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  ‘Tell him what?’

  Rentoria took a breath and looked beyond Trent. ‘DO NOT DISTURB signs arouse suspicion if they’re on the door, all day, every day.’

  ‘And why is that a problem?’ demanded Trent.

  Rentoria continued in a monotone. ‘Because big hotels are great for anonymity but have a higher staff turnover and full background checks on who comes and goes, are impossible.’

  Trent patted him on the cheek. ‘There you go. You’ll be Director in no time.’

  2

  March 29th 2019 - Mandarin Building, Marina Bay, Singapore

  ‘Tyler’s late!’ said Carla. ‘An hour, you said.’

  Harry Renfrew gazed at his wife from his perch on top of his lone suitcase, hoping to make eye contact. He failed. The instant her enquiry was lodged, Carla’s mouth reverted to the hard line that had deformed her face since the decision to flee their gilded life in Singapore had been taken. She stood, arms folded, forehead resting on the reinforced glass of the vast corner window of their penthouse apartment, eyes locked onto the twinkling lights of Marina Bay below.

  There’d been tears and blazing rows but these had given way to silent anger and frustration and Harry wasn’t sure which he preferred. Determined not to answer unless she looked at him, he checked his watch, returning to monitor her profile a second later, her head still inclined to the distant lives being lived forty floors below.

  Minute head movements betrayed her changing interest in quotidian events - a boat full of tourists exploring the river with its sites ancient and modern; a couple embracing on a bench on one of the piers; a gaggle of Friday night revellers heading over the Jubilee Bridge to the Esplanade. Thousands of unknown lives being lived, each according to individual preference, even the humblest of them marching to the beat of their own drum and, despite all his money, Harry suspected Carla envied them that.

  With a melancholic smile, he remembered their own late-night walks, ambling hand in hand around the bay’s promenades when Singaporeans donned T-shirts and shorts and headed outdoors to enjoy the cooler temperatures of what was, after all, reclaimed jungle. He remembered their early nights of courtship, holding her close and exploring her face as they strolled. Carla was twenty years his junior, achingly beautiful and, despite his millions, he’d been under no illusion that he was punching above his weight when he’d finally made her his wife. And everyone he knew agreed.

  The first night he’d clapped eyes on her, sashaying towards his table with a tray of Slings, was seared in his memory. He’d been with some of the guys from the trading floor, having a few well-earned sharpeners in a private room at Zouk, a nightclub in The Cannery. Carla had served them. And seeing her sway exotically towards his table, in her short, black pencil skirt and tight-fitting check blouse, he lost the power of speech for a moment. Indeed, time itself seemed to slow through the gears and even the heavy throb of music from the dance floor had been reduced to barely a pulse.

  Carla had walked with the poise of a model, comfortable in her own skin. Confidence radiated from every pore and her aura of faint amusement at the attention she received was not for show. That it was her job to play nice with the big money guys, to accept the open-mouthed lust with good humour and patience, was not in doubt. But there was more to her demeanour than that. Carla had been completely undaunted by the unequal power dynamic of a lone waitress attending to a bunch of alcohol-fuelled big shots. Yet not a fibre of her being had implied subservience, not for a second. Rather, she radiated quiet disdain, which Harry’s dumbstruck gaping had only compounded. On her own amongst a pack of drunken, lusty rich men, Carla was in complete control of the room.

  One of the guys, usually Brad, could be relied on to drop in a crude comment for general amusement so it was a rare event when even he, and another half dozen hard-bitten, financial demi-gods were equally dumbstruck, unable to communicate their appreciation with anything other than an obscene tip. And what was true then was true today - when Carla entered a room, heads turned and the drone of conversation faltered.

  Harry broke his gaze to glance at Carla’s three suitcases by the door. Having screwed up a life his wife adored, it was clear from the set of her mouth that he wouldn’t be forgiven any time soon.

  ‘He’s late,’ she seethed again, her green eyes finally blazing at him from beneath the blonde fringe. The bureaucratic tone of her first enquiry had been replaced by anger, despair, pleading. Is this really happening? Do we have to leave? He fancied he saw a tear glint in her eye. She adored Singapore in all its exotic, fabulous, grimy glory.

