“Where do you keep the safety deposit keys?”
“In my purse, inside my handbag.”
“The one you had with you tonight?”
“Of course! I don’t leave them somewhere else, it’s too risky.” She went to get her purse. “Here.” There were two keys inside, the Klein, Fellay key and the Ramseyer, Haldemann key.
Jenny explained what she’d discovered. “Have you noticed anything odd in here?”
Leticia opened the locked drawer, examined the few items, shook her head and closed it again. She looked around the room, then went to the wardrobe and took out a second handbag, a spare. “Look, the inside pocket is open. I always button it, it’s defectuoso. You know?”
“Faulty, you mean. Doesn’t close properly?”
“The bag keeps falling open. You have to button the pocket. It needs tiny fingers to button it up, like mine. Things fall out if you don’t do it. I always close it carefully.”
“Someone is after the keys, it’s the only explanation. They know we’re in this hotel and somehow they’ve managed to get into our rooms. We’ll have to tell Adam.”
As they walked down the stairs to his room, Jenny’s mind was whirling. It seemed that everyone was after their money or the diamonds. Who could they really trust? There must be something we can do to protect ourselves, she thought. But what?
Adam was in his pyjamas and had thrown a dressing gown on. “What on earth is the matter?” He stifled a yawn.
The women went inside and explained what they feared. “I doubt that anyone could get in here. It’s one of those card swipe locks.” He was obviously very tired or a little drunk.
“Let’s check the secret place.” He took his jacket from the wardrobe and unbuttoned the small inside pocket. “This is for any loose diamonds I might be carrying. Safe as houses.” He searched vainly inside the pocket then looked around, shaking his head, trying to concentrate.
“False alarm,” he said. I changed my jacket to go out for dinner and steamed it over the bath. I must have forgotten to switch the key over.”
Jenny was standing by the bathroom door. “I’ll get it while you look around the room.”
Leticia checked his jacket again while he looked vaguely in the wardrobe and opened a couple of drawers. He saw nothing amiss, he was not as neat and tidy as the women.
Jenny emerged from the bathroom with the other jacket and Adam searched in the same inside pocket. His face blanched. He rifled through the other pockets, finally throwing the coat on the bed. Picking up the first jacket, he searched it again without success. “Jesus Christ, I don’t believe it. It’s gone. The key’s gone!”
“Let me have a look.” Jenny picked up the jackets and searched them carefully, feeling through the material in case it had slipped inside the lining. There was no key there. “Are you sure you didn’t put it somewhere else? We’ve had a pretty tiring day.”
When he shook his head, Leticia asked, “Who did we tell about the hotel?”
“We told Schneider and we told Jolidon, no one else.”
“I bet it’s that bloody Jolidon. None of us trusted him and for good reason. I didn’t tell you at the time, but there were a couple of villainous looking blokes chased after us when we left his office. I didn’t want to worry you, but in my book, the guy’s definitely not straight.”
“So, you think he’s broken in here and stolen the key?” Leticia began to feel very uneasy. Thieves in their bedrooms in a Geneva hotel? She shivered at the thought.
“I’ve got no idea, but the bloody key’s gone and now we can’t access the vault. What an imbecile I am, I should never have left it in that jacket.”
Jenny was thinking hard. “Jolidon would certainly be the obvious candidate. He must know there’s something valuable in that box. Thank heavens he doesn’t know exactly what. At least I hope to God he doesn’t. On the other hand,” she added, “Maybe you’ve simply lost it. We’ve really no proof that anyone’s broken in.”
“I don’t know whether it’s been lost or stolen. I’m so sorry. How could I be so bloody stupid?” Adam sat down in the bedside chair. He was trembling with reaction. “I thought you couldn’t get past those card swipe locks,” he said, looking over at the door.
“I suppose there’s always a way to break in somewhere if you’re a professional,” Jenny observed. “We’ll have to call the manager. Probably the police as well, I suppose.” She picked up the phone and called reception.
