Hider/Seeker Read Online Free Page B

it’s all over take a long holiday and then come to see me about setting up that pension we always spoke about.’
    Harry didn’t respond.
    â€˜It’ll be just like the old days, you’ll see. I know someone who’s got a box at the Emirates; we could go and see some matches together.’
    â€˜Is your Rottweiler going to cause me any trouble?’ Harry asked, referring to Parker’s secretary on the other side of the door he was about to open.
    â€˜Who? Daphne? She’s a sweetheart.’

Three
    Having let Eddie sweet-talk him into taking on Angela Linehan, he spent most of the following week tying up loose ends on an inheritance case he’d been working on for a large firm of solicitors in Piccadilly. He was in their offices at the crack of dawn each morning as he wanted to finish the job before turning his attention to Angela Linehan. By Thursday lunchtime he’d completed the assignment and handed in a bill for fifty-six hours of work. For the first time in a long while his finances were looking up and he felt in a prosperous mood as he left the solicitors’ offices.
    Outside, the air was thick with the smell of rain and if he was lucky he could make it on foot to the tube station before the sky opened up. He reached the corner of New Bond Street when something in a store window caught his eye. It was a white angora coat identical to the one that Angela Linehan wore. Curious to know how much a woman like her would pay for something like that, he went inside. On hearing that it was more than the amount he’d just billed, he stepped out again smartly just in time for the clouds’ burst.
    Harry thought about making a run for it, but the downpour was so strong, he could barely see the other side of the road. Instead, he huddled with shoppers under the store’s orange canopy, and listened to the drum roll above his head. There was plenty to think about while he waited for the deluge to stop. Top of his list, was Angela Linehan and the fortune she needed to shift around the world. He’d already called his friend Ernesto Paiz about transferring her ten million. Ernesto was a partner in a law firm in Guatemala and would fix opening a bank account for her. Guatemala had tight bank secrecy laws that provided complete anonymity. There were no tax treaties with other countries; no information sharing even for a wanted criminal. No bank reference would be required. All Ernesto needed from her was her new passport and he would do the rest.
    Harry trusted Ernesto would ensure the happy ending she sought in South America. He got to know Ernesto during his self-imposed exile in Latin America courtesy of McCaffity and his pursuing Koreans. Ernesto helped him hide from those gangsters and over the months a friendship grew despite their thirty-year age gap.
    When Harry returned to his flat in the Caledonian Road, he found his landlord waiting for him. After the soaking in Mayfair, all he wanted to do was to get into dry clothes. But Mr Charalambous looked agitated, hushing him not to speak or make a sound.
    Pointing upstairs with his thumb, he said in a lowered voice, ‘You’ve got visitors.’
    â€˜Polecat?’
    â€˜Worse. Two detectives.’ The old man’s face was so close to Harry’s that he could not avoid his onion breath. ‘They’ve been there just a short while,’ he added.
    Harry went up and found the door of his flat wide open. Inside he saw an old familiar face standing in the hallway.
    â€˜Surprised to see me?’ said Detective Inspector Wallace Gemmell, his hands stuck firmly in the pockets of an unbuttoned raincoat. He was a stocky man with a bald head and a fringe of grey hair above his ears.
    Harry looked at the Scot and said, ‘You’d better have a good reason for being in my flat –’
    â€˜Or what?’ replied Gemmell, wandering into the living room.
    Harry followed him in and kicked the door shut