‘Was there anything special about that job? Anything about her client?’
She shook her head. ‘All I know is the hotel. They took the top-floor suite with personal valet. Champagne and strawberries at breakfast. I don’t know who the client was.’
‘But travelling to Brighton would mean that she already knew him?’
‘Yes,’ Sammy said.
‘Did she tell you anything else about that trip?’
She shook her head. ‘The only special thing was cancelling my birthday thing. Otherwise she wouldn’t have mentioned it at all.’
‘Your birthday is in March,’ I said. ‘Am I right?’
It’s these kind of insights that had Sherlock Holmes impressing Watson.
Sammy stayed unimpressed. ‘October,’ she said. ‘That’s when Tina went to the Royal Trafalgar.’
Elementary, my dear Watson. How come Holmes’ hunches never bombed? I gave her surprised.
‘That’s when my birthday is,’ Sammy insisted. Even more elementary; you can’t beat birthdays as memory joggers. I shook my head. Slater’s Amex had him at the Royal Trafalgar twice in March. Sammy’s date was five months earlier.
‘I’m looking at something more recent,’ I said. ‘Did Tina visit the Royal Trafalgar again?’
‘I don’t know. She only mentioned that one time.’
‘But she would tell you if she went away for the weekend?’
Sammy shrugged. ‘Usually. But not every time. If we’re both busy we may not mention it.’
I swallowed the last of my latte.
‘I need Tina’s mobile number,’ I said.
She recited a number from memory. I didn’t write it down because I didn’t need to. I already recognised it from Slater’s bill. The number confirmed the link between Slater and Tina, even if Slater’s Brighton stay didn’t line up with the date Sammy had Tina there.
‘Mr Flynn,’ Sammy said, ‘who is this Slater?’
‘He’s someone Tina may be involved with.’
‘Is she with him now?’
‘No.’
‘Might he harm her?’
‘I don’t think so. But the two of them may be involved in something together. Something that’s got her into trouble.’
‘What sort of trouble?’
I held up my hands. ‘Give me time, Sammy. I’m trying to find out.’
‘Sweet Jesus.’ Sammy looked somewhere beyond the two of us. A place of shadows. Something happening to Tina could certainly force a rethink of this woman’s lifestyle. Maybe consideration of early retirement.
‘Mr Flynn—’
‘Eddie.’
‘Eddie: when will you know something?’
‘Soon,’ I promised.
‘How soon?’
‘A couple of days,’ I told her. ‘We’ll know what’s happened to Tina by then.’
‘Two days,’ Sammy said. She pulled the Eagle Eye card from her pocket and looked it over, paying more attention this time. Then she slipped the card into her purse and got up from the table.
‘Call me on Tuesday, Eddie. If I’ve heard nothing from you by the end of the day I’m going to the police.’
She turned and walked out. A dozen heads turned.
I sat in my comfy seat and jotted some notes. Threw in a couple of questions. The confirmation of Tina Brown’s line of work had opened up a wide range of explanations as to why she was missing from her apartment. In normal circumstances, I’d put Slater’s stalking her down to the action of an infatuated guy let down by his fantasy girl’s elopement with another client. But stalking his playmate at the very time his stepdaughter has disappeared does not constitute normal circumstances.
I walked back to the Frogeye and called Gina Redding.
I filled her in on Slater’s liaison with Tina Brown, and on the fact that we now seemed to have two missing persons. I also warned Gina that I’d poked a stick around at the Slater house. If she received calls from the family she should be ready. I warned her too that the next step might be costly and might lead only to dead ends. Gina wasn’t deterred.
‘Just do what it takes, Eddie,’ she told me. ‘I’ll pay the bill. Just find Rebecca.’
That’s my kind of client.
I told Gina I’d be in touch in a couple of days. By then we’d have the thing wrapped up. We’d better have. Two days was all we had before Sammy blew the whistle and the situation became much more complicated.
