by Eva Hudson
Ingrid knew nothing would stop Angela Tate’s pursuit of a story, and certainly not the combination of a leopard print dress and a fence. She was like one of those old-fashioned kids’ toys with a curved base that couldn’t be knocked over. Ingrid struggled to remember what they were called. A Weeble. Angela Tate was a journalistic Weeble.
“Agent, what were you hoping to see?”
Ingrid had to give her something. “If I tell you, you can’t print it. Not yet, anyway.”
“That’s usually how this works. You promise to give me the story—exclusively—at a date in the very near future so I don’t go digging for it in the present. So what is it?”
Ingrid bit her bottom lip. “You know that Truman Cooper has a stalker?”
“I didn’t.”
“It’s on Wikipedia, it’s not a secret. Well, we have reason to believe an individual who has been obsessed with him for several years is in London.”
Ingrid was pretty pleased with her lie. Plausible, vague, and with the promise of juice to come. But Angela blinked hard. She wasn’t buying it. Negotiating with her was like playing chess, the hack was always thinking one move ahead while only sacrificing pieces she knew she could live without. Ingrid feared she’d let too much slip.
“And that’s a federal matter?” Suspicion raised Angela’s pitch incrementally.
Not the response Ingrid had hoped for. “Well, it certainly crosses state lines.”
“A stalker? That’s it? Every bloody celebrity has one. For Christ’s sake, I’ve had stalkers. I was rather hoping for more.”
Ingrid knew not to embellish any further. If Angela Tate wasn’t tempted by the bait, that was just fine. “What can I tell you, being an FBI agent isn’t as exciting as everyone thinks. It’s been weeks since I got to scramble over anybody’s fence.”
The journalist thought for a few seconds, then took a deep breath. “When can I run it?”
“I thought you said it wasn’t a story.”
“Not much of one, but it’ll fill a few inches.”
“As soon as we’ve got the stalker in custody, you’ll be the second person to know.”
“Second?”
“After Mr Cooper. Now, can I take a look at those photos?”
A couple minutes later, Angela and Ingrid were standing in front of the deputy picture editor’s monitor looking at a screen full of thumbnail images taken outside Truman Cooper’s Wapping warehouse.
“What’s the earliest one taken today?” Ingrid asked.
“This one.” Danny pointed to a picture of Ingrid parking her bike.
“There’s nothing from before I got there?” It was too much to expect a shot of Kate-Lynn leaving at sunrise, but Ingrid had hoped she might find something out, even if it was just who took the dog to the veterinary practice.
“No, that’s it.”
“What about other photographers? Might there have been a few of them lurking there this morning?”
“God! It’s not like he’s Tom bloody Cruise,” Angela said.
Danny searched for all photos submitted by picture agencies of Truman Cooper in the previous twenty-four hours. Thumbnail images started popping up on his monitor, arranged like stamps in an album.
“Makes me feel sorry for him. Everywhere he goes there are paparazzi.” She peered at the screen. There was him leaving his house at the wheel of the Range Rover, him walking down a tree-lined street, him stepping out of a shop.
“Don’t,” Angela said. “He wouldn’t get paid nearly so well if we didn’t give him so much attention.”
“Scroll down,” Ingrid said to Danny.
Even more images appeared on his screen. None had been taken outside the house. There wasn’t going to be a shot of Kate-Lynn being followed by a sinister-looking man wearing a distinctive sweatshirt that she could track down by the end of the day. The prospect of a nice, big, fat, juicy lead receded with each swipe of Danny’s mouse.
“Stop! That one. Show me that one,” Ingrid said.
Danny clicked on it to display it at almost full screen. It showed Truman Cooper walking down a corridor next to Tom Kerrison. They appeared to be having a massive argument.
“You have any more from this location?”
“Sure.” A sequence of photos appeared on Danny’s screen in which the two men were gesticulating and shouting, apparently at each other and not at the photographer. “They were taken at Heathrow airport yesterday afternoon. Time stamp says 14:33 on that one.”
