by Marjorie Orr
After twenty-five long minutes of saccharine guff he answered questions, only one of which raised Tire’s interest. The question itself was standard enough, an accusation of failure to respond to a holidaymaker’s complaint about a lost booking. But it was his reaction that seemed disproportionate. His tan reddened, turning his fleshy face an unpleasant shade of russet, and his eyes darted uncomfortably to where his father sat. Brushing aside the first question, he said sharply it was in the hands of his lawyers. When the question was repeated he started to bluster angrily, waving his arms around, mumbling about a new accountancy system giving problems.
‘He’s losing his grip,’ she thought. A suave intervention from Paul Stone, who moved swiftly from his front-row seat to take over the microphone, closed the discussion.
‘I am sure,’ he said, in a slightly clipped accent, too precise to be his first language, ‘that any oversight, if one has occurred...’ He pinned the questioner with a hard stare, pausing long enough to make him squirm. ‘...It will be rectified without delay.’ An engaging smile stayed on his face throughout although, Tire noted, the warmth did not extend to his eyes, which were unblinking and steady.
His charm moved attention smoothly onto his charities. ‘Now I really am excited to tell you of progress we are making in linking up so many golden-agers through our Lifelong Friendship circle. Already we have half a million signed up round the globe, many of whom we have been able through kind donations to gift simple computers. Such a lovely feeling, knowing all these wonderful people no longer feeling isolated.’
He smiled warmly at the audience, moving his eyes expertly from one person to another. Good technique she thought, making everyone feel special. ‘And Cerigo, of course, does sterling work giving holidays to deprived children and their grandparents.’
He turned to nod at his son, who was sitting with barely concealed ill grace at the end of the platform. Even a round of enthusiastic clapping did not bring a smile to Harman Stone’s face.
‘Maybe I should tell you,’ he said, leaning forward confidentially, ‘why these resorts are so special. They have been a dream of mine since I lived in a wonderful villa called La Mirabelle in Villefranche on the Côte d’Azur many years ago. I wanted to share that joyous experience with others.’
He’s waffling to divert attention from the unpleasantness, she thought, watching his well-manicured hands reach out to his rapt audience. He lowered his voice and his smile widened, his glittering eyes continuing to roam and connect. She moved behind the person in front to block his view of her.
‘I will let you into a secret. Our resorts all had the best feng shui experts involved in the design to lend harmony. And,’ he raised a finger, ‘I shouldn’t admit this, but they were all opened officially on the most propitious time set by a world-famous astrologer.’
The front row dutifully clapped and the travel writers jotted on their pads. Neat manoeuvre, that’ll be the headline, not a booking screw-up.
She scribbled a note to herself to look up his chart. After five minutes, the silky tones had moved onto his Alzheimer’s drug research foundation and were beginning to irritate Tire, so she turned her attention to studying Harman and father together. Junior had bulging eyes, an exaggerated version of his father’s aquiline nose perched above a bunched mouth, with a triangular jawbone that extended his conical chin below his Adam’s apple. The face only a mother could love. Certainly no competition for father. Still, Paul Stone was sharing a platform with him and had financed his business so there must be a bond.
Could Harman be a loose cannon, letting his temper get the better of him? Trying to ignore his orange jacket, she imagined him setting up a murder and framing Greengate for it. The jacket won. He was too ludicrous a figure to be a mastermind and was anyway under the thumb of Pa Stone, whose reputation, she thought, had been too carefully crafted to allow for reckless behaviour. She was left with a niggling feeling that there was more to the relationship between father and son than met the eye.
Finally the meeting finished and, having been handed yet more glossy brochures about the charity, she was heading for the door. ‘Miss Haddington,’ a voice called behind her. Only the receptionist’s alert smile reminded her of her name tag. She turned to find one of the rollnecked young aides behind her.
‘Miss Haddington, what a pleasure, so good you could come,’ he purred. ‘Now, I know we have not had the privilege yet of welcoming the Sunday Chronicle to our truly splendid, luxurious Costa Brava resort. Might I inquire whether you might accept our invitation soon?’
