I let my amusement show. She’d smelled a trap coming and she’d dodged it skillfully. But my gut told me she already knew I hadn’t made the swap. And she could only know that if she’d set up the failed hit and the gunman on the river. I shook my head. “No. They got antsy when someone started taking pot shots at them from the river. I killed two of his thugs when they tried to kill me, and Mr. X in the back of the car took off in a hurry. I was left with the box and the money. I never had a chance to make the swap.” After a moment I added, “I assumed you knew that.”
She stared at me. “So you still have it?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Where is it?”
“Somewhere safe.”
She was quiet then for a long while. Eventually she turned to the black window and the warm breeze moved her hair. “You mustn’t open that box, Liam.”
“Why not?”
Without turning to me she asked, “Will you just trust me?”
I shook my head. “No. Of course not.”
She sighed and flopped back against the sofa. “What it contains… As long as you don’t know… But once you do, he won’t stop until you’re dead.”
“What about you?”
She opened her hands and seemed to study her palms a while. Maybe she was trying to see her future. She said, real quietly, “I know what’s in the box.” Then again, “I know what’s in the box.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a book. A small black book. I know that inside the book are details of all his crimes, his extortions, his blackmails, his murders…all his victims. I know what the book is, but I have never opened it. I have never looked inside. I dare not.”
I barked a laugh that sounded ugly in my own ears. “Catherine, if you think that not looking inside that book will keep you safe, you are living in a fool’s paradise. This man is going to hunt you down, and he won’t stop until you’re dead or you’ve given him reasons powerful enough to back off.” She was staring at me like she was willing me to be wrong. I shook my head. “Wake up, Catherine. This is reality. You have got to stop playing games.”
“What…? What can I do?”
My cigarette had burned out and I lit another. I sat smoking and thinking, looking at the blackness outside. It was hot and sticky enough to be the tropics. Eventually I got up and went to sit on the windowsill. “How good is this evidence?”
She gave a small shrug, “It’s at least a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of good, isn’t it?”
I raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Yeah, then you have two options. Give it to the Crown Prosecution Service and let them deal with it, or put it in the hands of an attorney, with instructions to hand it over to the cops in the event of your death or disappearance. It’s the oldest gambit in the book, but it still works. I’m surprised you haven’t done it already.”
Before I could finish speaking, she had curled up and buried her face in her hands, sobbing like a kid. I watched her, thinking this was not the same woman I had spoken to in Noddy’s Diner. Through her hands I could hear her voice, muffled, saying, “Liam, sometimes I think I’m never going to be free of this man. God forgive me, but sometimes I lie awake at night praying that somebody will just shoot him dead and free me of him once and for all.”
Suddenly there was the stink of truth in her words. I said, “Was it you at the Triborough Bridge?”
She raised her face out of her hands. “What do you mean?”
“Were you out on the river, Catherine, shooting at the car? Did you try to kill the Don?”
Her face went rigid, like her eyes were closing down, like she was going inside. “Liam, if I tell you something—” She stopped and turned away.
“Tell me what?”
“If I told you… Would you…?”
I flicked my cigarette into the night, letting out a stream of smoke. I waited a while longer but she wouldn’t make up her mind so I said, “Say it, Catherine. Whatever it is, say it.”
She suddenly stood, clasped her arms around herself and took two steps. She stood flicking her eyes from left to right, chewing her lip. She was calculating. Finally, she said, “It wasn’t me.”
I said, “So, who was it?” She didn’t answer, didn’t seem to hear. I sighed. “Catherine, listen to me. If there is somebody else involved in this, I need to know. If I’m going to help you…”
Her shoulders hunched and her eyes scanned the floor, like she was searching for something—a way out. “I can’t—”
I interrupted her, “No. You have to! You have no choice!”
She whirled around to stare at me. She looked wild. She snapped, “Oh, very well! It was me! I was there, at the fucking Triborough Bridge, in a dinghy, taking pot shots, as you call them, at that vile man in the car! Are you satisfied? Now I suppose you’ll hand me over to the police.”
