by Eva Hudson
Sergeant Tillbrook whistled. “I don’t suppose this girl ever even saw the ocean. We didn’t find a passport, but we didn’t look for one either: girl like her is about as likely to travel overseas as she is to travel through time.”
“Look, I’m going to send you a photo of the girl who disappeared here this morning. When you see what she looks like, perhaps you’ll understand the need to check again.” Ingrid broke a piece of toast and scooped up a dollop of hummus. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”
Ingrid heard the sound of Mavis Tillbrook’s fingers hammering at a keyboard. “Nope, I think that’s it… Wait…we’re waiting for ballistics and forensics and… no, that’s all I got for you.”
“But you’ve had an autopsy?”
“Yes.”
“So you know what bullet was used?” Ingrid felt a chill cover her skin as she asked the question.
“Hold on. Yes, here it is. A .38 special.”
The same as the bullet she had seen in the crib.
22
“You’re not coming in.”
“Look, this is my card—”
“You already showed me your card—”
“This is my badge.”
“I have no way of knowing if this is for real.”
“Listen, I just need to speak to Mr Cooper.”
“As does everyone else here.” The security guard crossed his arms and stared hard at Ingrid. “You’re not coming in. Not you. Not anyone.”
One of the fans tapped Ingrid on the shoulder. “If you’re a stalker, and you stab Truman Cooper, or like just cut off a lock of his hair and like totally ruin continuity, he’ll be in trouble.”
Ingrid looked around at the wall of faces daring her to ask again for access to the set. Fans had come from all over the world to get a glimpse of filming. A Japanese family in matching outfits, a couple from South America with faces like stone carvings, a man in a White Sox shirt with a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead, and a couple of plus-sized women in clothes that were too small for them with Canadian maple leaves pinned to their lapels. All with their smartphones in hand, all ready to snap any actor they recognized.
“Besides, honey,” said another, an American tourist in a pink leisure suit, “if he lets you in there’ll be a stampede. I mean, we all want a piece of him, don’t we ladies?”
A chorus of ‘oh yeahs’ and ‘you bets’ drifted through the group hemming the security cordon at one end of a Georgian square in Islington, north London. Even though Ingrid had never been there before, it was instantly familiar: it must have been used in countless period dramas before The Belgravia Set had started filming there.
She tried calling Tom Kerrison’s number again, just in case, but it went straight to voicemail like all the previous times she’d called. While making Natasha breakfast, Ingrid had even tried the Versini offices in the hope of tracking him down that way, but his assistant had been about as helpful as a lettuce. She’d also called Truman Cooper’s agent and the production company, but in the end she’d had to do what everyone else standing at the cordon had done, and found the leaked filming schedule on a fan site. Ingrid scrolled through the contacts on her phone and dialed a familiar number.
“Sol Franklin, Legal Attaché program.”
“It’s Skyberg.”
“Agent Skyberg!” His voice was unusually bright. “What kind of trouble are you in now?”
“Hey, that’s not nice, but I do need a favor.”
“Uh-huh.” The assistant deputy chief’s habitual gruffness had returned.
“Could you ask the ambassador to call me.”
“What? Why?”
Ingrid explained that she was helping out a friend of Frances Byrne-Williams and was hoping the ambassador would be able to call him on her behalf. “I know if I go through the switchboard she’ll never get my message. Could you, you know, just pop your head round her door.”
“Sure! No problem!” He was layering on the sarcasm pretty thick.
“Or slip a note to her secretary?”
“Look, I’m only one step up the food chain from you, but I’ll see what I can do. And perhaps you could return the favor by actually turning up for your target practice.”
“Oh.” Damn. “Sol, I’m sorry. I had a crazy morning.” A vision of trying to wake McKittrick, make-up all over her face, drool stains on her pillow, popped into Ingrid’s head. “I’ll do it this afternoon. I’ll call Jennifer now and get her to rebook.”
“Louden’s given you the approval. You need to step up on this Russian thing.”