Tire was about to brush him aside, when she stopped herself. Never write off even the most unlikely lead until you are certain. Accepting his business card, she assured him that it might be possible to come with a photographer for the magazine section, perhaps for a weekend. Overriding his protestations that Cerigo had its own photographers with the excuse that the paper preferred to use its own, she said she would email him with potential dates she might squeeze into her busy schedule.
An outstretched hand met her as she turned to leave. An attractive man in his early thirties with warm brown eyes and chestnut hair flopping across his forehead blocked her exit.
‘I had rather hoped to meet you last night at the Guildhall,’ he said, with a smile that veered between arrogance and condescension. ‘But you were tied up with Justin Burgoyne and then you disappeared. Just my luck. I was hoping to wangle an introduction.’ He laughed and swept his hair back. ‘What did you say to him? He looked as if the dog had eaten his dinner when he came back in.’
Not even her killer stare diverted him. He winked, leaned forward to read her lapel badge and wagged a finger. ‘Miss Haddington. Now I know how to contact you. Perhaps we might meet for a drink sometime. My name’s Sebastian Crumley.’
Erica’s boyfriend. Damn. Still in heavy mourning clearly. And she’d blow her cover with Cerigo if she admitted who she was. As she hesitated, he looked over her shoulder, obviously being summoned. ‘Must go and have a word with Paul Stone.’
‘You’re a friend?’ she asked.
‘I’m a lawyer. One of our clients is a major donor to his charity so we like to touch base once in a while,’ he said smoothly and walked away.
What a small pond London was. Everyone knew everyone else, at least among the tosserati.
Outside the conference room she texted Herk, who was waiting by the time she emerged at the entrance with the car, standing to attention at the open door as she climbed in. Once onto the slip road she said: ‘Can you work a camera?’
‘What?’
‘There’s a faint possibility we might be off to the Costa Brava to do a travel feature on Cerigo. Just for a few days. You can be the photographer. Might tell us more sniffing around onsite.’
‘You reckon it’s worth it?’ he asked slowly.
‘Maybe. Maybe not. We can decide later,’ she answered. ‘Nothing too specific there, although Harman Stone’s an oddity, not entirely under control and his father’s too unctuous for my liking.’
‘Well, if I knew what that meant I’d probably agree. The old man’s driver sat in the car all the time like he was cowering. I spoke to a couple of the other lads. They said he was kept on a very tight rein by the boss, with instructions not to speak. So he never does. That feels odd to me. The son’s driver was from a limo company. First time with him, so no joy there.’
Herk suggested dropping her on Shaftesbury Avenue to avoid the watchers seeing him again, although she saw no sign of anyone loitering when she walked along Broadwick Street.
CHAPTER 15
That evening in her office, sitting in two armchairs round the glass coffee table over a few beers and a bottle of red wine to wash down a Chinese takeaway, they went over what they knew about Erica’s death.
Herk’s view, firmly stated, was that stumbling blindly after wisps of mist was not a good strategy, especially since they were persons without the protection of any authority. Her response, which came out more sharply th
an intended, was she was sure he’d often been in exactly such circumstances in the past.
For the first time since they’d met he gave her a hard look that dispensed with any pretence of being a broken ex-soldier on his uppers. She grinned mischievously, mouthing sorry.
‘What do you do if you can’t do a full recce?’ she asked.
He rolled his tongue round his mouth and said thoughtfully: ‘Get your intelligence nailed down best you can.’
‘So, stage one plan of action.’ She leant forward. ‘I’ll try to find time tomorrow in Paris to dig up Jean Malhuret, the human rights lawyer. I'm seeing Wrighton day after tomorrow, then it’s Erica’s funeral in the afternoon and I might catch up with her legal buddies. And I’ll get a forensic accountant mate to dissect Cerigo’s finances. Erica did look, but Russell can unearth what no one else would find.’