Ingrid sensed Angela inhale deeply. “So, why, Agent Skyberg, are you so interested in these photographs in particular? It can’t be that you’re shocked Truman Cooper is… I was going to say bent, but that’s really rather not the thing to say any more. Everyone knows he’s been in a relationship with Kerrison for years.”
“They do?”
“Everyone,” Danny confirmed. “They met in a bar in Greenwich Village sometime in the nineties”
“Then why’s no one printed it?” Ingrid asked.
“We only print what’s news.”
So, for all these years Truman Cooper hadn’t come out of the closet because he feared looking like a fool for not doing it earlier… meanwhile, no news organization was willing to say that he was gay for fear of… not reporting it earlier. It made Ingrid smile. “Is there any way of finding out if these photos have been published anywhere?” she asked.
“Let’s see.” Danny drilled down into reference numbers and authorization codes.
“So you’re interested in these particular photos because…?” Angela asked.
Without any back-up from the embassy or support from the Met, tempting Angela Tate to start sniffing around the story might just provide another avenue to tracking Kate-Lynn down: Ingrid knew it wouldn’t take Angela long to work out why she was really interested in the Heathrow photos. “Timing, mostly,” Ingrid lied. “Really helps us piece together Truman Cooper’s movements over the past twenty-four hours.”
“Doesn’t he have a diary, or an assistant who can give you that kind of information?”
Angela was too smart to let anything go unchallenged. “This is independent. Much more admissible if anything goes to court.”
Danny turned round. “There you go. TMZ, Page Six, Daily Mail… it’s been in loads of places.”
Ingrid took another look at the images. Walking several paces behind Truman and Tom was a young pregnant woman wearing a floral dress. So that’s why Kate-Lynn left. Someone must have seen those photos. Someone had found out where she was.
16
Ingrid took the Docklands Light Railway two stops from Canary Wharf and found herself at Westferry station for the second time that day. She ran down the steps to street level, pulled the phone from her pocket and listened to her messages. Among them was a short, downbeat request from her friend—just about her only real friend in London—Natasha McKittrick to take her out and get her drunk. She sounded like she was in a bad way. Ingrid knew she had better call her, but Kate-Lynn had to take priority. As a detective inspector in the Metropolitan Police, Natasha would understand. Ingrid dialed her assistant at the embassy.
“Jennifer, hi, it’s me.”
“Hey, Ingrid. Look, I haven’t got the payment info you asked for. United say the financial records require an official request before they can tell you who paid for… ticket. The passenger manifest is, like, well not exactly public… but it’s not covered by, you know, corporate…”
“You’re cutting out.” Ingrid walked quickly toward Truman Cooper’s house.
“I can… you fine.”
Ingrid glanced at her phone: her battery was down to the red zone. Reception always started to cut out when power got low. “I’m going to call you right back.”
She threw her iPhone into her bag and rummaged around for her Nokia. It was her US cell: she’d gotten in the habit of always taking it with her in case someone called about Megan.
“Damn.” She stopped walking: Jennifer’s number wasn’t programed
into the Nokia. She reached into her bag for the iPhone. She felt her wallet, her umbrella, a notebook, keys, penknife… “Oh, come on,” she shouted in frustration. She didn’t have time for this. A rough sleeper—possibly the man she’d seen with the Scottish girl earlier—turned sharply to see who was making the noise. Finally. She scrolled through the contacts on the iPhone, found Jennifer’s number and hurriedly keyed in the details, correcting herself after every other tap. Less haste, she reminded herself. The phone started to ring, and she exhaled.
“Hi, is this better?”
“It was totally fine for me anyway. So, United Airlines—”
“Hey, Jen, I trust you to stay on top of it. You don’t need to give me status updates.” Ingrid started walking again: had she really just said that? She trusted someone else. Had she just learnt the art of delegation? “I need something else from you.”
“OK. Fire away.”
“Kate-Lynn Bowers.”
“Yup.”
