The Knowledge Read online

  Many years before, he had done this test for sixteen months before he’d sat in a cab with an examiner. He’d had a bad moment when the examiner had directed him to go from Marylebone to St. Pancras without taking Euston Road or even going round Euston Station. The area they were in was a web of one-way streets and public works. There literally wasn’t any way through all of this without using Euston Road.

  “Can’t be done,” Robbie had said.

  “Really? So what do you do, lad, if you’ve a fare that has to catch the two o’clock Eurostar?”

  “I wouldn’t be in this part of Marylebone in the first place.”

  The examiner liked that; it was by way of being a right answer. Then he had posed a series of, if not actually trick questions, questions that took a lot of thinking outside the box.

  He thought of all of this driving along the King’s Road. He turned into the Fulham Road toward the Old Brompton Road. What he was doing was going back, running a course parallel to the way they had come. His passenger must have been paying some sort of attention, for he said, as they passed the South Ken Tube station, “Thought South Kensington was where we came from.”

  “Right. It’s a very large area. This is the section that borders Mayfair.”

  “Mayfair? I just told you to take me to Greenwich, didn’t I?”

  Robbie said smoothly, “Yes, but to get there, we have to go through part of Mayfair. And you need to give me an address. Greenwich is an even bigger area. I have to cross the river and need to know which bridge to take.”

  “Take the nearest one.”

  The first cab, which was probably Brendan, was right on his tail, and the driver had switched off the FOR HIRE sign. The others, if they were back there, had too, but Robbie couldn’t tell which were in his entourage and which were regular cabs with passengers.

  As he approached the crowded pavements of Green Park Tube station and the Ritz Hotel, Robbie turned on the FOR HIRE sign, looked in his side-view mirror to see the cab behind do the same, and beyond that two other cabs between cars in busy Piccadilly were also alight.

  At least a dozen hands shot up in the air, couples from the Ritz, black ties and velvet, and before their astonished eyes, Robbie, then Brendan plowed on by. As did the two other FOR HIRE cabs. This was unthinkable: a whole crowd of people were now yelling; some were running. A small mob of Londoners, incensed that here were cabbies violating a cardinal rule.

  Robbie’s passenger—kidnapper, more to the point—twisted round and stared out of the back window at the fracas, which was now becoming a police fracas. There were uniforms around the Ritz and at least one police car had joined in.

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  “Don’t know.” Robbie was delighted with the now stalled traffic.

  “For God’s sake, get moving!”

  “We’re stuck in traffic, aren’t we?” A couple of well-dressed middle-aged men had caught up with their cab and were banging on a window. Unfortunately, space opened and he had to drive forward. All the way down Piccadilly to the Circus, cars moved out of the way, right and left, as if every driver in front of him felt cold steel plugged against his neck.

  Any other time, he thought glumly, nobody would have given an inch. You’d think he had the bloody Queen in his cab. He rounded Piccadilly Circus as far as Shaftesbury Avenue, where a hundred theatergoers should be wanting cabs if he weren’t too late.

  “So how far’s Greenwich?”

  A week away, he wanted to say. “Half hour, depending on traffic.”

  Covent Garden, to Aldwych and the Strand. From here he could see Waterloo Bridge, but then so could the SOB behind him. Robbie guessed he’d better take it. There were plenty of places to get lost in in Southwark and Greenwich or wherever Wyatt Earp back there wanted to go.

  Robbie was really mad at himself for missing his chance with the Met at the Ritz. If only he’d wedged his cab in a little between curb and cars, or if only … if only, if only. Moreover, he’d now lost his pals, who had probably got jammed up with the cops.

  “This is Waterloo Bridge,” he said. Might as well point out the landmarks.

  “Let’s get the hell across it.”

  Southwark at the other end was heavily populated. They’d be passing Waterloo Station, the Old Vic. Robbie idled at a light directly behind a new dove-gray Mercedes. What about a little accident? Just a rear-ender, maybe? That would bring the cops. It would also bring a furious owner, barreling out of the driver’s seat, back to the cab. And the gun. No, Robbie couldn’t involve anyone else.

