Broken Heart: David Raker #7

by Tim Weaver

‘Thanks for calling me back so quickly.’

  ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘I’m really glad you got in touch.’

  She thought this was about something else. I had to manoeuvre us away from here. It was dangerous ground, but not as dangerous as allowing myself to become distracted. I was trying to find Lynda Korin. That was all that mattered.

  ‘David?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘This is slightly awkward. You remember I told you I was trying to find Robert Hosterlitz’s widow, Lynda Korin?’

  ‘Sure, I remember. Did you get everything you needed from Louis?’

  ‘Yeah, I did, but …’ I stopped. I’ve just got to tell her. ‘I’m being followed,’ I said.

  A confused pause. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Someone is following me.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ She sounded genuinely disconcerted. ‘What do you mean, you’re being followed?’

  ‘The guy who was there when I met you and Louis in the Comet the other day. I think you said he was your architect. What do you know about him?’

  She seemed thrown. ‘Uh …’

  ‘Did he tell you his name?’

  ‘Are you saying he’s following you?’

  I didn’t reply for a moment, giving myself time to think. Her responses felt genuine, but there was no way to tell for sure. I either backed away and played it completely safe, or I opted to trust her and found out what she knew about the architect. For now, I didn’t know which one was the right choice.

  ‘David?’ she said, sounding irritated for the first time. Her voice had begun to harden. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ She sounded pissed off, misled.

  ‘Your architect’s got pictures of you and Glen Cramer in his car.’

  A stunned silence, punctuated only by a series of words that seemed to catch in her throat. ‘What?’ she said finally – and then, more forcibly, as if the idea was really hitting home: ‘What? What the hell are you talking about?’

  I glanced at my watch. Six-fifteen. As far as the architect was concerned, I’d been inside the service station for half an hour. It was time to wind my way back around to my car if I didn’t want to arouse his suspicions.

  ‘What’s his name?’ I asked.

  ‘Uh …’ She still sounded confused. ‘Uh, Billy Egan.’

  I remembered her calling him Billy at the Comet.

  ‘Have you used him before?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ she said, gathering herself. ‘We invited local businesses to pitch for the work because we thought that would play out well with the community and the press. Seriously, David, this is right out of left field, don’t you think?’

  I entered the rear doors of the service station, into the crowds of people.

  ‘Why would he be taking pictures of me?’ she said. ‘Of Glen?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  ‘But his credentials were impeccable. He had photographs of all the work he’d done before, he had brilliant references, he even gave me the numbers of ex-clients of his – I chatted to them and they said he was …’ She paused, as if holes were opening up in front of her eyes. He showed her photographs of buildings and projects – but none of them were really his work. He showed her references – but they were fake. She spoke to ex-clients of his – but they weren’t ex-clients at all.

  ‘Son of a bitch,’ she said softly.

  A second later, I emerged into the late-afternoon sunlight at the front of the service station, and immediately kept my focus on my car.

  ‘Did he have a website?’ I asked.

  ‘No. He said it was in the process of being rebuilt.’

  ‘Did you ever go to his office?’

  ‘No. He always came to me.’

  ‘Did he ever give you an email address?’

  ‘No. He just gave me a phone number.’

  ‘Can you text it to me?’ I asked. ‘I can’t write it down now.’ The architect’s Mercedes was in my peripheral vision now. ‘Weird question, but did he ever mention Royalty Park or maybe the launch party?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ she said. ‘Why would he mention that?’

  ‘I’m trying to think of why he’d be interested in Glen Cramer.’

  I opened my car and slid in at the wheel.

  ‘Could you email me over the guest list for the party as well?’

  ‘Yeah, sure. I’ll get my PA to send it to you.’

  I pulled my pad across from the passenger seat and made some notes. ‘You said you invited local businesses to pitch for the contract at the Comet?’

  ‘It was America’s idea.’

  ‘The US office?’

