Headhunter

  *

  His eyes were closed when the phone rang and it shocked him out of his seat.

  ‘Daniel.’

  ‘Caspar?’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Oh Christ!’ he said, almost shouting with the relief. ‘Oh my God. Caspar. Thank Christ. I am in it so deep. I’m so screwed.’

  ‘What? Calm down.’

  ‘You remember you told me to keep my head down?’

  ‘Yeah. How’s that going?’

  ‘I’m in a New York hotel room with two dead prostitutes, a dead Lawson, a load of drugs and a pile of documents that implicate me in a giant financial scandal.’

  ‘Wow… That’s not really what I had in mind.’

  Campbell laughed then despite himself. Penned in by all this horror, it seemed so ridiculous it was laughable.

  ‘And you’re still there?’

  ‘Look, I can’t run because I had to hand over my passport and credit card to check in. If I leave that behind I can’t get anywhere, I’ll be done. The room is booked in my name. My name is all over the paperwork for the different fake companies…’

  ‘Hang on. Go slower. Which hotel?’

  Campbell told him.

  ‘Give me a minute. Tell me about the dead people. What the hell happened there?’

  ‘I don’t know. I mean, I do know, I just didn’t witness it. Rookes and Lawson turned up at the hotel the morning after I got here. They had one of Hari’s guys pick me up by the credit card scan at check-in and must have been on the next flight. I got dragged to a meeting and then back to the hotel and we celebrated.’

  ‘Meeting?’

  ‘Yes, one of the CDS brokers that Lawson had bought from. He wanted reassurance. Worried that he was insuring a fake company. I kind of let him know he was right.’

  ‘That’s interesting. I was wondering if that would work. I popped a couple of posts on some financial blogs and news sites naming some of Horner’s companies and suggesting all was not what it seemed. Guess it got to where it needed to.’

  ‘Ha! Well if he wasn’t spooked before, he was after I got done.’

  ‘What did you say to him?’

  ‘I was subtle. Told him that the rumours were bullshit and he was suddenly crapping himself. What rumours? Oh my God, there are rumours?’

  ‘Nice. Let’s hope he doesn’t keep that to himself.’

  ‘Let’s hope. Look, Caspar, what am I going to do mate? Any ideas? I’m so screwed. The second housekeeping turn up I’ll be toast. I’ll be in handcuffs and in a cell inside an hour.’

  ‘Can you get all the paperwork together? Find a shredder or a fire?’

  ‘Uh, God knows.’

  ‘Let me put it another way,’ said, Hogg, his tone hardening. ‘Get all the paperwork together, then get out of the room and get it burnt or shredded. Then you need to get your ass out of New York.’

  Campbell puts the phone on speaker and sets it down as he begins gathering the briefcase Lawson brought, making sure that all the paperwork is in there and snatching up any stray documents that had been taken out the day before and left on the side.

  ‘Yeah but how the hell do I do that? How do I even get out of the hotel? My passport’s on the front desk. The room’s in my name.’

  There’s silence from the phone and after a minute turns into two and he’s sure there are no more stray pieces of incriminating paper he picks up the handset again.

  ‘Caspar? You still there?’

  Silence.

  ‘Hogg? Hello?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ comes the irritable reply. ‘I’m here, I’m doing something hang on.’

  Campbell hangs on, shifting nervously from foot to foot as he scans the room again for anything that he should not leave behind. It occurs to him that there might be something in the bedroom and hesitates, reluctant to be near the cold bodies.

  Finally though he musters the courage to do so, once the fear of leaving something incriminating overrides the fear of seeing them again, dead eyed and accusing. He takes the phone, setting it on the side, speaker on.

  There’s nothing to be found as he checks the units and the carpet around the bed, no reason to suppose there’s anything hidden beneath sheets, though for a crazy moment he has a panicked thought that maybe Rookes has planted something there out of sight, perhaps wedged beneath the mattress.

  He dismisses the thought as irrational and illogical; there’s an abundance of evidence to be found throughout the suite, the bodies, the drugs, the paperwork. Why would Rookes hide something under the mattress with all this in plain sight? But the thought is in there now, wedged tight like a doorstop, so he moves to the bed and kneels, sliding a hand in and feeling around.

  There’s nothing in reach from one side, nothing when he shifts to the foot of the bed but as his arm pushes deeper inside the movement of the mattress shifts Lawson’s limp body where it leans against the bed.

  Campbell freezes and pulls his arm back but this just serves to move the mattress again as it settles back into position and the movement rocks Lawson a little. There’s a shift in position, to the side, toward Campbell, and it pushes a little air from the lungs. Campbell doesn’t know this, just hears the sound and watches as the body begins to lean slowly toward him.

  He thinks to grab the shoulder and stabilise Lawson where he is but then thinks that there are a lot of reasons not to touch him so he recoils and scrambles away across the floor as Lawson’s slumping form begins to move quicker and then suddenly thuds into the carpet.

  ‘What was that?’ says Hogg.

  ‘Nothing,’ Campbell replies after a pause as he tries to compose himself.

  ‘Noisy, for nothing.’

  ‘I just… dropped something. Forget it.’

  ‘OK, just be careful.’

  ‘Be quicker,’ he says but it’s a plea not an order. ‘How you going?’

  ‘Well for a start you didn’t book the room. Not that one anyway.’

  ‘I did, I told you.’

  ‘No, I mean, I’m getting into their system and in a few more minutes it is going to say you have a whole other room. The suite you’re in, Lawson booked that.’

  ‘Wait, what?’ Campbell took a moment to process what Hogg was saying.

  ‘Yeah, their records will show that you stayed in Room 212 and that Lawson took the suite.’

  ‘Jesus, you’re fast.’

  ‘Yeah, they need to upgrade some of their online booking systems. Lucky for you.’

  ‘Wait though. They won’t have his passport or credit card. Won’t that look wrong?’

  ‘Sure, but it’s not your problem if their front desk messed up. Nothing to do with some random, unconnected guy in 212.’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘So you ready to move?’

  There’s nothing much more to gather up. His holdall is barely unpacked and he was fully clothed when Rookes knocked him out with the spiked drink.

  ‘Of course, yes,’ he says, evaluating where he is now. ‘I’ll clear out, take the documents and they’ll find Lawson dead from doing so much coke he flipped out and killed the hookers.’

  ‘I’ll see if can blank their CCTV files for a day or two back too. But that’s going to be harder to do.’

  ‘Great idea, work your magic. Wait. What about fingerprints and stuff?’

  ‘What? Where?’

  ‘Everywhere. All over the room. My fingerprints will be everywhere,’ Campbell said, his panic rising again.

  ‘Yeah, maybe. Then again, so will every guest who’s stayed there for the past month or two. I mean, it’s a hotel room for God’s sake. With a guy coked to death and a strangled hooker next to him. No, they’re not going to be looking for anyone else Dan. Now move.’