  For Carla, even the seamier side of life on the island made the glamour more compelling. In Singapore, people lived life to the full and damn the consequences. Live hard or die meek, was Harry’s motto. And with the kind of money there was to be made, he’d been true to his word.

  Indecent riches were his to command, as they were to all those willing to get their hands dirty, hunched over a terminal, overseeing huge transactions and harvesting eye-watering fees. The trick was to collect only so much dirt that could be safely washed away under a gold-plated tap at the end of the day. Yes, that was the trick and, in that final enterprise, he’d failed.

  ‘It’s only five minutes, darling.’

  ‘Five minutes?’ she sneered. ‘But won’t we miss the plane?’

  The plane. There it was. The scorn reserved for scheduled flights on airlines that poor people used, squeezed into uncomfortable seats like rats in a sack. By implication, she bemoaned the loss of his private jet, sold a week ago for a fifth of its value to a broker on the twelfth floor of the firm’s building.

  How Carla had loved that jet. Not just because she could sink into its leather sofas to quaff Cristal - ample reason for most wives and girlfriends - but because, on a whim, it could transport her to all those far-flung places she’d dreamed of visiting, gazing out of the windows of a private school classroom in Surrey.

  The Lear had been the trump card in his campaign for Carla’s hand. Such a prize hadn’t been easily wooed but that only made conquest all the sweeter. Hong Kong. Shanghai. Bangkok. Bali. After months enduring the deafening music in Zouk just to be near her, he’d proposed dinner in Hong Kong, the next night - flying there in his jet. Only then, after months of painfully slow courtship, had Carla finally offered herself up to him, not because he had money but because he used those riches to offer her the world. In a very real sense, that plane had been their engagement ring. And now it was gone.

  The entry phone buzzed and Harry leapt up to answer. ‘Tyler?’ he barked into the microphone.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come up. We’re ready.’

  ‘Are we?’ scoffed Carla.

  Harry gathered the cases together and opened the entrance hall door.

  Two minutes later, a man, late-forties, tall and lean with grey-streaked, close-cropped hair stepped silently across the threshold. He was simply dressed in black sweater and cargo trousers with a grey jacket slung over his arm and a small rucksack on his back. A scar ran from his right eyebrow, back across his forehead and disappeared under his hairline. He glanced around the apartment, his gaze lingering on his first vision of Carla Renfrew.

  ‘Mrs Renfrew,’ he acknowledged, in a soft American accent.

  ‘You’re late, Tyler,’ complained Renfrew.

  ‘Last minute refinements,’ answered Trent, his eye falling on the four monogrammed cases. He removed his rucksack and rummaged inside. ‘And while we’re pointing fingers, I said one piece of luggage each, standard cases. Monogrammed luggage will get you noticed.’

  Harry opened his mouth but, before he could apologise, Carla let fly.

  ‘You’ve got a fucking nerve,’ she blazed. ‘You’re asking us to give up our lives and leave everything behind at the drop of a hat so I don’t see what the fuck it matters whether we have two cases or four.’

  Trent’s response was not the servility her outburst demanded and he stared calmly back. ‘I realise this is hard,
Mrs Renfrew. But let’s get one thing clear. I’m not asking you to do anything. Your husband hired me to help the two of you relocate without, shall we say, eye-catching complications. I appreciate this is all very sudden…’

  ‘Sudden?’ shouted Carla. ‘Our lives are being turned upside down and you think we should thank you for expecting us to drop everything and walk out of our lives.’

  ‘Honey…’ began Renfrew.

  ‘I don’t expect thanks, Mrs Renfrew, I take payment,’ said Trent, closing the door to soundproof their conversation. ‘Once received, I do my job and prepare for your departure. Your husband made a deal with a Russian investment bank.’ Renfrew looked at him in surprise. ‘The deal went south and the bank are looking for payback on the dough they lost and don’t care who they hurt to get it.’

  ‘You…?’ stuttered Renfrew.

  ‘Of course, I checked,’ interrupted Trent. ‘I told you at our first meeting, I don’t work for criminals, I help people in trouble.’

  ‘For a price,’ snarled Carla.

  ‘No argument here,’ replied Trent.