  ‘Yeah. To be honest, the whole thing was driven by the US. They suggested getting people to pitch, the pitches were sent out to them for approval, and they were the ones who selected Egan. I just met up with him so he could show me his portfolio and make sure I was in the loop. Everything else was done out of LA.’

  I paused, pen hovering just above the page.

  ‘So who in the US office set this whole pitch process in motion?’

  ‘Ultimately, it was Saul Zeller.’

  ‘The guy who runs AKI?’

  ‘Wait a second, wait a second.’ She was clearly trying to pull it all together. ‘Are you saying that Saul lied to me?’

  I paused for a moment, thinking. Switching the phone to speaker, I asked Alex to give me a second, then backed out of the call and went to my web browser. I put in a search for ‘Billy Egan Architect’. There was nothing.

  ‘So your part in all of this was what?’ I asked.

  ‘You mean the selection process? My admin staff compiled all the pitches and mailed them off to the US. We waited a couple of weeks, and then Saul got back to me and said, “This is the guy. Chat to him, to the people he’s done work for, see if you agree.” I chatted to Egan and he seemed smart. I liked his ideas. That was the end of it.’

  The lack of a website, an email address, the fact that he always came to her office, not the other way around, hadn’t registered with her at the time. I didn’t blame her for that. She rightly would have assumed that Saul Zeller – or, rather, his team in the US – had done the necessary checks at their end.

  Something else occurred to me then. ‘Who called you to give you the go-ahead on the office move? I mean, who in the US specifically?’

  ‘Saul.’

  ‘Zeller himself? Not his staff?’

  ‘No. Him.’

  ‘But he must have a ton of people working under him?’

  ‘Yeah, he’s got a massive team out in LA.’

  ‘So you didn’t think it was slightly odd that he got so personally involved in this whole Comet cinema thing – even down to selecting the architect?’

  ‘It probably sounds weird, but when you’re on the ground it’s really not. He’s super hands-on; like, over the top hands-on. He’s nicknamed the Eye of Sauron because he always has to know what’s going on. But it works. You can’t argue with what he’s done – when he took over AKI, it was minor league. Now it’s one of the biggest entertainment companies in the world. All big expenditure – and we’re talking almost ten million pounds to convert that cinema – ultimately gets signed off by Saul. More day-to-day stuff he’ll obviously leave to me.’

  But even if that was the case, some measure of doubt still lingered in her voice. Something was going on here, something anomalous. We both knew it.

  ‘When did this whole process start?’

  ‘You mean, when did we invite people to pitch?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I don’t know. Last year – the beginning of November, maybe.’

  ‘Were you expecting it to start then?’

  ‘No. The whole thing had been dragging on for months, and Saul seemed reluctant to sign off on it. The “okay” just came out of the blue, really.’

  Except she seemed to catch herself a moment later and we both filled in the gaps: Zeller had spent months refusing to sign off on the expense – but then, all o
f a sudden, at the beginning of November, he did.

  The beginning of November.

  Only days after Lynda Korin went missing.

  ‘How well do you know Glen Cramer?’ I asked.

  ‘Glen? Pretty well.’

  ‘I need you to set up a meeting – today, if possible.’

  ‘It’s Saturday evening, David. I can’t –’

  ‘This Egan guy has photographs of Cramer and you in his car. He’s been following me for at least twenty-four hours, maybe longer. I really need you to set up a meeting, Alex.’

  I’d said it softly, but I could feel her bristle.

  ‘And what exactly do I tell him?’

  ‘Whatever you think is the best way to get him to say yes.’

  ‘You don’t just drop in for afternoon tea at Glen Cramer’s house. This is one of the world’s biggest movie stars.’

  ‘I know,’ I said again.

  She didn’t reply for a moment.

  ‘Fine. I’ll see what I can do. Anything else?’

  ‘I think it would be a good idea if you didn’t mention this to Saul Zeller for the time being. Let’s just keep it between the two of us until we find out more.’

