by Elena Forbes
For a moment, the dark, dank bedroom in the cottage sprang to mind, the faceless man on top of her, moving her this way and that like a doll.
‘Seeing Lorne Anderson,’ she said.
The smile disappeared. ‘I hope he wasn’t spinning you some more of his ridiculous stories. The man has a really wild imagination. We should have had him for slander and taken him to court, but my father didn’t want a fuss.’
She gave him a blank look. ‘He called Jane the week before she disappeared. That’s why I’m here.’
Harry’s expression softened a touch. ‘I remember your saying. Did he manage to explain it?’
‘Oh yes. It was just something routine, that’s all.’
‘Good. Are you fully recovered now? You look great, but we were very worried about you.’
‘Just a twenty-four-hour virus. I’m fine now.’
‘Wonderful. Perhaps we can have dinner again. I—’
He was interrupted by a large hand on his shoulder. Stuart Wade’s son, Damon, had come up behind him, towering over him.
‘Are you coming, Harry? Dad’s waiting outside.’ It was the first time she had heard him speak. Unlike Stuart, he had no trace of a northern accent and she assumed from the short, clipped vowels that he had been sent to some expensive private school in the south. Even though they had met at the Christmas party, he made no eye contact with her, as though she weren’t there. Was it a sign of guilt, she wondered?
‘Sorry, Eve,’ Harry said. ‘I’ve got to go. Stuart’s got a horse in the next race. I’ll call you later.’
They marched off briskly together down the small flight of stairs and out of the doors, heading towards the parade ring, Damon’s huge arm almost shepherding Harry away. As Eve watched them go, it struck her that it was almost as though Damon Wade, young as he was, was Harry’s boss, rather than his client.
THIRTY-FIVE
‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ Shona asked Dan. ‘Or maybe a drink? I’ve got a bottle of red open, if you like.’
It was a few minutes past seven in the evening and they were standing in her small kitchen in Pimlico, Shona leaning heavily against one of the tatty old units, hair tied back in a bun, still in her work clothes, Dan hovering by the door. She looked tired, he thought, but nonetheless happy to see him. A large shoebox loosely wrapped in brown paper sat on the table, Mickey’s handwriting recognizable on the front.
She had called him earlier that day to say she had picked up a parcel from the post office and, on opening it, discovered that it contained her husband Kevin’s diaries, which she had given to Mickey. She was in a flutter about it and very apologetic. It seemed that Mickey had posted them back to her second class, but hadn’t put enough stamps on the package. Not realizing it was anything urgent, she hadn’t gone to collect it immediately and it had been waiting at the post office for nearly a week. According to the postage mark, Mickey had posted it the Friday before he was murdered, the day before he had gone to the races. Dan was itching to go back to his office to start going through the notebooks, but he had the impression that Shona wanted company, sensing a loneliness in her that had maybe been awakened by the sight of her husband’s diaries and notebooks. He could also use a drink. It had been a frustrating day having to speak to Kristen, who had been unpleasantly brusque, and then trying to chase up the researcher from the Channel 4 programme, playing phone tag with him all day. A small, nagging voice in his head was also telling him that someone should call Fagan about the package. Maybe he could slip the little red memory stick in between some of the notebooks and get rid of it that way. It didn’t appear that Shona had gone through everything in the box. He hated doing it. She had been so straight with him. But he couldn’t think of any other way of getting it to the police without being hauled in for more questioning. He made a mental note to wipe off his prints first.
‘Wine would be good,’ he said. As he watched her pour out a generous glassful, and one for herself, he added reluctantly, ‘Thinking about it, maybe you ought to hand these over to the police. They may have nothing to do with Mickey’s murder, but better to be safe than sorry.’
She nodded. ‘I was going to. I just wanted you to see them first. You could take copies, if you like. A few hours’ delay won’t hurt, I’m sure. I’ve got a scanner in my study.’
