The Alex King Series, A BATEMAN [good books for high schoolers .TXT] 📗

particularly on a regional level, are so corrupt that the people we trace and hand to them for prosecution are back on the streets in a matter of weeks.” She sipped some of her gin and tonic and shrugged. “I could give my life over to investigating sex trafficking and I’d get one step forwards and two steps backwards. I only have another month with Interpol, I’m not sure what to do next.”

“Don’t beat yourself up,” King said. “You could fight terrorism for MI5 and argue the same conclusion. That was one of the reasons Forrester took me on, so that he could be sure of shutting down a terrorist front for good. There’s only so many times you can live with injustices and technicalities and know innocent people will die.”

“I feel a fraud,” she confided. “I set out to start a crusade and welcomed the chance to come back when Simon ordered me.”

“You’re no fraud.”

She smiled, then looked up as the waiter returned. She passed on a starter and ordered crab fritters and a tossed salad. King, who realised he hadn’t eaten since breakfast and was famished, ordered crab soup with extra bread and whole roasted partridge with a root vegetable dauphinoise.

“Oh, I am,” she said, as the waiter walked away. “It sucks.”

King sat up straight, his eyes boring into hers. “Right, let’s get this sorted now. You went through a lot. You tried to make a difference, and you have. Now, get back in the room. Look around you. Ignore Rashid and the girl from analytics…”

“Marnie…”

“Right. Ignore them. We have a defector coming in. Sex and identity unknown. Thanks to MI6 and close handling, and the death of their handler in the case, we have no idea who or when. Only that their arrival is imminent, there’s the worst storm in living memory boring right down upon us, and this hotel seems the obvious place for someone on the run to head for. All our eggs in one basket. Now, get with the operation and forget everything up to this point. Look around, what do you see?”

Caroline glanced left, then right. She picked up her glass, just surveying the room as she took a drink. She shrugged, placed her glass down. “Rashid and Marnie. The family with the noisy children and another couple.”

“What about the staff?”

She hesitated then said, “What about them?”

King sipped some of his beer, placed the glass back down. “The waiter is built like a boxer and has a scar on his cheek.”

“So?”

“So, he took our order and didn’t ask whether we wanted potatoes, rice or the extras they have on the menu. Unless carb-free fads have made it this far into the Arctic, which I’m pretty sure they have not, then he wasn’t doing a very good job. He has prison tattoos too.”

“You’re a tattoo snob,” she smiled.

“The barman never made a gin and tonic in his life. He poured all the tonic into the glass, and besides, he could barely carry the tray. And he didn’t put the cucumber in the water. A good thing if you ask me, but still. He looks like the waiter, too. Tough, scarred and cropped hair. They’re two peas in a pod. They look like Spetsnaz, and I’ve been up against enough of them to know.”

“Anything else?”

“Rashid and Marnie have a waitress serving them, as do the family behind and the couple. Dining rooms are divided into serving stations. How is it that we have the Brothers Grimm?”

“I think you’re paranoid,” she said, but she smelled her drink nonetheless.

“They have no rapport with the waitress, either.”

“And they should?”

“She doesn’t have a ring on her significant finger, they should be chatting her up at least.”

“You bloody dinosaur!” she said mockingly. “They may be gay, may have their own partners, as may she,” she paused. “And bloody old fashioned too! Not everybody gets engaged or married!”

King sipped his beer and said nothing. He sometimes felt like a dinosaur, too. Out dated, extinct. Or close to it. The last of his kind. He looked up as a man entered the room and looked for assistance. The waiter was bringing King’s soup. He pointed at a table in the corner and walked over to their table. He placed the bowl of soup down, nodded and walked away.

“He forgot your bread, must be a Russian spy…” Caroline goaded him.

The waitress was clearing Rashid and Marnie’s table. King asked her for his bread as she swept past. She nodded and smiled and returned less than a minute later with a basket of warm bread which looked like sliced ciabatta.

“Thanks,” he said, then added, “The young man serving us; is he new?”

“Yes,” she replied anxiously. “Is everything all right?”

“Oh, fine, yes. I just figured he hadn’t been waiting tables for long.” He gave her a knowing smile.

“No, he’s from an agency. I understand he is experienced though.”

“The barman, too?”

“Yes,” she replied. “Both from an agency, short notice, I gather.”

“Staff sickness?”

“No,” she said. “Our regular barman and waiter left suddenly.” She leaned towards King and whispered, “They disappeared. And then some money was found to have gone missing.” She shrugged. “I don’t really believe they stole the money. They were honest men. I’d worked with them for long enough for it to have been a huge surprise.”

“And you don’t know where they’ve gone?”

“No.”

King nodded. “I suppose it happens all the time,” he said. “Transient staff…”

“Oh, no. Christoph worked here for two years, Reiner had been here since it opened four years ago.”

“And these two new men, the agency staff, they are both Finnish?”

“No,” she said sullenly. “They are both from Norway.”

“Norway?”

She nodded, then leaned even closer and whispered, “But they are lying,” she said. “I have heard them talking to each other in