Solo - Jack Higgins [53]
She really was rather pretty. He smiled lazily. 'Let me know where you're staying and I'll have one sent round to you. And there's a party afterwards, if you've nothing better to do.'
Her face was flushed now and the breasts seemed to strain against the light white nylon blouse.
'That would be marvellous. Is there anything I can get you?'
'Half a bottle of champagne, I think.'
He sat there staring out of the window, feeling rather tired, but the truth was that he wasn't really in the mood for this concert. What he needed was a holiday. No need to return to London. He would fly to Athens from Helsinki after the concert. Even if there wasn't a direct flight and he had to go via Paris or Munich, he could be in Athens some time during the afternoon. And then Hydra.
The thought was pleasant and his spirits lifted as the stewardess brought the champagne. As he sipped it slowly, savouring the coldness, he found himself opening Morgan's file and starting to work his way through it again.
8
Harvey Jago inspected himself carefully in the bathroom mirror. In the red velvet jacket with the white silk scarf at the throat, the blond hair carefully combed, he made an imposing figure. He still looked like a useful light-heavyweight, good for fifteen rounds any day of the week, which was what he had been in early life - the signs were there in the broken nose, the scar tissue around the eyes. He could have had it straightened, but women liked it. It gave him a kind of rugged geniality, but it was the eyes that indicated the real man. Hard and cruel and pitiless.
This morning he was far from happy, for the previous evening one of his many business ventures, a house in Belgravia where young ladies in his employ catered to the whims of clients of the highest prestige, had been raided by the police.
It was not the embarrassment caused to the two peers of the realm and three Members of Parliament who had temporarily found themselves in the hands of the police which worried Jago - that was their lookout. He wasn't even worried about the fines that would have to be paid on behalf of the girls or the loss of the night's takings.
There was certainly no possibility of his personal involvement. The property was in someone else's name. That was what he kept front men for. No, what annoyed him was the lack of warning from those police officers on the Vice Squad who received handsome, weekly stipends to see that Jago's establishments were left alone. Somebody's head was going to have to roll.
He walked into the living-room and stood at the window of his penthouse apartment. It gave him a continuing pleasure to look out across Green Park to Buckingham Palace, which was why he'd bought the place. A long way from the back street in Stepney in which he'd been raised.
Maria, the little Filipino maid, brought coffee on a tray. He waited while she filled his cup and handed it to him.
'Thanks, love,' he said.
As she walked away, neat and trim in black dress and stockings, his brother, Arnold, entered. He was ten years younger than Jago, with thinning hair and hollow cheeks, and managed to look undernourished and anxious at the same time. Underneath that surface appearance, he had a brain which operated like a computer in matters of finance.
'Lovely arse on her, that girl,' Jago said. 'I'd give her a going-over, Arnold, I really would, only you know what I've always said about messing about with the staff.'
Arnold, who already had an arrangement with Maria which he was terrified his brother would find out about, said, 'Quite right, Harvey.'
'What's last night going to cost me?'
'Between thirteen and fifteen grand. I can't be more certain because of the legal end. Some of those girls are three-time losers, Harvey. It could mean the nick. They'll need a top brief and that comes expensive.'
'Anything it takes, Arnold. Another thing. The Vice Squad. I want to know who let us down and I want to know today.'
'It's being taken care of,' Arnold said. 'There's a bloke to see you. Name of Morgan.'
'What's he want?'