I headed back to Battersea and got busy in the kitchen. When Arabel arrived I had a leg of lamb roasting and by the time she was through teaching me some new yoga moves with her lips it was a race against time to salvage the meat before it carbonised. We ate it with sweet potatoes and sour cream, roasted vegetables. Not even a nod in the direction of healthy eating. The lamb disappeared, fat and all. Cooking unhealthy is a cheat but I find it gets results. Arabel knew exactly what I was up to but it gave her an excuse to pig out once in a while. She knew she could humour me once a month without risk of a coronary.
She made her appreciation known by grabbing me as I cleared the table and pushing me back onto the sofa with some dirty suggestions, but both our stomachs protested so painfully that there was no chance of following through. So much for results. We got ready to go out.
While I was changing I caught Arabel in my loft, trying to sneak a look at her portrait. I drove her off with threats that the picture would turn into an ogre if the sitter uncovered it before it was ready. The real reason was that I didn’t want her to spot imperfections before I worked them out. Pride. I liked her to think that painting came natural to me. Like cooking. My reputation for both would crumble if my techniques were known.
‘When are you going to have it finished, babe?’ she said. ‘At the rate you’re going you’ll need to add wrinkles.’
‘Art determines its own time,’ I said. ‘You can’t hurry. Ask Picasso how long it took to create his masterpieces.’
‘Picasso could finish stuff in three days,’ she informed me. ‘I heard he did that Reclining Nude in one.’
Education can be a pain. My fault for introducing Arabel to the Tate.
‘The guy was all rush,’ I said. ‘Do you want to end up looking like his Weeping Woman?’
‘Not if you want to live, Flynn.’
‘Then keep your nose out until I’m through. I’m not ready to die for my art.’
We climbed into the Frogeye and headed over to the Royal Festival Hall. I had tickets for the London Philharmonic performing Elgar. Next to jazz I went for the classical composers. Next to soul, blues, reggae, hip hop and half a dozen other things so did Arabel. She would never admit to having an ear for the classics, but the only time I saw her listening to music with tears in her eyes was when I took her to a Dvorak symphony. Somewhere amongst those curves was a cultured soul, savouring what she’d denied herself in her squandered youth.
The evening was almost balmy. I put the top down for the ten-minute trip.
‘Have you been working all day?’ Arabel asked.
‘Justice never sleeps,’ I said.
She laid her hand on my neck. ‘Not even a nap at the weekend? This detective stuff draws you too tight, Flynn. You take the burden with the case.’
‘That’s how it is sometimes,’ I said. ‘Divorce, petty crime, that kind of thing we get the weekend off. But sometimes we’re involved with something more serious.’
‘Like when you worked for Scotland Yard?’
‘Not like that. With the Mets I didn’t need miracles – my clients were all dead.’
‘What about Rebecca?’ Arabel asked. ‘Is she dead?’
I took a moment to answer. I’d mostly got away from that side of crime since I’d quit the Mets.
Eventually I said: ‘I don’t think so. But she may be mixed up in something that’s going bad. It’s
hard to take weekends off when you might be someone’s only hope.’
‘Poor babe,’ Arabel said. ‘And who’s going to save you?’
I had no answer for that.
CHAPTER twenty-two
The Mitsubishi Warrior had been sat for an hour and a half on a meter across from Eagle Eye. So far they’d avoided inserting cash but time was running out. The parking Gestapo was moving up on the far side of the junction and the guy would reach them inside two minutes. Sod’s law said that the second they slotted coins into the meter their quarry would break but it was the lesser of two evils – the risk of wasting a few quid against the certainty of a fixed penalty notice. Roker went with the probabilities.
‘Feed it,’ he said.
Mitch broke off from feeding Pringles into his face and swore. The vehicle rocked on its springs as he climbed out. He stood on the pavement with the coins in his fist but dispensing with them was like giving blood. Mitch preferred to psych the warden out. Induce him to cross the street and ignore the Warrior. What Roker preferred was to stay low-profile. He leaned across and smacked his palm on the dash. Mitch gave him a dirty look and slotted the coins home. When he climbed back into the vehicle Roker was tempted to slug him. Resisted. Going with the odds again: Mitch could be unpredictable.
