Sidney Sheldon's Angel of the Dark

by Sidney Sheldon

“Inspector Liu,” Liu said coldly.

  “And no offense, but we’re not the Chinese police state either,” the fat Australian went on, ignoring him. “If I started sniffing around every Mr. and Mrs. Smith who checked in here, I’d soon go out of business, let me tell you.”

  “Who paid the bill?”

  “She did, the sheila. In cash.”

  “But they left no forwarding address, no credit-card billing address, nothing?”

  “Like I said, I don’t think so, but check with Stacey. She’s the eyes and ears of this place if you know what I mean.”

  Stacey was a meek mouse of a woman in her sixties who corroborated everything her boss had already told the inspector. Mrs. Smith had paid in cash. No, she’d never mentioned anything about future plans, at least not at the front desk. Mr. Smith was “quiet” and “attractive.” Stacey declined to hazard a guess as to his age.

  “I’d like to see their room.”

  The suite was palatial, even by the hotel’s grand standards. “Mrs. Smith” must have needed a wheelbarrow of cash to pay for a week’s stay here. Then again, Lisa Baring could afford it, what with her old man’s money burning a hole in her thieving, conniving pocket. He and his men scoured the rooms for fingerprints, hair, or other forensic evidence, but after two months and God knows how many subsequent occupants, not to mention twice-daily cleaning by the hotel staff, they weren’t hopeful.

  Every chambermaid was interviewed, along with the concierge, bar and restaurant staff and someone named Liana at the spa where Mrs. Smith had availed herself of the hotel’s signature hot stone massage.

  “She seemed a little emotional, to be honest,” Liana remembered, batting her heavy false eyelashes in Inspector Liu’s direction and almost asphyxiating him with a gust of CK One perfume. “She was tearful during her treatment, I remember that. But guests often are. So much gets released when you really hit those meridians, you know what I mean?”

  “Did she say anything about what might have been upsetting her? Any information at all might help us.”

  Liana thought about it. “She didn’t. But I’d say it was man trouble. I saw her with her hubby in the lobby a couple of times and he was always holding her hand or fussing over her, but she didn’t seem into it. She kept shrugging him off.”

  By the end of the day, Inspector Liu was frustrated. He’d flown out to Sydney in person, because the Australia sighting was the first solid evidence he’d managed to get hold of, since Mrs. Baring’s second attempt at absconding, that she was (a) alive, and (b) a free agent, not locked up in some sex offender’s dungeon, as certain bleeding-heart factions seemed to believe. But the trip had been a bust. He’d discovered nothing that he couldn’t have learned from a ten-minute phone call from Hong Kong.

  Leaving three men behind to finish collecting the physical evidence, he took his leave. “One of our chauffeurs can take you to the airport,” the fat manager offered magnanimously. “If you have to leave Sydney, you might as well do it in style.”

  Sitting in the back of the plushly upholstered, air-conditioned limo, Liu brooded on the fact that Lisa Baring and her lover seemed always to manage to remain one step ahead of him. You could bet your bottom Hong Kong dollar that they had left Sydney in style. Suddenly a thought occurred to him. He rapped on the window that separated passenger from driver, which promptly rolled down.

  “There’s a call button if you want it, mate. You see that console there on your left?”

  But Inspector Liu wasn’t interested in call buttons and consoles.

  “How many chauffeurs does the hotel employ?”

  “There’s six of us.”

  “And do you keep records of your journeys? Which guests go where?”

  “There’s a logbook, yeah. It’s in the office.”

  “Turn around.”

  “But…your plane. I thought you said the last flight to Hong Kong—”

  “Turn around!”

  Stacey in the office was dismayed to see the grumpy Chinese policeman back so soon.

  “Inspector. I thought you said you were—”

  “I need the drivers’ logbook,” said Liu. He gave her the dates. “I need to know who chauffeured the Smith party to the airport.”

  “Not all of our guests use the cars,” the woman warned him. “Most check out under their own steam.”

  But Liu wasn’t listening. There it was. Smith, 10:20 A.M. Marco.

