Chapter Fifteen
Savage took up position in a coffee house opposite the main entrance of the building. It could have been the eighteenth century, business at high speed over the black liquid drug, gin houses replaced by gastro-pubs and food chains. The Brits over-compensated for their poor food reputation now, hence the pregnant bellies on all the men.
Or maybe it was beer and football. He'd once been the same. Slightly pudgy. He flexed a fist just to feel some sinew.
They all shaved their heads too as if, somehow, hair displayed weakness. The anti-Samsons' girlfriends all read the same articles he supposed: if it's thinning, shave it. The British male took his lashes from the whip and off it came.
Funny how trends and rumours got started. Like the one about him killing Michael. His younger self was still whining about it, but he'd have to get over it, there was work to do. And if the surveillance wouldn't come to Mohammed, then Mohammed would get off his holy backside and do it himself.
He picked up another one of the advert-driven free papers that littered the city, identical press release stories rehashed across a deluge of boiler-plate publications.
Some celebrities he'd never heard of made pronouncements about the world, or their love lives. Politicians lied. Footballers kicked balls. If that was keeping abreast of current affairs, Savage thought, you could keep it.
He checked out the men on the tables around him. Were any of them on surveillance? How could you tell? Everyone read papers on the Wharf.
A man with a light salmon-coloured Financial Times drew the eye. With an ill fitting blue suit and strained squint at the paper, how could he not?
Savage zoned him out and checked all his devices were working. No hits yet. But all he had to do was wait. With feathers suitably ruffled the birds would soon fly from the party. Whoever came out first, that's who he'd follow.
He didn't wait long. Armstrong barrelled through the doors, head down, and sped up the street.
Savage tried not to look obvious and got up to follow. Going grey as the spooks liked to call it.
You never did surveillance on your own. But, he had no choice. There were two other golden rules: don't allow multiple sightings and don't act out of the ordinary.
Nigh on impossible when the mark already knows your face and you've just embarrassed him in front of his boss.
With Thomson's resources Savage would have had four working a box system, mobiles on standby in car or on bike. The watchers would change over regularly and have radio-clickers up their sleeves to communicate without having to speak – no secret servicemen ear pieces like on TV.
Needs must.
Savage tracked Armstrong from the opposite side of the main street, a towering corridor of granite and glass, towards One Canada Square. Armstrong ducked around a corner quickly and down some stairs, pushed past a man walking in the same direction, in, wait for it, a brown pinstripe – a man clearly pushing the corporate fashion envelope.
The steps led down to one of the Wharf's Open Spaces. Note the capital letters. They weren't just parks, they were Open Spaces, it's wasn't all work and money on the Isle of Dogs.
Armstrong strode across the grass. A jazz band played to an audience of six people, official guests stood under a canopy sipping wine, looking at the sky and hoping it wouldn't rain.
After three long years in the desert Savage hoped it would.
Armstrong picked up the pace and skipped through the tube station's double doors.
Savage trotted to catch up, pushed through, and saw Armstrong double-back and head in the opposite direction toward a bank of escalators that lead up and outside.
Did he know he was being followed?
There were five gleaming steel escalators, Savage took the one furthest to the right. Armstrong glanced back over his left shoulder.
Armstrong suspected, even if he didn't know.
At the top of the escalator the sun shone and rain poured. A concise summary of British weather. Office girls squealed as they tried not to get their clingy shirts wet.
Savage scanned the crowds and saw his target scooch across the road, a taxi beeped. Armstrong turned up the block towards the cavernous Heron Quays Station.
He walked quickly after him. The building to his left used to belong to Merrill Lynch. It had always reeked of money when he walked by. Now taken over by a triple-barrelled accounting firm nobody had ever heard of. They probably owned the world.
He stepped out of the rain into the station. Two stairways led up, two platforms. He gambled and took trains heading south. On the empty platform the electronic announcement board said there was another train due in one minute.
He saw Armstrong standing at the left end of the platform. Savage headed right and kept his back to him. The seconds ticked by. Savage caught his breath, the chase always freed him from worry.
Then the sun broke through the open end of the station. The rays reflected off the rain drops in multi-coloured hues. A promise of beautiful rainbows in the grey centre of Moneytown. For a moment Savage actually felt like smiling.
The small Docklands Light Railway train trundled up the track, somehow childlike compared to the dirty beasts that lived deep in the Underground. When the doors opened he risked a look back and saw Armstrong step onto the front carriage.
