I put a smile in my voice and said, “Hello, Pete. It’s nice to talk to you too.”
There was silence for a while, then a dangerous rumble that turned out to be laughter. “Liam, always it is pleasure to hear your voice. Now I heff bin nice. What you want?”
“I need some information, Pete. A real cute chick, English, upper class. Used to work as a high-class hooker. Now she’s bought her way into the biotechnology business. Real looker. Ring any bells?”
I heard him suck on a Havana and blow out slowly. Finally, he said, “Should it?”
“Does it?”
There was a geothermal disturbance, mellowed by a smile, and he said, “Not like this, off the hand. She is important to you? You are in the love finally, Liam?” Then more serious, “Is she in my manor? Who is her pimp? This is something I should know about?”
“Nah, nothing important, Pete. Just a girl I hooked up with the other night. You know that if I knew something I thought you needed to know about, Pete, you’d be the first to know what I knew.”
While he was trying to work out what I’d said, I hung up and sat, turning my phone over again. Drugs, prostitution and extortion in the West End of London belonged to Russian Pete. If she were a high-class hooker selling her goods to the Stilton Cheese of British society, or if she were in a position to blackmail them, Russian Pete would not only know about her, he’d be running her.
But he didn’t—and he wasn’t.
I strolled down to Noddy’s Diner at lunchtime and had a steak sandwich. Then I spent the rest of the day kicking my heels and checking my phone for missed calls, like I really didn’t care if she’d called or not. Finally, I read myself to sleep on the sofa, sipping Bushmills and telling myself that if she called while I was out tomorrow, it was her loss, not mine. But I still didn’t believe me, not for one moment.
Chapter Three
I slept fitfully and dreamed about goats bleating and swarming over barren mountainsides. I could smell the dust and the thyme on the warm, dry air and hear the dull bells clanging. A voice laughed nearby and said, “Hell, the goat’s on the lam!”
I got up late, showered hot then cold then brunched on scrambled eggs on rye and very black coffee. I packed another bag and strolled down to my TVR. A Daemon can do a hundred fifty mph without breaking a sweat, and if you’re nice to her, she’ll give you two hundred and a sweet purr with it, but it was a beautiful day so I pulled down the soft top and cruised through the South Downs, enjoying the air and the sunshine. I got to Russell’s Tudor cottage in Fishbourne ten minutes short of six p.m. It was one of those half-timbered affairs that is all crooked and has a thatched roof. The windows were small with little diamond-shaped leaded panes, and there was an ancient oak door you had to stoop to get through. It was cute enough to be on a Christmas card but old enough not to be cute. It was listed as Tudor, but Russell swore it was two hundred years older than that.
I found him sitting at a table under a parasol on his back lawn. He was an eighty-year-old skinny runt of a guy, which made the sunglasses he was wearing look like huge bug eyes under his straw hat. He was drinking tea and the table was set for two. As usual, he didn’t bother to greet me but launched into whatever he’d been thinking about as though I’d arrived late at my own conversation. He picked up The Telegraph, which was folded on the table next to him, and he waved it at me.
“US pouring more troops into Ukraine. We’ll have to join them—and with war brewing on our own doorstep. There will be war in Spain. You realize that?”
“Hello, Russell.”
“Tea?”
I sat without answering and he poured me a cup.
“Biscuit?” He placed a digestive on my saucer and smiled at me. “Worst thing that could have happened, Al-Andalus Petroleum finding oil under Almeria. Vast reserves, you know, if it’s true. They’ll fight for independence, you realize, and Spain won’t have it! What shall we do if we’re dragged into peacekeeping in Spain and supporting the US in Ukraine? Have you ever been to Spain?”
I knew he was setting the scene, and I was intrigued about where it was leading. I nodded. “Couple a’ times.”
“I was there in my early twenties, of course, experimenting with acid in the Balearic Islands.”
I was surprised. “Really?”
“Yes. In the sixties, before it was fashionable. Franco was still around, and it was a dictatorship. Ministry of fear. Guardia Civil could shoot you dead in cold blood if they wanted to. No one would bat an eyelid.”