  ‘Okay,’ Alex said, and then paused.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked.

  ‘Why would Saul lie to me?’

  She sounded worried, a little spooked, which was understandable. I felt the same way.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘Maybe he isn’t.’

  But I wasn’t sure she believed that.

  And I wasn’t sure I did either.

  32

  Egan tailed me for the next eight miles, all the way to my exit, always at least six cars back. But as I came down the ramp towards Chiswick roundabout, he broke off and headed towards central London. It made me wonder where he was going. It also added to the concern that was building in me: for now, the tail was passive – but at what point would that start to change? When he realized I was on to him? When he next talked to Alex and started to get the sense she might know something? I didn’t have a clue who Egan was, had no idea about his background, what sort of person he might be, what drove him, or how he’d react to being exposed, whereas he knew plenty about me. He knew what case I was working.

  He probably knew where I lived.

  When I got home, I pulled into the driveway, switched off the ignition and waited there for a moment. The alarm was still blinking and there was no indication it had gone off while I’d been away. But, just to be on the safe side, I did a quick circuit of the house before heading inside.

  The first thing I did was grab my phone, go to a device location app and log in. A list of my three connected devices rolled out beneath a map that was busy generating a location for each of them. My main mobile and my laptop were with me, so two pins dropped at my home address. A third pin dropped at the western end of Wandsworth High Street. Egan was moving east.

  Leaving the phone where it was, I grabbed my laptop, went to my inbox and found a message waiting from Alex. She’d emailed through the table plan for the Royalty Park launch party. It was a simplistic, top-down line drawing of the layout, with twenty tables and ten people per table. Each seat had been allocated a name. I didn’t recognize all of them, but I recognized a lot: actors and directors, producers, BBC management. Glen Cramer was on a middle table close to the stage. Alex and her European management team were among some more Royalty Park actors one table along. Then my focus switched to a table right at the front. It had more of the show’s cast members on it, as well as another name I’d come to know better in the past few hours.

  Saul Zeller.

  He’s flying over for the launch party.

  Why would the President of AKI fly halfway around the world for a party? Royalty Park was a huge success, but it was a fraction of what the company put out in terms of films, TV, music and videogames every year. They must have been laying on parties and launch events all the time.

  Trying to fill in the gaps in my knowledge, I put in a web search for him and quickly found a profile piece.

  Saul Zeller is the legendary industry heavyweight who, after taking over from his father, Abraham, as President of American Kingdom Inc. in 1970, transformed the company into a major competitor to the likes of Fox, Universal and Warner Bros. He is one of the longest-serving studio heads in Hollywood history.

  Joining the company in 1951 as a fresh-faced 24-year-old, Saul was hugely influential at AKI from the get-go. His tenacity and hard-headedness, especially when it came to what worked commercially, won him enemies in the industry, but he enjoyed immense success from early on, persuading his father to make bold – and successful – moves into TV and music, and personally green-lighting box-office hits like Department Crime and The Man with No Mouth. But his judgement wasn’t just confirmed at the tills. He personally signed off on AKI’s first Academy Award winner, Connor O’Hare, in 1951 – legitimizing the company in many observers’ eyes – and then followed that with director Cornell Graham’s The Last Days of the Empire in 1952, and seven-time Oscar winner The Eyes of the Night the following year. As early as the mid 1950s, with Abraham Zeller suffering from ill health, most people believed that Saul was, in actual fact, running the company as the de facto President.

  Having threatened to retire many times, Zeller has never quite been able to let go of the reins, saying it comes down to ‘being a total control freak and not wanting the fun to end’. He often jokes that his long life and good health are down to the ‘Prolong’ pills used in the company’s billion-dollar science-fiction franchise, Planet of the Sun. ‘I’ve been taking them every day since 1982,’ Zeller told the LA Times last year. ‘They’re like Viagra, but they don’t make me feel like I’ve got three legs.’

