Chapter 93
‘Jesus, Poe!’ Susan said. ‘You scared the hell out of me. What on earth are you doing sitting in the dark?’
‘Waiting.’
‘Waiting? Waiting for who?’
‘For you.’
‘Why would you be waiting for me?’
Poe sighed. ‘We’re really doing this, are we?’
‘Doing what?’ she said, looking around Indica’s studio.
‘I’ll save you the time,’ Poe said. ‘There is no address underneath the yucca tree. If you take off that stupid mask, you’ll see there isn’t a yucca tree.’
‘You’re not making any sense, Poe. I’m here on official NCA business.’
‘Of course you are.’
‘I’m not required to explain operational decisions to a civilian, but in this case I’ll make an exception.
I get alerts on the investigation and I saw your stupid plan to leave the address of a material witness in an unsecured location.
I am merely taking steps to address this potentially catastrophic lapse in your judgement. ’
‘And the mask?’
She took it off. ‘I have hay fever.’
‘Oh, shut up,’ Poe said.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Do you want to know how I knew it would be you stepping through the door?’
‘You didn’t know shit, Poe.’
‘It was when you guys raided my office after you overheard me say I was about to delete Dongyang Dong’s email. Do you remember what you asked me?’
Susan didn’t respond.
‘You asked who it was who’d told me about the Red Chamber. And I said, “I met a couple of them in Newcastle. It’s how they introduced themselves”, and you said, “Really? How very careless of them.” Do you remember?’
‘Of course I remember,’ she said.
‘Thing is, when we were pretending we didn’t know you’d bugged our office, you guys overheard me say I’d met them when they ambushed me in the Szechuan Palace.
That it had been Dongyang Dong who’d told me about the existence of the Red Chamber.
I pretended he’d emailed me everything. But you knew he hadn’t.
And you knew this because it was you who’d sent him to Newcastle.
I imagine he reported directly back to you.
Probably complaining I’d twisted his balls.
And that meant someone else had told us about the Red Chamber and you wanted to know who that was.
It’s why you asked a question that on the face of it the NCA already had the answer to. ’
‘Is that it?’ Susan sneered. ‘That’s what all this is about? It’s feeble, Poe. Less than feeble. It’s absurd.’
‘Of course that isn’t it,’ Poe said. ‘On its own, it meant nothing. It could have been a slip of the tongue. Or an icebreaker. But when we realised the Red Chamber were getting their intelligence in real time, it gave us somewhere to start.’ He paused.
‘Or should I say it gave Tilly somewhere to start.’
‘Start what, you fucking moron?’
Poe ignored her. ‘She has your financials, your shell companies, the properties you’ve bought under various names.
She even has the safety deposit boxes where you’ve no doubt squirrelled away jewellery and watches and whatever else you’ve been buying with the obscene amounts of money the Red Chamber has been sending your way.
’ He let that hang in the air. ‘She’s put a freeze on all your bank accounts.
Flagged your safety deposit boxes as being used to hold illegal currency.
Your properties are now owned by a charity she supports.
You were rich this morning. Now you haven’t got a pot and I think you might need a piss. ’
‘But you … you can’t do that.’
‘You’re right, I can’t. But Tilly can. Tilly did. Took her less than an hour. Worst thing is, you’ll never be able to prove who it was who fucked you over.’
‘Bastard!’
‘Your old life is over, Susan. You’re either going to prison, probably for the rest of your life, or you’re helping the NCA pull apart the Red Chamber. Makes no difference to me. All I want is Esmerée.’
Susan slumped so much it was like she’d been punctured. ‘It seems you’ve thought of everything,’ she said softly.
Poe lifted his shoulders. ‘I do try to think ahead.’
Then she straightened. Smiled, not nicely. Reached into her waistband and pulled out a snub-nosed revolver. Pointed it at Poe’s head. Thumbed back the hammer.
‘Didn’t think of this, though, did you, you condescending bastard?
’ she snarled. ‘Now, you’re going to do two things – you’re going to tell me where Océane Blue is, then you’re returning all my money.
You have two minutes to do both. A second longer and I’m painting the walls of this tattoo studio with your brains. ’
Poe smiled politely. ‘Actually, I did think of this.’
Which was when Towler stepped out from behind her holding an Israeli-made Desert Eagle .50, the heaviest commercially available handgun in the world. He wielded it like it was made of balsa wood.
‘My gun’s bigger than yours,’ he whispered in her ear. He grabbed the hand holding the revolver then clocked her on the head with the butt of the Desert Eagle.
Hard.
Susan Hawksworth hit the tattoo studio floor like a bag of wet towels.