Paul Samson sat in the office above the restaurant where his mother had been found dead of a stroke by her loyal maître d’, Ivan. He shifted his attention from a stack of papers on the partner desk that his mother and father had at one time shared and picked up the internal phone to tell Ivan to give Peter Nyman a drink and keep him downstairs for ten minutes. He turned off his two screens, cleared away a folder containing the documents he had been working on and made a call to Macy Harp’s office a few minutes away. Macy rarely used a mobile phone, so Samson had to go through his assistant, who answered immediately in a crisp upper-class English accent. Harp came on the line.
‘I’m being bloody haunted by Peter Nyman again. Any idea what he wants?’
‘No. Why don’t you ask him and call me back?’
‘Yes, just wanted to know if he’s been snooping around your end.’
‘He hasn’t. Any news on Crane? Our client is very keen to hear of any more developments.’
‘Nothing more than that he has an expensive penthouse in a new block in the centre of London under the name of Ray Shepherd. Haven’t been there yet but I’ve got an email account for him, which is intermittently still in use. But I’m not going any further on this until you tell me a bit more about the client on this one. You know I don’t work blind. I wouldn’t be happy to give his location unless I was assured that no harm was going to come to him.’
‘Rest assured, that won’t happen,’ replied Macy impatiently. ‘I know the client and they’re not going to do anything like that. Speak later.’
Samson sat back in his father’s old chair and glanced at the wall of photographs from his parents’ life, most of them meaningless, now that both were gone. When he had sorted out the debts accumulated in the last three years as his mother struggled to keep the Cedar restaurant afloat he’d do something about the photographs – maybe put them in an album and give it to his sister, Leila. She was better on the family history and their Lebanese heritage than he was, and she was still grieving deeply for their mother, so he thought it might help. He missed their mother too. They’d had good times when Anastasia was with him and his mother became convinced she would eventually marry him – the thing she desired most for her son. Under Anastasia’s gentle cross-examination she had talked about her time as a young girl in post-war Beirut, about meeting the dashing young trader who would become her husband. She relaxed with Anastasia and opened up in a way that he’d never seen before, not even with Leila. And when Anastasia married Hisami, she had been dreadfully disappointed and of course blamed Samson for failing to give her the sense that she could build a life with him and so letting her go.
He turned in the chair and buzzed down to Ivan to tell him he was ready to see Peter Nyman.
A little over three years before, Nyman had climbed the stairs to this office above the restaurant to find out whether Samson would take on the task of finding a Syrian boy who had escaped from the camp in Lesbos and was on the road north in the Balkans, pursued by an ISIS hit squad. Samson had not seen Nyman, or his ambitious sidekick, Sonia Fell, since the debrief in Macedonia, when the boy – Naji Touma – had given European intelligence services the access code to his cache of secrets. It had made Nyman, who had doubted the boy’s value as a source, look flat-footed and out of touch.
He rose and greeted Nyman, who wore the same lifeless expression and shapeless suit as always, but did not take his hand. Nyman chose a chair without consulting Samson, hovered over it and let himself down so the cushion gasped with the impact.
‘Keeping busy?’
‘That’s the sort of question my hairdresser asks,’ said Samson.
‘I’ll come to the point,’ said Nyman, pausing to pat down his pockets for something. Eventually, he produced a tin of mints, took one and proffered the open tin. Samson shook his head. ‘Yes, you see, your chap Ray Shepherd has been found dead. Nasty business. Tortured, then a bullet to the head. Someone wanted something from him. Once they’d got it – or not, as the case may be – they killed him, and left his body for all to see on the balcony of his flat overlooking the park.’ He grimaced with distaste. ‘An observant schoolboy spotted him on the school’s early-morning exercise in the park. He pointed out to his PE teacher that it was odd the man was sitting without a shirt on his balcony on a cold autumn day and odder still that, if you looked closely, he didn’t seem to possess a face.’
Samson said nothing.
‘You’re surely not going to pretend you didn’t know of Ray Shepherd?’
‘I’m not working for SIS, and I’m no longer at your disposal, Peter. So what I know and what I don’t is none of your bloody business.’