She seemed to curl in on herself as she fought to control her convulsions. I stood and watched her, wondering what the hell I was getting myself into. I don’t do waifs and strays. I am not Galahad. I am a professional son of a bitch. But she was doing something to me, churning me up inside, and I watched myself step over to her, turn her around and take hold of her.
“Hey, now take it easy. I’m no friend of the law, Catherine. I don’t know if it was you or not, but I do know those guys were no big loss to the world. When you ride with the Devil, sooner or later you wind up barbecued, right?”
I stroked her hair for a bit, letting her body rest against mine. I didn’t recognize myself, but holding her felt about as good as anything I had ever done, so I wasn’t about to fight it. I felt her tears seeping through my shirt and I kissed the top of her head. She looked up at me with eyes you could sink battleships in. Her lips were slightly swollen. I wanted her so bad I’d have swallowed her bullshit by the bucketful right then. Somehow I fought my feelings and said, “But we have to be clear, Catherine, no more crazy stuff, okay?”
She nodded, then shook her head. “I was so stupid. I put your life in danger for nothing. I was just so scared. I wanted it all to be over.”
I stroked her cheek, then guided her back to the sofa and sat her down. I poured her some tepid coffee and laced it with more Irish. Then I sat opposite her. “Let’s understand each other. I told you once before, I am not your hired gun. I am not a hit man and I’m not going to kill this guy for you.”
She nodded, avoiding my eye. “I know. Thank you, Liam. I feel as if I’ve been pulled back from the brink of a precipice. I’ll never be able to thank you enough. Things just got so out of control. I had nothing to hold on to. I was frantic. Everything was just mad, chaos.”
“I know, kiddo. It can get like that. So let’s keep our heads screwed on now.” I was thinking as much of myself as of her. I drained my coffee, stood and collected the cups and the pot. “Let’s get some shut-eye. In the morning we can decide where we go from here.”
She nodded and stood up too. She made her way to the bedroom and closed the door. I put the things in the kitchen, then went and leaned on the bedroom doorjamb. I could hear her moving about inside. I wanted to go in real bad, but I knew madness lay that way. I breathed deep and called to her, “Catherine, you keep calling him the Don. You never told me his name. What’s this guy called?”
The door opened and she looked up at me. She had nothing on but a towel wrapped around her. She said, “You won’t have heard of him. He keeps a very low profile and moves in very respectable circles. His name is Serafino del Roble.”
Chapter Six
The next morning, I went down early to my lower floor. The lock had been picked and somebody had drilled a neat hole in my safe. They had dripped hydrofluoric acid on the locking mechanism, opened it and strewn the contents all over the floor. There were a couple of spare rooms off the one I used as an office, and they had been turned over too. There was nothing missing, so I didn’t need to call the cops, but they turned up anyway, about fifteen minutes later. To say he was an old friend would be to stretch the meaning of
the word ‘friend’ beyond what even a cop would find acceptable, but I had known Syd Harber since he’d arrested me all those years ago, when I took the fall for one of those ‘gentlemen south of the river’. He’d got it wrong then, and he’d been diligently getting it wrong ever since. English cops are smart. Sydney Harber was the exception that confirmed the rule.
When I opened the door to him, he was standing with his hands clasped behind his back, a constable at each shoulder and a smirk on his face. He had a nasal voice pitched low that made him sound as though he’d stuck a pencil up each nostril as a party piece and forgotten to take them out. Now he rose on his toes, pursed his lips and said, “Well, hullow, Liam. I imagine you’re a little surprised to see me, are you not? May we…enter?”
He said that last word as though he had chosen it particularly well, like a fine wine for an exquisite meal. I groaned, turned my back on him then walked to my armchair, where I dropped and placed my feet on the coffee table. He followed slowly, with his tongue making a little lump in his cheek. I said, “What do you want, Syd?” I popped a Camel into my mouth and lit it.
He pulled his hands from behind his back and thrust them into his trouser pockets, looking around the apartment. His eyes rested on the junk on the floor and the open safe. “Liam,” he said. “You know me, and you know—to your cost, I might add—that I am a relentless predator who never gives up on his prey. Now, I am going to ask you something straight, and you would be well advised to give me a straight answer. What, my boy, have you been up to?”