He took the third carriage of four and moved to a standing position behind two businessmen. You could see right the way along the carriages, no connecting doors on the DLR.
The train moved off.
It rattled along like a funfair ride, short stops between stations. Walkable, except for the prevalence of old docks, landing bays and flooded industrial estuaries. Bombed to rubble by the Nazis, Canary Wharf was the phoenix risen from the ashes.
The name of one station, Mudchute, conjured up images of what used to be there. Island Gardens, a promise of what the future held.
They crossed under the Thames and at the Cutty Sark Station in Greenwich Armstrong stepped off.
He passed Savage's carriage and headed towards the stairs. The doors beeped their warning for about-to-close and Savage fell in step behind Armstrong.
Too close. Savage stopped and let Armstrong create distance as he climbed the concrete stairs to ground level. Savage glanced back at the platform. The squinting man from the café stood there alone. Waiting for a connection?
Savage turned. Headed up the crowded stairs, impatient commuters pushed to be the first one out. It could be a coincidence, of course. Squint eyes could have gotten on the DLR stop before them.
Savage pushed behind Armstrong at the top of the stairs. He'd wanted to put a tracker on the Relationship Director's Blackberry, with GPS as standard it'd take two minutes to install the software. Instead the small GPS device Savage pulled out of his pocket slid easily into the front of Armstrong's executive satchel.
Savage disengaged and examined the tube map on the wall. The tourists and suits finished their scrum to the outside world. Squint eyes one of them.
The crowd thinned, Savage stepped into an alleyway outside. It led to the Cutty Sark at one end, the high street at the other.
A man in brown pin-stripes leaned against the window of McDonald's. The same man Armstrong had barged out the way. No way he'd have made the train without running. And he was eyes-on which ever exit Savage took.
In the familiar surroundings of Greenwich Savage longed for serious fire power. Different rules applied though, he really would get banged up here for the things he could do.
The pin-striped man's eyes registered his position without looking directly at him.
Savage moved quickly up the alleyway.
He pushed through the tourists and across a stationary double-layer of traffic. Then three things happened at once. On his left a neat middle-aged man talking on his phone turned in the same direction. To his right, on the other side of the road, a woman checked her make-up and watched him in her compact. Even further to the right a scooter pulled around the corner – the spot where he would have emerged at the other end of the alleyway – and moved steadily along the inside line of traffic.
Were they cops? Thomson's men? Or just his rampant paranoia?
The entrance to Greenwich's covered market beckoned. Banners for a week long Greenwich Festival fluttered in the wind.
Two walls lined with fresh cooked Brazilian, French and South African food stalls greeted him where yeoman once bartered for a boat's booty from the new world.
He fought his way through bemused shoppers and burst into the larger covered area.
The bulk of the market contained art stalls, photography, jewellery, miracle cures, artisan bags, soaps, kids toys and mulled wine, things you'd never think to make yourself. Crafted products the high street never stocked. Boutique shops along every wall.
Exits?
One behind, one in each far corner, one directly ahead, another to the middle right? If his memories were up to the job.
He ignored the complaints of the people he shoved. Some shoved back. Then stopped next to a man with long wispy hair who tootled on a miniature saxophone. A haunting sound.
Through the saxophone player's arms he saw the middle-aged man barge hard into the crowd. The man tried to look away from Savage, but couldn't tear his eyes away in time.
He snarled and pushed harder.
Still tootling, the saxophone player poked Savage, smiled, then spread his free arm out to the wooden miniature saxes, shaped like flutes, on the table beside him.
'How much?' Savage pointed at one two feet long.
The man took his mouth away, 'Forty five,' and then played again.
Savage stripped two twenties and a ten out of his wallet and picked the instrument up.
Savage took off across the middle passageway between the lines of stalls and over to the other side.
The middle-aged man didn't follow behind.
Savage leaned flush against the last stall in the line. He held back, for just a moment, until he heard fast moving footsteps, then swung at neck-height.
The middle-aged man stopped breathing when the wooden sax hit him in the throat. Savage twirled the instrument like a baton, Kali style. The man's knee crunched with the next swing and he fell sideways.
His radio crackled, clicked three times. The man didn't see the final blows.
Savage left him on the floor, still breathing.
The woman selling bags next to him shouted something, Savage didn't hear what, too busy working on his next move.
If Savage ran the surveillance the woman with the compact would now be moving in on one exit, squint eyes, pin-stripe and the bike on the others. There should be another mobile unit also ready to pursue, no matter which exit he took.
