by Emma Jameson
“But those are to be avoided at all costs,” she’d added with a smile as hard as her blood-red fingernails. “I’d rather tangle with a paranoid off his meds who thinks Prince Charles bugged his bog than grapple with eternal grievers. You know the type? Their kid went backpacking through Somerset and turned up dead in a hostel. It’s been twenty years and they’re still looking for justice. To an efficient organization, eternal grievers are like Kryptonite. No offense.”
In Cecelia’s case, the casual “no offense” had been helpful, as Tony had indeed been on the brink of a sharp retort. At the Yard, he’d never permitted subordinates to speak unkindly about the families of victims, or to broadly suggest that their grief should come with a sell-by date. But his days of cracking the whip over younger detectives were done. And rather than dress down PI number three, he’d passed her his card, deciding to take an altogether different tack.
“Bugged bogs don’t play to my strengths. Cold homicides do. By all means, direct your eternal grievers to me.”
Cecilia had flipped over the card and raised an eyebrow. “Not even a number?”
Per Paul’s recommendation, the card was plain white with nothing on it but the words ANTHONY HETHERIDGE in bold black ink.
“The casually interested can Google my name,” he’d replied. “For the rest….” He recited his mobile number, which she’d dutifully jotted onto the card. It was impossible to tell if she was humoring him or if she was intended to subcontract his services at some future date.
“You know, I worked for the Met when I was young and clueless,” Cecilia had said, giving Tony a long appraising look. “Dinosaurs like you at the top ran me off. Best thing for me. I ought to send you flowers. You seem pretty hale and hearty for a recent retiree. What drove you into the private sector?”
“An approaching meteorite,” Tony had said lightly. “Thank you for your time, Ms. Wheelwright. Remember me to the eternal grievers.”
Now a massive crane lifted a steel beam into place. The Gherkin was half-obscured. Tony watched the construction for awhile, then remembered his tea. It had gone cold. He wasn’t surprised.
At the Yard, teatime consisted of stolen moments between emails, phone calls, emergencies, and meetings. At One Hundred and One Leadenhall, alone with his living room view, teatime was peaceful and uninterrupted. It was ghastly. Self-reflection wasn’t his strong suit. He hadn’t been brought up to indulge in such things. Wasn’t that the entire point of work, to drown out the beastly voices of one’s internal committee?
Returning to the kitchen to pour out his cold tea, Tony chuckled over the only private case he’d had to date. A dog-napping he’d solved in one day—in two and a half hours, to be precise.
He wouldn’t have accepted it, only the young woman who engaged his services, a referral from his adult daughter Jules, had made it sound like her child was missing. She’d referred to the dog as “Jeremy,” mentioned his gluten sensitivity, his penchant for trusting strangers, and his favorite T-shirt, white with blue piping. Only when Tony arrived at the self-styled “jewel of the coveted E14 postcode,” a luxury condominium called the Madison in Canary Wharf, did he learn he’d been engaged to locate a Chihuahua.
Fortunately, Tony’s long career in what was unaffectionately known around Scotland Yard as “the Toff Squad,” had prepared him to deal with all sorts of indignities. The twenty-three-year-old mistress of an influential Labour crusader presented no challenge. She’d opened the door wearing nothing but earrings and a string bikini, and Tony hadn’t batted an eye. It was mid-April, and it was 9 AM, but as Tony frequently misquoted F. Scott Fitzgerald, the rich were indifferent.
Once he’d realized it was a dog-napping, not a missing persons case, Tony had tried to back out. “But you’re the best! I want only the best,” the Labour crusader’s mistress had insisted. Jeremy was her “entire life” (which might have come as news to her bigwig boyfriend) and only a former Scotland Yard detective was good enough to find him.
