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

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    Dillon was kept busy at the theatre for most of the day, going over the building works with the site foreman whilst these enquiries were being made, and nothing out of the ordinary happened to cause Dillon any problems. Issy had taken on some of the work that had been introduced by Hart, but was still not dealing directly with him. When she spoke to Dillon on the phone, she told him that what she’d been asked to undertake was perfectly straightforward and legitimate, but at the same time very mundane. This may have been Hart’s objective all of the time – simply to demonstrate that there was nothing underhand about his affairs.
    The heating was shot to pieces and the lighting rigs were hanging on nothing more than the remnants of thin electrical cable over the stage area. Otherwise, the old West End theatre was slowly taking shape, although not at the pace Dillon had hoped for. And then there was the ever-present building mess everywhere that knew no boundaries. Words of appeasement did little to reassure him.
    When the builders had left for the day, Dillon climbed the rickety old steps that led up from the orchestra pit onto the main stage, and immediately felt his heart race with excitement at the feel of the old, worn boards under his feet. And even though the old place was run down, there was still an electrifying presence of long-ago actors and productions, making the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He stood centre stage, turning around slowly, gazing up at the high vaulted ceiling and at the private boxes that looked austerely down at him. For a moment, he pondered Charlie Hart.
    So here was an obviously wealthy man, influentially connected throughout India, who had senior UK politicians treading on eggshells whenever his name was mentioned. Yet, he wasn’t listed anywhere and didn’t appear to play the stock market, either. He had to make his substantial wealth work for him somewhere. Perhaps he’d put it in off-shore holdings. That would be a nightmare to look into and take far too much time. Especially as many are nothing more than elaborate and complicated façades, and that these would be guarded by a tangled mess of confusing companies, holding companies, false names and Dillon knew that even with a large team looking into them, it would still take months, if not years, to get a full account.
    A few days later everything had settled back down to something like normality. Dillon hadn’t heard anything more from Charlie Hart and Issy had begun working on the extra workload that she had taken on. It seemed that Hart was a man who liked to make his point forcefully and with exceptional speed. Once he was sure that the message had been received and understood, he stepped back and left well alone.
    At the end of the week, Dillon spoke to LJ and told him that he thought the firm should not proceed with the assignment against Hart on the grounds that there was not any real evidence against the man. From the offices of Ferran & Cardini, he drove back across town to the theatre and had a meeting with the architect. Afterwards, he stopped in the foyer and had a chat with some of the builders. He was stood talking to one of the electricians when an enormous explosion blew the front doors clean off their hinges and sent everyone, in the immediate area of the blast, reeling backwards.

CHAPTER FIVE

    As Dillon was blown off his feet he heard the other men shouting behind him and the crash of falling glass. The building seemed to groan with the blast and then the erected scaffolding closest to the door was hurled sideward and sent crashing down onto the floor.
    There were scaffold poles and lengths of timber planking strewn everywhere. Some of the men standing nearby had caught the full brunt of the platform as it crashed down on top of them, and were now pinned under the debris. Dillon was amongst them, laying flat on his back and looking up at the hanging plaster above him. He shook his head in