‘And if all that meets a brick wall, what then?’ His level stare earned a grimace.
‘Keep beating your head against it till something falls out.’
He chortled.
‘No, really. I’ve been at this a long time. Trust your gut and don’t give up.’
‘If you say so. I’ll be off job-hunting while you’re away in France.’ She tensed. ‘Round car repair shops and pubs near where she was killed. Lot of shifty characters down there. I’ll fit in just fine. There might be local gossip that never reached the police.’
After an argument, he agreed to take payment at his standard workman’s hourly rate. Becoming a full-time employee clearly did not suit him and it took her a while to persuade him that she hired freelances all the time who were partners for specific projects, not servants.
He crossed his legs, propping one boot across his knee, and looked at her. ‘There’s one condition to this and it’s not negotiable. No secrets.’ He emphasised the no with a finger pointed at her. ‘You have to be straight with me about everything. What are you not telling me?’
Her tentative ‘it might be nothing at all’ got an angry glare.
‘OK, I was followed today, out running, by a motorcyclist. But he could just have fancied his chances. It might not mean anything... ’ she tailed off.
‘Like the cyclist who knocked you down the other day, you mean?’ he retorted.
She said defensively: ‘I got his registration number and someone’s checking it out.’
‘Which could well be cloned – false plates. Might not tell us much. Still, worth finding out.’ He sighed. ‘It’s a bodyguard you need. I’ll have to dig out my running shoes. Must say it sounds like quite a pro set-up. I’m going off the slasher up in Wakefield as a suspect. My money might be on the Soviet lot. You’ll have to watch your step.’ Seeing her lips purse, he asked: ‘You don’t agree?’
Without answering, she stood up, refilled their glasses and took hers to the window. The city lights outside cast a gaudy aura upwards, blocking out the stars in the cloudless sky. A yearning for the islands and open sea tugged at her.
‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘I still think Wrighton’s up there. And there’s something odd about Stone senior that doesn’t square with him being a paragon of virtue. He’s got a black soul.’
‘That’s an astrological thought, is it?’ he asked with a grin, which earned him a withering look.
‘I haven’t looked. Just a feeling.’
With business out of the way, the evening mellowed. Knowing he disliked talking of his army days, she asked him about his childhood.
His father had been a regimental sergeant major and his father before him in a fighting line that traced back through every major conflict to the Peninsula Wars in the early 19th century. The family collection of medals over two centuries was jealously guarded and religiously polished by his mother, who still lived alone in a council house in East Dunbartonshire. His father was a hard-drinking, hard-living man mainly away, he said, and his mother held the family of three boys under iron control.
All the brothers had escaped at sixteen into the army. One had been injured in the first Gulf War, dying a few years later from cancer. The other had died of alcoholism.
‘Only me, ma and the bloody medals left. I might just toss them when she’s gone. Though gawd knows ah reckon she’ll see us all out. Built of cast iron, that woman’, he remarked, helping himself to another glass of wine.
After a longish silence as he stared into his glass, she felt obliged to proffer a few details of her own. Taking a deep breath she said: ‘What can I tell you? I grew up…’ she hesitated, ‘as an orphan, really, from five.’ This was proving more difficult than she expected, given that it was a well-rehearsed story.
‘Was shuffled around in the north of Scotland and eventually sent to boarding school in England. Though I went back on holidays to a courtesy aunt up in the islands in the north-west.’ She looked at him with a wry smile. ‘She wasn’t a bundle of laughs either, like your ma. Cold as hell.’
‘No brothers or sisters, then?’ he asked.
‘Nope, just me. Not too many friends at school since they all thought I was odd. On holiday my aunt made it clear the local kids were out of bounds. Not our sort, she’d say sniffily. Christ, she was a snob. So I went climbing, fishing, bird-watching on my own and read a lot. I enjoyed the freedom. So wasn’t all a sweat.’
She fiddled with her pendant, feeling she was about to get emotional.