“That’s fantastic news. You can tell her I’m already on it. Got a good lead from my Met liaison.” That was one way to describe the name of a pub given to her by a man she’d had a one-night stand with. “I’m making a start.”
“So, all the more reason to get you tooled up.”
“I’ll do it this afternoon, I promise.”
She ended the call and opened her alarm app. She had set the time, but hadn’t programmed it to go off: maybe she had been a little more drunk than she’d realized. Ingrid started tapping a text message to Jennifer when she heard a familiar voice and looked up.
“Manuela!”
Truman Cooper’s assistant was surprised to see her.
“Hi, Manuela. I need to speak to Truman. Will you tell him I’m here, and tell him it’s urgent.”
Manuela’s face softened slightly. Perhaps there was even a hint of a smile before she turned to the security guard. “It’s OK. She can come.”
“You’re sure?” he asked.
Manuela nodded.
“OK, then.”
Ingrid had to sign several documents in which she agreed not to reveal anything about the set, plot, costumes, script, or any behind-the-scenes details to any third party. She had to switch her phones to flight mode in case their signals interfered with the camera equipment and once her bag had been inspected she was allowed to enter the square. Had she done the target practice, and obtained the relevant permissions, she wondered if someone carrying a Glock 23 would have been allowed on set.
“Nice jacket,” Manuela said. She was carrying a cardboard tray from Starbucks. The scrawled names on the cups said ‘Mickey’ and ‘Minnie’.
It didn’t matter that Manuela had said it without smiling, or emotion, or eye contact. Manuela, the ice maiden of personal assistants, had complimented Ingrid’s new jacket. She couldn’t have been more thrilled if someone had said: “You’ve just won Olympic gold.” Every penny—every pound—had been well spent and Ingrid started walking with more confidence, her back a little straighter, all trace of a hangover blown away.
“Agent Skyberg!” Truman Cooper, dressed in a tweed suit with a mustache glued to his face, got up from his chair and threw down his script. He looked at Ingrid with such expectation. “Have you found her?”
Ingrid pulled what she hoped was a sympathetic face. “No, but I do have news. I can see that you are busy, but do you have five minutes for me? I tried to get hold of Mr Kerrison but he’s not returning my calls.”
Manuela handed him a cardboard cup. “For you, I’d fake a heart attack and get the whole fucking place shut down for the day. This way.” He stretched out an arm and gently placed it on Ingrid’s shoulder to guide her away from the make-up people, the hair people, the lighting people and the countless other professions that cluttered the set. “They haven’t even brought the horses round yet, so we’ve got five at least.”
He ushered her to a cobbled alleyway that led beyond the black brick houses of the square to a mews behind where the row of two-story cottages would once have been the servants’ quarters, or the stables, or the garages. Now, of course, they were highly desirable residences. Except on days when the place was cordoned off for filming.
“That’s a very nice jacket, by the way,” he said. He pulled off the plastic lid of his coffee and took a sip, the foam sticking to his fake mustache.
“Thank you,” she said, rummaging inside
her bag for her phone. She looked up at him: he looked so different from the man who had been fuming and cursing in his pajamas twenty-four hours previously.
“Would you hold this?” He handed her his coffee and proceeded to unbutton his gloves. “It’s supposed to be November. They’ve put Nancy in a fur coat. A real one! I’m just grateful it’s a bit overcast today, but not nearly as grateful as the DP.” He looked down at Ingrid. “I’m sorry, I’m rambling. Nervous. What have you got for me?”
Ingrid could handle a nervous Truman Cooper a whole lot more easily than the belligerent version she’d dealt with the day before. “Please take a look at this photo.” She handed him her phone and showed him the portrait of the Chicago murder victim. “It’s not a great image, but is this Kate-Lynn Bowers?”
“Oh my God. You’ve found her, haven’t you?” His hand started shaking; Ingrid thought he might spill his coffee. “Is she dead? Is my son dead?”