At least locating Jeremy had required more than logging onto a database. After interviewing the twenty-three-year-old mistress, which was wearisome, and her best mate, which was worse, Tony had knocked on the door of her only neighbor on the Madison’s thirty-third floor. Interviewing that young man, a fourth-generation denizen of the indifferent class, had completed Tony’s journey into idiocy. Irritated by pop-eyed, shivery little Jeremy’s constant overtures of friendship, the young man had scooped up the Chihuahua, blue-piped T-shirt and all, binned his collar, and dumped him at the nearest dog-rehoming center. Fortunately, adoptions had been slow that week. Tony had popped round to the center, collected Jeremy, and returned him to the Labour crusader’s mistress, who’d squealed with delight.
Of course, all this could have been discovered, perhaps even averted, by a five-minute conversation between neighbors. Jeremy’s owner believed she had a right to let the dog roam freely on “his” floor; her neighbor believed he had a right to seize and dispose of unattended animals. Tony had left the pair to fight it out, probably via lawsuit and countersuit. He’d thought he’d at least enjoy receiving his fee, which he’d impulsively tripled on the spot. But the mistress was happy to pay. She’d called her lover to request an advance on her allowance while Tony paced her living room, checking his watch. In the end, he wished he’d simply plopped the dog in her arms and walked away. Kate, as it turned out, felt the same way.
“Triple? You charged her triple?” she’d demanded later the same night.
That had been during their after-dinner summit. That was the time when Kate revealed everything he wasn’t meant to know about the Yard, and he confided everything happening in his world. Revealing his actual thoughts and emotions was still difficult for Tony. Half the time he couldn’t classify those emotions, or even say what had inspired them. Maybe he was too old, or as Henry would say, too “old-school,” to become entirely comfortable with the process. But it meant everything to his wife, so he persisted.
“It’s unethical,” Kate had continued. “Reminds me of that plumber. The one who heard my voice and quoted me one fee, then took one look at Wellegrave House and doubled it. I told him he’d get a reputation as a shakedown artist. The same will happen to you.”
“Heaven forfend,” Tony had said. “You saved us fifty quid. You also intimidated the poor sod so thoroughly, the bog ended up in worse shape than when he started. Not to mention he promised to report you for verbal abuse.”
“Do me a favor,” Kate had scoffed. “I was gentle as a baby lamb with him. And listen to you. ‘Bog,’ eh? I’m rubbing off. What’ll come out of your mouth next? ‘You’re nicked, sunshine?’”
“You didn’t teach me the word bog. In fact, I defy you to cite even one occasion when I said ‘loo’ in the company of hardened detectives. That sort of poncy talk torpedoes careers. Especially in the days when we were a police force, not a police service.”
“Oh, the days when we were a force,” Kate had laughed. “A manly, snow-white, un-PC, dead of a heart attack at fifty and bloody well grateful for it force, and not a weak, womanly, criminal-coddling service full of people like me.”
“You would’ve loved it.”
“Would I?”
“In those days, there was such a thing as five minutes alone with a suspect to ‘encourage’ them to come clean. Not to mention carte blanche to issue threats as needed. Even dole out bribes, within reason, when innocent lives hung in the balance.”
“Where exactly did that bribe money come from?” asked Kate, who knew.
“I’ll never tell.”
“You know if I’d been around back in the day, you blokes wouldn’t have let me play your reindeer games. Still. It would have been lovely, taking the gloves off when the moment was right.” Smiling at the idea, Kate had smacked her fist into her palm. It was the sort of unselfconsciously ballsy move that bypassed Tony’s cerebrum, arousing his most primitive instincts. No wonder so many of their after-dinner summits ended behind a locked door. Even a
fter a few months of marriage, Kate still crackled with an aura of invincibility. He’d never been a man who could resist a challenge.
Later, when they were in bed with the lights off and the television news muted, Kate had picked up that conversational thread rather abruptly. “So. What’s your take on it now?”
“On what? Brexit?” Tony asked, thinking she referred to the muted argument between TV talking heads.