‘Tell me,’ Herk leant forward, breaking the awkward silence, ‘how did you get into the stars? Seems odd for someone like you. A neighbour of my ma’s read tea leaves, but she had her hair in a duster and could barely read.’
‘Different skill,’ Tire laughed, grateful to be away from her childhood. ‘A Hong Kong astrologer read my chart years ago and understood my life, the past I mean, better than I did. The accepted wisdom said it was rubbish. But since I’ve spent my life fighting against the know-it-alls who are more often wrong than right, I dug in and learned how it works.’
‘Just to stick two fingers up at them, you mean?’ He rubbed his chest and beamed. ‘Works for me. It’s not like clairvoyance, then?’
‘No, it’s mathematical, all number-crunching, so suited to computers. There’s no explanation for it. But that doesn’t stop it working.’ She lit another cigarette. ‘In its own slightly peculiar way, admittedly.’
‘And you can do the stars of countries? Like Iraq?’
‘Yes. You have to find a date, which isn’t always easy for old countries. Israel’s easy since they cut the ribbon for the opening in 1948. Though most have significant moments of unification or independence. If you’ve got a time as well as a day you can tell about economic fortunes, rebellions and the like. You can do charts for events as well, like the launching of ships, movies, the Iraq War.’
He blew out a long sigh and reached for the wine bottle. ‘You mean you knew it would be a disaster before it started?’
Her eye drifted off to Jin’s photograph of a bomb-wrecked building on the wall across from her.
‘Well, I wouldn’t have started a war then. It was mainly Air and Water signs, which is unstable. Wholesale destruction from above, hopelessly unrealistic when it hit the ground. Run by armchair generals 6,000 miles away to send a message – like Hiroshima and Dresden. Not a clue about a practical follow-through.’
‘Sounds about right.’ He shifted uneasily in his chair, swirling his wine round the glass. Looking up with a forced smile, obviously keen to change the subject, he said: ‘You’ve never asked what my star sign is? Normally with girlfriends it’s practically the first thing they want to know. Not that you’re…’ He looked slightly flustered.
She grinned broadly, ‘Nope. Absolute rule. Never mix work and play. Always ends in a mess. Your Sun sign is only a part of what you’re about and often it’s not what I look at first. There’s another 2,500 pieces of information in your chart.’
‘And you make all your decisions based on that, do you?’ he asked cautiously.
‘No,’ she said. ‘None of them.’
‘Well, what
’s the point of it then? If it’s no practical help?’ He looked puzzled.
‘It helps me understand what makes people tick. Who they are, what drives them. It’s useful for books except I never say where my brilliant insights come from.’ She smiled mischievously.
‘And you never have a look if you’re going somewhere dangerous?’ he prompted.
‘Well, maybe,’ she admitted, wondering why he was so interested and decided against telling him about the astrology of the next couple of weeks. ‘It’s just not helpful to be constantly checking every time you need to make a decision otherwise your life would grind to a halt.’
That seemed to satisfy him as he gulped down his wine and stood up, saying cheerfully: ‘Well, onwards and upwards, then. You’ll have to be up early tomorrow.’ He added over his shoulder: ‘Since you didn’t ask, I’m Taurus.’
CHAPTER 16
The plane bucked and shuddered as it droned through heavy cloud, the windows running with moisture. Flying back from Paris after what felt like a wasted day and a half, Tire was wound up and irritated. There had been a fruitless search to track down Malhuret, the French lawyer who might know about Erica’s Kubek case. No one in his office would say where he was, or when he’d be back from a trip abroad.
Otherwise she had smiled through gritted teeth at constant questions from a stream of booksellers about a book she had written two years back, much of which she had forgotten, about a whistleblower in the pharmaceutical industry. He had died, so could not tell his own tale. It had been written in a hurry from his notes to catch a story that was still in the headlines, then been held up for a year by lawyers arguing over what could be printed and what was libellous. To her surprise, it was now going into paperback. Against her inclinations, she had also landed herself with another commission for a popular book on fraud in science.