Eye Contact

‘Four for me too,’ Naysmith murmured, moving to stand slightly behind and to the left of the target.

The young man pressed the polished metal 4 button and stood back as the doors slid together.

‘Still, I thought tonight was very positive,’ he observed as the lift started to move.

‘It sure was,’ the target chuckled. He was wearing the bag over his left shoulder. It was clearly expensive – soft black leather with reinforced gunmetal edges. A small plastic tag swung on a miniature leather loop, and Naysmith leaned back against the mirrored rear wall of the lift, his head inclined as he watched it.

An American Airlines executive-flyer logo, with what looked like a membership number embossed on it, along with a name: MR D. LENNOX.

‘Anyways,’ Le

Naysmith straightened, studying the man’s clothes, his bag . . . and above all his bearing. Mr D. Le

‘Well, I guess this is me.’ Le

‘See you in the morning,’ the younger man replied.

Naysmith brushed past him, following Le

No cameras here. Good.

Naysmith slowed in the shadows between two of the lights, pretending to tap something into his phone. His head was inclined forward, but his eyes peered out beneath the brows, looking along the corridor. He had to let the target get ahead of him, so that he could see which room he was staying in. And he had to do it without appearing suspicious himself.

Le

For a second, Naysmith felt the urge to run forward, to burst in through the slowly closing door and overpower his victim in a sudden explosion of violence. But he mastered the compulsion, maintaining his relaxed pace, his disinterested expression.

He drew level with the door just as it clicked shut, continuing past it with nothing more than a sidelong glance to confirm the room number.

408.

Walking on, he went to a door at the end of the corridor, feigned searching for a lost room key, then retraced his steps back towards the lift.

It wasn’t going to be easy.

The fact that his target was a business traveller meant he would need to act quickly. Le

And then there was the problem of access.

The lift was much too risky – a confined space with CCTV coverage, but also the unpredictable delay in waiting for it to arrive if he needed to leave in a hurry. He glanced over his shoulder, then nudged a side door open with his elbow and slipped into the stairwell. Moving slowly, calmly, his eyes swept the space above him, but there were no cameras to be seen. He trotted down the broad, shallow steps, the carpet deadening his footfalls. This was much better – a discrete way to and from the fourth floor.

He counted the flights down, emerging to one side of the reception area, close to the hotel’s rear entrance. Adopting the confident air of a paying guest, he walked over to the glass doors and slipped out into the cold night air. A claustrophobic little back street sloped down between the tall buildings, but he could see a four-way junction, just a few yards up to the left, that presented several different ways to leave the area.

Naysmith smiled. It was important to have options. He took one last look up at the hotel behind him, then turned, walked to the corner and disappeared.

35

Thursday, 30 August

Naysmith moved quietly, preserving the hushed tone of the room as he stepped around the bed, laying out the things he would need. A strange peace descended on him as he prepared – the calm before the storm. Everything was ready, but he checked each item once more to be sure. There would be no margin for error, no time for a second attempt.

Surveying the items laid out on the bed, he nodded with satisfaction. It had been quite a challenge, getting everything together so quickly, but he had done it.

Clothing had been the biggest issue – usually he had the luxury of time, with plenty of opportunities to source anonymous, untraceable garments from different supermarkets – but time was tight on this one. He’d briefly considered wearing his own clothes, or perhaps even stealing a bag from one of the other hotel guests, but that would have been a dangerous compromise; he had to act quickly without being careless. In the end, he’d remembered the big sporting retailer near Piccadilly Circus and reached it before it closed for the night. Under the glaring strip lights, hunting quickly through the crowded racks of discounted football shirts, he picked up a nondescript tracksuit, T-shirt and trainers – all suitably generic items, all paid for with cash.

As he’d approached the sleepy cashier, his gaze had rested briefly on some cellophane-wrapped baseball bats and a rack of substantial-looking golf clubs. He’d hesitated, weighing up the possibilities, but they were memorable items to travel with, and difficult to conceal. After some thought, and needing to find something that could serve, he’d picked up a long black umbrella with a steel-tipped spike.

Better.

Rubber gloves, a packet of wet wipes and a selection of plastic bags had come from a Metro supermarket on the way back through Mayfair, and everything would be stowed in a small fabric bag with ‘I London’ printed on it, purchased from a street vendor. Backpacks and holdalls attracted the wrong sort of attention on the capital’s streets these days, but obvious tourists were virtually invisible.

Walking thoughtfully back towards the hotel, he’d gone over his plan, testing and refining it, working out every eventuality. His hand gripped the umbrella, dragging the steel tip along the pavement beside him, scraping it, sharpening it. Everything was ready.

Now, he walked out onto the pavement and looked up at the steel grey sky of an overcast London morning, savouring the swell of pent-up anticipation. His thoughts flitted momentarily to Le

A powerful man made powerless.

Naysmith smiled to himself and set off, melting into the early-morning pedestrians. Men and women cradling their coffee cups, insulated by their iPods, eyes downcast as they hurried along. Nobody would notice him; nobody would remember him, a single face in the crowd.

He took a roundabout route through Mayfair, winding his way around several back alleys so that he could approach the target’s hotel from the opposite direction. A black taxi rattled past him as he turned the corner onto the narrow tarmac of Brick Street. Ahead of him, he could see the rear entrance of the hotel and he slowed his pace, watching the single uniformed figure emerge to place a pedestal sign beside the carpeted steps before returning inside. The glass doors glinted as they swung shut.