He passed the sax player's stall. The man held up a five pound note, 'Your change, sir?'
Savage dropped the now crippled sax on the table and headed to the side passageway between stalls and shops. An open alley and daylight beckoned.
He pushed on past it through the smoking area of a pub at the top of the market.
Three exits left. He chose the right hand one and then ducked into a clothes shop filled with designer-labelled Goths and skater kids. It cost a lot to be radical these days.
The shop had a second entrance on the high street. He strode through the shoppers and paused at the door. Whichever direction he took he'd be eyes-on again.
What was his objective?
He pulled out his phone. Four notifications from the company that supplied the GPS unit. Armstrong was on the move.
He clicked the link. It took him to a Google Earth view of Greenwich. Red dots showed Armstrong's walk from the station, along the high street round by the theatre and then in to the bottom entrance of Greenwich Park.
Savage grabbed a tracksuit top from a rail, put it over his suit jacket, grabbed a beanie for his head. Slapped more notes on the shop counter.
'Sir, I need to—'
He walked out of the shop. Head down. Straight through the stalled lines of Greenwich traffic. Restaurants lined the other side of the street. Mexicans, Japanese, Vietnamese, French. He pushed through the first door he came to and saw a glass canopy at the rear of the building. He moved quickly to the back.
'Good afternoon sir, would you like a table?' a teenage maitre d' said.
'My friends,' Savage pointed at a table with good-looking people on it and didn't break stride. Heard an, 'Okay sir,' once he'd passed.
The good-looking people stopped talking.
'Hi,' he said, and then opened the glass door of the conservatory behind them.
A hip youngster with skin-tight jeans hung low like a nappy looked up through a cloud of cigarette smoke. Then his girlfriend. Their matching hats big enough for their non-existent dreadlocks.
'Excuse me,' Savage said.
He pushed between them, jumped onto the wall and slid over the top.
He landed in an empty yard. A building project about to happen. Another forty metres in the same direction and he leapt onto an even higher wall.
A man with a giant moustache was filling a wheelie bin on the other side.
He smiled up at Savage, amused by what the day could bring.
'Allo?' he said, a French accent.
Savage looked at the sign behind the man. A jazz club, named after its proprietor.
'Olivier?' Savage gambled.
'Yes, of course,' he said, taking a long draw of his cigarette as if inhaling the world through a straw.
Savage pointed to a small gated archway next to a basement door. 'Can I get out that way?'
'Sure,' he said. 'Gate's open.'
Savage jumped down.
'Hey, we open at six tonight by the way. A local band playing, young, from the music college, but good.'
Savage couldn't keep the smile off his face, 'Thanks, if I get half a chance—'
The man nodded and went back to the bins. He'd seized the unexpected marketing opportunity with a stranger, now back to business.
Crowded deli tables took up space on the pavement opposite the theatre. The sun had come out again and Londoners always made the most of it.
Savage checked his phone. Armstrong was already halfway through the park. He scanned both ends of the street. Saw nobody he recognised and broke into a run.
Scantily clad Londoners lay on the grass, bathed in the rays, played football, frisbee, or walked the dog. He sprinted up the hill towards the far end of the park. Brown-skinned tourists fed the squirrels the same way white-skinned tourists fed monkeys anywhere else.
He'd lost too much time and pushed hard to catch the man up. At the deer enclosure he caught sight of Armstrong and slowed his pace to match.
Savage sweltered in the hat and extra layer, but it was the best disguise he'd get.
At the park exit Armstrong crossed the busy road on to Blackheath. Where Greenwich changed from tourist to local. Another one of those areas 20 minutes from town, overlooked because it wasn't on the tube. The locals didn't miss a beat though, plush Georgian and Victorian piles had been bought up by south east Londoners with money.
It was where gangsters bought houses when they grew up.
The heath was an oddity, a large expanse of green with virtually no buildings or trees on it. Two busy roads criss-crossed it like a crucifix.
Armstrong headed for Blackheath village on the other side of the open expanse. The spike of the church his compass.
Savage trailed him to the central city block of the village lined with estate agents, clothing boutiques and restaurants.
Armstrong followed the right hand side of the block. Half way along a pumped up muscle-man in black stood outside a restaurant also painted black, with black tables inside its large windows, black drapes, black napkins in flutes, black candles in dark wine bottles. You get the picture. An Argentinian steak house. Empty at that time of day.
