Lee Child - Personal

‘It’s right there by the door.’

‘No, that’s something else. It’s much smaller than the Bentley.’

‘No, the house is much bigger.’

‘Than a car?’

‘Than a normal house. Little Joey is six feet eleven inches tall. Eight-foot ceilings don’t appeal to him. Regular doorways make him stoop. That house is a normal house, except every dimension on every blueprint was increased by fifty per cent. All in perfect proportion. Like it had swollen up, uniformly. The opposite of a doll’s house. An exact replica, but bigger, not smaller. The doors are more than nine feet high. The ceilings are way up there.’

I looked again, and focused on the car, and forced myself to see it for the size it really was, whereupon the house did exactly what Bennett had said. It swelled up, in perfect proportion. An exact replica, but bigger.

Not a doll’s house. A giant’s house.

I sat back.

I said, ‘What do regular people look like, when they go in and out?’

Bennett said, ‘Like dolls.’

Casey Nice squeezed behind me, and sat on a stool, and took a look for herself.

I said, ‘Tell me what you’ve seen so far.’

Bennett said, ‘First of all remember where we are. We’re right next to the motorway up to East Anglia, and right next to the M25, where we can go either east or west, or we could go the other way, and be lost in the East End ten minutes from now. It’s a plausible centre for operations. That’s why they all check in here. Not just because Joey is a control freak. He came to them. That’s why he built his house here, I’m sure of it. He thinks a good boss is always on top of every detail.’

‘Who have you seen checking in here?’

‘Lots of people. But we can explain them all.’

‘Talk me through it.’

‘We knew something was about to happen, because Joey suddenly doubled his personal guard. At the time we didn’t know why, but now we guess that was when Kott and Carson made their initial contact, before the job in Paris. And now they’re here, as promised, and they need guards of their own, and food, and entertainment, all of which would come through here.’

‘Even if they’re hiding far away?’

‘Far away for Joey Green means the other side of the M25. We’re not talking about the Highlands of Scotland. Thirty minutes from here is the remotest place Joey ever heard of.’

‘But you’re not seeing it?’

Bennett shook his head, no. He said, ‘We would expect a consistent pattern, something extra, laid on top of their normal activity, but we’re not getting it. There are occasional stray vehicles, and we track them as far as we can. We’ve even done computer simulations, based on which way they’re heading. They never go anywhere useful.’

Beside me Casey Nice said, ‘Maybe Kott and Carson went back to France, to wait. Much less vulnerability there, wouldn’t you think? Because we’re looking for them here. Maybe this is a just-in-time thing. Maybe they’re planning a last-minute return. Which would explain what you’re seeing. Or not seeing. People who aren’t actually here at the moment wouldn’t need feeding.’

Bennett said, ‘Why would they risk the lockdown? That would be unprofessional.’

I said, ‘Which Carson isn’t, right?’

‘Is Kott?’

‘Kott would look at the lockdown like he looks at everything else. Distance, wind, elevation. All the data. He wouldn’t risk it, because he couldn’t predict it. Lockdowns are about emotion, not reason. I think Kott has been inside for days.’

‘So do we. But there’s no pattern here. Just the normal comings and goings.’

I said, ‘Is Joey home right now?’

‘Of course he is. His car is outside.’

I sat forward again, and looked. The immense door, dwarfing the car. The townhouse windows, as big as billiard tables. I said, ‘Maybe Kott and Carson are someplace where they don’t need Joey’s guys to bring them food. Maybe they’re ordering out. For pizza, or chicken, or cheeseburgers. Or kebabs. This part of town seems to have plenty of choice. Or maybe they’re both on a diet. And maybe they don’t want hookers.’

‘Kott was in prison fifteen years. He’s got a lot of catching up to do.’

‘Maybe the meditation straightened him out and made him pure of heart.’

‘They’d need guards, come what may. Partly because they need to rest and sleep, but also because Joey likes to put on a show. Four guys at a time, minimum, which is twelve guys a day. They’d rotate through here. No other way of doing it. For briefing, and debriefing. Joey is big on debriefing. The more he knows, the better he feels. Information is king. He’d want to know all their secrets. Might be useful in the future. The Karel Libor thing is going to start a fashion. They’re all going to want their own pet sniper.’

I said, ‘What does Joey do for food?’

‘He’s getting his deliveries as normal.’

‘Does he eat a lot?’

‘Twice as much as me. He’s twice the size. A van goes around the back to the kitchen. Sometimes twice a day. God forbid a gangster should have to go to the supermarket.’

‘Does he sample his hookers?’

‘He’s been known to give the fresh meat a run-out. But not often. He likes it rough. No good if his new stars are marked up for the first few weeks. So mostly he heads for the other end of the pipeline. He finishes off the used-up ones.’

‘Any recent increase in frequency?’

‘There are always hills and valleys.’

Beside me Casey Nice said, ‘Why haven’t you arrested him?’

‘The last time a witness spoke up against the Romford Boys was before you were born.’

I kept my eyes on the binoculars. Nothing was happening. The scene was static. I said, ‘So what are your theories?’

‘Some of us are thinking this cooperation with the Serbians might go back a month. Maybe that initial approach from Kott and Carson was a joint approach. In which case it would make sense to let the Serbians shelter them. Safer that way. We’re all over east London, for obvious reasons, and meanwhile they’re stashed way out in west London. Classic misdirection.’

‘Joey wouldn’t get his debriefs.’

‘That’s the main weakness in the theory. We think he could live with not knowing their secrets, because you don’t miss what you never had. But he couldn’t live with the Serbians getting them instead. Which emotion comes out on top? The behavioural psychology subcommittee is debating it now.’

‘The what?’

‘The behavioural psychology subcommittee.’

‘Anything else?’

‘The conventional in-house wisdom says we know there’s a safe house somewhere, and the problem is solved the minute we find it. London is full of cameras and recognition software, and we have a mass of real-time traffic data, and we’ve got the programmers working hard, and the analysts harder still.’

‘Who are all smart people, right?’

‘Very smart.’

‘Which is why you’re better than the NSA, right?’

‘And cheaper.’

I sat back.

I said, ‘I’m wondering why you brought us here. You could have just told us. You could have said, Joey has a house and nothing happens there.’

‘We’re sharing the data.’

‘You’re overcomplicating the data. Or blowing smoke.’

‘How so?’

‘To tell you that I would have to believe what you say.’

‘Why wouldn’t you?’

‘It’s a simple chain of logic, but I have to trust each component.’

‘Why wouldn’t you?’ he said again.

‘Those things you told us earlier. You have a no-humansinvolved protocol, with different procedures. You’re hacking our phones right now, as individuals. You’re hacking CIA communications generally. You could listen to the hot line into the Oval Office, if you wanted to, but you don’t, simply because of good manners. If all of that is true, then all of it has to be classified. You talk about it, you get sent to the Tower of London. You get your head cut off. Or whatever the modern equivalent is. A life sentence for treason.’