“Why were you experimenting with acid, Russell?”
He looked vaguely surprised, as though I’d changed the subject.
“Well, it was what you did in those days—open your mind, altered states of consciousness, all that. I don’t know if it has helped me in my work. It may have, I suppose. But it was fun at the time. Lots of orgies. I was quite handsome in those days. Quite inappropriate now, of course…orgies.”
I nodded. “I get invited all the time, but I always refuse because, like you, I feel they are inappropriate these days.”
He frowned at me. “Really?”
“No, not really, Russell.”
“Oh.” He grimaced. “I’m always surprised when you are ironic, Liam. One doesn’t expect it of an American.”
“Ben Franklin was known for his ironic wit.”
“An Englishman, of course, as were all the founding fathers. He had a thing about snakes, you know?”
“He was born in Boston.”
“But his father was from Northamptonshire. Just because you’re born in a manger, it doesn’t make you a donkey. There was no such thing as an American in those days. But we were talking about Spain.”
“You were, and I was wondering why.”
He was silent a while, looking at the sky. A blackbird was saying something complicated in intricate bird language. I looked for it while Russell took his time. I found it sitting on the chimney. It was a very black silhouette against the pale, late-summer sky. Somewhere I had read that birds were all that was left of the dinosaurs. I wondered if dinosaurs made long, complicated sentences like blackbirds.
“Rupert is coming over for dinner,” Russell said suddenly. I turned to look at him. He was fussing with something on the table. “Nice chap. I was friends with his uncle. Hugo. Insufferable man. Italian, of course, naturalized British. Pompous old fart, but brilliant.”
“He died…” I said it to prompt him to come to the point, though with Russell that was always a waste of time. He did things his own sweet way and the Devil take the hindmost. He nodded. “Yes,” he said, “I know. Unexplained heart attack. Terrible business.” The blackbird sounded exasperated. I knew how it felt.
“You thought I could help.”
“That’s very kind of you.” He said it absently, as though it was my idea and it had never crossed his mind till then. The sound of a car momentarily silenced the blackbird. The air took on a russet hue and suddenly it was evening. Russell levered himself out of his chair. “Ah, I believe that’s him now. Shall we go inside? Perhaps a cocktail?”
Rupert was a young man in his late twenties. He moved like a chicken, hesitating at every step and every move. He had the trick of running his fingers through his mop of floppy blond hair and making long ‘eeerrr’ sounds before failing to commit himself to absolutely anything. He never looked you in the eye but fixed his sight to the left or to the right of your feet, as if he were receiving really bad news from a secret telephone conversation that was happening inside his head. Russell introduced us then went to the kitchen to deal with his roast. I asked Rupert if he wanted a drink. He said, “Eeerrr,” and stared hard at the carpet. Maybe he was phoning a friend. I lost patience and smiled. “Have a gin and tonic,” I said and moved to the drinks’ tray.
He smiled gratefully at me and ran his fingers through his hair again. I figured I’d keep the momentum going and said, “Russell told me about your uncle. I’m sorry. He said I might be able to help you out somehow.”
I handed him his drink and pointed at a huge, ancient chair. “Sit down.” I leaned on the fireplace, watching him. He sat, studying the floor intently. I said, “Drink.” He did, and the gin did its work. He stared to the right of my feet for a moment then said, a little more decisively, “Well, Russell thinks it’s my uncle, but really it’s more my fiancée.”
I blinked at him for a bit, but he wasn’t going to explain so I said, “Do they look alike? How did the confusion come about?”
It was his turn to blink. “Lord no,” he said. “No, Mary-Jane is nothing like Uncle Hugo…” His eyes drifted more to the right of my shoes then he frowned and shook his head. “Hugo was taller,” he said, “and more corpulent.”
I smiled sweetly and pressed the point. “So, how did the confusion come about, Rupert? How did Russell confuse your fiancée with your uncle?”