“Mr Cooper, no, I haven’t found her, and I have no reason to think that your baby is in danger. Please, just take a look at the photo and tell me if it’s Kate-Lynn.”
His eyes were wet with tears. He nodded and took a huge breath. He closed his eyes, held very still for a moment, then opened them and exhaled, his face transformed. It was as if Ingrid had said ‘Action!’ and he was now playing the part of a capable adult. He looked at the photo.
Ingrid couldn’t tell from his expression if he recognized her or not. “Well?”
“It could be her. It certainly looks a hell of a lot like her.” He raised his gaze and stared at Ingrid. “Who is this woman?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.” She lowered her voice: “Is she your surrogate?”
He looked again at the image on the phone and shook his head. “How recent is this photo?”
“Um, I don’t know.”
“Because Kate-Lynn doesn’t look like this right now. She’s got preg face, you know what I mean?”
“I think so.”
“She’s kind of ballooned up, not just here,” he said, holding his coffee in front of his own padded belly.
Ingrid switched her weight onto her other foot, dropping her left hip: the new boots were taking a little getting used to. She leaned against the wall as a man on a penny-farthing bicycle rode past. She wasn’t sure what vintage a penny-farthing was, but suspected it was older than the Roaring Twenties The Belgravia Set depicted. “This may sound like an odd question, but the girl who stayed at your house the other night, she was definitely pregnant?”
“Pardon?”
She inhaled sharply, knowing full well that her next question sounded ridiculous. “There’s no way she could have had a cushion up her dress?”
Truman Cooper’s eyes widened. “What kind of a question is that?”
Ingrid didn’t answer.
“No, no way. Absolutely not,” he said. “I felt the baby kick. Why would you ask something like that?”
Ingrid closed her eyes, and took a moment to calculate how much information she should share with Truman Cooper. He was much calmer this morning. In fact, he seemed much more like the man Tom Kerrison had described.
“Agent? Why are you asking?”
She took a deep breath, and an enormous risk: “It seems there are two twenty-year-old women called Kate-Lynn Bowers from Aurora, Illinois, and you’re looking at one of them.”
He looked again and shook his head.
“While looking for the girl who disappeared from your house yesterday I came across this girl, and she is definitely not in London.”
“You have a location for her?”
“She’s at home in Aurora.”
“You’re sure she’s there, and not here?”
Ingrid wasn’t about to tell him she was on a mortuary slab. “Very sure.”
“Then they have to be sisters.”
“With the same name?”
He handed her the phone. He stroked his mustache, looked down at his shoes and then stared hard into Ingrid’s eyes, transformed now into a man of menace. “So where is my son, agent?”
She put the phone back in her bag. “That I can’t tell you, not yet. But I have colleagues tracking her social media accounts, I’m still trying to find out who paid for her flight and I have alerts in with all the maternity units in London. When she runs out of that five hundred pounds, she’ll surface. She has to.”
He seemed reassured by her confidence. “And this woman in Illinois? What’s she got to do with my son?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure, but at least you know I’m following up every possible lead.” That took the wind out of his sails.
“Mr Cooper? There you are.” A young woman in hoodie, jeans, Converse trainers and headset holding a clipboard walked toward them. “They’re ready for you.”
“Just a minute,” he said to her. He switched his attention back to Ingrid: “What happens now?”
“We both go back to work.”
He nodded slowly.
“Listen,” Ingrid said, “can I have your number? It took me a long time to track you down this morning when I could have updated you by phone.”
They took a few steps down the alley back toward the square. Bright arc lights had been turned on to mimic low winter sun. Truman Cooper handed Ingrid his coffee and started to pull on his gloves. “Manuela will give it to you.”
“You don’t know it?”
“Not a clue.” They reached the end of the alley, and standing just round the corner was the ever-present Manuela. “The very woman.”
Had she been listening to their conversation? Truman Cooper asked her to give Ingrid his number.
“I will text it you.” Each syllable was uttered with the same weight and pace.