I smiled sweetly at him and said, “I don’t rahtly know whatcha awll talkin’ about, Detective Inspector Harber. The Good Lord knows I been sittin’ here mindin’ mah own business all the livelong day by mah liddle ole self, an’ strike me down if that ain’t the righteous truth!”
He curled his nostrils like they were trying to crawl away from a bad smell. “Do make an effort, Murdoch, to speak proper English. Now, I have a witness that tells me you were recently in Kensal Rise, at the residence of a low-life and celebrated safe cracker—now somewhat deceased—name of Peter Strickland. What have you to say for yourself, Murdoch?”
I looked at him through the smoke from my cigarette. The Latina girl had shopped me. I said, “Strickland was a yegg?”
“I believe that’s what you call them across the pond. Warehouses mainly, sometimes the homes of the wealthy and careless. A safe cracker. Don’t do that.”
“Do what, Sydney?”
“Answer my question with a question of your own. It will avail you naught. Now, what were you doing there, and what do you know about his death?”
I looked out of the window. Clouds like wet washing hung across the chimney-pots. I tried to think fast. Best policy is always to tell the truth, but make a mess of it. I said, “I was looking for a woman. One Tara Dactyl-Hunt. She was engaged to a friend of a friend who asked me to look for her. She’d gone missing. Seems she had some connection with Strickland. I tracked her to his gaff. When I got there, he was dead and there was no sign of her.”
He dilated his nostrils at me. “I could have you, Murdoch, on suspicion of murder and obstruction of justice. Do you realize that?”
I didn’t bother to smile. “You’re funny, Sydney. Deep down funny, where it’s not funny anymore. You know you haven’t a shred of evidence to link me to Strickland’s death, just like you know I didn’t kill him.”
“What’s the name of this slighted lover, then?”
I made a show of struggling with my conscience while I tried to think of a name. Finally, I said, “Knight. His name was Jed Ingram Knight.”
He took out his notebook and pencil and mouthed the names aloud as he wrote them down. “Tara…Dactyl…Hunt and Jed…I…Knight.”
He put away his booklet, clenched his hands behind his back and stood on tiptoes. “You’d do well to take my advice, Murdoch, and leave this kind of thing to the professionals. One day you are going to overstep the mark and, when you do, your walls will come crumbling down and I shall be there, waiting to pick up the pieces.”
He looked around the room a little longer, muttering to himself, “A safe cracker gets murdered. You are seen at his apartment shortly after his death, and, hey, presto, this morning I find you with your apartment ransacked and your safe broken into. Coincidence?” He paused in his pregnant rhetoric and turned to me. “Anything missing?”
I shook my head. “Not a thing.”
He pursed his lips. “So we can conclude that whoever this safe-cracking expert was, he was looking for something which he did not find.”
“The Yard has a fine deductive mind in you, Sydney Harber.” I spread my hands in a gesture you might describe as helpless. “Beats the hell out of me, but with you on the case, who can doubt the final outcome?”
He nodded. “It’s the training, Murdoch. The training just kicks in.” He did a circuit of the room and came to a halt by the door, where the two constables were waiting with patient eyes. “You still in touch with that mathematician chappie?”
I did my best impression of a reformed lovable rogue and showed him all my teeth. “You bet!”
He nodded. “Good. Keep it that way. He’s a good man.”
As he reached for the door handle, I said, “By the way, Syd, does the name Catherine Howard mean anything to you? Top drawer, classy, good looker…”
He turned and his eyes were like little needles. “She anything to do with this?”
I shook my head. “Uh-uh, not a thing. How about Serafino del Roble?”
He scowled. “Sounds foreign. What kind of muck are you involved in? I thought you said you were keepin’ your bloody nose clean.”
I reeled at the mixed metaphor and held up a hand. “Hey, Sydney, take it easy. She’s a cute, innocent lady from the right part of town, and he’s a no-good cad. I’m just looking out for the lady, like you taught me…right?”
He thought about it. Then he nodded. “Hmm… All right. I’ll have a nose around. Serafino del Roble. Spanish, is he? Quite right. Have to watch them Latin blokes. Always climbin’ into somebody else’s skirts.”
