by Eva Hudson
“That I can’t tell you. But if he is, someone is sporadically using his bank card. Relatively small amounts of cash have been withdrawn in chronological clusters from ATMs and Western Union offices in several places. Odessa, New Jersey, Panama, various places in the south of France, Riga and here.”
Ingrid narrowed her eyes. “Really?” She couldn’t believe him. “Here?”
“You know what all those places have in common?”
She shrugged.
“Prestigious yacht clubs. If he’s sailing around the world on his yacht, then the pattern of his bank card usage makes sense.”
Making sense might be stretching things too far. A supposedly dead man’s bank card being used in the same small village as the elusive hacker he’s funding getting online. Ingrid had no idea how she could assist Rennie’s investigation, but as there was a chance she might also help Cath solve Rybkina’s murder, she was in. They started walking.
7
They reached the end of a small parade of shops just as another car flew past, well over the speed limit.
“Seems we’re not the only ones in a rush.” David pointed to a faded sign that said Kill Your Speed, Not A Child.
“Is that it?” Ingrid asked, breath misting in front of her face. Ahead was a cute clapperboard building on the corner of the main street next to the village’s only traffic lights. A blackboard on the pavement announced a menu of pies and baked potatoes.
“Here? This place?” she asked. “It seems so… unlikely.”
David slowed. “This is it.”
They stood at the traffic lights and looked around them. Apart from the occasional speeding car, Burnham-on-Crouch was quiet and quaint: even the branch of Barclays Bank had a thatched roof.
“So when was the money withdrawn from the ATM?” Ingrid asked.
“March last year.”
“And it was Igor Rybkin’s personal card?”
Rennie thought about it for a second. “It was a card linked to his account.”
“What does that mean?” Ingrid said. “It belonged to his PA? Or his wife?”
“It had his name on it.”
“And did you request imagery from the ATM camera?”
He let out a sigh. “The lens had been obscured.”
“So you don’t know for sure it was Rybkin himself who used the ATM?”
“No.”
She drummed her fingers against the chin guard of her helmet. “I wonder what a billionaire needed a few hundred pounds for.”
Rennie didn’t answer.
“And you checked with the harbor? Rybkin’s yacht docked here the same time the money was withdrawn?”
He turned to her. “No, the boat has never docked anywhere since June last year. We’re assuming people come to shore on a rigid inflatable.”
Ingrid was getting cold, and the steamed-up windows of the Current Bun offered a chance to get warm. She looked again at the bank, then at the Current Bun: somehow, unbelievably, this tiny Essex village was the nexus of an international conspiracy to hack American democracy.
“You hungry?”
They pushed open the glazed door, tinkling a bell above their heads. The air was warm and moist with the aroma of baking. If they were lucky, someone in the café would know something.
The Current Bun had seating for twenty or twenty-five customers. It doubled up as a village store, selling local jams and chutneys and a display of misshapen winter veg from a nearby farm. A countertop ran along the window, where a handful of customers perched on stools, checking their phones as they ate. Six tables, covered in red gingham, were half full with tradesmen refueling for the afternoon’s graft.
“Good afternoon,” Rennie said to a woman behind the counter. Ingrid saw him reach for his badge, so tapped him on the arm.
“Hi,” Ingrid said. “What do you recommend?”
They decided on a pie each and took a seat at one of the empty tables.
“Sorry about that, but you show your badge here, people think they’re on Candid Camera.”
“Ah.”
“If I have to, I use my embassy ID, but even then people think it’s fake.”
“Understood.” He got a notebook out of his bag. “My investigations have taken me to some unexpected places, but this is so quaint I think it might be the weirdest. It’s freaking me out.”
Ingrid surveyed the café. There was something very English about the place, as if a vicar might pop in at any moment for a cup of tea.
“So,” Rennie said, pen poised, “your intelligence suggests Igor Rybkin is dead?”
