The Doomsday Prophecy

Hudson restarted the playback and they listened carefully.

‘There it is,’ she said. ‘Bradbury. Comes out clearly now.’

‘Yup. Definitely Bradbury.’

‘Shit. OK, let it play on.’ The video played on a few more seconds. She focused hard on the sound, closing her eyes. Then she opened them, and her jaw tightened. ‘Stop. Cleaver. He said “Cleaver”.’

Hudson was annoyed he hadn’t picked up on it before. ‘Copy. What did he say about him?’

‘Run it back. Slow it down.’

They listened to the hissy, muffled recording again. ‘I think he’s saying “where is Cleaver?”,’ she said. ‘That’s what it sounds like to me.’

‘But how could he know about Cleaver?’

‘Means he’s been talking to Bradbury. Means he’s in on it.’

‘Or he just saw it in the address book.’

‘Either way,’ she said, ‘that isn’t something we want him to know.’

They watched more. On screen, Number One unfolded the newspaper and leaned across the café table to show it to Number Two.

Kaplan reached for the copy of the same paper on the desk. Followed Number Two’s gaze down the front page. She nodded. He was definitely looking at the report on Nikos Karapiperis’ death.

Then the child came into the frame, his ball went out into the road, and they watched again as Number Two leaped out to save him. Then the explosion burst across the terrace all over again.

‘You can shut it down now. I’ve seen enough,’ Kaplan said.

‘Fucking baby-saving hero,’ Hudson muttered.

Kaplan started pacing up and down. ‘Put it all together. They knew everything. Bradbury, the money, Cleaver, Nikos Karapiperis. And Number One knew we were tailing him.’

Hudson swivelled round in his chair to face her. ‘How did he know that?’ The screen went black as the laptop shut down.

Kaplan shook her head. ‘He wasn’t just some friend of the family. This is a professional at work. No way anyone could have spotted us otherwise.’

‘So who are these people? Who are they working for?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You think they know where Bradbury put it?’

‘I’m going to have to call this in,’ she said. ‘I don’t like either of them. And I don’t like that Number Two is still around.’

She walked to another room, where she could speak in private, and dialled the number. It was a long-distance call. The same man’s voice answered.

‘We might have another problem,’ she told him. She explained the situation quickly.

‘How much does he know?’ the man asked.

‘Enough. About the money, and about Cleaver. And about us. And maybe more.’

There was a long silence. ‘This is already getting messy.’

‘We’ll deal with it.’

‘You’d better. Get me names. Find out everything he knows. Then take care of him. Do it properly and quietly. Don’t make me have to call Herzog in on this again. He’s too damn expensive.’

When the call was over, Kaplan went back to the other room. ‘Let’s go,’ she said.

Chapter Nineteen

Ben checked out of the hospital still feeling drained and numb. He shambled out of the glass doors and into the hot morning sun, hardly feeling the warmth on his face. His mind was blank as he stood there on the pavement, not knowing what to do next.

Approaching footsteps made him turn: two men. One had a camera, the other a notebook. Reporters. They were looking right at him.

‘You are the man who saved the little boy,’ the one with the notebook said. ‘Can we ask you some questions?’

‘Not now,’ Ben replied quietly.

‘Later? Here is my card.’ The reporter pressed it in Ben’s hand. Ben just nodded. He felt too weary to say more. The photographer raised his camera and fired off a few snaps. Ben didn’t try to stop him.

As the reporters were turning to go, a Corfu Police four-wheel drive pulled up with a screech of tyres at the edge of the pavement. The doors opened and two men climbed out, one in uniform and one in plain clothes. The plain-clothes officer was short and dumpy, bald-headed with a trim beard.

They walked up to him. ‘Mr Hope?’ the plain-clothes officer said in English. He reached into his jacket and took out an ID card. ‘I am Captain Stephanides, Corfu police. I would like you to come with me, please.’

Ben said nothing. He let them usher him into the back of the four-wheel drive. Stephanides climbed in after him, said something in Greek to the driver and the car sped off. Then he turned to Ben.

‘You are leaving hospital early? I was expecting to find you still in bed.’

‘I’m fine,’ Ben said.

‘Last time I saw you, you were lying on a stretcher covered in blood.’

‘Just a couple of cuts. Others got it a lot worse.’

Stephanides nodded gravely.

In less than ten minutes they had passed through a police security point and were pulling up at the back of a large headquarters building. Stephanides bundled out of the car and asked Ben to follow him. They walked inside the air-conditioned building, into a comfortable office.

‘Please take a seat,’ Stephanides said.

‘What is it I can help you with, Captain?’

‘Just a few questions.’ Stephanides rested his weight on the edge of the desk, one chubby leg swinging. He smiled. ‘People are calling you a hero.’

‘It was nothing,’ Ben said.

‘Before you acted to save young Aris Thanatos, you were with one of the victims on the terrace of the establishment.’

Ben nodded.

‘I must ask you whether you noticed anything strange or suspicious?’

‘Nothing at all,’ Ben said.

Stephanides nodded, picked up a notepad from the desk beside him. ‘The victim in question. Charles Palmer. Was this man a friend of yours?’

‘We were in the army together,’ Ben said. ‘I’m retired now.’

‘And what was the nature and purpose of your visit to Corfu?’

Ben had known men like Stephanides for a long time. He was smiling and working hard to come across as kindly and unthreatening, but he was deadly serious. The questioning was dangerous, and Ben had to focus hard to avoid saying the wrong thing. ‘I was here for Charlie. He needed my advice about something. But I never got to find out what it was. The bomb happened first.’

Stephanides nodded again and made a note in his pad. ‘And this advice, you have no idea why it could not have been given by phone or email?’

‘I prefer to talk face to face,’ Ben said.

The cop grunted. ‘So you came all this way just to have a conversation, not even knowing what it was going to be about?’

‘That’s right.’

‘That strikes me as being rather extravagant.’

‘I enjoy travelling,’ Ben said.

‘What is your line of business, Mr Hope?’

‘I’m a student. Of theology. Christ Church, Oxford. You can check that.’

Stephanides raised his eyebrows and made another note on his pad. ‘I suppose that would explain why you were carrying a Bible with you.’ He glanced up. ‘There are things about your friend that concern me. He was here asking questions about an Englishwoman.’

‘I don’t know anything about that,’ Ben said.

Stephanides raised his eyebrows. The look that flashed through his eyes said gotcha. ‘This is not what his wife, Mrs Palmer, told me last night. She told me Mr Palmer was working for you to find this Miss Bradbury.’

Ben closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. He’d walked right into that one.

‘I have seven bodies in the morgue,’ Stephanides said. ‘And another eleven people who have suffered injury. One will never see again. Another will never walk again. Someone planted a bomb in the middle of my town, and I will find out who and why.’

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