by Peter James
'Not tonight,' Oliver said. 'We'll go in one soon,' he said.
'Where?'
'Where would you like to go?'
'Ummm,' he fell silent, 'I think I'd like to go — I don't know.'
Oliver opened the door. Faith stirred as he climbed down. 'Won't be long,' he said.
He hitched his jacket from the rear seat, took out his wallet and removed his Mastercard. Then he scanned the car-park carefully. No sign of anyone walking around or sitting at the nearby courtesy-bus pick-up point. And all the parked vehicles looked like they were empty. An aircraft on its landing path thundered by only yards above his head in a blare of lights.
He walked down to the parked Jeep, and put his hand on the bonnet. It was warm. Good, that meant it had only arrived recently. No one would park here in the long-term unless they intended to be gone at least twenty-four hours, and probably longer than that.
He knelt down in front of the Jeep and, working around the edge of the car's licence plate, found a weak spot, and pushed the card in a good half-inch. During a heat-wave the previous summer, Oliver's front number plate had fallen off. He had learned from the mechanic who repaired it that most Jeep plates were held on with double-sided sticky-tape.
He levered the card until the gap was wide enough for his fingers. Then he pulled steadily, but not too hard, nervous of breaking the plate, until he felt the adhesion giving way. Suddenly the plate was free in his hand, leaving the tape in place on the back. He laid the plate down carefully, sticky side up, and repeated the process with the rear plate, then did the same with both the front and rear plates of his own car.
Five minutes later, relieved to have plates on the car that wouldn't — he hoped — be flagged on any police computer, he was driving away from the airport, heading north to the M25, from where he would head west. He set the cruise control to 80 m.p.h., turned Classic FM on the radio up so that he could hear it without waking Faith, and settled down with his thoughts for a long drive.
Behind him, hunched over his tiny games screen, Alec saved them all by trapping a Venusaur in a Poke Ball.
95
'You're late, I was about to leave. I told you I don't want to miss the film.'
'I went to the Hilton in Park Lane,' Ross said. 'I didn't realise it was this fucking Hilton. Anyhow, don't you have a video? You could have recorded it.'
'I told you very clearly, the Hilton at Lords,' Hugh Caven said. 'I've been here forty minutes.'
The private investigator was lounging on a sofa in a white T-shirt and jeans, leather jacket slung on the cushions beside him, a bunch of keys nestled in the lining. Ross stood unsteadily above him, squinting through a haze of cigarette smoke around the huge, busy lounge bar, finding it hard to focus.
'I also said I didn't want to see you until you'd sobered up.'
'Not drunk.' Ross sat down heavily in an armchair opposite him. There was an empty coffee cup and a bowl of nuts on the table between them. Ross hungrily grabbed a fistful of nuts and shovelled them into his mouth, then tried to focus on Caven.
The man's nose looked crimson and one of his eyes was half closed, with a dark blue ring around it.
'Did you bring your cheque-book?'
'How mush d'you say?'
'Five thousand. And I'm wanting another thousand on account. You mentioned —'
'Wasshappen — your noshe?' Ross pointed at Caven's face. 'You had ackisdent?'
'Accident?'
Ross nodded. His mouth didn't seem to want to work properly and he was having the same problem finding words he'd had earlier.
'You mean my broken nose? You head-butted me, remember?'
'Ah.' The memory was returning.
Caven's expression was black fury.
Ross tried to be humorous. 'I'm a plashtic surgeon — I — could do you a nishe new noshe.'
'I wouldn't let you operate on my son's gerbil,' Caven said. 'And I think an apology might be appropriate.'
'Sh-shorry.' Ross pulled out his cheque-book, then fumbled for a pen. A waiter came over. Ross ordered a glass of water then nodded at Caven. 'Can I get you — a shdrink?'
'No, thanks. Two minutes and I'm gone.'
The waiter walked away. Ross was trying to think. Caven's face blurred. He had wanted to meet this man badly, things to ask him, silence, that was it, he wanted to buy the man's silence, that was one thing. And find Faith. And Cabot. That was the other.