Ingrid focused on what he’d said, and lowered her voice. “If I’m honest, what I have on him couldn’t be described as intelligence. You know I have been working UC as an art broker?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I buy and sell art for rich Russians, advise them on their collections, where to hang their masterpieces.”
“Gee. Nice work if you can get it.”
She had to admit, there were worse assignments. “I’ve been compiling dossiers on the people I come into contact with, and for obvious reasons I don’t have a dossier on Rybkin.”
“Understood.”
“However, for the past two years I’ve been moving in Rybkin’s circles, or rather the circles you’d expect him to move in if he were alive, and I’ve never heard anyone mention him. No one has spotted him in Monte Carlo, no one has mentioned visiting him in Martinique. I think that lack of contact and the lack of speculation about his whereabouts suggest to me most people believe he’s dead.” She sighed. “But if he’s withdrawing money from the bank over the road…” She ran out of steam. “Plus, there’s the Picasso. That’s what originally convinced me he’d jumped overboard.”
Rennie looked up from his notes. “The Picasso?”
Ingrid hadn’t expected to be giving a briefing on Igor Rybkin and had to delve deep to retrieve the information. “Les Prêteurs d’Argent. The Money Changers. It is supposed to be Picasso’s commentary on the value of art, a joke his collectors didn’t seem to get. Rybkin, who had one of the biggest private collections of Picasso’s work, had made a big deal about how he was going to buy the most expensive painting in the world, a huge piece of bravado, but—”
A waitress brought over their cutlery and a jug of water. When she left them alone, Rennie leaned in. “But what?”
“It was one of those big nights where the one-percenters show off to each other, and the biggest lot of the night was the Picasso. Rybkin turns up in a white suit, ready to add the jewel to his crown, but he got outbid.”
“I thought he was a billionaire.” Rennie was taken aback.
“Well, it turned out he was a lot less rich than he claimed, and he left, utterly humiliated.” She played with her fork, flicking it back and forth. “Then, over the next few months, he didn’t show up for anything, not the ballet or a board meeting or a court appearance—”
“For?” Rennie asked.
“Oh, he was due to testify in an assault case. He was a witness.” She checked that was sufficient information before continuing. “Anyway, after a couple of months of no-shows, there was a lot of speculation he’d disappeared.” Ingrid cleared her throat. “And then the speculation moved on to saying he was dead.”
Rennie’s pen scurried across his notebook. His handwriting was neat, meticulous.
“When he first disappeared, I thought there might be a few other explanations.”
Rennie looked up. “Which were?”
“One is he’s in prison, having finally pissed off Putin to an extent that it required punishment. The problem I have with this theory is I can’t believe we wouldn’t know. When Khodorkovsky was imprisoned, Putin made sure it was in the news to deter anyone else from crossing him. However—” Ingrid took a deep breath “—I guess Rybkin was such a show-off, such a party guy, that denying him publicity would probably be a worse fate for him than hard labor in Siberia. But they couldn’t have kept it quiet this long, could t
hey?”
She started pressing the tines of the fork into her fingertips. “My best guess was the Picasso thing hit him really, and I mean really hard. He’d told everyone he was going to buy it, that he was going to make it the most famous painting in the world. Not only did he not get it, but the world found out he couldn’t possibly be as rich as he claimed. A few days later, he got on his yacht, and maybe he’s been sailing round the world ever since, an option that now seems more likely, given what you’ve told me today.”
The waitress returned with their pies. “Mushroom and asparagus?”
“That’s me,” Rennie said.
“And leek and sausage,” she said, putting it in front of Ingrid.
“Hi,” Ingrid said to her. “I wonder if you can help us?”
The waitress—mid-twenties, clear skinned, scrawny like a triathlete—adopted the face of a woman who gets asked for directions from tourists and bikers on a regular basis.
“We work at the US Embassy in London.” Ingrid took out a business card and handed it to her. “I know it doesn’t look like it, but I do.”
