by Eva Hudson
Ingrid spotted something on page nine that meant she stopped listening: there was a paparazzi picture of Tom Kerrison remonstrating with a uniformed police officer at the side of the road. The headline said ‘Fashionably late?’
“Agent? Are you still there?”
“Sure, sorry. Got distracted.”
“Now, I’ve been a good little journalist, keeping quiet until I could safely publish an exclusive, but it turns out there isn’t even a bloody story. Quid pro quo, Agent Skyberg.”
Ingrid was trying to read the article. It mentioned that the arrest came just weeks after Kerrison’s hospitalization for stress. Why hadn’t she known he’d been in hospital?
“And do you know what quid pro quo means? It means don’t fuck with me. So?”
Ingrid wasn’t listening; she was trying to read the article. Kerrison had been stopped for speeding. Yesterday. In the county of Sussex, about fifty miles south of London. Sweat started to dampen Ingrid’s palms.
“So,” Angela continued, “that got me thinking about why you were really so damn interested in those Heathrow pics, and it’s the girl, isn’t it? The one in the floral dress.”
Ingrid didn’t know how to respond.
“Well, she has to be the stalker, doesn’t she?” Angela said. “She’s not claiming she’s carrying Truman Cooper’s baby, is she? Because not even my blind grandmother would believe that one.”
“Angela?”
“Yes.”
“The Evening News doesn’t print at the weekend, does it?”
“Monday to Friday, three editions a day.”
“So, you don’t have a deadline until, what, Sunday night?”
“Monday morning, eleven o’clock latest.”
“I promise I’ll have something for you for Monday’s edition.”
“And that, Agent Skyberg, is exactly how this sort of arrangement should work. You have a nice day, now,” she said, faking an appalling American accent.
Ingrid launched the Google app on her phone. She wanted to know more about Kerrison’s arrest for speeding. Truman Cooper had said he was in Italy on business. So what the hell was he doing breaking the speed limit on a country road in Sussex?
36
The other news reports on Tom Kerrison’s speeding offense didn’t reveal much more than the Daily Mail article. The only new information Ingrid uncovered was the location where he had been stopped: a road near a village called South Chailey.
Ingrid phoned Tom Kerrison’s number. She had lost count of the number of times she had tried to reach him in the past two days. The phone instantly diverted to voicemail. She was about to hang up when a woman’s voice informed her she had reached the publicity department of the House of Versini. Nevertheless, Ingrid left a message asking for him to call her urgently. She dropped her phone onto the torn upholstery and balled her hands into fists, pressing them into her thighs. It was only when the force of the pressure began to hurt that she made herself open her hands, to shake out the tension. But when her eyes drifted back down to page nine of the Daily Mail, her shoulder blades moved closer together, her heels pressed harder into the floor and her jaw tightened. She was angry. She had been lied to. But why would Truman Cooper mislead her about Tom’s whereabouts? Ingrid got to her feet and started pacing around the reception area. Either Truman had deliberately lied about Tom’s whereabouts, or Tom had lied to Truman.
“Can I help?” the police officer on the reception desk asked.
“Thank you. No,” Ingrid said, “I’m fine.”
But she wasn’t fine. She was furious. Her fury, she knew, wasn’t for Tom or Truman but for herself. She’d asked for background reports about Oboloyo and Sutcliffe and the Latin Kings, but she’d not done nearly enough research into Tom and Truman. Had she been too impressed with their fame, their house, their money?
She pieced together everything she knew about the two men. One had been as successful as he was beautiful when he was still a teenager, while the other had made ends meet on the streets of Boston and New York until his late thirties. One had spent a lifetime in the closet, the other had never denied his sexuality, trading tricks and favors for a life of parties and glamour. All his adult life, Truman had expected to be successful, but Tom had only ever wanted to earn enough to buy drugs and fun. He was a genius: a fall collection here, an art exhibition there, an award-winning documentary on the side—he excelled at everything without seeming to try, or even care.