  “I need to speak to Marco. Right now.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” Stacey said nervously. “Marco’s off on compassionate leave. His mother passed away a week ago.”

  Inspector Liu could not have cared less about Marco’s mother. “Give me his address.”

  MARCO BRUNELLI WAS STILL IN HIS underwear and a stained vest when the Chinese policemen knocked on his door. Actually they didn’t so much knock as hammer.

  “Can I help you gentlemen?” Marco swallowed nervously, thinking about the stash of weed lying there in plain sight on his bedside table, his failure to pay his last year’s tax bill and an incident with a pole dancer at Blushes nightclub that had occurred the previous month. Not that the latter was his fault.

  “You work at the Huxley Hotel, as a driver?”

  “That’s right. I’m on leave. It’s my mum you see. She—”

  “Saturday the sixteenth, in the morning, you drove a party named Smith to the airport. Do you remember?”

  “Smith.” Marco frowned. “Smith, Smith, Smith.” The policeman handed him a photograph of a very attractive dark-haired woman. “Oh, her. Yeah, I remember her. And her husband. Yeah, that’s right, I drove them to the airport. Why?”

  “Did you know where they were flying to?”

  “You know, that’s a funny thing,” said Marco, more relaxed now that he realized it was these clients the police were after, not him. “Normally clients are chatty in the back of the car, especially the Americans. They want to talk about what a great stay they’ve had, where they’re going next, all that guff. But those two were silent as the grave. Didn’t say a word.”

  Inspector Liu felt his hopes fading.

  “But after I dropped them, on my way back into town, I noticed that the bloke had left his briefcase on the backseat. So of course I hightailed it back there and went racing into the terminal. The guy was so happy to see me he gave me a big hug and a two-hundred-dollar tip. They were just in time for boarding. So that’s why I remember where they were going.”

  Marco smiled broadly. Inspector Liu could hardly bear the suspense.

  “Mumbai, India,” the driver announced proudly. “Was that all you wanted to know?”

  CLAUDE DEMARTIN WAS HAVING AN UNUSUALLY enjoyable afternoon at work. The Azrael team’s office, deep in the bowels of Interpol headquarters, had begun its life as a windowless cubicle. But thanks to Danny McGuire, it had evolved into something of a happy bachelor’s pad, complete with squishy couches, dartboard, and a minifridge stuffed full of the sort of cheap, high-calorie American food Claude was never allowed to eat at home.

  Better yet, today Claude was manning the fort alone. Richard laugh-a-minute Sturi was off diddling with his statistical projections somewhere, the boss was still in the States, and the three other junior detectives were in London, attempting what Danny McGuire had hopefully described as a “charm offensive” with Scotland Yard to get them to share more information from the Piers Henley case files.

  So far, after a little light updating of the database and a token call to Didier Anjou’s bank in Paris, tying up some loose ends, Claude had beaten himself three times at darts, enjoyed a satisfying session of World of Warcraft and eaten two family-size bags of Cheetos, which was probably officially a crime in certain parts of France. So when the phone rang, he answered in high spirits.

  “Interpol, Azrael desk. How may I be of service?”

  “Put me through to McGuire.”

  Claude Demartin recognized Inspector Liu’s voice. Cheerless as ever, there was an impatience
in his tone today—part excitement, part anger—that Claude hadn’t heard before.

  “It’s urgent.”

  “Assistant Director McGuire isn’t in the office this week, I’m afraid. He’s traveling. Can I help you? This is Officer Claude Demartin.”

  “No.”

  “Well, perhaps I can take a message. It’s Inspector Liu, isn’t it? From Hong Kong?”

  Liu was silent. He didn’t want to exchange pleasantries with this French monkey. He wanted to talk to the organ grinder. On the other hand, he did have vital information to impart.

  “Did you make any progress in Australia?” Demartin pressed. “I assure you the moment we hear something from McGuire, I’ll insist that he contact you. But is there anything the team should know? Any way we can help you?”

  “Tell McGuire they’re in India,” Liu said tersely. “If he wants to know more, he can pick up the damn telephone.”

  The line went dead.