Mitch grabbed the wheel like he was going to wrench it off.
‘I hate these uniformed little gits,’ he said.
‘Just stay focused,’ Roker told him.
They watched the warden as he walked up. He passed the Warrior without turning his head but he’d spotted their game, gave them a sideways evil eye. Mitch turned to glare after him then attacked his Pringles again. ‘When’s this clown going to move,’ he said.
‘Soon,’ Roker said. He went back to watching the building. Now that they’d fed the meter the guy would be out double-quick.
He was. Their quarry came out of the front entrance exactly three minutes later and disappeared round the back of the building.
Mitch stashed the Pringles and started the engine. Roker watched the street.
‘Go,’ he said.
Mitch rolled. The quarry had pulled out of an access road up ahead and was already crossing the junction. Mitch put his foot down.
‘What the hell’s that?’ he asked.
‘Stay back,’ Roker said.
Mitch growled. He didn’t need Roker’s advice. He could tail a guy all day and they’d never know he was there.
‘It’s a friggin’ Tonka Toy,’ Mitch said. ‘I had a bigger pedal car when I was two years old.’
Roker sneered. Mitch was shut in a room getting smacked around his head when he was two years old. Pedal cars didn’t figure in it.
‘Is it a vintage?’ Mitch asked.
‘Yeah,’ Roker said. ‘Forty years. Probably ninety percent rust.’
The car was the size of a shoebox. Racing green, black soft top. The Warrior would run right over it if their brakes failed.
‘No way you’d get me in something like that,’ Mitch said, ‘unless they were burying me.’
‘Not even then,’ Roker said. ‘You’d need a Transit.’
Mitch held back then floored the pedal when the Tonka turned at the main road. They hit the junction five seconds behind. He swung the wheel but the traffic closed up, blocking them. The Frogeye was disappearing towards Bayswater. If the midget car got into the heavy flow they’d lose it. Mitch slammed his foot down and skidded out in front of a van. The van fishtailed and missed them by inches and the driver stayed on his horn long after he needed to. Any other time Mitch would have been happy to climb out and discuss the situation. Horn-jockeys pissed him off. It was White Van Man’s lucky day.
Mitch accelerated to within four cars of the Tonka. It turned east towards Paddington Station then took a left and drove ahead of them across the bridge onto the A40 ramp. Mitch hung back and let the vehicle get up into the Westway traffic. No risk of losing it there.
They settled two hundred yards back on the carriageway. The Warrior’s high vantage point gave them distance without risk of losing the Tonka. Secure tails took a minimum of three vehicles but when you wanted the best single-vehicle job you put Mitch behind the wheel.
For the moment Mitch’s skills were redundant. The Tonka stayed with the A40 and drifted towards the M25 in the mid-morning flow. Easy. At the junction the car took the long slip and split left into the south link onto the Orbital. The variable limits were on and they cruised in the second lane at a stately fifty-five, holding well back. Heathrow came and went. The Tonka was in no hurry. They were past Reigate before the vehicle indicated and took the slip road for the M23.
Mitch had substituted the Pringles with a ball of gum. He chewed furiously, focused on their quarry. Roker stayed silent, puzzling over where their target was headed. The M23 had opened up possibilities.
‘Gatwick,’ Mitch guessed.
Roker said nothing.
‘Are they saying this guy’s a player?’
‘Maybe,’ Roker said. ‘He’d just better know the rules.’
‘What do they want us to do?’ Mitch asked.
‘They want us to watch and learn,’ Roker said. ‘We’re on a fishing trip, that’s all.’
The M23 was busy. The Tonka’s diminutive size made it easy to lose but Mitch stayed cool. Fifteen minutes on they passed Gatwick. Continued south. Roker stared ahead and felt something beginning to gnaw in his gut. When the M23 petered out the Tonka continued towards the coast and Roker knew they were headed for Brighton.