Tom Kerrison wasn’t a man who anyone told what to do; yet he did whatever Cooper asked of him, including having a child. She wondered how much abuse he had taken over the years, and why he put up with it. Ingrid had a sudden flash of his sculpture of the pregnant woman. The pained expression on her face wasn’t anything to do with childbirth: it was how Tom felt about impending parenthood. She shuddered: did he have something to do with Kristyn’s disappearance?
Ingrid picked up her phone from the couch and dismissed the twenty per cent battery warning. She wanted to know what Tom Kerrison was doing in South Chailey in Sussex, but when she searched for ‘Tom Kerrison Sussex’, all the results related to his speeding ticket. She ran a hand through her hair and took a deep breath. She keyed in a different search: ‘Truman Cooper Sussex’. She waited for the results to appear on her phone, willing her connection to speed up.
The top link was to a forum asking if The Belgravia Set was filmed in Sussex. The next linked to a story of a Sussex eccentric who sported a mustache like the one Cooper’s character wore on the show. Ingrid scrolled through a cascade of trivial articles, her disappointment growing with each one.
Google also returned a selection of images relating to Cooper and Sussex. She tapped on one of them. It was a picture of him sitting in a sunny garden drinking a pint of beer. The file name was cooper_sussex12.jpg. Ingrid tapped the ‘view page’ button. A larger version of the photo appeared on her screen with the caption: ‘Truman Cooper enjoys a pint of Harveys in his local pub.’ Ingrid zoomed out and scrolled up: it was an article about the movie star swapping the Hollywood Hills for the South Downs. Ingrid swallowed hard: Truman Cooper owned a house in Sussex. She scanned the article looking for a location, her eyes hoping to see the word ‘Chailey’ but the precise location was not mentioned.
“Are you sure you’re OK?” the cop on the desk asked.
Ingrid looked up at him. “Yes. Why?”
“You made a sound. Like you were in pain.”
“I did?”
He nodded.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
“Bad phone reception?” he asked.
“Something like that.” It was more the frustration of conducting an investigation via a seven-inch screen and a slow data connection. Ingrid stormed outside into a courtyard that buffered the rifle range from the road and Hyde Park beyond. Heavy traffic noise filled the bright morning air. She called Jennifer.
“Criminal division.”
“It’s me.”
“Where are you?”
“With the Met. Target practice, remember?”
“Sol will be pleased. Louden was in earlier looking for you.”
“Louden? On a Saturday?” It was only then that Ingrid remembered what Angelis had said in the Beaufort Club. But then one thing had led to another and the information never got shared. “What did she want?”
“Wouldn’t tell me. You want the good news or, like, the bad news?” Jennifer’s sunny California drawl was a contrast to the damp mist that had settled between the trees in the park: fall had arrived. “Well, the good news is that I. Like. just spoke to Gwyneth Jones. I mean literally just got off the phone. And the bad news is that she said she barely spoke to Kate-Lynn, sorry Kristyn, all flight. And I believe her. I totally don’t think she’s hiding anything.”
Ingrid sucked in her cheeks. “That’s OK, because I’ve got another lead.”
“You have?”
Ingrid started pacing round the courtyard, like a lone soldier on parade. “I ne
ed you to look something up for me. Truman Cooper has a house in Sussex. I need the address.”
“OK.” Jennifer went quiet while she opened up whichever search engine or database would tell her what she needed to know. In the background, over the sound of traffic and the public address system from a passing open-top bus, Ingrid heard Don say ‘good morning’. She didn’t feel bad about making them work the weekend: you didn’t join the FBI, even as a civilian, if you didn’t want to feel the pressure occasionally. “Right,” Jennifer said, “I’ve got something here. The house, oh, wow, that is fancy.”
“What is?”
“The house has a name, not an address. It’s called Arding Manor.”
“And where is it?”
“Um, hold on… near a place called Ditchling. It’s a village.”