Kate recoiled. Mentioning Brexit, Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, was breaking a Hetheridge family rule, as the topic had become an unprecedented bone of contention in Tony’s expanded household. He’d taken one position. Kate had taken another. Meanwhile, Mrs. Snell was ardently in favor of leaving the EU. Harvey was actively campaigning for a legislative escape hatch that would permit Britain to remain. And Henry found the adults’ passion on the topic so upsetting, the mere hint of another row put him in tears. In the end, everyone had agreed to stick to less tricky subjects, like how to achieve peace in the Middle East, or which religious faith was superior to all the rest.
“Ugh. Never,” Kate had said, turning off the TV. “I’m talking about your PI career. You can’t go on as the finder of lost pups, bilking obnoxious clients who are too loaded to care. I know billing is new to you. You never had to deal with fees at the Yard. Probably never gave a thought to your salary….”
“Except to ensure it was appropriate. Not an insult, and not some sort of sycophantic tribute.”
“Oh, to be the man whose only financial concern is the elimination of sycophantic tributes.” Grinning up at him wickedly, Kate had played with the stiff silver hair in the center of his chest. “Here’s a thought. Take cases according to merit only. Walk away from anything that isn’t worth your time. Accept payment on a sliding scale.”
“I’ve been thinking along those lines,” he’d admitted. “I didn’t expect you to approve.”
“Why? Did you think I married you for your earning potential?” she’d asked, folding herself into his embrace. “You’re a workaholic. So am I, but you’re worse. There’s no twelve-step program that’ll turn you into an allotment gardener or a chat show watcher. Work for free if you have to, but work for people you respect.”
She was right, Tony thought. Rather than refill his teacup, he left it in the sink. I can’t enjoy my cuppa unless I’m on the job.
“You again, right on cue. It’s like you read my mind.”
Cecilia Wheelwright ushered Tony into her office right away, which he hadn’t expected. All signs pointed to an unhappy day in her ultra-traditional, climate-controlled realm. She was smoking unfiltered Camels at her desk and finishing a Red Bull. A mug of coffee, brought in by an assistant on tiptoes, steamed in readiness nearby.
“Here’s the thing. These people I’m giving you will test your patience. They’re beyond angry. They’re incandescent.” Cecelia took a deep drag on her cigarette. “They lost two children, young adults, in two weeks — one dead, one to the streets. Mariah threw herself off a building. Ten days later, her twin brother Mark went missing. He’s troubled. Probably an addict. No one was surprised that a kid like that would ditch his family in their time of need. Well. No one except his parents.
“A week after I took the case, one of my old friends at the Met gave me a tip. He said Mark was living in a C of E homeless shelter. I sent an agent, but by the time she got there, he’d legged it. This keeps happening. Somebody sees Mark waiting to buy drugs or loitering by a free clinic. We try to make contact, set up a family reunion. He pulls another disappearing act and his parents hold my agency responsible.
“Now, I sympathize with their grief. Sincerely. So help me God,” Cecelia said in the tone of one asking a waiter for salt for the third time. She blew out a plume of smoke. “But I’m running a business, not a charity, and these people,” she said, seemingly substituting “people” for some other term, “expect me to focus all my resources on Mark, week in and week out, to earn a retainer that doesn’t cover a month’s manicures. They think Mariah was driven to suicide by a shadowy Svengali. They think the same Svengali got Mark hooked on drugs and convinced him to leave home. They want me to aggressively dig into the man’s life and history. But he’s—”
“He’s Sir Duncan Godington. And the parents are Peter and Hannah Keene. The Earl and Countess of Brompton.”
“You know them.” Cecelia sighed in relief.
“Less well than I know Sir Duncan, but yes.” It took all of Tony’s self-control not to look as interested as he felt. “Tell me more.”
Chapter Two
The Earl and Countess of Brompton resided in a modest house in Shepherd’s Bush. The shrubbery wanted pruning; a fifteen-year-old BMW sat by the curb. For so many English families, this was a dream increasingly out of reach—old house, new roof, bit of green, bit of shade. In his thirties and forties, Tony had rejected such a life. Now he saw its appeal: marriage, two kiddies, two careers, and a comfortable London home. But the title “Earl” conjured higher expectations. Many would have looked on Peter and Hannah Keene’s lifestyle with pity, even contempt.