“I need you to find her Facebook page, her Twitter feed, Instagram, the whole lot—”
“Already done.”
“What?”
“Yesterday, when you asked me to find out what I could, I like totally checked her out online.”
“And?” Up ahead, Ingrid could see her much-photographed Tiger Triumph still parked where she’d left it.
“And… I’m just flicking through my notes… Right, so… Facebook hasn’t been updated for almost two years; as far as I can tell she isn’t on Twitter, and her last Instagram post was from a Christmas party. She’s twenty. She’s probably all over Snapchat and, as far as I know, there is like no way of tracing her on that.”
“So—”
“So, that Christmas party… There were a couple of names in the caption. I found them on Facebook and then, like, Don and me, we set up a fake account. Apparently he does it all the time when he’s checking out new guys—”
“Don’s gay?”
“Like, duh. Anyway, we made up a kid who went to elementary school with them but moved away and is, like, now making contact with old friends. We sent a zillion friend requests and now Marcia Harding is Facebook friends with seven or eight people from Aurora.”
Ingrid was so surprised she had stopped walking. “You did that?”
“Sure.”
“I mean, you can do that?”
“Like, totally. And then we found them on Twitter and Reddit so, you know, if this Kate-Lynn is in contact with one of them, maybe they’ll tweet a picture of their milkshake and she’ll be in the background and you can buy me and Don a beer.”
“Jennifer, if this pays off I’m taking you for tequila shots.” Ingrid scratched her head. She knew Jennifer was good, she just hadn’t realized how good. She started walking again, patting her pockets in search of her bike keys.
“Just hit a few home runs tomorrow night, that’s all the payment I ask for. You hadn’t forgotten, had you?”
She had. “Of course not. Hyde Park.”
“Regent’s Park. You will be there, won’t you?”
“Absolutely. So you’ll let me know the minute you find out any tiny little thing about Kate-Lynn?”
“Sure. It might help if you tell me why you’re interested in her. Is she, like, Truman Cooper’s secret love child or something?”
Ingrid inhaled: she couldn’t risk telling Jennifer about Kate-Lynn’s real connection to Truman Cooper. The girl was good, but she was also young and liked to gossip. “Hey, if I tell ya, I’d have to shoot ya.”
“Talking of which, I just went ahead and, like, booked you that target practice.”
Ingrid jingled her bike keys. “When for?”
“Eight tomorrow morning. Hope that’s OK?” It was fine, especially as she’d already told Sol it was booked.
The bike seemed to be unmolested. No dents, no scratches; not that Ingrid much cared: as soon as her lease agreement was up she was definitely handing it back to the dealership. “That’s fine.”
“Cool, it’s already in your iCal. Should sync with your phone.”
Talk of target practice reminded her of the .38 that had magically disappeared inside the house she was standing in front of. Someone in that building had placed a bullet in an unborn baby’s crib. That wasn’t the behavior of a sane, rational person. So who did it? The obvious candidate was Kate-Lynn, literally leaving a warning shot as a prelude to a ransom request. But if that was the case, why did someone else remove it? Why wasn’t Tom, or Truman or Manuela screaming in her face that they’d found a bullet? Ingrid wanted to believe the .38 was just another prop from Cooper’s jungle movie, but she couldn’t shake the feeling it meant Kate-Lynn Bowers was in grave danger.
“Jen?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I need one more thing from you.”
“Name it.”
“Can you find out who manufactures .38 caliber bullets with aluminum casings.”
“Sure. Why?”
“And then see if anyone sells them in London.”
“Sure. You heading back to base soon?”
“I’m on my way.”
“Then I should probably warn you Agent Simmons is on the warpath.”
Ingrid had a pretty good idea what he wanted to pick a fight about.
Just as she was buckling up her helmet, her iPhone started to ring. She pulled it out of her bag and saw it was McKittrick.
“Hey.”
“You get my message?” She sounded awful and it wasn’t just because the line was cutting in and out.
“I did, sorry. What’s up?”
“Any chance you can meet for lunch?”