  Leaving everything where it was, I showered and changed, and – after returning – checked my phone again and saw that Egan’s car was slowly inching south along Trinity Road, heading towards Tooting. I grabbed something to eat and, while I ate, I flicked back through the notes I’d made. Mostly they were details I’d garnered from Alex about Saul Zeller, but I also added what I remembered from my chat with the guy at Rough Print, and began compiling a filmography for Glen Cramer. My hope was that Alex would be able to arrange a meeting with him in the next couple of hours and, if she did, I wanted to be prepared.

  His career turned out to be a long and impressive history of success – four Oscars, record-breaking openings, iconic roles as everyone from Abraham Lincoln to the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, and then even more awards and critical acclaim after he came out of a nine-year retirement in 2010 to star in Royalty Park.

  It was only after I’d finished and was reading back what I’d written that I felt something gnawing at me: a detail on the page that I wasn’t seeing clearly yet. I went back and forth through my notes and eventually returned to the conversation I’d had with the guy at Rough Print, to something he’d said about how lots of films went missing in the way Hosterlitz’s horror movies had. He talked about the British Film Institute compiling a list of seventy-five ‘lost’ films they were keen to get their hands on. Was it something in that?

  Unsure, I used my laptop to put in a search for ‘BFI lost films’. A couple of moments later, I was on a page headlined ‘BFI’s 10 Most Wanted’. A few seconds after that, my phone burst into life.

  It was Alex.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, after I’d answered, ‘Glen’s agreed to meet up at 8 p.m.’

  I looked at the clock. It was 7.15 p.m.

  ‘Fantastic.’

  ‘Thing is, though, he’s old but he’s not stupid. If you go in there pretending this is about the launch party or something like that, and then start asking him questions about Saul Zeller, he’s going to know this isn’t about where he is on the table plan. So I told him a version of the truth – you’re doing some work for AKI, and looking into the possibility of undiscovered material from Hosterlitz.’

  That was closer to the truth than she realized given
Korin’s admission that Hosterlitz may have been working on a project called ‘Ring of Roses’.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘that’s smart.’

  ‘You’ve only got an hour, though. That’s all I could organize. After that, a limo’s picking him up and we’ve got to run him out to a photo shoot that Vanity Fair have organized with the show’s cast at Osterley Park.’

  ‘The sun goes down in an hour.’

  ‘It’s a night shoot. Please don’t be late.’

  I thanked her again, ended the call and phoned Melanie Craw. When I’d talked to her earlier, she’d invited me over to her place for something to eat. I felt a pang of guilt as she answered, even though any opinion I had of Alex Cavarno, any connection we shared, had so far gone unspoken.

  ‘I’m not going to be able to make it tonight,’ I said to her once she’d picked up. ‘I’m really sorry. Something’s come up and it won’t wait.’

  ‘Okay.’

  That was it. I listened to the silence on the line, then remembered what else she’d said to me on the phone before: I need to talk to you about something.

  ‘We can chat now,’ I said.

  ‘No, not over the phone.’

  ‘Are you sure everything’s all right?’

  ‘Just give me a shout when you’re free,’ she said.

  I waited for a moment, trying to imagine what she might want to talk about – but then I let it go.

  Using the mobile again, I double-checked Egan’s position. The pin had finally come to a halt in a street called Bradbury Lane, just off Streatham High Road. That was eleven miles south-east of where I was. I watched for a while, ensuring Egan had definitely come to a stop, my eyes flicking between the phone’s display and the notes I’d made on the laptop, still feeling like something was staring me in the face. The harder I looked, the fuzzier the words became.

  It doesn’t matter. All that matters is Egan.

  But as I went to close my laptop, my eyes strayed across the BFI’s ‘10 Most Wanted’ page again – and, at the bottom, I fixed on their address.

  21 Stephen Street. London. W1T 1LN.

  The postcode. I felt an internal shift.

  It’s their postcode.