CHAPTER 30
WILLIAM BOARDED THE CROWDED PLANE to find Ross already seated by the window. He sat down next to him, but to a casual observer it would not have been obvious they were colleagues. They didn’t once discuss Caravaggio on their flight to Barcelona, nor Beth, Jo, the twins, or Jo Junior – as Ross called his daughter – nor the upcoming Frans Hals exhibition at the Fitzmolean, nor even the frailty of West Ham’s defence or the brilliance of Chelsea’s attack, depending on their point of view.
They fell into a companionable silence. William would have liked to ask Ross how he had managed to creep into that grave unnoticed, but suspected that no answer would have been forthcoming.
However, he did notice that Ross was no longer wearing the Rolex Jo had given him as a wedding present. The anonymous, black-faced watch that had taken its place wasn’t, in William’s opinion, a worthy replacement, but with Ross there was always a reason.
As the plane touched down on Spanish soil and taxied towards its stand, William looked out of the window to see Lieutenant Sanchez standing next to an unmarked black car by the side of the runway, its back door already open.
The two detectives were the first passengers off the plane, each carrying only an overnight bag, although they had no intention of staying overnight.
Juan greeted them, and their car had driven through the security exit and was on the motorway before most of the other passengers had reached the airport terminal.
William wasted no time in taking Juan through the latest refinements to the plan and answering all the lieutenant’s questions, with Ross making the occasional observation.
The safe house turned out to be an inconspicuous two-up two-down in a quiet back street on the west side of the city. Juan led William and Ross through to the operations centre, a large room with a circular table surrounded by half a dozen chairs, along with the inevitable corkboard covered in maps, diagrams and photographs taking up almost a complete wall.
Juan began the final briefing by drawing their attention to several aerial photographs of Faulkner’s estate. Ross took the opportunity to refamiliarize himself with the unmarked tortuous route through the forest and across the bridge to the front door of the house that the golf buggy had taken when they’d delivered the Fishers of Men on their first visit.
Having satisfied himself that he knew every inch of the route, Ross walked across to join William and Juan, who were studying a large cardboard model of the house that had been placed in the centre of the table. Juan pointed to the kitchen steps on the west side of the house, and then the fire escape that led up to the fourth floor, where the three bedrooms whose windows had previously been left open were marked with large red crosses.
‘We only need one of them to be open tonight to make it from here to here,’ said Juan, his finger moving along a corridor and down a wide staircase to the landing outside the master bedroom.
‘Let’s hope the bedroom door’s locked,’ said William, ‘because then we’ll know he’s inside.’
‘Even if he’s somehow made it downstairs to his study,’ said Ross, his finger taking a path down the staircase and along the corridor on the ground floor, ‘I should be able to reach his study before he has time to open the metal door.’
‘Whether he’s in bed or not,’ said Juan, ‘my back-up squad will already have surrounded the house by then.’
‘We also have to consider the possibility that he’ll already be in his study,’ said William, ‘and that by the time Ross arrives he’ll have opened the metal door and disappeared into thin air once again.’
Ross said nothing. If Faulkner escaped while his colleagues were still on the first floor, he intended to open the metal door and join him on the other side, before they could catch up with him. A detail he’d neglected to mention to William.
‘What if he isn’t in the bedroom or his study,’ said Juan, ‘but has already left the house?’
‘That’s unlikely,’ said Ross. ‘Booth Watson is flying in to Barcelona tomorrow morning, and the latest sighting of Faulkner’s yacht was about three hundred miles away, giving him an ETA of around seven o’clock tomorrow evening, which is when I expect he plans to sail off into the sunset.’
‘We need to have Faulkner safely locked up long before Booth Watson arrives,’ said William, ‘because that man will find a dozen ways of setting him free.’
‘Let’s go over the timing once again,’ said Juan. ‘We’ll leave here at midnight, so by the time we reach the house Faulkner and most of his staff should be sound asleep.’