TANNAHILL WEAVES THROUGH THE KNOTS of journalists clogging New Scotland Yard reception, searching for the bald man in the running clothes.
Slade, the guv’nor had called him, Brian Slade. Said his dad had been in the force. Maybe that was how he’d gotten his information, by tapping into some murky old-boy network.
He pushes on, out the main doors and over to the low wall at the top of the steps to get a clearer view of the street. The mist has cleared a little and he can see the river now. He looks right toward Westminster Bridge, as far as the mist will allow, then left along the Embankment Gardens and the Ministry of Defense building: plenty of people, none of them who he’s looking for.
He can’t have vanished that quickly.
Think.
Slade had said he worked for The Daily. Their offices were in Kensington, so he would probably head back there, and the fastest way was by underground. But Slade had also been wearing running gear. And why wear running gear to a press conference and then take the tube back to the office? A runner would take the most direct route, the greenest route.
He heads down the steps toward the Ministry of Defense and ducks into Victoria Embankment Gardens, peering ahead through the mist. A few tourists drift along the pathways, staring at their phones or up at the somber statues dotted throughout the park. Still no sign of the man he’s looking for.
Tannahill breaks into a jog and can feel the gravel through the thin soles of his shoes. He veers over onto the grass, half expecting some angry military type to shout at him from an upper window. He still hasn’t eaten this morning and his body is not happy with this latest turn of events. He can already taste copper in his mouth. He passes a stone plinth with an oriental-looking cat on top that looks like it’s laughing at him when a voice behind him calls out. “Looking for me?”
Tannahill slides to a halt on the damp grass and looks back.
Slade is leaning against the plinth, arms folded, phone in hand, a lopsided, vaguely slapable grin on his face. “I thought your boss might send someone after me.”
He has the look of a gym junkie—sunken eyes, zero body fat, black T-shirt, and running shorts that appear painted on. He looks more like a long-distance runner than a journalist, and his lack of hair makes it hard to pin an age on him. Could be thirty, could be fifty, or anywhere in between. He steps forward, closing the leather cover on his phone. “Brian Slade,” he says, nodding a greeting. “And you are?”
“DCI Tannahill Khan. I’m lead detective on that case you seem to know so much about.”
“Really? You barely look old enough to be handing out parking tickets. Is the Met struggling to recruit grown-ups these days?”
Tannahill forces himself not to rise to the provocation. “You seem very well informed about my case,” he says. “I don’t suppose you’d consider telling me where you’re getting your information?”
Slade smiles, showing small white teeth that remind Tannahill of the porcelain in toilets. “No, I don’t suppose I would. Unless of course you’re prepared to give me something in return.”
“Like what?”
“Like tell me about the scene.” Slade folds his arms so his phone rests against the knot of his left bicep. “Was it clean? I mean forensically speaking.” The smile broadens. “I already know it was messy.”
Tannahill feels a surge of dislike for Slade. How can he know the scene was “messy,” or have seen what he saw in that room and smile about it? He glances down at Slade’s phone and realizes he’s probably being recorded, and his dislike turns to borderline hatred. “Sounds like you don’t need me to tell you anything,” he says.
Slade shrugs. “OK, you don’t want to play, fair enough.” He opens his phone case, pulls out a business card, and hands it over. “You want to know what I’ve got? Log on to The Daily website in about five minutes. You’ll see.”
Tannahill takes the card. “Five minutes!? You said half an hour.”
“Yeah, but that was before we had this little chat. I was hoping we might be able to work together on this, but if you’re going to be all coy I’ll just run with what I’ve got. Besides”—he glances at the time on his phone—“cat’s out of the bag now. I need to get this story out before any of my esteemed colleagues puts out a spoiler.”
He turns on his heels and starts moving away. “That card has all my direct contacts on it, by the way. You might want to call me after you see the article.” He smiles one last time, then starts jogging away, raising his phone to his ear as soon as he’s out of earshot.
Tannahill watches him bobbing away past the tourists and civil servants, shoulders back, chest puffed out like a bantam chicken. Even the way he runs is irritating. He pulls his own phone from his pocket and calls DC Baker.
“Yo!” Baker answers before it even rings.
“You need to widen the security cordon around the house,” Tannahill says. “Call in some extra uniforms and close the street off now.”
“OK. Why the urgency?”
“Because somehow The Daily got hold of details of the investigation and they’re about to run a story, so expect a lot more press interest and a whole bunch of rubberneckers heading your way in the next ten minutes, if not sooner.”
“Oh crap! OK.”
“How we doing on forensics? Anything new?”
“Nothing. Looks like our suspect definitely read the book. Have you managed to tell the guv’nor about it yet?”
“No, but he already knows.”
“Oh, bollocks!”
“Yeah.” Tannahill leans back heavily on the stone plinth with the laughing black cat on top. “Just close the road and dig in,” he says. “Let’s see how bad this article is. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”