As they got onto the roundabout north of the town Mitch closed up the distance. There was too big a risk that the Tonka might make a sudden turn amongst the town traffic. But the car kept to its southerly course and in a couple of minutes they were in the centre. The Frogeye swung around the park and continued towards the sea. A minute later they came out at the pier.
The Tonka crossed the roundabout three cars ahead and took a right along the seafront. Mitch jumped the queue and forced his way across, ignoring the horns. He accelerated past a truck and got his quarry back. The Tonka was moving steadily between the hotels and the beach. They rolled west for sixty seconds before the quarry indicated and turned across oncoming traffic into the walled-off parking lane fronting a five-star hotel. Mitch continued a hundred yards further then swung the Warrior in a U-turn to get back to the hotel. He stopped short just as the guy was extracting himself from the midget vehicle. They watched him go in through the hotel entrance.
The hotel’s name was marked in fifteen-foot letters across its white façade: ROYAL TRAFALGAR.
Mitch killed the engine and chewed noisily. The place meant nothing to him.
Roker’s face told a different story. ‘Shit,’ he said.
Mitch turned.
‘We got a problem?’
Roker’s face stayed neutral but his eyes were locked on the hotel entrance. He was wondering what the hell was going on. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.
‘Yes,’ he said finally, ‘we’ve got a problem.’
CHAPTER twenty-three
Revolving doors spat me out into a marble and glass foyer that echoed with the muted reverence of a cathedral. Five-star perfection gleamed in every polished surface, and the shine on the floor was enough to have you watching your balance.
The foyer was busy with big-hotel Brownian motion, people endlessly going somewhere else. Reception held centre stage with the extravagance of a high altar. Baggage and Concierge stood back either side like lady chapels. Mahogany doors behind the desks led through to the admin area, where the people would be who could tell me what I wanted to know and who would sooner have teeth pulled. I needed a way in.
A sweeping staircase encircled a roped-off bistro opposite the check-in desks. I went over and flopped into a leather armchair. A waiter walked across and bowed from the neck when I ordered coffee. The
Royal Trafalgar was old fashioned that way: you didn’t need to say latte. They understood. The coffee was excellent, spoiled only by the bill which merited a saucer of its own. The bill was discreetly folded so as not to upset you while you drank. I’m the kind of guy who can never resist peeking. Nearly spat out my coffee. I’d have to work the thing into our expenses. Maybe if I skipped my next meal I could claim the charge as an extravagant lunch.
Larry Slater had an impressive taste in playgrounds. If the lobby was any guide then the accommodation upstairs would be truly worth seeing. A stunning nest to spend a weekend with a stunning girl. A stunning bill at the end of it, too. It looked like Slater had cash to throw away. Slater’s Amex recorded him here twice, and my bet said that he had Tina Brown as company both times.
It took me twenty minutes to see a way in. I waited until the far end of the reception desk was clear, then I finished my coffee and hid a tenner discreetly within the folded bill. I signalled to the waiter and walked across to the desk.
The reception staff were bright and attentive in the way that big money demands. Selected and trained to the hotel’s traditional standards, even if the tradition said that they should be paid a pittance.
The clerk at the end was a little different. When I approached the desk he was busy at his keyboard. Took a few moments too long to notice that I was there. I’d been watching him. He could do the bright and attentive stuff, but there was a phoniness he couldn’t hide. His head had been up when I’d started my walk but was buried in his computer by the time I reached him. He knew I didn’t fit here. Good hotel staff have these instincts. I gave him thirty seconds and then leaned over the counter to invade his space. He looked up and smiled and when he asked if he could help me I recognised a fellow actor.
He was in his mid-forties with slicked-back hair. His badge identified him as Gerald. Gerald wore black frame spectacles that hid the disappointment lines from two decades of missed promotions. He’d probably worked at another hotel in his younger years before he realised that his prospects were nil. Joined the Royal Trafalgar on the strength of a gladly-given reference. He was the oldest of the check-in clerks by a decade. Seniority: the perk of never being promoted. I leaned closer. Gave him Embarrassed to let him know he was in charge. Lowered my voice.
Behind Closed Doors Page 15