THIRTY-SIX
Eve sat down at the back of the small bar just off Victoria Street, in Westminster, where Gavin had suggested meeting. The room was hot and almost full, with a lively after-work crowd, busy knocking back wine and cocktails and sharing plates of tapas, as they laughed and shouted over the loud music. Margot Alexander had called her half an hour before to say that Harry’s DNA, recovered from the glass and cigarette butts from the cottage, did not match the samples she had taken from Eve. Nor did the samples match any of the DNA profiles stored on the national database. In a way, she wasn’t surprised. Whoever had assaulted her must have known they couldn’t be traced.
She hadn’t been waiting long when Gavin appeared through the main door. She waved and as she caught his eye, he gave her a broad smile. Still dressed in his work suit and tie, his face flushed from the cold, he fought his way through a group of new arrivals waiting by the entrance to be seated, and crossed the room. He put down his briefcase and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
‘Sorry I’m late. What can I get you?’
‘A Diet Coke.’
He returned after a moment with their drinks, sat down opposite and took off his tie and undid the top few buttons of his shirt. ‘That feels better already.’ He raised his martini glass. ‘To you, Eve. To your success with what you’re doing for Sean Farrell. May justice be done.’ He took a large mouthful of his drink. ‘Mmm, that’s good,’ he said, putting the glass down on the table. ‘How was Lorne?’
‘Very helpful.’ She didn’t want to shout over the music and she moved her chair closer and leaned across towards him, elbows on the table. ‘He and Jane were having some sort of relationship, although according to him that’s too strong a word for it. Did you have any idea?’
The look of genuine surprise on his face answered the question. ‘No. I was in London most of the time, but Melissa would’ve certainly told me, if she’d known. Do you think he …’
She shook her head. ‘The police checked him out. But there’s something else. The reason he approached Jane in the first place was that he suspected something was going on at the Westerby yard. Some sort of race-fixing scam, was what he said, although he had no proof. The BHA were apparently looking into it when your father-in-law committed suicide.’
‘I can’t believe Tim would’ve been involved in anything like that. He was always so straight down the line. But I do remember Melissa telling me that someone had gone to the BHA with a load of allegations, trying to stir up trouble. She said Tim suspected it was one of the owners, but I had no idea until now that it must have been Lorne.’
‘I’d be grateful if you don’t mention this to Melissa.’ It was asking a lot, but instinct told her she could rely on him.
He frowned. ‘OK. I remember her saying at the time that what was being suggested was a load of bullshit. Why would she lie to me?’
Wondering if Melissa might have indeed lied to him, she said, ‘Maybe she didn’t know what was going on, or maybe Lorne got it wrong.’
He still looked troubled and picked up his drink, draining it in one. He took the curl of lemon peel from the bottom of the glass and started to chew it. For a moment, he was silent. Then he said, ‘What has any of this got to do with Jane?’
‘It provides a motive for somebody other than Sean Farrell to have killed her.’
‘I see. You mean because she was Lorne’s little spy in our midst? She was feeding him information?’
Eve nodded.
‘That’s another thing I think I won’t mention to Melissa,’ he said bitterly. Holding her gaze, he leaned back heavily against his chair. ‘My god, Eve, you’re certainly stirring things up. No wonder they�
�re all so antsy about your asking questions.’
‘I shouldn’t have told you.’
‘I’m glad you did.’ There was a pause before he said, ‘It’s hot in here.’ He stood up, took off his jacket, which he hung over the back of his chair, and rolled up his shirtsleeves. ‘OK,’ he said, sitting down again and rubbing his hands together theatrically. ‘What else have you got to tell me?’
He was half smiling now, putting a brave face on things, but she could sense the tension beneath. He was remarkable, she thought. She had forced her way into his life again and upset the balance, testing his loyalties and slowly turning everything he knew upside down. Yet he was pretending not to care. He had always been stoical, whatever was thrown at him. It was as though he were part of a brighter world, where things would always come right in the end. In so many areas he had succeeded against the odds. Whether it was blind self-belief or sheer optimism, she wasn’t sure, but it seemed to work for him.
‘Come on, Eve. Don’t hold back. Spit it out.’
She leaned forwards. ‘There’s really nothing concrete.’ She shared her observations about Harry and the Wades. As she spoke, it all sounded very tenuous and melodramatic. It was impossible to put gut feel into words.