  The light changed. The pristine Merc moved on. Robbie moved too.

  The traffic fanned out near Waterloo Station and Robbie was about to take a left when the voice from the rear seat said, “Here.”

  Sharply, Robbie turned. “What?”

  “Here. Drive into Waterloo.”

  “Waterloo Station? But you said Greenwich.”

  “No. Here.”

  Robbie shook his head and pulled into the station.

  Was this it, then? Robbie swallowed hard. The chips he’d eaten two hours ago threatened to make a return visit. They were hard in his stomach, like fear.

  He was stopped in the line of cabs under the station’s long arch.

  A hand thrust money through the open panel. It was not holding the gun. Two fifty-quid notes fluttered onto the seat. “Keep the change. You’re a helluva good driver.” The rear door opened and his passenger was gone.

  Robbie sat frozen as the guy moved through the glass doors, faded fast into the crowd. For such a big man he was agile.

  Not death, but a compliment.

  Robbie was so dazed by the fact of being alive, he forgot for a moment that he’d just dropped off a killer. Do something, arsehole, don’t just sit here! he ordered himself. Ignoring the protests of the taxi rank chief, Robbie left his cab and ran inside, searching for the police. Had all the bloody cops in Waterloo taken a hike? He ran back outside and along the line of cabs, looking for drivers he knew. He found Brendan Small.

  “He’s gone into the station. We’ve got to do something.”

  “What the hell’s going on, Rob?”

  “Who else was following?”

  “Don’t know. They just took it up.”

  “My radio’s out,” said Robbie. “We’ve got to find him. He’s over six feet, black guy. Gray overcoat, red scarf. He killed two people in front of the Artemis Club.”

  “What?” Brendan’s eyes grew wide. “He kills two people, then takes a train?”

  London, Artemis Club

  Nov. 1, Friday night

  2

  Detective Chief Inspector Dennis Jenkins looked down at the bodies of the victims as a small crowd of people stood back, two City Police uniforms in front of them in case the little crowd decided to surge forward. But they seemed content to remain on the low stone step in front of the door of the Artemis Club.

  The man, the shooter, “just came out of nowhere.” This was the observation of the middle-aged woman he was questioning, a woman wearing too vivid an orange for her age and girth.

  Jenkins asked, “Could you think back to that moment? There’s not much of a ‘nowhere’ to come out of here.” He nodded to the left and right. The Georgian property that housed the Artemis Club was flanked on the right by a redbrick building with a brass plaque that read “Peterman Insurance”; on the left was an undistinguished gray stone structure, unsigned, unidentified. “No cross street, no alleyways, only a few trees and low bushes.” On the other sides of the three buildings here on this little rise of ground were rows of terraced houses that could have been private dwellings, but were also businesses, small ones. Jenkins had dispatched two of his men, right and left, to knock on doors.

  The woman in orange was impatient at having her story called into question. “All I know is I had just stepped out of my car down there—” She pointed toward the street. “I was walking up the drive and was about to go into the club when this man just appeared.”r />
  “What about the victims? Where were they?”

  The word “victims” gave her a chill; she was not looking their way. “Well, they had got out of their cab—”

  “You didn’t have an attendant park your car?”

  “No. It’s a brand-new Lamborghini and you know how these people who park cars love to ride around in them.”

  Jenkins didn’t know. “Did this man appear at the same time the couple got out?”

  She put her beringed hand to her forehead, thinking it over. “I was here,” she said, pointing down. “The cab was there, the man with the gun there, walking toward them.”

  “So you didn’t see him before that?”

  “No, he was just there. As I said before.”

  “Yes, you did. Sorry to make you say it again. We appreciate your cooperation. Now, if you could just describe him.”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t get a good look at his face. He was tall. He was a black man, I think. Well, you must see how traumatic it all was. A person doesn’t take in everything—”

  “Boss.”

  This came from his detective sergeant, Nora Greene.

  Jenkins looked up from his notebook. “What?”

  “Do I get to question him?” She was looking toward the knot of spectators on the wide step.

