made it murkier still. Most of the miasma was from cigarettes, but it was bolstered by the tang of cigars and even whiffs of hashish from the darkest corners.
Eddie shot a disapproving glance toward one of the shadowed users as he stubbed out his cigarette. Secondhand smoke was one thing; secondhand narcotics, another entirely. He flicked another Marlboro out of its pack and was about to light it when he paused, gazing at his reflection in his Zippo. He had quit smoking years ago, during his first, short-lived marriage, but the strain of being on the run, perpetually alert for the approaching hand of the authorities, had seen him take up the habit once more.
He shook his head and lit the cigarette. Nina would be furious if she knew, he thought, a sudden gloom settling over him. There was a cellular phone on the scratched table before him, and he could talk to her with a couple of key presses … but he knew it wasn’t possible. For one thing, any contact—on a line that was almost certainly being monitored—could see Interpol eyeing Nina as an accomplice rather than a witness.
For another, from what she had said the last time he saw her, in Peru … she thought he was guilty. She might not even want to speak to him.
So he had to prove his innocence first. Which meant finding Stikes. And doing whatever was necessary to force the truth from him—before his much-deserved death.
He looked at his watch. Strutter was, as expected, late. Tracking down contacts and wheedling information out of them, especially on a subject as risky as Stikes, wasn’t something that could be done on a timetable. But the Kenyan had said earlier that he had a promising lead, so Eddie was willing to wait.
The phone rang. Strutter? No—the number on the screen was British. There was only one person in his home country who knew how to contact him. Nevertheless, he was still cautious and terse when he answered, putting a finger to his other ear to block out the tinny music coming from a tape deck behind the bar. “Yeah?”
“It’s me.” He knew the voice. Peter Alderley, an officer of MI6, the United Kingdom’s foreign intelligence service. Not a friend, exactly—in fact, Eddie rather disliked him—but for now an uneasy ally. The murder of Mac had instilled them both with the need to uncover the truth. Alderley had given Eddie a sporting head start to escape the law in London following their comrade’s funeral, and since then had provided surreptitious updates on Interpol’s search for him during their intermittent contacts.
In return, Eddie had provided Alderley with what information he had uncovered on his travels, and was hoping he had managed to do something useful with it. “What’ve you got?”
“First thing: Interpol is getting closer to you. They know you were just in Botswana.”
“Do they know where I am now?”
“No, but if I were you I’d move on. Sharpish.”
“That’s the plan anyway—I’m just waiting to find out where to go. What else?”
“That paper you found in Jindal’s flat, the one with a number and some Hindi text. I’ve had it checked out—on the quiet, obviously, which is why it took so long. The number could mean anything, of course, but my best guess is the international code for a Greek phone number.”
“Greek?” Eddie was surprised. He couldn’t imagine any possible link between Kit and Greece.
“Yeah. I tried ringing it, but it’s a dead number. The thing is, though, the text with it translates as ‘and the best of the greatest.’ I think what we’ve got here is a fairly simple code. The ‘best of the greatest’ is probably another number, so if you add that to the one you already have, you get the real result.”
“So what’s the other number?”
“Damned if I know. Something significant to Jindal, at a guess. You knew him far better than I did—any idea what it might be?”
Eddie thought about Kit. Youthful, handsome, an idealistic Indian cop who had specialized in the investigation of art thefts before transferring to Interpol to do the same thing in a worldwide jurisdiction. Cheery and good-natured but with steely determination behind his smile, a cricket fan, a Hindu, not as stylish a dresser as he thought he was. A friend.
A friend who had killed another friend in cold blood. Eddie hadn’t witnessed it personally, but when he pieced together everything seen by others there was only one possible conclusion.