‘True, but you do have responsibilities as a citizen, and one of them is telling the police everything you know about Shepherd and why you were hired to investigate him. They will no doubt be interested to learn of the very considerable energy you applied to finding out that he owned a penthouse in this expensive block, the one that he was murdered in last night. Might put you in the frame as a suspect. Never know your luck.’
Samson didn’t rise to that. ‘What’s your interest?’
‘Well, for one thing, this character Shepherd might have looked the perfect gentleman but his rap sheet includes gangsterism, money-laundering, murder and mayhem. We have kept a watchful eye on him. You knew, of course, that he had snow on his boots.’ Nyman smiled to himself. ‘That’s what we used to say in the Cold War when things were oh so much simpler. But to a member of the younger generation who has no memory of those days, we say he was Russian, or possibly Ukrainian. But besides that, he was an anti-Semite. All in all, a grade-one shit.’
‘Sounds like it,’ said Samson, shifting. ‘Can I get you anything – coffee, water?’
Nyman shook his head. ‘I’m sure you don’t need your life further complicated by the police crawling through your affairs.’ Then he stopped and simulated forgetfulness. ‘Of course! I should have said how very sorry I was to learn of your mother’s death. She must be a great loss to you and your sister. It can’t be an easy time for you.’ His eyes swept the room and lingered on the wall of photographs he’d admired three years before. ‘It’s always a difficult moment, however old you are – becoming the next one on the conveyor belt to oblivion, and all that.’ His eyes returned to Samson. ‘You’ve had some problems, I know. Debts you inherited and debts you’ve made for yourself.’
‘My mother has nothing to do with this so please don’t embarrass me, or yourself, by thinking you can make some leverage out of her death and my position, which is, incidentally, perfectly secure.’ Nyman shook his head, as though this was the furthest thought from his mind. ‘It was a great shock and, yes, her death came at a difficult time for us,’ continued Samson, ‘but Leila and I will continue running the restaurant and, as you saw for yourself downstairs, we are already busy for lunch and there are two sittings for dinner that are booked out. We’ve had a lot of support from my mother’s regular customers.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. But you are doing other work besides ordering in the wine and tahini, yes? And that is because, before your mother’s death, you suffered a very big loss on the racecourse – a quarter of a million pounds, they say, on a horse you owned called Legend Run. Sire, Midnight Legend; dam, Deep Run, eight years old and a big, big jumper. I didn’t think you touched the jumps, Samson, because everything is, as it were, up in the air.’ He smiled at this feeble joke. ‘You see, I know all about it. I’ve read up on it. The horse wasn’t running under your name that day at Newbury, as is often the case with owners who like to hide their interest, but it was yours all right and you made that huge bet. I don’t need to remind you this was precisely the scenario envisaged by the risk-averse fusspots of the HR department, which is why you were defenestrated.’
‘So what do you want from me?’
‘I want to stay on the subject of that race for the moment. Why on earth did you make that bet? What in heaven’s name induced you?’
Samson wasn’t going to give Nyman the pleasure of gloating. ‘It was in the racing press – read it for yourself.’ It had been a disaster, and it was all due to the setting sun at Newbury Racecourse, which at particular times of the year shines along the line of the five fences on the home straight. The racecourse authorities deem this to be a hazard for the jockeys because they are blinded by the sun and cannot see when to kick their horse over the jump, or where they are landing. After a hurried consultation, the stewards removed the five jumps from the race, placing boards along the top of the fences, leaving just seven fences on the far side of the course. Legend Run loved the air. He gained as much as a length and a half over every fence. On the flat, he was as good as any of his regular opponents and more tenacious at the finish. He was the perfect steeplechaser and at the height of his powers, but the absence of those five fences made all the difference and he struggled to make third. Samson had committed his money long before there was any question that the sun would show itself on that otherwise overcast afternoon. The only good thing about the day was that Anastasia hadn’t been there to see his humiliation. By then, their break was complete.