  Jenkins followed her line of direction. “Who?”

  “That’s Leonard Zane,” she whispered excitedly.

  Leonard Zane was neither film star nor sports icon. He was the owner of the Artemis Club and a well-known art dealer. The combination of art gallery and exclusive casino had fascinated the press.

  “He wasn’t outside when it happened, Nora,” said Jenkins.

  “That’s all you can say?”

  “No, I can also say ‘no.’”

  “Come on, boss, let me—”

  “Burns talked to him, Nora. You go and talk to the parking guy.”

  “Guv—” She was whining and standing first on one foot, then another, as if she had to pee.

  “Nora.” Jenkins’s tone and eyes put a stop to her pleading.

  Jenkins left it to the medic to shift the two bodies from the drive to the mortuary van. He made his way through the knot of bystanders to the front door. All had been briefly questioned by Jenkins’s men. The couple had been shot when the gamblers and diners were all inside, in either the casino or the restaurant. No one had been standing before the high windows looking out on the drive.

  The Artemis Club was one of London’s hot spots; some would say, the hottest. The casino gave the gallery juice; the gallery lent the casino gravitas. It had been Leonard Zane’s idea, this one-two punch.

  Inside, Jenkins had run his eyes over the restaurant on the right and over what looked like a library on the left, walls studded with books, upholstered chairs and library lamps. There was a beautiful wide staircase with a velvet rope drawn across it. Jenkins was about to unhook the rope when he heard a voice behind him.

  “The gallery is closed.”

  The man who spoke was the one that Nora had been so eager to interview: Leonard Zane.

  “Mr. Zane? I’m Detective Chief Inspector Jenkins, City Police.” Jenkins held up his ID.

  “I’m not sure what art has to do with this shooting, Inspector.”

  Leonard Zane was in his forties. He was unmarried, rich, handsome. Jenkins knew this because Zane was so often in the paper. He hated having his photo taken, yet photographs kept appearing. He hated interviews, yet interviews were always turning up in newspapers or magazines such as Time Out. Zane put out his arm by way of invitation. “Could we sit down in my office and talk?”

  “Of course,” said Jenkins as he followed Zane into a very snug room off the library. It was small and elegant: a lot of zebrawood and mahogany, oriental carpeting, paintings and a safe built into one wall. They sat down, Zane in his desk chair, Jenkins in a club chair on the other side of the desk.

  Jenkins said, “I’m not sure what art has to do with it either. Only it’s part of the crime scene.”

  “The crime scene is outside, surely.”

  Instead of commenting on that, Jenkins said, “You didn’t know this couple?” Jenkins looked at his notebook “David Moffit and his wife, Rebecca?”

  “They’d never been to the casino. I’d have said so, if they had.”

  “Everyone who visits the establishment is vetted. That’s my understanding. No cold callers come here.”

  “That’s true, Inspector. Only I don’t do the vetting. My assistant does that.”

  “He is—?”

  “She. Maggie Benn. You’ll want to talk to her, I expect.”

  “I will, yes. Tell me, what’s the maximum number of customers you allow on any given night?”

  “Fifty. That pretty much fills the room. Of course, people leave the casino floor for the restaurant. If the crowd in the casino thins out enough, we let others come in.”

  Jenkins was mystified by this. “You make it sound as if people are queuing at the door.”

  “There’s no queue, though that might be fun—thanks for the idea.”

  Thanks for the idea?

  “City Police are full of them, Mr. Zane. But as there isn’t a queue, then how do these people know they’re welcome?”

  “They get a call. They’re told that if they come right away they’ll be admitted.”

  “And people go for that?”

  Zane nodded. “I’m not sure why; I think it’s quite amusing.”

  Dennis Jenkins thought it was quite outlandish. “Is there really that much cachet attached to your club?”

  “Apparently.” Zane made it sound as if he didn’t figure in this transaction. “You’re City Police, is that right, Inspector?”

  Jenkins nodded. “Chief Inspector, actually.” He thought he’d work a little of his own cachet into this.