  ‘Glad to know I passed muster,’ said Renfrew.

  ‘Honestly, it was touch and go,’ replied Trent. ‘But whether I approve of your line of work or not, I do not like corporate bullies who think violence can make up for their poor judgement. So, Mrs Renfrew, I’m not here to hold your hand or offer sympathy for your disrupted lives. I understand your pain, I really do. But if you have to disappear to avoid harm, you need my help. This is what I do and I’m very good at it. Now make a choice. Stay or go. Lose two of the cases or I walk but decide now because we’re on the clock.’

  Carla glared at him. ‘People don’t talk to me like that.’

  ‘A day of firsts, then,’ said Trent.

  ‘You fucking…’

  ‘Carla?’ snapped Renfrew. ‘Honey.’

  ‘Don’t honey me,’ she said, her eyes filling with tears. ‘This is not my fault…’

  ‘Oh, so it’s my fault…’

  ‘It’s nobody’s fault!’ barked Trent, his voice like a verbal slap. He stared coolly from wife to husband and back again. ‘Shit happens while you’re minding your business. You can deal with the consequences or start assigning blame and get consumed in the backdraft. What’s it to be?’

  Without looking at him, Carla came to a decision and marched sullenly away from the view she loved, picked up two of her cases and marched them into the bedroom, returning without them.

  ‘Good,’ said Trent, nodding at the remaining cases. ‘No laptops, iPads or other devices in these two?’ Carla and Harry shook their heads. ‘Jewellery?’

  ‘Safe deposit box, as you suggested,’ said Renfrew.

  Trent nodded and took a fat roll of black tape from the rucksack and tore off a piece to stick over the lettering on the leather. After doing the same to the other case, he returned the tape to the rucksack.

  ‘You came prepared,’ said Renfrew.

  ‘People are in denial right up to the second they walk out of their lives.’

  ‘Don’t ordinary people have monogrammed luggage?’ demanded Carla.

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Trent. ‘But, if they’re on the run with a new identity, the initials on their luggage may not match their passports and that gets noticed.’

  Carla speared a fresh dart of anger towards her husband. ‘I’m losing my name?’

  ‘It’s just for a few months, honey,’ soothed her husband. ‘Until this blows over.’

  ‘Here,’ said Trent, handing over new passports. ‘Lies are easier to carry off with a shared truth so you’re still English, if that helps.’

  ‘Rule Britannia,’ grinned Renfrew, trying to cheer his wife. She returned a look of contempt before examining her new passport.

  ‘Charlotte Butler,’ she said, in a voice that would have sent a tremor of fear through all the Charlotte Butlers in the world.

  ‘David Butler,’ said Renfrew, turning his new passport over in his hand. ‘These look real.’

  ‘They are,’ said Trent, taking Carla’s case from her. ‘You have something for me?’ Renfrew handed over a bulging tote bag. ‘It’s all here?’ Renfrew nodded but Trent asked the question anyway. ‘All credit and bank cards with codes, social media accounts and passwords, iPads, cell phones, chips removed?’

  ‘All there.’

  Trent pushed the bag into his rucksack. ‘Wait here while I take your bags to the car. I’m certain your building isn’t being watched but if it is, the later they see the pair of you leave, the better. I’ll brief you in the car about destination and other essentials.’

  ‘You don’t know where we’re going?’ said Carla, eyes wide, to her husband. Powerless to argue, Renfrew stared back helplessly.

  ‘Information he doesn’t know can’t be passed on,’ said Trent.

  ‘It’s not like I would have told anyone,’ said Renfrew.

  ‘No, but you’d have been tempted to google the area. And if the people threatening you are halfway serious and the same amount competent, they’ll be all over your browsing history like a rash when they find out you’ve gone.’ He marched towards the elevators with the cases.

  Left alone with her husband, Carla’s mouth hardened again. ‘He’s got the codes for our credit cards?’

  ‘It helps him lay down a false trail,’ said Renfrew, moving to embrace her. ‘Anybody trying to find us will be following his spending and end up chasing Tyler instead of us. It’s going to be okay, baby.’

  She shrugged his arms away. ‘But if he’s got your cards, how are you paying him?’