“But your phone is switched off,” Ingrid said.
“No,” she said simply. “I turn it on. No problem.”
The woman with the clipboard led Truman Cooper toward a huddle of activity, and he was soon obscured by a curious mix of women in crinoline skirts and men with beer bellies protruding beneath their Iron Maiden tee-shirts. Ingrid deactivated flight mode on her phone. “You’re sure this is OK? It won’t interfere with the equipment?”
The implacable Manuela shrugged. “What is your number?”
Ingrid gave it to her and the assistant sent her an SMS.
“It is coming,” Manuela said.
“Gracias.”
Manuela’s eyebrows pinched in the middle. “I am not Spanish.” Clearly she was insulted by Ingrid’s presumption.
“Oh.”
“Portuguese.”
“Then, obrigada.”
“Very good,” Manuela said, the tiniest flicker of a smile surfacing on her plum-colored mouth.
Ingrid’s phone buzzed in her hand. It wasn’t Manuela’s message, but an international caller. She swiped to answer as she walked back toward the cordon.
“Agent Skyberg.”
“Hello agent, my name is Benjamin Dilner, Agent Dilner. I work in the Chicago field office.”
“Hi,” she said, keeping her voice low until she got further away from the filming. “Are you calling about Kate-Lynn Bowers?”
“Sergeant Tillbrook from the APD said you’d been in contact yesterday.”
“That’s right, I—”
“Well it’s now a federal case.”
Ingrid reached the security guard and was let back out into the throng of fans.
“Why? What’s happened?”
“Ballistics are back. Kate-Lynn Bowers was killed by the same weapon used in a gangland murder on Christmas Eve last year.”
23
Ingrid pushed her way past the tourists, bumping into the big guy in the baseball cap in her haste to get away.
“The photo you sent to Sergeant Tillbrook,” Agent Dilner continued, “we’re pretty sure that’s Kate-Lynn’s seventeen-year-old sister, Kristyn.” Ingrid stopped dead still for a moment. The girl she was looking for was only seventeen? And about to give birth in a foreign city?
Her stomach lurched just imagining how scared she must be. “Now,” Agent Dilner exhaled loudly, “are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“I’m pretty sure we’re on the same page.” Ingrid started walking again, heading down a leafy residential street. In the background, she could hear voices arguing. It wasn’t yet 3am in Chicago: why was Dilner’s office so busy in the middle of the night?
“Actually, I think we might be a chapter or two ahead of you over here,” he said. “Kristyn Bowers is the only surviving witness to the murder of Michael Oboloyo, a small-time property developer. The other witness, a school friend of Kristyn’s by the name of Dion Paphitis, known as D, always claimed she was there with him, but she hasn’t been seen since Oboloyo went down. Until, that is, you sent her photo to Sergeant Tillbrook.”
Ingrid reached an intersection, looked both ways and took the street she hoped would lead to a main road and the chance to hail a cab. “What happened to the boy? To this Dino?”
“Dion.”
“You said Kristyn was the only surviving witness. So what happened to him?”
“Knifed to death six days ago on the forecourt of a Taco Bell. Now here’s the thing,” Dilner continued, “Paphitis had been in witness protection. New identity. New location. He was due in court on Monday, three days from now, to testify against the suspect in Oboloyo’s murder.”
Ingrid’s feet started to move as quickly as her thoughts. She instantly knew why Dilner was calling. “And let me guess: if I can’t find Kristyn Bowers and get her to testify on Monday, your case falls apart and the killer walks free?” Her skin froze as she spoke. Please tell me I’m wrong.
“Damn you’re good, agent. No wonder Louden hired you.”
Ingrid heard a diesel engine behind her and turned in the hope it would be a black cab. It was a delivery van. She carried on walking, picking up speed. She needed to get to her desk. “You know Louden?”
“She passed through here a couple of years ago. We like to think we were an important step on her career ladder.” Amy Louden was a bit like Marshall: they’d both go anywhere and do anything for a promotion.