  “Oh. Sorry. I ask only because if these people were Americans, why isn’t the American embassy getting involved?”

  “Who said they were Americans, Mr. Zane?”

  Leonard Zane lobbed that ball back handily. “The fact that I don’t do the vetting doesn’t mean I don’t know who’s coming. I get the list of each night’s guests by around six P.M.”

  “So this list told you the Moffits were from the States?”

  “It told me more than that. It told me David Moffit was known in gambling circles—I leave it to you to sort out what percentage of the population that might cover—known for winning with some sort of system.”

  The door was open and Jenkins heard steps approaching across the soft carpet.

  “Leo!” A distraught, youngish woman appeared in the doorway. “My God, Leo—”

  He stood. “It’s all right, Maggie. This is Detective Chief Inspector Jenkins. Maggie Benn, Chief Inspector.”

  He stood, but she barely glanced at Jenkins; her attention was all for Leonard Zane. “Two people shot right in front of the club, in front of the Artemis Club!”

  As if a shooting in front of any other club would have been acceptable, thought Jenkins. He found Maggie Benn to be an oddly dressed-down version of a casino manager. The place was glamorous; she was not. Jenkins had seen the chandeliers, the shadowed wall sconces, the crystal, the sweeping staircase. Maggie Benn hadn’t a touch of glamour. Her hair was pulled straight back in a bun; she wore no makeup except for a faint wash of lipstick, no jewelry except for a blue gemstone ring.

  Jenkins said to her, “So you knew the Moffits were coming.”

  “The Moffits? Of course I knew.”

  “They were Americans.”

  She shook her head. “He was; she wasn’t. She was British. Dual citizenship.”

  “Did they live in London?”

  “No. In the States. New York … at least he taught there.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Jenkins. “It’s my understanding you have a waiting list a year long. How did he get in at such short notice?”

  “Well, it wasn’t that short. He wrote from the
States. And because of who he is.”

  “And who’s that?”

  “He’s a well-known professor of physics at Columbia University. He’s also a gambler.”

  “You know a lot about him.”

  “Ten minutes on the Web.”

  Leonard Zane said, “Mr. Moffit had been asked to leave a casino in Atlantic City after something like seven or eight consecutive wins at the blackjack table. That’s improbable. He must have been cheating.” Zane shrugged. “If he wasn’t, I’d love to know what his system was.”

  “Leo, the Mail has already called. They want an interview.”

  “You know I hate that, Maggie. How in hell did they hear about this, anyway?”

  Jenkins studied Leonard Zane. There was some inherent contradiction in him: he ostensibly hated publicity—photos, interviews—yet he was always being photographed and interviewed. But he managed never to say anything of substance about himself.

  Smoke and mirrors, thought Dennis Jenkins.

  Waterloo Station, London

  Nov. 1, Friday night

  3

  “Where are the kids?”

  “I’m gettin’ ’em,” said Brendan Small, tapping a number in on his mobile. “Jimmy—we need you to eyeball a guy and follow him. Tall, black, gray overcoat, red scarf. Get the word out. We want to stop him but don’t want you kids doin’ anything foolish … Yeah, very funny. Just see if you can keep this bloke in your sight. Henry can see through brick. He’s good … Oh, don’t be so touchy, kid. We know you’re all good or you wouldn’t be workin’ for us. Now get on with it.”

  Henry could indeed see through brick, so to speak. His eyes were lasers and they were currently trained on a little drama taking place near the Portsmouth departure barrier: a guy in suit and tie who looked like a businessman but was really a dip had his hand in a big sequined bag casually slung over the shoulder of a woman dressed in splendid clothes and gabbing nonstop on her mobile, all unaware of the hand removing something. What? Henry’s eyes narrowed to slits—Wallet? Too thin. Passport? Likely. The thief then slicked off through the queue waiting for the Bournemouth train and the others just waiting. Henry would have done something about this theft, followed the guy and slipped a hand into his pocket and retrieved the passport or whatever it was. Henry being a dip himself, for there was nothing quite as satisfying to his trade as dipping a dip.