Jeffrey Archer - False Impression

Anna checked out of the hotel just after twelve. She took a train to the airport, no longer able to afford the luxury of a cab. She assumed that once she boarded the shuttle, the same man would be following her, and she intended to make his task as easy as possible. After all, he would already have been informed of her next stop.

What she didn’t know was that her pursuer was sitting eight rows behind her.

Krantz opened a copy of the Shinbui Times , ready to raise it and cover her face should Petrescu look around. She didn’t.

Time to make her call. Krantz dialed the number and waited for ten rings. On the tenth, it was picked up. She didn’t speak.

“London,” was the only word Fenston uttered before the line went dead.

Krantz dropped the cell phone out of the window, and watched as it landed in front of an oncoming train.

When her train came to a halt at the airport terminal, Anna jumped out and went straight to the British Airways desk. She inquired about an economy fare to London, although she had no intention of purchasing the ticket. She had only thirty-five dollars to her name, after all. But Fenston had no way of knowing that. She checked the departure board. There were ninety minutes between the two flights. Anna walked slowly toward Gate 91B, making sure that whoever was following her couldn’t lose her. She window-shopped all the way to the departure gate and arrived just before they began boarding. She selected her seat in the lounge carefully, sitting next to a small child. “Would those passengers in rows...” The child screamed and ran away, a harassed parent chasing after him.

Jack had only been distracted for a moment, but she was gone. Had she boarded the plane or turned back? Perhaps she had worked out that two people were following her. Did she have any idea how much danger she was in? Jack’s eyes searched the concourse below him. They were now boarding business class, and she wasn’t anywhere to be seen. He checked all the remaining passengers who were seated in the lounge, and he wouldn’t have spotted the other woman in his life if she hadn’t touched her hair, no longer a blonde crew cut, now a black wig. She also looked puzzled.

Krantz hesitated when they invited all first-class passengers to board. She walked across to the ladies’ washroom, which was directly behind where Petrescu had been sitting. She emerged a few moments later and returned to her seat. When they called final boarding, she was among the last to hand over her ticket.

Jack watched as Crew Cut disappeared down the ramp. How could she be so confident that Anna was on the London flight? Had he lost both of them again?

Jack waited until the gate closed, now painfully aware that both women were obviously on the flight to London. But there had been something about Anna’s manner since she’d left the hotel — almost as if, this time, she wanted to be followed.

Jack waited until the last airline official had packed up and gone. He was about to return to the ground floor and book himself on the next plane to London, when the door of the men’s washroom opened.

Anna stepped out.

“Put me through to Mr. Nakamura.”

“Who shall I say is calling?”

“Bryce Fenston, the chairman of Fenston Finance.”

“I’ll just find out if he’s available, Mr. Fenston.”

“He’ll be available,” said Fenston.

The line went silent and it was some time before another voice ventured, “Good morning, Mr. Fenston. This is Takashi Nakamura. How can I help you?”

“I just phoned to warn you—”

“Warn me?” said Nakamura.

“I’m told that Petrescu tried to sell you a Van Gogh.”

“Yes, she did,” said Nakamura.

“And how much did she ask for?” said Fenston.

“I think, to use an American expression, an arm and a leg.”

“If you were foolish enough to agree to buy the picture, Mr. Nakamura, it could end up being your arm and your leg,” said Fenston, “because that picture belongs to me.”

“I had no idea it belonged to you. I thought that it—”

“Then you thought wrong. Perhaps you were also unaware that Petrescu no longer works for this bank.”

“Dr. Petrescu made that all too clear, in fact—”

“And did she tell you she was fired?”

“Yes, she did.”

“But did she tell you why?”

“In great detail.”

“And you still felt able to do business with her?”

“Yes. In fact I am trying to persuade her to join my board, as CEO of the company’s foundation.”

“Despite the fact that I had to dismiss her for conduct unworthy of an officer of a bank.”

“Not a bank, Mr. Fenston, your bank.”

“Don’t bandy words with me,” said Fenston.

“So be it,” said Nakamura, “then let me make it clear that should Dr. Petrescu join this company, she will quickly discover that we do not condone a policy of swindling clients out of their inheritance, especially when they are old ladies.”

“Then how would you feel about directors who steal bank assets worth a hundred million dollars?”

“I am delighted to learn you consider the painting is worth that amount, because the owner—”

“I am the owner,” bellowed Fenston, “under New York state law.”

“Whose jurisdiction does not stretch to Tokyo.”

“But doesn’t your company also have offices in New York?”

“At last we’ve found something on which we can agree,” said Nakamura. “Then there’s nothing to stop me serving you with a writ in New York, were you foolish enough to attempt to buy my picture.”

“And in which name will the writ be issued?” asked Nakamura.

“What are you getting at?” shouted Fenston.

“Only that my New York lawyers will need to know who they’re up against. Will it be Bryce Fenston, the chairman of Fenston Finance, or Nicu Munteanu, money launderer to Ceauşescu, the late dictator of Romania?”

“Don’t threaten me, Nakamura, or I’ll—”

“Break my driver’s neck?”

“It won’t be your driver next time.”

There was a long pause, before Nakamura said, “Then perhaps I ought to reconsider whether it’s really worth paying that much for the Van Gogh.”

“A sensible decision,” said Fenston.

“Thank you, Mr. Fenston. You have convinced me that what I had originally planned might not be the wisest course of action, after all.”

“I knew you’d come to your senses in the end,” said Fenston, before putting down the phone.

When Anna boarded the flight for Bucharest an hour later, she felt confident that she had shaken off Fenston’s man. Following her call to Tina, they would have been convinced that she was on her way back to London to pick up the painting, where it’s always been . The sort of clue Fenston and Leapman would undoubtedly have argued over.

She had perhaps overdone it a little by spending so much time at the British Airways desk and then heading straight for Gate 91B when she didn’t even have a ticket. The little boy turned out to be a bonus, but even Anna was surprised by how much fuss he made when she’d pinched him on his calf.

Anna’s only real concern was for Tina. By this time tomorrow, Fenston and Leapman would realize that Anna had fed them false information, having obviously worked out that her conversations were being bugged. Anna feared that losing her job might end up the least of Tina’s problems.

As the wheels lifted off Japanese soil, Anna’s mind drifted to Anton. She only hoped that three days would have proved long enough.

Fenston’s man was chasing her down an alley. At the far end was a high, jagged stone wall covered in barbed wire. Anna knew there was no way out. She turned to face her adversary as he came to a halt only a few feet in front of her. The short, ugly man drew a pistol from his holster, cocked the trigger, grinned, and aimed it directly at her heart. She turned as she felt the bullet graze her shoulder... “If you would like to adjust your watches, the time in Bucharest is now three twenty in the afternoon.”