The manager, Mr. Leboeuf, was about sixty years old and apparently lived in the hotel, since he arrived five minutes later. He was dumbfounded at Jenny’s report. “Mme. Bishop, I can assure you that in the twenty two years that I have been running this hotel, we have never, ever, had the slightest problem.”
He insisted on coming to check the door locks and look at the drawers and wardrobes, listening carefully to their explanations.
“We’re in the process of changing all the locks to swipe card technology,” he explained. “The second floor is finished and the third floor will be done next week. That’s why you ladies have keys and Mr. Peterson here has a card.
Before Jenny could interject, he added, “However, it really makes no difference. We’re not changing for security reasons, it’s a matter of efficiency. All the good hotels are doing it.”
His protestations and alternative hypothesises almost convinced them that they had imagined everything. Finally he agreed to call the police, but not until the next morning. “If the key was stolen then nothing we do tonight will change anything. We’ll call in the morning and you can make an official complaint, although frankly I think that nothing will come of it.”
After he left them Jenny said to the others. “We have to be very discreet about this. We can’t tell the police that we’ve lost a key worth millions of dollars. They’ll start all kinds of enquiries, mostly into us. Think we’re an international drug syndicate or something. So I doubt very much that there’s any chance of them finding out who broke in.”
She thought for a moment. “But don’t forget that both Laurent and Raffael have the second key. I’m not saying that this isn’t serious, because someone definitely broke in and it was most likely to steal the keys. But at least it means that we can sort things out when one of them turns up. So it’s not a complete catastrophe.”
“But Jenny,” Leticia interrupted. “If someone came and stole that key, it must mean we’re in danger. They’ll come after the other one, and I’ve got it!”
EIGHTY
Friday, 25th April 2008
Washington DC, USA
Sonia Nicolaides was fed up and tired. It had been a long week, the latest of many long weeks. She was supposed to be working shorter hours for the last three months but the days always turned out to be longer than before. Now it was Friday evening and she was still trying to catch up with paperwork to close out the week. How come I’m the only one in after six on a Friday? She asked herself. I must be a slow worker. Either that, or I’ve got too many cases.
She had known when she was requested to move from the NYPD to work for the Justice Department in Washington that this might happen. But after two years with the Child Exploitation and Obscenity section, the work seemed to be multiplying exponentially. For the zillionth time since she had started, she thought to herself, what a sick and depraved world we live in. She went to get herself another coffee and came back to her computer terminal, took out her written notes and documents for Project Fairy Tale.
She took a swig of coffee and waited for her computer files to update themselves. Underpaid and overworked, she said to herself, pushing her hands up over her head and stretching her arms and neck. But Sonia’s main motivation in her work was not a salary, however good it might be. It was a very primitive emotion - revenge. And she knew that if she could help just one child to avoid the fear, horror and pain that she had endured for more than six years then she could keep on going.
Sonia had suffered abuse from the age of six until twelve, at
the hands of her step-father and her uncle, her mother’s brother. Like most victims of abuse, she had been threatened with terrible reprisals if she reported it. So it had gone on for night after dreadful night, year after horrible year, until her step-father had overdosed in the lavatory of a strip joint in Queens.
The next night, her mother had left her alone as usual, to go and get drunk out of her mind in some sleazy bar. “Your uncle Kevin will probably come round to sit with you. Don’t worry, I won’t be late.”
Sonia had lain in her bed, the covers pulled over her head, terrified that her uncle would come back. But he never did, she never ever saw him again. Still, for years she lay waiting, dreading his return. The waiting was sometimes worse than the abuse. And even now, after all these years, somewhere inside her she was still waiting.
And so she never told anyone, until she got her first job at sixteen and could just about afford to pay a therapist’s fees. It had taken her three years of therapy to partially get to grips with the physical and emotional scars she’d suffered. Even after ten years with the NYPD, as a policewoman and then detective and now two years working with CAPP, she couldn’t sleep without taking tranquilisers. And she couldn’t bear to let a man touch her.