Despite the chill, Ingrid felt flushed and unbelted her jacket. “Now tell me how far this place is from another village called South Chailey.”
“How do you spell that?” Ingrid told her, and waited for what felt like minutes for Jennifer to reply. “Six point four miles.”
Ingrid gritted her teeth to suppress the ‘yes’ she wanted to scream into the air. “Next question. How do I get to Ditchling?”
Ingrid started walking toward the gate, her phone clamped to her ear. She unclipped her visitor’s pass and handed it to the officer at the barrier and walked out onto a road that ran along the side of the park. She walked quickly to reach her motorcycle, and without thinking broke into a run.
“So, you’d get a train to Brighton from Victoria station and get off at a station called Hassocks. Sounds rude, doesn’t it? Um, there’s one at 8:51, but you won’t get that. The one after that is 9:51… Let’s see. It leaves from platform seventeen…” Ingrid was already sprinting by the time Jennifer finished her instructions. “… It says here to use the Buckingham Palace Road entrance, if that means anything to you.”
It certainly did.
Ingrid pumped her arms, propelling herself forward, driving her feet into the ground and picking up speed. It was only when she was unlocking the top box and retrieving her helmet that she realized she was still wearing the holster. And it was still holding the Glock 23.
37
Ingrid pulled into the parking lot of The Bull public house in Ditchling at a quarter after ten. She was frozen. Fall had arrived overnight and she’d just been traveling at ninety miles per hour in summer clothing through wind and mist. She pulled off her helmet and gloves and looked at herself in the Triumph’s mirrors. She ran her hands through her hair, attempting to give it some shape. There was no way to wear a helmet and have a decent hairstyle, not unless she wanted a buzz cut or a ponytail, neither of which she could ever see herself getting.
The Bull sat at the main intersection in the village. No matter which way she looked she saw something that made her feel she was on the set of a BBC drama. Red mailboxes set inside flint walls, lopsided windows in timber frame cottages, white-painted fingerposts and flower-filled chimney pots standing sentry outside quaint shop doors. All that was missing was a couple of giggling girls in bonnets.
She locked her helmet in the top box and pulled her phone out of her pocket.
“You got that address for me?” she asked Jennifer.
“I’m fine thank you, thanks for asking.”
“I’m nearly out of juice, I didn’t mean to be rude. I just need to be quick.”
“You want me to call your US cell?”
“No point. I left it charging on my desk last night.”
“Suppose it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
She wasn’t helping.
“The address?”
“Well, OK then. I haven’t found it yet. It’s Saturday. Some places don’t open at weekends.” Ingrid didn’t fill the pause Jennifer had left for effect. “The postal address is just Arding Manor, Ditchling. Nothing helpful in all the usual places; it doesn’t appear to be on Google Earth or anywhere so I, like, checked the Ordnance Survey map, and there are three places that could be it. You want me to send you the GPS coordinates?”
“Please.”
“And Don wants to know if it’s still OK for him to go to Harry Styles’s house.”
“Tell him he must go. And if he sees a pregnant girl who fits Kristyn’s description, he needs to call me right away.”
“And if your phone dies?”
“Better call Sol.”
Ingrid hung up. Her battery life was down to five per cent. She stared at it as the screen went dark and weighed up the wisdom of turning it off. If she didn’t, she risked not being able to make a call in an emergency, but if she did, she might miss a call from Tom Kerrison. It bleeped and immediately lit up. It was the message from Jennifer with the coordinates. Now she was down to four per cent battery. Ingrid pursed her lips and made the decision to power it off.
She tried the door of the pub, but it was locked. She cupped her cold hands round her eyes and peered through the glazed panels: it was dark inside and no one was around. It wasn’t yet half past ten: it would be at least another thirty minutes before the place opened.
Across the street was an up-market village store, painted in an understated shade of cream that was probably called ‘pebble’ or ‘chalk’ or ‘winter sun’. A chalkboard sign advertised artisanal breads, specially imported wines and ten different kinds of olives, not the long-life milk, batteries and frozen microwave meals that—in Ingrid’s limited exposure to the English countryside—village stores usually sold.
