I switch on the TV.
The message says, Welcome to the Ritz-Carlton, Violet Roseberry.
Chapter 31
Dinner last night was room service. A trolley wheeled in by a very polite young man. He set up the tablecloth and unveiled the roasted half-chicken with Béarnaise sauce and crispy courgette strips. The view was perfect, as you’d imagine. The darkness of Central Park laid out in front of me, not an oblique sliver as from the YMCA, or a poster in Reception as in the Bedfordshire Midtown, but an expansive, private panoramic view through a perfectly clean windowpane.
This city is unimaginably beautiful seen from this perspective. The skyline, the oranges and reds of the trees, the horses making their way out on to West 59th Street. And from this height even the Manhattan traffic is mesmerising. Lights and colours moving round the park, entertaining me up here.
The fact that I’m checked in as Violet unnerves me somewhat. Even the stationery on the desk is personalised with her name. I think it must be some kind of sick joke.
I slept the sleep of the dead after my room service dinner, and then I ordered breakfast. I ate in bed, a stack of divine pillows supporting me. American pancakes with maple syrup and blueberries, fresh black coffee and orange juice with ice. I’d never ordinarily order ice. I only eat ice if I make it myself, especially with the water towers in this city, but the woman on the phone assured me they make their ice with Evian so I took the plunge.
The luxury of this place. But it still feels dirty coming from Kandee. In KT’s emails sent in May she said that she was worried about delivering some kind of package, part of ‘Project H’， whatever that meant. And then someone with an email address made up of only numbers and consonants advised her to take out life insurance shortly afterwards. Whatever James Kandee and his foundation are involved with, it’s not purely charitable. There are sinister forces at play.
I have a mid-morning bath and pick out my ‘grey man’ outfit for the day. ‘Grey man’ in Midtown Manhattan is different from ‘grey man’ where I’m headed, so I’ve adapted accordingly.
The phones stay in their Faraday bag. I didn’t have a signal-jamming bag in London because I wanted my phone to establish a regular uninterrupted pattern in case the records were ever analysed. I didn’t want that drop in signal.
I walk over to Fifth, over to Madison, over to Park, and down to Grand Central Station. Its creamy stone glows warm in the autumnal sunshine. I order a Starbucks to go, and buy my Metro North ticket, standard class, to Stamford, Connecticut. I’m not going to Stamford, I’m not even going as far as Rye, but that’s exactly the point. On a train you can get off before your destination; you can’t do that on a plane or a ship. It’s more private.
I locate the correct train and choose a relatively empty carriage. The journey will take around forty-five minutes. By the time I’ve found his house, scanned the neighbourhood and made my preparations, the window of opportunity remaining will be sufficient. I have some wriggle-room.
Through Harlem and further north.
The view from the train changes from brick to dilapidated industrial to green weeds to trees and major arterial roads.
I enjoy the motion of trains. I like the rattle of them, the pace of them. Air travel is unnatural in my opinion. It is discombobulating and uncomfortable, even on a private Gulfstream G650.
The view passes me by and my mind wanders.
DeLuca’s predecessor picked me up in her Volvo SUV at a quiet North London petrol station. She parked, filled up with petrol. I walked over from the shop and I stepped into the back seat as per our plan. Nobody noticed anything out of place. Why would they?
Private air travel, if you stay within your domestic airspace, is a piece of cake. If you travel domestically by air it’s not that much more complex than driving or taking a bus. You drive right on to the runway, you load up your bags, you fly away. The pilots need to do their job and communicate professionally to air traffic control, of course, but there are no real security or customs controls.
When flying internationally it’s a whole different story. Even celebrities and billionaires get checked when they fly across a sovereign border. But there’s the rules and then there’s the reality.
James Kandee had been flying internationally for years on his customised Gulfstream jet. He’d fly from Biggin Hill, the location of his private hangar, to Teterboro, New York, roughly once every two or three weeks. He used Teterboro as his entry point into North America, even if his eventual destination was LA or Austin. And that’s partly because it’s so convenient, just a short drive from the apartment he’s having built on the sixtieth floor of a skinny new tower on West 57th Street, or, as Violet Roseberry calls it, Billionaire’s Row. Sometimes he’d fly on to the Caribbean from there, or to Buenos Aires for the weekend. He might take a girl from Harvard or a girl from Rutgers or he might take KT. And James Kandee, like most of his ilk, values convenience and speed. He does not want to answer questions from a customs official and he sure as hell doesn’t want any of his bags opened. That one per cent of the one per cent demand frictionless travel, as far as that is possible. Sometimes, when he has to fly direct from London to Las Vegas or Chicago, airports that aren’t so familiar with him, he’ll meet more friction. But not at Teterboro.