Muscles acknowledged Armstrong with a nod. Armstrong lifted his arms as if he'd done this before and let muscles pat him down. Arms, legs, pockets, crotch, base of the spine, back of the neck. The only thing he didn't do was check his shoes for explosives.
Muscles held the door open.
Savage strolled by on the other side of the road and saw Armstrong move cautiously down the steps into the dark basement.
Savage crossed to a poster shop on the next corner that sold antique prints at high prices and paperback books for pennies to lure punters through the door. It was that kind of neighbourhood. Back street boxing the only bigger lure than literature.
He shuffled through the paperbacks in shelves set out on the pavement and watched muscles.
He had his back to Savage and looked up and down the street. Nothing missed him obviously. At least that was the character he played. Savage didn't wait long.
Armstrong burst out of the front door past muscles and straight towards Savage.
Savage froze with nowhere to go. Until Armstrong walked right by him. No recognition. Could be the tears the man tried to hold back.
Savage fell into step behind him, took one last glance back at the restaurant. He'd have loved to walk in and find out more.
He focused back on his objective. Armstrong's shoulders were hunched up. A hand went to his face. Glances from the tables at the pavement cafés meant he was probably making a scene.
Savage followed Armstrong along another high street and then at Blackheath Station they hung a left, a civvy street. A nice one. Tall Georgian houses, high ceilings, elegant façades. And a dead end.
Savage slowed and waited for the man to run into a house, then walked to the end of the street. Just a pedestrian taking a wrong turn, he turned and walked back down. He couldn't stand outside watching. He'd be conspicuous in any outfit.
He connected to the internet on his phone. Hit the website for a new car service in London. Rentals by the hour, day, or week, parked at street locations all over the capital.
He clicked for a location. A five minute walk. A two minute run.
A few minutes later he pulled up across the road from the house in a small BMW city car and wished for a change of shirt. He took the free paper out of his bag and read it again.
And again. And again.
No movement in the house. Maybe Armstrong had already left? The bag and GPS already lying in a hallway somewhere? He dialled the relationship director's mobile number. No answer. He looked up his name and address in the online phone book. Nothing for a home phone.
He could find the info easily back at the office.
Echo picked up on the first ring.
'Be quick, I'm closing a deal,' she said.
'Armstrong's home number. Can you get it?'
'Wait,' she said. He heard her hand cover the mouthpiece, then, 'Anyone got the boss's home phone?'
Silence. Then someone distant said, 'Yo.' Bankers, just so street.
'Give me.' She replayed the number to Savage. 'Got it?'
'Yup,' she hung up.
The number rang. No answer machine.
Savage lowered the car window and heard the phone in the house. He let it ring and remembered Michael, the anticipation before the call that ended everything.
Through the frosted glass he saw a man's shape at the top of the stairs. Armstrong?
The man paused, manipulated something with his hands. Then walked down the stairs and picked up the phone on the stand.
Silence. Followed by a long sigh.
'It's John Savage. Can we talk?'
The man started to speak. Savage heard a clunk. He'd put the phone down but hadn't hung up.
'Armstrong?'
Through the window Savage saw the silhouette look down at the phone then turn up the stairs.
At the top he stopped and threw the object in his hands up in the air. The man did something to the object, pulled it, touched it to his head.
That damned frosted glass.
Savage realised he'd been here before – that last phone call.
Savage looked again.
The man jumped.
'No!'
Savage launched himself across the street past a mother and kids and up the steep steps to the front door. He saw the man's dangling feet jerk through the glass.
Savage stamped the lock on the door. It didn't give. The window did to a punch.
He reached in, turned the lock and ran for the man's feet, took the weight.
'Stay calm,' Savage said. 'I'll get you down.' And then realised he couldn't without letting go.
A woman screamed, 'Oh god, no.'
The mother he'd run past stood at the door, her shopping spilled to the floor. Her hand went to her mouth.
She shouldn't be there. She definitely shouldn't be the Chief Information Officer.
But she was.
'Help me,' Savage said, questions could wait.
'Kids,' she said, without taking her eyes off him. 'Go next door to Auntie Alice.'
'But mu-um,' a small voice said.
'Now,' she said. A shout. She watched for a few seconds more. Then ran in.
'What do you want me to do?' she said.
'Can you reach the rope from the top?'
'I'll try.'
Her face peered through the banister rails as she worked the knot. A groan came from the man. The sight of the woman perhaps.
'I knew you'd come,' she said.
Armstrong's body came loose and fell into Savage's arms.
Savage realised she was talking to him.