A bell tinged above her head as she opened the door and she was engulfed by the aroma of baking and freshly brewed coffee. And warmth. Ingrid just wanted to stand there for a few minutes and warm up a little. The store was much bigger than it looked from the outside; the rear half doubled as a café where a small group of moms with babies were enjoying a get-together, while an elderly couple indulged in a particularly unhealthy breakfast of sausage and eggs.
A woman in her early twenties, possibly late teens, stood behind a refrigerated counter. She smiled at Ingrid as if she were an old friend, but didn’t say a word.
“Hi, I’m hoping you can help me.”
“You’re American.” She had the self-satisfied tone of someone who had just answered a question correctly on a TV quiz show. Ingrid guessed she was one of many recent graduates who, having racked up a mountain of debt and found the door to the job market slammed shut, had moved back in with her parents and was actually grateful to be working in the local store.
“Correct.”
“What can I get you?”
“A little information.”
The girl looked worried. “I can try.”
Ingrid looked at the selection of Danish pastries displayed in wicker baskets on the countertop. She really should eat something. “Do you do coffee to go?”
“To take away?”
Wasn’t that what she had just said? “Yes.”
“Of course, what would you like?”
“Americano.”
“Milk?”
“No, thanks.” She just wanted it to be hot, and to wrap her fingers round it.
“Anything else?”
“I’ll take one of those pastries and some directions to a place called Arding Manor. Know how I can get there?”
“Ah.” The girl’s expression was apologetic. “That I can’t do. Let me get Antonia, she makes better coffee than me anyway. It’s only my second day.”
The girl disappeared through a door into the kitchen at the other end of the counter, leaving Ingrid to ponder if she wanted an apple or apricot pastry. She was so hungry she considered one of each. An older woman with her hair in a bun marched up to the counter.
“Hello,” she said, in a voice that was slightly too loud. “You’re after directions, I hear.”
“And a coffee,” Ingrid said. She reached inside her jacket for her wallet and felt the Glock. She instantly pulled her hand back, concerned the woman might see the pistol. “Americano. To go.”
“If that’s what you call it.”
“One shot or two?”
“Two, thanks.”
The woman tamped the ground coffee into the filter and placed two shot glasses on the stainless steel tray of the espresso machine. “Where is it you want to go?”
“Arding Manor.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed, the skin between her eyebrows puckering like a pastry crust. “Why do you want to know that?”
That wasn’t the response Ingrid had expected. “Why wouldn’t I want to know that?”
“You know who lives there?”
Ingrid was taken aback by the woman’s demeanor. She was starting to remind her of the guards she had encountered during visiting hours at federal penitentiaries. “I do.”
“We try to take care of them, you see. They come here for privacy, not to have tourists camp outside the gates.”
Carefully, Ingrid reached inside her jacket, angling herself in such a way that the woman would not see what was in the holster, and pulled out her wallet. She selected her embassy ID—her FBI credentials too often made people think she was playing a practical joke—and showed it to the woman. “I’m not a tourist.”
The woman peered at Ingrid’s card, and then turned back to the coffee machine. “You want milk?”
“No, thanks.”
She placed the cardboard cup on the counter. “You know something,” her voice was now several decibels quieter. “You’re the second American asking for the Manor today.”
Goosebumps rippled across Ingrid’s skin. Donaho. Please, God, no. “Was it a guy?”
“Yes. Anything else?”
Ingrid pointed to the basket. “One of those. A tall man, seventeen or eighteen stone, baseball cap?”
The woman crossed her arms and wrinkled her nose. “No, little fella. Probably should wear a baseball cap. Apricot or apple?”
Ingrid trembled with relief as she pulled out a £10 note and placed it on the countertop: Avery Donaho hadn’t made it to Ditchling. “Apricot, please. Did you tell him where to find Arding Manor?”