Shroud of Concealment (Jake Dillon Adventure Thriller Series) by Andrew Towning

need for him to reply to Dillon’s questions and felt no fear from him either. Dillon took one step forward and grabbed the sleeve of the hacking jacket, but his grip was easily broken with a lightning quick movement. Dillon immediately felt the strength of the man. It would have been stupid to brawl in a crowded London pub and he had already got a glimpse of the gun butt tucked in the waistband of the trousers as the man’s jacket shifted open. He wouldn’t put it past the man that the revelation was a deliberate attempt to goad him into doing something impetuous. Instead, he allowed him to leave quietly and without any fuss.
    Dillon came out of the pub, spotted the man walking back up the street towards the Lihiri Import & Export Company, and followed him. He wanted to be satisfied that the Indian man was returning to their building.
    He walked straight past Lihiri’s and continued on until Dillon realised that they were retracing their steps over and over again, and were now heading towards Paddington. This man would walk all day and at the end of it Dillon would have learnt no more.
    Dillon decided to head back towards Lihiri’s, taking a number of shortcuts that he’d spotted earlier. He positioned himself out of sight and a safe distance from their building, but where he could keep an eye on the front door and clearly photograph anyone coming or going. It took the fit-looking Indian man longer than he had expected to return, but when he did he went straight in and Dillon was satisfied.
    He picked up Issy from her office that evening; she usually travelled by underground or taxis. As soon as she was seated beside him, he said, “You must drop Gideon Lihiri and Charlie Hart and have nothing more to do with them.”
    “I thought that there must be something wrong for you to collect me like this.”
    She smoothed back her long hair and used the illuminated vanity mirror on the reverse of the sun visor to check her makeup.
    “So what’s happened to bring this on?”
    “Let’s just say that Lihiri is not what he appears to be, all right.”
    “Well you’re going to have to do much better than that, Jake Dillon.”
    “Okay.”
    Dillon told her about the Indian man in the pub and how he’d followed him around west London for most of the afternoon.
    “So what of it? Perhaps he thought you were going to attack him or something.”
    “No, Issy. He had a gun and I have no doubt that he would have used it. There is also the little matter of who this man is.”
    “So, who is he?”
    The evening traffic was at its worst and they were making little progress. Dillon carefully weaved the Porsche through a gap left by two large vans, and entered a side street, eventually joining the main road further along where the congestion had eased.
    “A gun-for-hire by the name of Bharat. Remarkably, Vince was able to get a definite match from the image I sent from my mobile phone. He found him on the metropolitan police database and Interpol have him as well. He’s apparently quite notorious throughout Europe. Works for anyone who will pay his ‘two million pound a time’ fee.”
    “Wow, I’m obviously in the wrong job. But why do you think he’s working for Lihiri? Just because he went into their office block means absolutely nothing. After all, you said that there were three companies in that building.”
    “Because men like that do not casually stand in pubs and wish complete strangers by name, to have a nice day. That’s why.”
    “Perhaps he was being friendly.”
    “No. He was sent as a warning and not because of this stolen painting thing. I don’t think for one moment that he was ever intending to harm me. What does concern me though, is that I’m being manipulated and drawn into something that is starting to look more sinister by the day. I wonder why Gideon Lihiri would need the services of a heavyweight killer like Bharat. Only something serious and involving vast sums of money would warrant it. This whole