Page 78

BOOK 3

‘For now they kill me with a living death.’

Richard III, William Shakespeare

CHAPTER 20

MILES CALLED HIS LAWYER, WHOwas fast asleep when the phone rang.

Booth Watson knew exactly who it would be on the other end of the line at that time of night. He now also knew what it was his client had anticipated would be dominating the news headlines while he was on the other side of the Atlantic.

Booth Watson had left his copy of theLondonEvening Standardon the table by the phone. He picked it up and once again glanced at the front page as he answered the phone.

PROSTITUTE MURDERED

IN WEST END HOTEL

MAN ARRESTED

Booth Watson had read the story twice before he worked out the connection between Miles and the death of a London hooker. It wasn’t until he’d turned the page that he realizedAvril Dubois, aka Jenny Prescott, was the woman who was rumoured to be the defence’s key witness in the Simon Hartley trial. You didn’t have to read between the lines to realize that not only would her evidence have proved Hartley was innocent, but that she would have also named the guilty party.

It had taken Booth Watson a little longer to work out what Miles would expect in return for making sure Ms Dubois never got as far as the airport.

He waited for his instructions, assuming he would be representing the man who had been arrested.

Booth Watson began to wonder, for a moment, just how much longer he could go on representing a man who had no moral compass, and considered the murder of a young woman and the theft of a national treasure were no more than an inconvenience if the financial reward was big enough.

‘I’ve just left Christie’s,’ said Miles, ‘and I think you’ll find my five hundred thousand pounds has been well invested, and you’ll be well rewarded for attending Lord Hartley’s funeral.’

The moment of doubt had passed.

•••

The team sat in silence around the Commander’s desk, as theyread the headline in the first edition of theEvening Standard. Long before the morning papers had hit the streets, their crime correspondent had worked out the Saudi connection, guaranteeing that while Simon Hartley was still languishing in jail, the story would run and run.

Ross continued to stare at a photo of Avril that dominated the front page, before saying, ‘I have no choice but to resign.’

‘That would be the easy way out,’ said the Commander,‘because if you were to resign, you’ll be leaving the rest of us to pick up the pieces.’

‘You won’t need to, I’d take the law into my own hands,’ said Ross. This created a different silence which the Commander broke, as if he hadn’t heard the threat.

‘Let’s start by trying to piece together the few facts we have at our disposal,’ said the Commander. ‘We think Faulkner met the accused on the London Eye some time on the afternoon of Sunday the sixth. However, other than a blurred CCTV image of a man wearing a baseball cap and dark glasses, what else do we have to go on?’

‘The accused, Kevin Scott, is being represented by none other than Mr Booth Watson QC, which one might feel is more than a coincidence.’

‘He’d happily represent the devil,’ said Ross. ‘But not until his fee had been agreed.’

‘Has Scott said anything that might incriminate him?’ asked the Hawk, once again ignoring him.

‘After six hours of interrogation,’ said William, ‘all we have for our troubles is one of his three names, along with four addresses.’

‘We’re clearly dealing with a pro,’ said the Hawk.

‘Where was Booth Watson’s principal client when the murder took place?’

‘He’s still holed up in his hotel suite in New York,’ said William, after checking an email that had just been placed in front of him from his friend, Special Agent James Buchanan in Washington. ‘During the time he’s been in the States, he’s visited a Professor Rosenberg in Princeton, New Jersey, and attended at least two meetings with the chairman of Christie’s auction house in New York.’

‘So what’s the connection between those two?’ said the Hawk. ‘Is it possible Faulkner was doing no more thanestablishing an alibi, to show he couldn’t have had anything to do with Avril’s murder, as he was on the other side of the Atlantic at the time? But do we have anything other than Booth Watson to link the two men?’