  India. All Demartin could think of was how nicely the news fit with Richard Sturi’s theories of where Azrael would strike next. The German was cocky enough already. He’d be insufferable after this. Before he could pick up the phone to call McGuire, it rang again.

  “Azrael,” Demartin said, more businesslike this time.

  “Hi, Claude. It’s me.”

  “Boss. Great timing. Listen, I just got a call from Liu.”

  “Never mind that,” Danny McGuire said briskly. “I need you to e-mail me the clearest pictures we have of all the widows. Face shots only.”

  “Sure, I can do that. But about Liu. He wants you to call him urgently. He—”

  “Now, Claude. I’ll be waiting by my laptop.” Danny McGuire hung up.

  What was it with these big-shot detectives? Didn’t anybody have the time to let you finish a sentence anymore?

  ON THE BED IN HIS NEW York hotel room, Danny gazed at his in-box.

  One minute. Five minutes. Ten. What the fuck? How long did it take to download and send a few lousy JPEGs?

  When at last he heard the longed-for ping of a new message in his coded Azrael folder, Danny’s heart leaped, then sank when he saw that there were no attachments.

  “Pictures to follow,” Claude Demartin wrote. “And by the way, Inspector Liu’s message was: ‘They’re in India.’ You need to call him right away.”

  India! That was good news indeed. So was Demartin’s use of the word they. It meant Lisa Baring was still alive and that she was still with…who? Frankie Mancini? Danny would call Liu in a moment and get the whole story. Just as soon as Claude sent him those damn images.

  Finally, after what felt like millennia but was in fact about a minute and a half, a large file landed in Danny’s in-box. The e-mail was entitled: WIDOWS.

  Danny clicked it open with a trembling hand.

  There they were, smiling at him across the years, their faces running along the screen from left to right in chronological order.

  Angela Jakes…Lady Tracey Henley…Irina Anjou…Lisa Baring.

  At first it wasn’t obvious. There were the superficial differences: hair color and length, subtle changes in makeup and some of the images, particularly the ones of Irina, were blotchy and blurred. Age had wreaked its usual black magic, etching a spiderweb of fine lines over once-smooth skin. Weight had gone up and down, making some of the faces look gaunt while others looked blooming and chipmunk-cheeked. Then there were the more fundamental things. Angela Jakes’s face was the loveliest of the four, youthful and innocent, untouched by the passage of time. Tracey Henley, the redhead, on the other hand, seemed harder and more artificial-looking. While she was still undeniably beautiful, Danny now saw that her nose was unusually narrow at the tip, almost as if she’d had some plastic surgery. Lisa Baring had the same small nose, although on her it appeared more natural. Her brow was higher, though, and smoother.

  What really leaped off the screen, however, were the four women’s eyes. Laugh lines and crow’s-feet might come and go, cheekbones and mouths and noses might be surgically altered. But the eyes themselves remained the same. Deep brown, like molten chocolate. Sad. Sultry. Mesmerizing.

  The first time Danny McGuire saw them he’d been untying Angela Jakes from her husband’s corpse. Slipping in and out of consciousness, Angela had opened those eyes and looked at him. Danny’s life had changed forever.

  Years later, those same eyes had lured Sir Piers Henley to his death.

  They had hypnotized Didier Anjou.

  Enchanted Miles Baring.

  Made a besotted fool out of Matt Daley.

  Mocked Inspector Liu.

  Each of the women’s faces was different. But the eyes gave them away.

  Azrael isn’t a “he.” He’s a “she.”

  They’re all the same woman.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  THE MAN QUICKENED HIS PACE. THE alley was dark and smelled of spices and human shit. Saffron, cumin and excrement: the essence of India. The man laughed at his own joke, but it was a nervous laugh, only a shade or two from hysteria.

  He was being followed again.

  Weaving his way between the rickshaws and scurrying brown bodies, he ducked behind a baker’s stall. A narrow passage opened through a brick archway into a yard where kilns heated the flat naan bread and paratha. Curious half-naked children swarmed around him, intrigued by his foreign, white man’s face. He brushed them away, his heart pounding. The only way out of the yard was the way he came in. If his pursuer had seen him slip behind the bread stall, he would catch him for sure. Catch him and kill him. The man expected no mercy.