Peter Keene’s father had been a gambler, like his father before him. When the grandfather humiliated his family and faced prison for his financial misadventures, he’d done what men of his era did — locked himself in his study and shot himself in the head. But Peter’s father belonged to a new day, one in which public requests for absolution were common and disgraced public figures occasionally regained their former standing, even after a stint behind bars. Therefore, when he was sued by his creditors for fraudulent dealings meant to fund his gambling habit, he’d chosen one last roll of the dice: hiring the best lawyers and fighting like hell. This had ended in bankruptcy, loss of the family home, and incarceration. After five years in HM Pentonville, Peter’s father had died, passing the title of Earl to his son.
He’s done well for himself, Tony thought, looking around the tidy home with admiration as he awaited the cup of tea that Hannah Keene had promised him. Plenty of men would’ve spent their lives trying to rebuild the family fortune by hook or by crook: risky investments, product endorsements, some sort of reality TV show. Peter Keene had married a scientist, used what little inheritance he had left to purchase a four-bedroom detached house, and worked his way up through the rough-and-tumble world of English politics. They’d been blessed with twins, Mark and Mariah, and enjoyed peaceful, useful lives until tragedy struck their children.
“It’s green tea,” Hannah Keene announced, entering the front room with a tray. She placed it on the coffee table in front of Tony. The service—Japanese, off-white with a subtle lotus design—resembled his favorite service at home. “Will you drink it?”
Something in her tone suggested Hannah didn’t want him to agree; that she would have liked nothing better than to spark a refusal. Maybe she was spoiling for a fight.
“Green tea is fine. One of my employees swears by it. Because of flavonoids or antioxidants or possibly both,” Tony said mildly. “I don’t have to keep up with the latest nutritional edicts. Harvey reads the health news compulsively. He does his best to keep me alive.”
“It’s useless. Sorry. Journalists turn health studies into rubbish stories with clickbait headlines.” Hannah seated herself across from Tony. Tall and slender, she had broad shoulders, trim hips, and a flat chest. Her rose-patterned maxi dress hung on her beautifully, giving her the appearance of a mature model rather than a chemist. Her features were strong but well-balanced, the lines around her eyes and mouth hinting at a lively woman who smiled often. But now those lines were deepened by sorrow and animated by narrowly contained rage.
“Doesn’t matter what the study is,” Hannah continued, pouring for Tony. “I’ve spent my life in a lab coat, writing research grants and analyzing human trial data. Take it from me: if you read it in a newspaper, the data has been dumbed-down, stretched beyond reason, and framed as a life-extender or a life-ender. That’s all people want to know. Will avoiding fizzy soda let me live
forever? Does eating meat condemn me to an early grave?”
“I think perhaps you’re right.” Tony tasted the green tea. Fragrant as well as flavorful, it required no sweetener. Nodding his appreciation, he added, “There’s an almost supernatural aspect to Harvey’s interest in these things. We all want assurances. Once, I suppose the medicine man gave them, or the priest. Now we expect science to tell us what’s a virtue and what’s a sin.”
“Which isn’t science’s place at all. As for sins—don’t get me started.” Hannah’s laugh was bitter. “When Cecelia called to say she was sending over a retired Scotland Yard detective, I nearly came unhinged. As far as I’m concerned, the Met has proven, through word and through deed, they have no interest in finding Mark or getting justice for Mariah. Cecelia insisted I shouldn’t hold that against you. She tried to soften me up by reminding me that we’ve been introduced.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“I don’t.” Hannah studied him over the rim of her teacup. “Perhaps you made no impression on me.”
“Small talk at a charity gala. Ten years ago. Easily forgotten,” Tony said. Again, he sensed she was determined to get a rise out of him, which only made him calmer.
“Yes, well, my husband might remember. You’re both seated on the board of some foundation. Meets twice a year.”
“Thrice a year. It’s called the Bootstrap Stratagem. And you’re right, our connection is gossamer-thin,” Tony admitted. “I’m pleased you decided to meet with me anyway.”