'Lishen, sorry — the car-park — I — wash in bad mood, we need to talk, you and I.'
'We are talking,' Caven said. 'We're talking for exactly ninety more seconds, then I'm going home to watch Woodstock on my digital television.' He pointedly looked at his watch.
'You — you want six thousand pounds. Give you ten shoushand —' He stopped, the whole lounge was rocking around. 'Ten shoushand. We stay friends. Shilence. We understand each other?'
'I don't think that you and I are ever going to be friends, Mr Ransome.'
'No — wash I mean is, the polishe — Dr Cabot — the brother — someone shot — the brother. I would prefer — sh'reputation ash a shurgeon — my clientele — better if you didn't shay to the polishe about working for me.'
Caven's demeanour changed in an instant. 'Is that what you brought me out here to talk about?'
Ross did not care for the man's expression. Alarm bells were clanging. Said the wrong thing, he realised. Should have kept quiet. 'No — sh'not important. I — I neesh to talk to you because shish man, Cabot, my wife, Cabot, shish man's taken her away, I need you to find her — she — hash to have her medication. Have to find her for her sake.'
'She's left you?'
'He'sh taken her.'
'Dr Oliver Cabot has taken your wife? She's left you for him?'
Ross nodded, and opened his hands, helplessly.
'You don't know where they are?'
'No, sh'right, fuck knowsh where they're — they're —' He looked down at his cheque-book. A waiter brought over a glass and a bottle of mineral water and set them down on the table.
As the man walked away, Caven leaned forward, animatedly. 'In his car? Has he taken her in his car? In his Jeep Cherokee?'
'How fuck do I know? Pushed her away on a four-wheeled crocodile frail I know. 'S your fucking job.'
Caven tapped his watch. 'Time's up.' He stood.
'Shwait — plish — pleash —'
'You going to talk sensibly to me? You're right at the end of your overdraft limit with my patience, do you understand?'
Ross signalled for him to sit down. 'Sensible. Don't know what car.'
Caven sat back down. 'Your wife has gone somewhere with Dr Cabot? Out of town?'
Ross shrugged. 'Anywhere, could be.'
'I fitted a global positioning transponder to Dr Cabot's Jeep,' Caven said. 'It was one of the first things I did. I can plot his position on the computer in my office.'
Ross felt a boost of excitement. 'How accurate?'
'Call me in the morning and I'll look. If they've gone in Dr Cabot's Jeep, I can find them for you. I'll be able to tell you where the Jeep is, anywhere on this planet, to within fifty feet. Is that accurate enough for you?'
96
A wave of tiredness hit Oliver and he yawned, then opened the window, allowing a blast of night air to storm in and buffet his face. It was twenty past twelve. The traffic was thin, and the air was fresher now. On the radio the weather forecaster had announced earlier that a low was moving in from the Atlantic. Changeable weather tomorrow.
Junction 13. Swindon. Oliver turned off the M4, along the dual carriageway he knew well. He passed signs for Cricklade, then Cirencester. Just fifteen minutes and they'd be there. Fifteen more minutes to elude the police and they'd be safe.
In his mirror a pair of headlights materialised out of the night, coming up fast behind him, then slowing and keeping pace with him. Nervously he looked at his speedometer. Seventy-five. Ross slowed to sixty-five. The car behind slowed, still pacing him.
Shit.
He continued at sixty-five. The car continued tailing him. Wild thoughts went through his mind. Did he know the back roads around here well enough to give the police the slip? He only needed to lose them for a few minutes and that would enable him to make it —
To his relief the car overtook him, exhaust blattering, deep bass thumping from the sound system, and raced on ahead into the night.
Just a bunch of dickheads.
Faith stirred from the noise.
'Where are we?'
'Five miles to go,' he said.
She turned to check on Alec, who was sleeping soundly. Faith closed her eyes again.
A Puccini opera, Manon Lescaut, was playing on the radio. Manon was staggering in the American wilderness, singing a sad lament, a woman who had chosen passion over money, but had then wavered, with fatal consequences; a woman who had allowed indecision to corrode and ultimately destroy her life.