‘Harry has to keep them sweet,’ he said thoughtfully when she had finished. ‘Stuart’s been very loyal to him, particularly after Tim died. He was one of the few people who stuck by him when it all looked like it was going pear-shaped, and he’s worth a lot of money to the yard.’
She shrugged. She knew what she had observed. ‘Harry’s a fool to have a client like that.’
‘Maybe. You and Harry seemed to be getting on so well. I was worried you were going to be my next sister-in-law. You’d be the third Mrs Harry Michaels, you know. He likes to collect them.’
She was pleased that he wanted to make light of things, although she didn’t feel in the least like joking. ‘No chance of that.’
‘I’m glad. What changed your mind about him?’
Beneath the banter, she wondered if he had actually been a little jealous. ‘Nothing, really.’
‘Now you’re being guarded. I thought we agreed you’d tell me everything.’
‘I didn’t agree to anything. But there is more. I’m sure now there’s a connection between Jane’s death and the racing world.’
She proceeded to tell him about Mickey, and about Dan’s office being broken into. What had happened at her flat seemed to lead on naturally from that. He listened without comment, his expression growing darker and more distant as she went on, as though his thoughts were elsewhere. When she had finished, he reached over and took her hand, holding it tightly for a moment before letting go. The touch and the emotion in his eyes made her feel suddenly very awkward. She was sorry to have burdened him with it all.
‘Thank you for trusting me with that,’ he said. ‘I don’t want us to have any secrets. But I’m now very worried about you.’
‘Don’t be. I can look after myself.’
He shook his head slowly. ‘Can’t you leave this whole thing alone? Can’t you let this journalist – Dan – get on with things?’
‘No. I can’t.’
She gazed at him for a moment. He looked hot and tired and drained and the light had gone out of his eyes. It was time to explain about Duran. As she started at the very beginning, with Jason’s shooting, it struck her that it was the second time in only twenty-four hours that she was telling the story. It wasn’t her inclination to confide in anyone. Usually, the thought of having to open up, and explain anything remotely important or sensitive, let alone personal, made her want to run in the opposite direction. But the events of the past few days had shaken her. She had to admit that she felt vulnerable and less certain about life than she had done for a very long time. She had been forced to tell Dan to get him to trust her, but with Gavin it was different. She had been closer to him than to any other man in her entire life. She wanted to explain, to be truthful as far as she could and, if nothing else, she felt she owed it to him.
He listened without interruption, his eyes on her all the time. When she had finally finished, he rubbed his face vigorously with his hands and sighed. ‘I don’t know what to say, Eve. You live in a very different world to me. But I’m here for you, if there’s anything – whatever it is – you need. I understand now, there’s no point telling you to stop this thing. You have to see it through.’ He reached across the table again and took both her hands in his. ‘I must sound like a complete arse, thinking I can tell you what to do. I’m sorry. I know you’re not going to pay any attention to me. You think you know what you’re doing. Just please, please be careful. I couldn’t bear for anything to happen to you.’
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the flashing light of her phone, which was sitting face up beside her drink on the table. She glanced down and saw Dan’s name. The call cut off after a few more inaudible rings. Then it started to ring again almost immediately.
‘I must take this,’ she said, withdrawing her hands. ‘It’s Dan. He wouldn’t ring at this hour unless it were important.’
She answered, but couldn’t hear anything. Holding the phone tightly to her ear, she dashed outside into the street. She heard the burble of Dan’s voice talking nineteen to the dozen, people shouting and sirens wailing somewhere close by. Even outside she could barely make out what he was saying, catching the words ‘fire’ and ‘smoke’ and ‘Zofia’, but that was about it.
She ducked into a doorway and turned her back on the road, blocking her other ear with her finger. ‘Say that again, Dan. I didn’t hear any of it.’