“Okay.” She didn’t sound sure.
“We’re looking for a guy who was in here yesterday. He used an email address we’re monitoring to access your wifi.”
“Uh-huh.”
Rennie interjected, “It was at ten past ten. Were you working yesterday morning?”
“Are you from the police?” she asked. Just enough syllables for Ingrid to clock the woman wasn’t British. French maybe? Belgian?
“No,” Ingrid said, trying to sound casual. “But we do need to find him. Were you here yesterday?”
“Yes, sadly. Then and every other day.” This was not the career she had come to the UK to pursue.
“Were you busy yesterday morning?”
She shrugged. Definitely French. “About the same as today. What did he look like?”
Rennie picked up his phone. “I have some photos.” Ingrid leaned over to see. Rennie displayed a mix of surveillance images and mug shots of known Pelicans. The waitress shook her head at all of them.
“May I?” the young woman asked.
David handed her his iPhone and she enlarged an image.
“No, I thought maybe this one, but I’m not sure.” The waitress turned round. “Ellie, did you see this man here yesterday?”
Ellie, an older woman with wild curly hair, came over from behind the counter. “Who’s this fella? Not exactly a looker, is he?”
“Hi,” Ingrid said, smiling. “We’re from the US Embassy. In London. We’re trying to trace this man.”
“He in trouble?” Ellie asked, taking the phone.
“No.” Ingrid was keen not to create intrigue. “We’re tracing him because we have information to tell him.”
Ellie looked dubious.
“About a relative.”
Her face softened with compassion. “Oh, that’s… not nice. No, don’t recognize him. Sorry.”
“He’s not a regular?”
“No, the only regulars we get are bikers on a Sunday and Mavis over there in the corner. Ask her if you like, maybe she’ll remember him. How do you know he was here?”
Ingrid explained about the wifi log-in, and Ellie told them they used a cloud service provided by their broadband company. Ingrid made a note of the firm. They could get a warrant to view the records, which would show the websites visited by the café’s users in the minutes after the email was used to log on.
“How about this man?” David said, holding up an image of Igor Rybkin. “You ever seen him in here?”
Ellie grabbed the phone. “He is a bit familiar. Got quite a conk on him, don’t he?”
Ingrid’s heart tightened.
“Yeah,” Ellie said, “I think I have seen him somewhere before.” She looked at him. “But not in here. He’s famous, ain’t he?”
Ingrid exhaled. “He’s been in the papers a bit. Maybe that’s where you recognize him from.”
Ellie handed the phone back. “Probably. I’d remember that nose.”
“How about CCTV?” Ingrid said. “You got surveillance here?
Ellie shook her head.
“Credit card transactions? You keep a record of those?” David asked.
Ellie visibly stiffened. “Most people pay cash.”
Ingrid sensed they had turned the screw far enough. A casual enquiry was in danger of becoming an inquisition. “Okay, thanks.” Ingrid handed her a business card. “If he comes in again, would you please give me a call?”
“Sure.” Ellie, skepticism evident on her features, took the card and returned to the counter.
Twenty minutes later Ingrid and Rennie were back on the sidewalk, having learned that Mavis hadn’t seen any of the suspects on Rennie’s phone either. He went to check out the bank where Rybkin’s card had been used and Ingrid scanned the street. It took her a moment to realize she was staring at the traffic signals. There was a good reason for that. She dialed her assistant at the embassy.
“Hi, Ingrid.”
“Jen, hi, I need a favor.”
“Shoot.”
“Can you put in a request to the Highways Agency? I want to see the camera footage from the intersection of Marsh Road and Hill Road in a village called Burnham-On-Crouch in Essex between 9:30 yesterday morning and one o’clock.”
“How are you spelling that?”
Another car zoomed past as Ingrid went through the alphabet. If there was a silver lining to the village’s high incidence of bad drivers, it was that the only intersection in the area had a traffic enforcement camera. If their luck was in, it might give them a glimpse of who had walked into the Current Bun the day before.