She had already written up her notes and prepared the monitoring and fishing proposals for the following week for five of her cases. One more to go. She would discuss them all with her Case Director on Monday morning.
In Project Fairy Tale, she was now playing the game and communicating with the other members of da Silva’s ring. She had even participated in the sickening “chat-room” exchanges of real and imagined experiences of two dozen vicious, depraved perverts. The mental images created by those sixty loathsome minutes had kept her awake all night, even after taking a tranquiliser. The filth she had to read and reply to, composed as if it came from a corrupt, perverted mind, often made her physically sick, but she persevered in the knowledge that she was doing something to make a difference. Something that could save one child, or maybe many children from harm.
She opened up the r.da.silva account but there were no new emails, none since the message she had received the previous Friday. There was also no news from the NYPD and she made a note to call when she finished for the day. She had just opened up the first of the dirty accounts when her phone rang. It was Jack Pearson, her ex-colleague in New York.
“Sorry to take so long to get back to you, Sonia, but it’s absolute hell here right now, you’re well out of it. We’re in the middle of a management review and a crime wave at the same time. So the bosses are doing exactly what they do best, preventing us from getting any real work done. Anyway, here’s what I’ve been able to find out.”
After recounting the results of his enquiries, Jack summoned up the courage to tell her that he’d be in Washington the following month and would like to catch up with her. She thanked him and promised to call back when she’d checked her diary. He put down the phone with a feeling that she never would call back.
Sonia digested the information he’d given her. It was clearly not relevant to her investigation of the CAPP project and normally she would have simply filed it away in case anything subsequently materialised to bring it back under scrutiny. In this case however, the instincts born of her years of detective work with the NYPD took over.
She looked up the European data base and found the name and contact numbers of the person she thought would be interested. Then she composed a fax, revised it and re-read it again. That should do it. She printed it out and took it down to the coms room to be transmitted. It would have been quicker to send an email, but she knew that a fax was much more secure. After two years in CAPP she didn’t trust emails, even encrypted. She passed it through the machine and received a confirmation that it had been transmitted at six forty-five, Friday evening, local time, and twelve forty-five, Saturday morning, Central European time. She filed the fax and turned back to Project Fairy Tale.
Three more hours and I can go home for the weekend. Big deal.
EIGHTY-ONE
Saturday, 26th, Sunday, 27th April, 2008
Marbella, Spain
The Iberia flight to Malaga, via Madrid, took off on time at midday on Saturday, 26th April. Adam had left for London just an hour before. He had managed to arrange meetings with his two UK customers on the Sunday morning to organise the completions for the week after Nick’s funeral. The US customers were easier to meet. He would stop off in New York on his way back to Miami to set up the arrangements with them. Of course, everything was dependent on finding Laurent or Raffael.
The interview with the Geneva Gendarmes that morning was a complete farce. They clearly agreed with the hotel manager. People didn’t break into hotel rooms in Geneva and the supposed victims could produce no proof to contradict that rule. When Adam admitted that he could have simply lost it, the police lost interest and the meeting was closed. A report would be filed on an unconfirmed crime, possibly committed by a person or persons unknown. Jenny had enough experience of such reports to know that they seldom led anywhere.
The manager saw them off in a taxi to the airport. He was apologetic, but obviously happy to have deflected any scandal away from his hotel.
“He must have thought we want a reduction in the price.” Leticia was shocked at the bill. “It’s outrageous,” she said, impressing Jenny with yet another display of English vocabulary.
“Well, we didn’t get one, all we got was a complete whitewash. I don’t think the Swiss like to be criticised much. It’s against their efficiency rules.”
They had discussed the mystery of the two missing partners again, without any conclusion. They didn’t know how to contact Raffael and when Adam tried calling Laurent’s mobile number the message said it was switched off or out of coverage.
“We’ve got to find one of those guys or I can’t execute my transactions. This is an insane situation.” Adam was still agonising over the missing key. “I’m so sorry,” he kept repeating, shaking his head in frustration.