Ingrid calculated if she had the time. “Sure. I know just the place. Can you get to the Queen Mary pub in Pimlico?”
17
Anonymity wasn’t the primary benefit of riding a bike: less than fifteen minutes later Ingrid was parking up in a side street in Pimlico. Hemmed in by its more famous neighbors, Westminster and Chelsea, Pimlico had all the attributes of an up-market neighborhood but none of the swagger. It had nice houses and nice cars, but no chauffeurs or full-time dog walkers.
The Queen Mary occupied a prominent corner position at a residential intersection where an imposing row of white-painted houses with porches and black railings faced a five-story housing project. Ingrid wondered which of the local clientele the pub was going to cater to. It didn’t look like the drinking den of billionaires, but neither was it an obvious pick as a gangland hangout where hits could be ordered in exchange for manila envelopes of cash. It was just a regular neighborhood pub with leadlight windows, hanging floral baskets and a couple of benches outside.
She was about to lock her helmet in the top box but had second thoughts: carried the right way, a crash helmet could be a useful offensive weapon. Given Ralph’s concerns about why he’d been given the information so easily, it was a sensible precaution.
While she waited for McKittrick to arrive, Ingrid walked round the exterior of the building. She spotted a second entrance to the bar, and toward the rear was a gate that presumably led into a yard. She tried the gate. Locked. As she walked back toward the main entrance, she noticed the trapdoors in the sidewalk which allowed barrels to be delivered straight to the cellar. So two doors, a gate and a cellar. If the Queen Mary really was as dangerous as Ralph had implied, she shouldn’t have any problem making her escape.
She heard a faint bleep emanating from her bag. It wasn’t a huge surprise to read McKittrick’s text.
Sorry, not going to make it. Just crazy here. Explain when I see you.
The iPhone was almost out of power. She needed to get a new battery for it. She dropped it back into her bag, gripped the chin guard of her helmet in her right hand, and shouldered open the double doors to the pub.
Several large TV screens were showing a football match; a repeat, presumably, considering the time of day. The audio was muted and the only sounds were the electronic bells and dings from a bank of games machines that blinked and winked
into the empty room. Chairs and tables had been cleared out to reveal a dark, patterned carpet. A long trestle table set for a buffet offered up the remnants of stroganoff, knishes and dumplings. Russian food. The only movement came from a foil ‘Good Luck’ sign that fluttered as the door closed behind her. The place was completely deserted. What could possible have happened to cause a party to be abandoned so quickly that no one had even had time to lock the door?
“Hello? Anyone here?”
Ingrid placed the back of her hand against the tureen of stroganoff. It was still warm: whoever had been there had only just left. On the far side of the bar were two doors: one to the kitchen and another to the restrooms. Next to the counter was a door marked ‘private’. She pushed it open and saw a narrow staircase leading up to the landlord’s apartment. Her iPhone bleeped in her pocket. She ignored it in case she needed the battery power to call to the emergency services.
Clutching her chin guard tightly, she opened the door into the kitchen, immediately smelling the stale oil from the deep-fat fryers. The oven was still warm but had been turned off. A packet of frozen pierogi had been left in the sink to defrost. Someone had recently been there. She looked at the large freezer chests, unsure if they were more likely to contain crimes against health and safety, or body parts from unsolved murders. She didn’t like this place one little bit. It gave her the creeps.
A sudden gust of wind blew open the kitchen door, forcing an involuntary gasp from her throat. It wasn’t like her to be so easily spooked. Slowly, she stepped toward the open door and the sounds of the housing project—screaming kids, shouting mothers, the revving engines of souped-up street cars—invaded her ears.
“Hey,” she said, aware for the first time just how hard her heart was beating. “Anyone here?” She switched the helmet to her left hand so she could wipe the sweat from her right palm on her jeans. She reached the rear door and stepped out into a small yard. Concrete floor, six-foot fence, empty barrels, trash cans, a bicycle wheel and a scattering of cigarette butts that resembled fallen petals.