8
The following day, Jennifer Rocharde pulled up a chair and sat on the other side of Ingrid’s cluttered desk in the criminal division of the FBI’s London Attaché Program, her diamond engagement ring sparkling under the strip lighting. Ingrid was struggling to get used to the idea Jen was old enough to get married. She was guilty of still thinking of Jen as the slightly gawky and naïve Valley girl she had first met four years ago, even though these days Jen dressed in tailored skirts and expensive silk blouses: if anyone walked in, they would assume that she was Ingrid’s boss. After the wedding, the future Mrs Tucker was hoping for a posting back in the US, and Ingrid wasn’t very happy about that: she and Jen made a good team.
“Before we go through the diary, I need to ask you again about the electoral college sweepstake.”
Ingrid turned her attention from the Google results on her computer screen and looked at Jen. “Remind me.”
“The election. There are, like, only five options left.”
“And they are?” Ingrid crossed her legs, accidentally kicking the helmet under her desk.
“Banner gets 280 to 290. Banner gets 310 to 320. Banner gets 340 to 350. Pryce gets 340 to 350. Or Pryce gets 380 to 390.”
“And it’s five bucks?”
“Correct.”
“What do you reckon? What did you go for?”
“Well, I got in early—”
“Of course you did.”
“And I went for Banner, 300 to 310.”
“Good choice.”
“It’s what the polls are predicting. Despite the Bureau’s investigation into Marilyn Banner’s campaign finance. I would have thought that would have put a dent in her chances.”
“Guess it helps that she’s running against the dumbest candidate the Democrats have ever selected. Plus, Richard Pryce is a total sleazeball.” Ingrid smiled at Jen. “Give me one of the first two you mentioned. Doesn’t matter which.” A little piece of her wanted to ask what Marshall had gone for, but even though it was years since they’d broken up, and at least two since he’d been installed as her boss, Ingrid still recoiled from saying anything that might indicate she cared what Marshall Claybourne thought. The only reason she wanted to know was because she was sure he would have chosen a Pryce victory just to piss people off. “You need the cash n
ow?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And it’s dollars?”
Jen nodded. Ingrid pulled out her top drawer, sure that somewhere along with paperclips and half-used packets of Post-its she’d have some leftover euros, roubles and dollars. She pushed around take-out menus and instruction pamphlets, hoping to spy Abraham Lincoln’s face. “Here you go.” She handed over the bill, a little smug that her filing system, while not a patch on Jennifer’s, was just as efficient. “Now what?”
They went through Ingrid’s diary for the coming week, a task that had become even more important now Ingrid was undercover and often uncontactable for days at a time. Mostly Jen talked and Ingrid nodded.
“I imagine,” Jennifer said, “that you would rather not attend the event with the Indonesian police force?”
Ingrid looked up from her screen. “I believe Natalya is doing something very important when that is happening. Whenever it is happening. Any joy on that request from the Highways Agency? That traffic-light footage?”
“Not yet. I’ll let you know the moment it comes through.” Jen tapped her bare wrist. “And whatever that is, let me do it because you need to get down to the second floor.”
Ingrid was still staring at her computer.
“What is it? On your screen?” Jen asked.
“Remember Angela Tate?”
Jen pulled a face.
“I had a few run-ins with her a couple of years back. A journalist.” Ingrid gathered her things.
“Oh, yeah. She did that profile of you for the Evening News?”
“Bingo.”
“Whaddya need?”
“I’m trying to find out what she’s up to these days. According to my sources—”
“Google?”
“Correct. The last article she had published was eight months ago on Medium.com. I’m guessing she must have left the paper. Can you track her down? See where she’s working?”
Ingrid picked up her iPad and notebook.
“Leave it with me,” Jen said. “Now get going.”
Ingrid checked the clock. “You’re right. Don’t want to keep DC waiting.”