There were some things in life to which you had to give your all, where there was no room for doubt. Doubt killed you. He who hesitates is lost. That applied to medicine as much as to fighting or anything else. Utter conviction. He could heal Faith, get rid of the Lendt's disease. She was receptive enough, responsive enough, and she had the strength of mind and character. Within three months, if he was given free rein to work with her, he knew they would beat the disease. He knew this just as certainly as he knew that Moliou-Orelan wasn't interested in developing a drug that would beat Lendt's, or any other disease. There was much more money in keeping people dependent on medication for years and years than in curing them. If Faith was one of the lucky few she would be on that Moliou-Orelan drug for the rest of her life. And having to put up with whatever side-effects went with it.
He passed the signs to Cirencester industrial estate and Stroud, and turned off to head for the Cotswolds. There was a turning coming up in a couple of miles that was easy to overshoot. He passed the familiar landmark of the Hare and Hounds pub, and he slowed his speed further. Road signs ahead pointed to Bourton, Stow-on-the-Wold, Moreton-In-Marsh. Then to the left he saw the familiar sign, marked Chedworth, Withington and Farm Trail.
He braked hard and turned left into a wide lane. A couple of miles along he came to a familiar left-hand bend. A prominent for-sale sign was fixed to a large barn conversion that had been under construction for as many years as he had been coming down here. He turned right in front of it, into a narrow lane barely wider than the car, which after half a mile dipped steeply downhill into a village of grey Cotswold stone houses and dry stone walls.
It was easy to miss the entrance to the drive, and he kept his speed down as he left the village, going into a sharp right-hand bend, past a fine gatehouse and along the boundary of a walled estate, followed by a left-hander. Then just as the road straightened out, he saw the driveway ahead to his right. Breathing a low sigh of relief, he swung the Jeep in through the five-barred gate that was always open.
The tyres rumbled on the cattle grid. In the headlights a panicking rabbit darted to the right then to the left, then right again. Oliver slowed for it, and it darted into the hedge.
Alec's voice startled him. 'Are we nearly there yet?'
'Just going up the track now. Couple of minutes.'
'I can't see anything,' Alec said.
There was a shadowy cluster of farm buildings ahead. The headlights shone on an open-sided barn containing a stack of bales and a decrepit-looking tractor. Oliver smelt a sharp tang of rotting straw and muck, then the much stronger stench of pigs. A dog began barking.
He drove through another gate, and the track climbed at a sharp gradient for several hundred yards towards a copse of firs. Beyond them it levelled out, running between two stock fences over open pastureland. At the end he made a right turn through another five-barred gate and over another cattle grid. The track continued upwards, more gently for a few hundred yards, the tyres rumbled over a third cattle grid and then they were mashing gravel. He brought the car to a halt and pulled on the handbrake.
Faith touched his arm lightly. 'Well driven,' she said.
Oliver smiled, stifling a yawn, feeling a deep sense of relief to be here. He opened the door and climbed out, breathing in the sweet night air, the silence broken only by the distant bleating of sheep, the ticking of the hot engine, and the crunch of his feet on the fine white pebbles.
He unclipped Alec's belt, then helped the sleepy boy to the ground. Faith hugged Alec to her and looked around. 'It's beautiful,' she said. 'So peaceful.'
The dark countryside was bathed in a faint sheen from the waxing quarter moon and the shimmering white specks of the stars. A long way in the distance was a weak orange glow from the street-lighting of Cirencester.
'I'm hungry,' Alec said. 'Where are we?'
'We're having a little holiday,' Faith replied.
'Is Daddy coming?'
Oliver watched her leaning forward, hugging her child hard. 'No, just you and me,' she said. 'And this nice man who has arranged the house for us.'
When Gerry Hammersley had bought the place twenty years back, it had been empty for over fifty years. Originally a tenanted smallholding, with a farmhouse, barn, and stables, a fire had razed the house to the ground shortly after the end of the Second World War. The estate that had owned it hadn't considered it worth rebuilding.
Gerry had converted the barn and granary into a beautiful L-shaped house, the stable block into a garage, and had put a swimming-pool at the back in a walled garden where the house had once been.