He turned and left, followed by his two sighing bobbies.
My cell rang. It was Bernie Epstein at The Graphic with a mouth full of doughnut again.
“Breakfast, Bernie?”
“Uh-huh. The only Catherine Howard anyone has heard of around here, me old mucker, is Henry the Eighth’s old lady, who lost her head for puttin’ herself about a bit too freely. She was classy and a tart. Sure it’s not her?” I heard him laugh through his doughnut. Then he turned suddenly serious. “What’s it about, Liam? You got something for me or not?”
“Maybe. Listen. What about a guy called Serafino del Roble?”
He swallowed and burped. “Sure. He’s the latest playboy about town. Got ties to the Vatican and some Spanish religious group… You know, Dan Brown, Da Vinci Code…”
“Opus Dei.”
“That’s the one. He’s visitin’ London on some private business. They ran a couple of paragraphs on him in the society pages. But that ain’t news, Liam. Don’t piss me about. You got something or not?” I was quiet for a long while, thinking. Who knew I had the fifth floor? Who knew I had a safe, and something to put in it? The wet clouds were making links from chimneypot to chimneypot.
Bernie came to me through my thoughts. “Liam?”
I said, “Yeah, Bernie, I think I’ll have something for you in a day or two.” I heard him sigh and I was about to hang up when I had a thought. “Hey, Bernie!”
“What?”
“How would you verify that?”
He swallowed and slurped. “Verify what?”
“That Serafino del Roble is who he says he is—Vatican, Opus Dei…”
“Why the bloody hell would you want to verify that? Course he’s who he says he is. Why would he—”
“Okay, Bernie, but just humor me. Suppose—for the sake of a story—you wanted to verify it.”
The silence at the other end was
thoughtful this time. His nose was telling him there was a large, smelly fish here somewhere. Finally, he said, “Blimey, Liam, I guess I’d go to the local Catholic Bishop, or maybe I’d call the Vatican directly or the head of the Opus Dei. What the bloody hell is this about? What are you on to?”
I scratched my head. “I don’t know.” Then I grinned. “But do that for me, Bernie, and the whole story is yours. Exclusive!”
He muttered something that was obscene, even for a Cockney. As I hung up, my cell rang again.
“Murdoch.”
“Liam, it’s Rupert. I’m so sorry. I was out on the yacht yesterday. I’ve just got back. Forbes has given me your message.”
“You at home?”
“Yes.”
“Stay there.”
I hung up. I checked on Catherine. She was still asleep, so I took my keys and left instructions downstairs for when they came to fix my safe. Then I climbed into the Daemon and drove out to Richmond.
‘The house I live in’ that his uncle had left him, turned out to be a five-bedroom mansion on the edge of Richmond Park. It was set in its own grounds—a couple of acres of lawn and landscaped gardens, which Strickland had been employed to tend while Mary-Jane put the moves on Rupert. My heart bled for this poor guy who had been screwed out of his inheritance.
I parked on the crescent driveway in front of the colonnaded door and pulled the chain that made a bell ring deep in the servants’ quarters. Forbes was four inches shorter than I was, but when he opened the door, he still managed to look down his nose at me. I said, “Where is he?”
He crawled his eyebrows all the way up to his receding hairline before he answered. “Mr. Ferguson-Medicci is at the pool. If you will kindly wait in the study.”
I stepped past him with some neat footwork and said, “I’m not feeling very kindly, Forbes. I’ll see him at the pool.” He hurried after me, gathering the flapping edges of his butler dignity about him as he tried to overtake me.
To the left of the big double doors to the library were some steps leading down into a vast, open-plan room with a copper fireplace in the middle. Two big, plate-glass doors stood open at the far end onto a covered swimming pool that was located in the midst of an indoor garden, surrounded by miniature palms and greenhouse lawns, part of Strickland’s bag before he got shot in the head. As I stepped through, I could see Rupert’s wet head bobbing around in a splash of artificial glare on the turquoise water. I paused and Forbes scurried ahead of me. He was smoothing his lapels and embarking on my introduction when I said, “Scram, Forbes.”
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