Nyman sucked at his mint and revolved it around his mouth contentedly. ‘I suppose the point I’m making, in an oblique way, is that the story about your gambling debts and those that your mother left on this place might explain why you were so interested in tracking down Ray Shepherd and relieving him of some of the enormous funds at his disposal.’
Samson smiled. ‘Now you’re being silly, Peter. How much money did he have?’
‘Tens of millions. We’re trying to trace it, which is why we want to know who you’re working for.’
‘You’re going to have to ask Macy about all that.’
Nyman produced his pained look. ‘I was rather hoping to keep this between ourselves. I have a problem with private-intelligence companies – I suppose it’s the difference between working for the public good and making money.’
‘You were happy to resort to the private sector to find Naji in the Balkans.’ Samson smiled. ‘Look, I told Macy you were here. Anything you have to say to me, you say to Macy. That’s the way we work. And let me make a couple of things clear. Please don’t try to intimidate me with any financial difficulties you think I have and don’t expect me to breach client confidentiality.’
‘Ah, I see. You don’t know who the clients are?’
‘It’s not your business.’
‘Perhaps I can help you out a little. They’re American and they’re acting through a proxy named Zillah Dee. She’s an interesting person – a very modern person. And I don’t just mean young. She leaves the NSA by mutual agreement and looks for all the world like an East Coast debutante. She’s the CEO and founder of a company called Dee Strategy, and here I quote from the company’s landing page, “Dee Strategy Inc. is an elite corps of former US, European and Israeli intelligence officers. Operating out of Washington and Tel Aviv, DSI provides litigation support, financial investigation and conflict resolution.”’
‘I’ve never heard of her.’
‘Well, she’s very pally with Macy and she’s been here twice over the last two weeks. Flies into Blackbushe Airport on a jet – a Gulfstream G550 – and takes the helicopter into Battersea, whence she is conveyed to the offices of Hendricks Harp in Mayfair. I just assumed that, if you were doing the work, you must have met her and that you knew she was using Denis Hisami’s company jet.’
Hisami’s involvement was certainly news to him, but he showed no surprise. No doubt that was the reason Macy had been so cagey with him.
‘If that’s all,’ he said, rising, ‘I should be getting on with ordering the tahini. If you want more, go see Macy.’
A hangdog look was followed by a pout. ‘Later, Samson, later,’ said Nyman. He clambered from the chair with a little grunt and moved to the door, pausing on the way to look at the photographs. ‘You understand that I must inform the police and security services about your connection to Shepherd – as a matter of openness and cooperation.’
‘You must do as you see fit.’
‘These photographs are so poignant now that both your parents are gone. Must be sad for you to see them in the splendour of their youth. They were a very glamorous couple. Beirut was where they came from, wasn’t it? Marvellous place in the fifties and sixties – it’s where that drunk Kim Philby lived before he bolted to Russia, you know.’
‘An age ago,’ said Samson.
‘I suppose so, but we’ve got the same problems now as then, only the people causing them are no longer labelled communists.’ With this he gave a curious flick of his hand and vanished through the door to the stairway.
Samson picked up the phone, then replaced it and took one of the five mobile phones on charge in the cupboard on his father’s side of the desk and called Macy Harp. ‘He says our friend has been killed,’ he said. ‘Found on the balcony at Hyde Park.’
‘You’d better come round.’
It was a minute’s walk but Samson didn’t make it. He had gone a few paces from the Cedar’s entrance when two men emerged from an unmarked Range Rover and intercepted him. One held out a Metropolitan Police ID while the other stood back slightly, as though Samson were going to make a run for it.
‘We’d like to ask you some questions, sir,’ said the one who’d shown his card. ‘It won’t take long.’
‘Am I being arrested?’
‘No, but we’d like you to come with us now, sir. It’ll save a lot of fuss if we get this over with.’
‘I’m late for a meeting. I’d better phone.’
‘We’d rather you didn’t, sir, if you wouldn’t mind.’
‘I’m not under arrest.’
‘No, but we do need to talk to you urgently.’ The other policeman took hold of Samson’s arm and steered him towards the car, where a third man waited in the back seat. He was no more a policeman than Samson was.