  ‘I laid out three hundred grand upfront. Cash.’

  ‘How much?’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Some of that was for flights and long-term accommodation,’ said Harry. ‘He claims the balance of his fee on our plastic.’

  ‘So, he’s got my cards too?’

  ‘Everything.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s not like we can use them, honey. They’d find us, if we did.’

  She nodded, a tear of resignation welling. She took a last look at the apartment, resisting the temptation to return to her vigil by the window.

  ‘David, Charlotte,’ said Trent, leaning back into the apartment. ‘It’s clear. Let’s hustle.’

  In the car, travelling along East Coast Park to Changi Airport, Carla’s eyes were glued to Trent from the back seat. ‘Where to first?’

  ‘The airport.’

  ‘No, I mean you,’ said Carla. ‘On our dime.’

  ‘That’s on a need-to-know basis, Mrs Butler.’

  ‘It’s our money,’ said Carla. ‘And please, call me Charlotte. David and I hate formality.’

  Trent smiled, glancing back at her in the driver’s mirror. ‘That’s the spirit.’

  ‘So, where?’

  ‘Honey, he can’t…’

  ‘Bermuda,’ said Trent.

  ‘Good choice,’ said Carla. ‘You’ll love it there. Great paragliding and rafting.’

  ‘Adrenalin junkie, my wife,’ said Renfrew, winking.

  ‘Can you recommend a good hotel?’ said Trent.

  ‘We always stay at the Rosewood,’ said Renfrew, catching Carla’s glare. ‘But it’s very expensive,’ he added meekly.

  ‘If you have history there, I’ll steer clear,’ said Trent. ‘Anywhere else?’

  ‘I hear the Loren at Pink Beach is very good,’ said Renfrew. Trent nodded.

  ‘First class all the way?’ said Carla.

  ‘If that’s how my clients travel,’ said Trent. ‘A successful smokescreen requires authenticity.’

  ‘I’ll bet.’

  ‘Carla…’

  ‘Charlotte,’ she growled at her husband.

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Trent. ‘In your situation, I’d be asking the same questions. From this moment, trust no-one.’

  ‘Does that mean, having told us where you’re going, you’ll have to kill us?’ sneered Carla.

  ‘That wouldn’t look very good on my CV,’ said Trent.

 
‘I promise not to tell,’ she said. ‘Cross my heart…’

  ‘…and hope to die?’ said Trent.

  ‘That wouldn’t look good on your CV either,’ she said.

  ‘Copy that,’ said Trent.

  Carla stared out of the window, ruminating on her next barb. ‘Sounds like you lead a fabulous life, living it up on other people’s money.’

  ‘Isn’t that what your husband does?’ said Trent.

  Renfrew’s laughter was loud and hearty. ‘He’s got you there, Carla.’

  ‘Charlotte,’ said Carla and Trent in unison. Harry raised his hands in supplication.

  ‘You haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘Whatever you might think, Mrs Butler, this is work,’ said Trent. ‘Of course, seeing different parts of the world has its pleasures but, if I’m doing my job properly, it involves a lot of sitting around in hotels getting bored, waiting for something to happen.’

  ‘Very expensive hotels,’ said Carla.

  ‘If it’s any consolation, most of my clients are nowhere near as wealthy as you and your husband. Laying down a trail might involve backpacking around India or sleeping rough in Bangkok.’

  ‘What clients?’

  ‘That’s confidential,’ he said.

  ‘Broad brush.’

  Trent considered. ‘A battered wife getting away from a controlling husband, a victim of cyberstalking, a whistle-blower being harassed by a multinational.’

  ‘And if they can’t afford you?’

  ‘If they’re in danger, they can afford me,’ said Trent.

  ‘Oh, the nobility!’ shot back Carla, clasping her hands together, voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘And I suppose scalping my husband subsidises your pro bono cases.’

  ‘You’re entitled to think that,’ said Trent. He smiled. ‘And you’d be right.’

  ‘It’s all deductible, honey,’ said Renfrew.

  Carla gave him a look of contempt that lowered his gaze. ‘Assuming you live to file another tax return.’

  ‘It’s my job to ensure he does,’ said Trent.