The Isis Covenant Read Online Free PDF Page B

idea to take a holiday, sir. They tell me the weather’s very nice in Australia this time of year.’ Jamie opened his mouth to say something equally witty, but he realized Shreeves was being serious. ‘If, on the other hand, you decide to stay, sir, there’s a good possibility that this is just smoke and mirrors on the part of persons unknown. To be honest, a hundred grand in dollars isn’t that big an incentive to send someone suitably qualified across the Atlantic to take you out.’ He handed over a card. ‘If you do see anything suspicious you know where I am, though,’ he gave an embarrassed cough, ‘in the event of a real emergency it might be better to telephone 999.’
    Shreeves got up to go and Jamie squeezed past the desk to see him out. They shook hands in a manful, comradely fashion that made the younger man think of First World War colonels sending their subalterns over the top. It wasn’t the most reassuring image.
    ‘Best of luck, Mr Saintclair.’
    Thanks, old chap. Where can I get a gun?
The thought came from nowhere and for a split second he thought he’d actually spoken it, but Detective Sergeant Shreeves’ stolid expression didn’t alter as he was ushered out of the door.
    Where can I get a gun?
He actually owned a gun, but it was a .22 match rifle and it was chained up in a gun club out at Croydon. Three shots in three-quarters of an inch from a hundred yards wasn’t bad shooting, but he doubted he’d get far with a rifle on the Tube. What he really needed was a pistol, preferably an automatic, and that meant going beyond the law, to somewhere in the East End or, if he was feeling particularly brave, Lambeth. And there was the problem. He’d learned to shoot in the Army cadets and at OTC Cambridge. He was good, some people said very good. But his mother and his grandfather had brought him up to be the kind of law-abiding Englishman they thought still populated their rose-tinted island paradise. He might bend the law a little, but he wouldn’t lightly break it. The indoctrination of a lifetime couldn’t be shrugged off just because some Don Corleone lookalike in Little Italy might, or might not, have given the nod for his execution. Still, it was something to be considered. The door buzzer sounded, and he pressed the button that was Saintclair Fine Arts’ answer to a security system, at the same time thinking how silly he’d feel if a man sporting a moustache walked in with a silenced Beretta.
    Fortunately it was Gail, and she had an enormous polystyrene cup in her hand.
    ‘I bought you a coffee.’ She smiled. ‘You looked like you might need it after your meeting.’
    ‘Skinny latté?’
    She gave an unladylike snort at the old joke. The shop down the narrow street near the office only sold two kinds of coffee: black or white.
    ‘It might have cooled a little; the lift’s not working again.’
    ‘Bugger.’ Another reason for patrons of the arts to pass them by. The kind of high-rollers he needed to cultivate didn’t take well to climbing four flights of stairs.
    Gail settled down at her end of the battleground, the big desk they shared that filled most of the office and which was the scene of constant struggle between the forces of neatness and disorder. Jamie took a sip of his coffee and instantly felt revived enough to start trawling online art gallery and auction sites for the profitable work of genius everybody else had missed. This was what he thought of as the ‘muck-shifting’ part of the job. The big dealers employed dozens of bright-eyed, annoyingly enthusiastic, underpaid interns to do this kind of donkey work, sifting through the fakes and the gifted amateurs and the students who might or, more likely, might not be the next big thing. It was like a combination of blindfolded bog-snorkelling and hunt the thimble, and it wasn’t long before he felt as if he was drowning in dross and frustration.
    ‘Look, Gail, it’s possible I might have to go away again for a