His face seemed to twitch all over for a moment. Finally, he said, “Well, it’s these goat people. It’s very odd.” Then he looked at me as though I might be able to explain it to him. I raised an eyebrow and asked, “What is it, exactly, Rupert, that is odd about the goat people—apart, that is, from their being goat people?”
He shook his head and gazed at the cold, empty fireplace. “I mean, each to his own. I have nothing against them per se. Goats are lovely creatures—”
“I agree, Rupert. I have eaten a few in my time. Perhaps you should start at the beginning. What is it about the goat people that is odd? And how does your fiancée fit in?”
He frowned again and said, “I think she’s been kidnapped.” Then he raised his eyebrows all the way up, shook his head and said, “I know she’s been kidnapped.”
“By the goat people?”
He seemed surprised by the idea, which I found reassuring.
“No,” he said, “I don’t think so. Do you think so? I think it was Peter Strickland.”
“Peter Strickland…?”
“The gardener.”
“Oh, sure, that Pete Strickland…” I glanced at the kitchen door and wondered how long Russell was going to leave me alone with this character. “Perhaps,” I said, “you had better tell me something about Strickland, and why you think he has kidnapped Mary-Jane.”
Rupert blushed and smiled secretly at the same time, which cannot be easy. “Mary-Jane, if you knew her, Liam, is”—he paused, then said very softly—“luminous.” He stared hard at his own feet. “Sorry, but, she sort of lights up a room. She is extremely beautiful. She has very blonde hair. Her skin is terribly white, but not dead. You know. It sort of shines, especially when she smiles. Her eyes are very dark blue, and… Well, it’s hard to explain. Sorry!”
All of this was said with his eyes riveted breathlessly to the floor. He bit his lip and plowed on, in spite of himself.
“It’s not just her looks, though, Liam. Her personality. She laughs all the time. She is so full of joy.” He paused and I thought he might start crying, but I guess he invoked his stiff upper lip, raised his eyebrows all the way up again and forged on. “She makes everybody smile, you know. She is happy and kind and frightfully generous.”
I said, as gently as I could, “So what makes you think she’s been kidnapped?”
“Well, she’d moved in with me. It was really frightfully serious. We were actually”—he stared at me, hard, willing me to understand that they had been having sex on a regular basis—“living together.”
“I understand, Rupert.”
He nodded, then looked back at the floor. “And, I noticed that whenever we walked in the garden, Peter—the gardener—would watch us. And every day he seemed to be more intent, more interested. Finally…” He shrugged and raised his eyes from the floor to the fireplace.
I said, “She left and didn’t come back?”
“Well, that’s right. And at precisely the same time, Peter stopped coming to work. They vanished at the same time. The only explanation is that he kidnapped her, isn’t it?” Instead of looking at me for confirmation, he turned away. “We were engaged,” he said. Like it mattered.
I sighed and looked at my drink. It suddenly didn’t seem big enough. I could hear Russell knocking pots and pans around in the kitchen. I wished I was in there listening to his mad, brilliant ramblings instead of this poor schmuck’s mad naïve ones. I said, “Have you got a photograph of her?”
He looked surprised. “No, no, I haven’t.”
I nodded. It was the answer I’d expected. “She didn’t like being photographed. Right?”
“Yes, that’s true…”
I smiled a fake smile and said, “Beautiful women are often that way.” I knew the answer to my next question too, but asked it anyway. “Ever meet her folks?”
Again he shook his head, “No, we were just about to go and visit them, actually. They have a house in the south of Spain.”
“Have you contacted them, Rupert?”
He shrugged. “What for?”
I said, “She could be with them.”
He sounded petulant when he said, “If she were going to see her family, she would have told me. We were engaged.”
I sighed, more deeply this time.
“Rupert, apart from the fact that they disappeared at the same time, have you any reason to believe that Peter Strickland has kidnapped Mary-Jane?”
“Carter. Mary-Jane Carter. She’s from South Carolina.”
I waited, but that was all he was going to say. “A ransom note?”
He shook his head.
I said, “Have you contacted the police?”
Again he shook his head. “No police, Liam.”