  At first he thought his pursuers must be police, but no longer. The shadows lurking behind him were far more sinister. Wherever he went in the city, he could feel their presence, cold and threatening like a malignant ghost. His nerves were in tatters. It was getting harder to make decisions.

  This time, however, he seemed to have lost them. No one had followed him into the baker’s yard. He must have given them the slip. Cautiously, he made his way back into the alley. A few blocks later he emerged onto a main road where the ubiquitous rickshaws made way for the more modern yellow cabs. Almost like New York.

  He stuck out his arm.

  “Taj Mahal Palace, please. Jaldi karna!”

  THE MAN HAD SAT AT THE bars of some of the most luxurious hotels in the world. The Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles, the San Pietro in Positano, the Peninsula in Hong Kong. But for sheer opulence, nothing could beat the Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Mumbai. A sumptuous mishmash of Moorish, Oriental and Florentine design, it was as majestic a home away from home as any maharajah could wish for. The main bar was accessed from the lobby, a vast space with marble floors and vaulted alabaster ceilings. An intricately carved arch supported by two onyx columns led into the darker, candlelit bar. The vibe there was more intimate, but just as luxurious, with wine-red velvet couches so soft you felt you were sitting on clouds and antique Persian rugs woven in every imaginable color. All around, richly dressed couples were laughing, their cut-crystal glasses glinting like diamonds as they sipped caipirinhas or Long Island iced teas. Royalty for a day.

  He took his usual seat in the darkest, most recessed alcove and ordered a Diet Coke and some of the grilled cumin chicken they served as a bar snack. He wasn’t hungry, but he had to eat. He had a long night of waiting and watching ahead of him.

  SARAH JANE HUGHES DIDN’T NOTICE THE American man taking his seat in the corner. She was too agitated to think about anything other than David. It wasn’t like him to be late.

  Maybe he’s had a change of heart after all the shit I’ve put him through?

  She couldn’t work out if the idea of him bailing on their prospective wedding made her frightened or relieved. The pressure was unbearable at times.

  “I’m worth the better part of a billion dollars, Sarah Jane, okay? Whether you like it or not, that sort of money brings complications.”

  Complications. Talk about an understatement.

  Pulling a small black mi
rror out of her purse, Sarah Jane touched up her makeup and arranged her hair the way she knew David liked it. Smoothing down her knee-length skirt, she unbuttoned the top of her blouse just enough to hint at the glorious figure beneath. Like most men, David Ishag liked the demure look. It made him feel secure. That the delights of Sarah Jane’s body were for his eyes only. Which, of course, they were.

  Till death do us part.

  And there he was, walking toward her, lighting up the room the way that only he could, a human fireball of charisma. So handsome. So charming.

  I can’t go through with it.

  She forced herself to take deep, calming breaths.

  “Darling. Sorry I’m late.”

  “Very late.” She kissed him on the lips, running her hands through his glossy dark hair only faintly tinged with gray at the temples. “I was starting to worry.”

  Envious female eyes bored into her. Sarah Jane blinded them with a dazzling flash of her sapphire-and-diamond engagement ring.

  David Ishag kissed her back.

  “Silly girl. You never need to worry. Not now, not ever again. Not with me to take care of you.”

  THE MAN IN THE CORNER HAD the shakes. He couldn’t bear to watch them, Sarah Jane and David. It was too painful. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to look away.

  A waitress approached him. “Are you all right, sir? Can I get you something?”

  My sanity, please. If you’re out of that, I’ll have Prozac on the rocks with a twist of chlorpromazine.

  “I’ll take a bourbon. Straight up.”

  ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE bar, a different man was watching.

  This man noticed everything: the pallor of the foreigner’s skin, the cruel tremor in his hand as he sipped his drink. He’d been following the white man for days now and had come to think of him almost as an old friend.

  Poor devil. His heart cannot accept the truths that his eyes see. Is there any madness in this world greater than the madness of love?

  The man’s heart swelled with compassion, with pity for a fellow lost soul.