Oliver hefted Faith's suitcase from the tailgate, retrieved the key from its usual hiding-place beneath a flower-pot and unlocked the front door. Then he stepped inside, switched off the burglar alarm and turned on the hall lights.
'Wow!' Faith said, stepping into the tiled hall. 'It's beautiful.'
'It is,' he said. He had spent many peaceful weekends at Ampney Nairey Farm with Gerry, and Gerry's latest conquest, walking, mountain biking, playing tennis, lazing around the pool, barbecuing. If he had a favourite place in the whole world, this was it, because you could spend a whole week at this house and not see another soul, other than the cleaning lady and the gardener, who both came on Tuesdays, and the pool-man who came when it suited him, and the occasional farm vehicle out working the land. Not even the postman disturbed the tranquillity of Ampney Nairey Farm, but by arrangement left the mail in a box at the village post office for Gerry to collect. And there was only this one track up to the place. Access across the fields at the back was only possible by tractor.
You are safe here, Faith Ransome, you and Alec. Right now you're in the safest place in the world.
97
Hugh Caven's son, Sean, had taken recently to copying his dad. When his dad switched from cornflakes to Shredded Wheat for breakfast, Sean switched too. His dad had two pieces, and so did Sean. His dad sprinkled sugar on top, then poured the milk, and Sean did the same. Then, as his dad read the paper, Sean read his Beano, sipping his orange juice in the same grown-up way his dad sipped his, plastic mobile phone at his side on the table, just like his dad's real one.
The private investigator liked to read the diary page. He tried to tell himself that it was purely a business thing: he needed to keep up to speed on the famous because he never knew who might call on his services, nor on whom he might be requested to spy. But in truth he was as much attracted to the lives of the rich and famous as he was repelled by them.
This was why, every morning, the page of the Daily Mail he read first was Nigel Dempster's.
As he turned to it now, tired but elated from Woodstock, Jimi Hendrix's 'Purple Haze' still booming in his head, he read the lead story, about a Greek shipping tycoon
offering to loan a yacht to the Prince of Wales for a summer holiday. Then, an item half-way down the page caught his eye.
GERALDINE'S QUEST FOR ETERNAL BEAUTY ENDS IN TRAGEDY
I was much saddened to hear of the death, at 47, of my old friend Lady Geraldine Reynes-Raleigh yesterday. Geraldine — best friend and close confidante of my cousin Lady Shasta de Bertin — was a feisty chum and an entertaining dining companion for all of us lucky enough to be in her circle.
Friends — myself included — were anxious when Geraldine decided to have plastic surgery on her nose, which, it now seems, may have led inadvertently to her death. Geraldine's grieving brother Mark, 50, said yesterday: 'We all felt the operation was unnecessary since she had a delightful nose, but she seemed determined. Of course none us ever dreamt that it would have such dreadful consequences.'
A spokesman at London's exclusive Harley-Devonshire Hospital would only confirm that Geraldine had died 'following complications' after rhinoplasty. The surgeon, society figure Ross Ransome, 42 — known to many of his clients as 'Golden Hands' — was unavailable for comment at his home in Regent's Park, London. Tragically, this is the second patient he has lost in recent months: Maddy Williams, 31, a British Airways computer programmer died last month during a similar operation.
There is no suggestion, of course, of any medical impropriety by Mr Ransome. But his long and glittering career as plastic surgeon to the stars has been something of a chequered one. Over the years, my enquiries show that as many as 12 other patients have died during or following surgery. In every case, the post-mortem has established that Mr Ransome was not to blame. Nonetheless, it seems the quest for beauty has a high price.
In the kitchen the toaster popped. Sandy, apron over her dressing-gown, called, 'Sean, hurry up, your egg is ready.'
Sean called back, 'Is Daddy having an egg today?'
'Yes, he is.'
Caven's mobile phone rang. He put down the paper and his spoon, pressed the answer button and lifted the phone to his ear. Across the table, Sean Caven brought his toy telephone to his ear and adopted a deeply serious expression.