‘They’ve set the fucking office on fire,’ he yelled.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Dan looked at his watch again. Eve had said she would be there in about fifteen minutes, which was over ten minutes ago. The firefighters had cordoned off the whole block on either side of his office, as well as the road in front. While they tried to put out the fire, police were still evacuating the last few remaining people from the neighbouring buildings. It was chaos, people shouting, others complaining about not being allowed through to get their things. He had given the police a brief statement and had also tried to get through to Andy Fagan, without success. Someone had given him an emergency foil blanket, which he had wrapped loosely around himself, but he didn’t need it. He didn’t feel at all cold. The sight of the cloud of black, billowing smoke that was pouring through the shattered windows of the first-floor office, along with the blazing light in the room behind, had lit a fire in his heart. He would find whoever had done this and he would kill them.
He had spent a couple of hours at Shona’s, scanning the notebooks while they finished the bottle of wine and then half of another, and then shared a Chinese takeaway from across the street. She had talked a lot about her husband, Kevin, and the way he had worked. He had been meticulous, she said, with a real instinct for a story, if a little anarchic at times, which made him better suited to freelance work. The more she said, the more he couldn’t wait to start delving into the scanned pages, which he had copied both onto his laptop and a spare flash drive. Just before he left, she had gone into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and call the police and he had taken the opportunity to slip Mickey’s little red memory stick down the side of the box of notebooks, taking care to wipe his prints.
He had got back to the office just in the nick of time. Someone in the street had already dialled 999, but he had been able to push his way through the growing crowd on the pavement. His first thought was of Zofia. She had told him earlier that she was tired and was staying in that night. He had tried calling her from the street, but her phone was switched off. Maybe she had changed her mind about going out, but he had to check. The front door was open and he rushed upstairs to the top floor. He found her in her bedroom, dressed in pink flowery pyjamas, lying on her back in the middle of her bed in a star-shape, snoring loudly. He saw a packet of Nytols on the bedside table. He shouted at her, but she didn’t res
pond. How many of the bloody things had she taken? He shook her and prodded her, but she just groaned and turned over. He shouted at her again and shook her even more violently and finally her eyes opened a crack and she gazed at him as though she hadn’t a clue who he was. She was far too heavy to carry, but he managed to drag her out of the bed and help her unsteadily onto her feet. Just when he thought he’d got through to her, she pushed him away and started stumbling around the room trying to gather up some of her things, muttering all the time to herself in Polish. He could smell the smoke coming up the stairs. They needed to go. He shouted at her again but she seemed unable to grasp the situation. He grabbed hold of her and slapped her hard across the face. She opened her eyes wide and stared at him blinking and disorientated, as though she had just woken from a deep dream. He was able to yank her by the wrist, still clinging to some of her possessions, out of the flat, pulling her down the many flights of stairs and through the open front door, just as the first fire engine screeched to a halt outside. Zofia had been taken off to an ambulance, where paramedics were examining her, but he had refused any medical attention. Although his lungs were full of smoke, he didn’t want to go to hospital. He couldn’t afford any delay in finding out who had done this and he needed to see Eve.
Gazing across the road, he spotted her amongst the crowd, her pale face looking here and there as she searched for him. He was about to call out when he realized she was with someone. He was tall and good-looking, with blonde hair. There was something familiar about him and Dan suddenly realized he was something to do with the Michaels family. He was married to Melissa Michaels, that was it. The MP. Gavin something. What was he doing there with Eve? Dan watched them make their way through the crowd of onlookers towards the edge of the cordon, then he lost sight of them. Why had Eve brought him here? How could she have anything to do with any of the Michaels clan after what had happened to her? He ducked into a doorway, crouched down and pulled the foil blanket over his head. He felt his phone vibrate in his jacket pocket, took it out, saw her name on the screen and switched it off. A moment later a text came through: I’m here. Where are you? Eve. Another police car pulled up alongside and as the crowd parted momentarily to let it through, he caught sight of them again. They were in the middle of the road, right at the front, by the cordon, no doubt waiting for him to appear from somewhere. Gavin had turned to face Eve. His hands were on her shoulders and he was saying something to her, which looked important, as Eve looked up at him intently. After a moment, she nodded and Gavin smiled as though she had just given him some good news. Then Gavin bent down, kissed her on the cheek, and turned and walked away. Along with the shock that they clearly knew one another quite well, there was something intimate in the way they had looked at each other. From nowhere Dan felt an unexpected stab of jealousy.