“Any reason…?”
“Just no police.”
I shrugged. “Look, Rupert, I hate to ask this, but when she disappeared, did anything else go missing? Any valuables? Money, jewelry?”
He still wouldn’t meet my eye, but he said, “No,” and he said it like he meant it. Then he added, “Everything I own belongs to her already, so there is no question of theft.”
I fished a Camel out of my pack and took my time lighting it. I was aware all the while that he was watching me. When I inhaled and looked at him, he looked away. I said, “Tell me about the last time you saw Mary-Jane.”
“It was last Wednesday. I remember that my uncle had died the day before. We had dined at The Cumberland, then I drove her home to Whitechapel.”
“Wait a minute… You told me she was living with you.”
He nodded at the floor and said, “She had retained her apartment in Whitechapel, even though she was living with me. She was a very modern, independent woman. You know, Americans…” He gestured at me as though being one, I should know all about them. “Oddly enough she was going to give up the apartment the next day and move in permanently with me.”
I looked at the column of dead ash on the tip of my cigarette and asked, “How was she that night?”
He shrugged and shook his head. “Normal.”
I wondered if he would have noticed if she hadn’t been, but I didn’t pursue it. “So you drove her home—”
“I saw her to her door, watched her go up and that was the last I saw of her.”
“How about Strickland?”
“He’d been at work that day.” He scowled at the floor. “He’d taken to lurking and watching her, and he was his usual leering self. I had decided to sack him at the end of the week and I’d told Mary-Jane so. She was relieved. She’d never liked him. Anyway, I was saved the trouble because he didn’t turn up next morning.”
I nodded. “Have you got a key to Mary-Jane’s apartment?”
He looked bewildered. “No! Why would I?”
“Yeah, why would you. Never mind. How about Strickland’s address?”
He nodded and gave it to me. It was in Kensal Rise. I made a note on my BlackBerry. Then the kitchen door opened and Russell came out in a very long apron, looking like a gnome disguised as a nun. “Would you like to go through to th
e dining room? I’m just bringing in the food.”
The dining room was small and you could watch the dusk settling through the leaded windows. The blackbird was still singing his complicated story from the chimney. Russell carved the meat while it was still sizzling and I poured out the rich, ancient Rioja. When we were all sitting and had raised our glasses and complimented Russell on the meat, I said, “So, Rupert, what has all this to do with your uncle?”
Rupert stared at his wine. “Well, it hasn’t really, anything, but Russell thinks it has. You see, he left practically everything to the goat people.”
I nodded as I cut into a roast parsnip. “I can see how that would seem odd.” I put the parsnip in my mouth then chewed it. I glanced at Russell. “Who are the goat people?”
He snorted. “That’ll take some explaining! They’re a kind of cult in Andalusia—an uncommonly powerful one, with powerful connections—now the Independent Republic of Andalusia, of course. Unless the Arabs invade, which they might…”
“Russell?”
“Yes, m’boy?” he said, stuffing lamb in his mouth.
I said, “This story is already pretty complicated.”
He ignored me and Rupert started talking again, doing the thing with his fingers and his hair. “It’s my uncle. He was my mother’s brother.”
I sipped. “That is often the way with uncles,” I said, “about half the time. Was he a goat person?”
“Errr…in a sense he was, yes. When my parents died—I was only eight, at prep school—he sort of adopted me. He was awfully good, paid for the best schools and everything. Took me traveling during the holidays. I never wanted for anything, you know…” He trailed off.
“So far,” I said, “he seems to have been a good uncle who was very fond of you. There is nothing odd here.”
“No,” he agreed to the left of his plate, then searched the shadows by the window. “He loved Mummy very much, you see, and missed her terribly when she died. He often said he thought of me as his own son.”
“That makes sense.”
“He told me, on, a-a-actually…” He hesitated over the ‘actually’ so it came out ‘a-a-a-a-actually’, and his eyebrows seemed to arch right up to his hairline. Then he said it again, “A-a-actually, he told me, several—many—times, a-actually, that I w-w-was his…his…”
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