TURKISH DELIGHT by Barry Faulkner (learn to read activity book .txt) 📕

‘Okay. Do you think Nicholas Rambart knows about the twin?’

‘I don’t know, I really don’t – I don’t even know if they are working together. He was in the Purley warehouse with the missiles and she was on the boat with them to Turkey, and yet they want each other killed. Something’s not right. Get back and we’ll dig a bit more.’

‘Okay.’

I closed my phone. What the hell was going on? There was only one way to find out.

I weaved my way through the slow traffic across the road to the leather shop, looking out for anybody that might be one of Woodward’s people; nobody stood out, but surveillance operatives are bloody good at their job so you can’t be sure. I knew what I was going to do next – an old ploy that I’d used before to clear a building. The door to Rambart’s apartment block was open, so I went in and stood quietly in the ground floor hallway and listened for any movement on the upper landings. All was quiet. I soon changed that with one hit at the fire alarm glass with my elbow. The siren wailed out as I left the building and waited at the leather shop doorway.

‘What’s going on?’ asked the sales assistant as two of them came out.

‘Fire alarm I think,’ I shrugged. ‘Can’t see any smoke though.’

A small crowd was gathering fast and residents were coming out of the building looking worried and asking each other what was happening, some clutching bags of treasured possessions.

And there she was: Eve Rambart came down the entrance steps and joined the increasing throng. Only she wasn’t Eve Rambart; she looked enough like Rambart to be mistaken from a short distance away, but she wasn’t Eve Rambart – or was she? I edged into the crowd and got nearer to her; I wanted to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks. I moved to her left and got the view I wanted. There was no big diamond wedding ring on the finger on the left hand – this wasn’t Eve Rambart. So who are you then lady, and what game are you playing?

The fire brigade arrived and caused traffic chaos parking in the road – must have been a quiet day for them, three tenders and a car? Pretty soon they had checked out the building and a rumour had spread through the crowd that it must have been ‘bloody kids smashing the alarm again.’

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CHAPTER 19

Nothing I could do now, except wait for the real Eve Rambart to get back and see what happens. Gold checked back later and said Rambart had bought a ticket for a Heathrow flight the next morning and booked into a hotel near the airport; she would wait for a later one so Rambart didn’t clock her on both flights, and she would also book a different hotel. I decided not to go to Heathrow and follow Eve Rambart from there; I was far more interested in the lady in the apartment. Who was she, and why was she there?

I went back to my office; if Nicholas Rambart suspected me of being involved in the warehouse raid at Purley he would surely have come after me by now? No reason why he should think I was involved, but with people like him suspicion is the best defence.

I checked the times of the flights from Cyprus the next day; first one got in about 11.30am, so give Eve Rambart an hour to go through customs and get to Knightsbridge, which means she should be there about 12.30.

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I had a slow breakfast, checked the flight was on time – it was – and made my way back to the empty Knightsbridge office.

There was some movement and voices from the same floor as I started up the stairs; I stopped and prayed in my mind that the landlord hadn’t let the place. A door shut and the voices stopped – must have been another office. I carried on and settled on an old chair to wait for Eve Rambart to arrive opposite.

The doppelganger was there. I watched through my binoculars; she seemed to be tidying the place up – no, hang on, she was packing the place up. Drawers were being emptied into archive-size boxes and clothes being brought through from the bedroom and stacked on the sofa and chairs. Whoever this lady was she was getting ready to move out.

Eve Rambart got out of a taxi outside the leather shop at 12.45 and made her way into the building. Through the windows I could see the look-a-like was having a drink at the breakfast bar; she rose and went into the bedroom, half closing the door behind her. A few moments later Eve Rambart came into view; she stood still, looking around, too far away for me to see her expression, but the body language said she wasn’t expecting the apartment to be packed up and ready to go. The bedroom door opened and the look-a-like came in, raised her hand and shot Eve Rambart, who crumpled to the floor out of my sight. Look-a-like stepped over and shot again at where the hidden body would be. This lady, whoever she was, was a pro, this was planned; one to the body to bring the target down, and probably one to the head to finish the job.

I was stunned, my mind was blank. If I didn’t know what was going on before, my head was now in a brain maze; nothing was making sense.

The look-a-like made a mobile call and within minutes a large removal van had pulled up outside, half on, half off the pavement, and four men in overalls were on their way up to the apartment; a fifth stayed with the van, opened the rear doors