Before he left, Jenny announced that if they didn’t hear anything by Monday, she would call Chief Inspector Espinoza. How difficult can it be to find two grown men, she reasoned?
Adam left for his flight, still apologising, and they agreed to coordinate their actions after Nick’s funeral, hopefully after having made contact with at least one of the missing partners.
Jenny made another effort to contact Gloria. She got a “not available” message from her mobile number again and there was still no reply from her home. I hope she’s OK. I wonder what it was she wanted to tell us. She decided not to say anything to Leticia. She was already very uneasy. The women went to catch their plane to Madrid. At seven forty-five they were met at Malaga airport by Juan, who said as little as usual, and fifteen minutes later they were on their way back to Marbella, after the most momentous week of their lives.
Jenny didn’t want to spoil his mother’s homecoming for Emilio, so they dropped Leticia off at her parent’s apartment and went on to York House. Juan left her at the door with a shy, “Buenas noches, Jenny.”
It was a warm evening so she sat on the terrace with a glass of wine, the air sweet from the white Dame de Noche flowers planted along the wall. It was warmer than Geneva, and certainly much warmer than Ipswich. She would have to get her head around things tomorrow, but tonight she needed a good sleep. She went up to bed and fell asleep immediately.
In Geneva, the man who had followed them for the last three days finished his report and emailed it to his boss. His assignment was satisfactorily terminated. He called his girl friend and arranged to take her out for lunch the next day. He was feeling very pleased with himself.
On Sunday morning Jenny woke to a constant drumming noise. She struggled to identify the sound. It was rain. Torrential rain that had started in the night and hadn’t let up. The terrace at York House was like a pond, water pouring down the rain spouts to the swimming pool level. What a difference a day makes, she thought. The ho
use felt cool, the rain had pushed the temperature down by several degrees. Rather than try to adjust the heating system, she put on a pair of cotton trousers and a blouse, with a long sleeved cardigan on top.
In the kitchen, she switched on the coffee machine and took out a couple of slices of brown bread from the freezer to make toast. There were a couple of remote control devices lying near the flat TV screen on the wall above the counter. One was marked with a sky button. After fiddling with them for a few moments, she managed to find the UK news channel, where the weather lady was describing a huge low pressure area, extending across most of Europe, and forecasting with it the usual accompanying stormy, rainy, cold conditions. It seemed that Marbella wasn’t the only place that was suffering from this awful weather.
Jenny switched the depressing programme off and sat in the kitchen with her coffee and toast, looking thoughtfully out the window at the downpour. The rain was so heavy that she couldn’t see across the garden to the golf course. Memories of their momentous trip to Geneva ran through her mind, especially the things that had gone wrong, or hadn’t occurred as planned. The non-appearance of Laurent and Raffael and the appearance of Adam. Meeting Patrice in the bank. The disappearance of Gloria and Vogel. The break-in at the hotel. Lots of coincidences? She took her dishes over to the sink and noticed that the message light on the telephone was blinking.
She pressed the button on the machine and a mechanical-sounding woman’s voice told her, in Spanish, that there were four new messages. The first two were from golf partners on holiday from the UK, who were unaware of Charlie’s accident. The third was from José Luis, asking her to call him when she returned. It wasn’t urgent. The fourth message had been left on the previous Thursday, at nine o’clock in the evening.
It was a man’s voice, deep, with a soft French accent. “Hello. This is Laurent Bonneville, with a message for Jenny. I was very sorry to get your email about Charlie, it’s a terrible tragedy, shocking. But I wonder if you will be going to Geneva for the annual meeting of the Angolan Clan? If you are, I’m sorry, but I have been detained here in Paris and I won’t be able to meet you. I don’t have a mobile number for you, so I’ll try to call the bank tomorrow to see if you’re there, but I’m under time pressure. If I can manage it I’ll put a call through to Nick as well. If I can’t get hold of you before, I’ll call back at the weekend, or you can call me on my mobile.” He gave a number starting with 00377. “I look forward to speaking to you.”
[African Diamonds 01.0] The Angolan Clan Page 50