sound of a buzzer gave warning of my arrival, but I knew I’d been on camera from the moment my car had nosed into the street. In our line of work there can never be too much security. I dumped the bulky Exclusive folder on a chair and idly studied myself in the large rectangular mirror covering most of the wall behind the desk. That mirror was in fact a window fitted with one-way glass. I brushed my jacket, tweaked my collar and ran a hand through my hair. Finally I gave myself a small approving smile. It signalled that I was sure I hadn’t been followed, was not under observation; in other words, that I was clean. Any doubts about security and I’d have frowned, and the door would have remained locked.
When I heard the distinctive click of levered locks being activated, I gathered up the Exclusive folder and took it with me into the secret domain behind the plain white door.
‘Operation Canary Creeper up and running,’ I said. ‘Thanks to Gorgonzola.’
‘So the cat hairs did the trick, then.’ Case officer Gerry Burnside nodded approvingly, ‘Clever of you. Now that you’ve sneaked your foot inside the door, let’s hear your first impressions.’
‘Cosy little set-up Vanheusen’s got.’ I sat down and pushed the folder across the desk. ‘Luxury villa, all marble and exotic hardwoods. Extensive grounds – palm trees, exotic plants, manicured lawns and bougainvillea everywhere. High security throughout, of course – multiple locks on his office door, electronic gates and video surveillance of the corridors and grounds. According to Monique Devereux, his PA Leisure, dogs are loose at night.’
‘How far is she in Vanheusen’s confidence, would you say?’
‘I’ll be able to tell you after Monday. I’m to report for a week’s training in company methods.’ I flipped open the folder. ‘The Exclusive approach is simple really. It’s an appeal to vanity by flattering clients that they are part of a very select bunch. Look at this.’ I stabbed a finger down on the Exclusive marketing catchphrase in bold centimetre-high type, repeated on every page. If you have to ask who we are, you’re not one of us! ‘It’s The Emperor’s clothes story – vanity clouds the judgement. Stops awkward questions. Interesting, eh?’
Gerry took the folder from me and thumbed through the pages.
‘The guy’s spent millions on this set-up, most of it drug money. Has to be.’ He looked up. ‘For the first time we’ve a good chance of nailing him. But now you’ve become “one of them”, Deborah, you’ll have to tread very carefully. I don’t have to tell you that, do I?’