She extended her hand. “Hi, Sergeant Davies. I’m Kate Morgan, Cidro’s private investigator.”
Is she kidding?Davies wasn’t sure what exactly he’d been expecting when he heard Medina refer to his P.I. Probably something closer to a middle-aged man in a fedora. Definitely not a cheeky girl, smiling innocently while she played policeman.
“Did your coroner get a chance to look at the body yet?” she asked.
Davies shook his head. “No, but as none of the bullet wounds appear to have been fatal, your poison theory is plausible. Probable.” Reluctantly he added, “You were right about the ring, too—it was stolen nine years ago from a hotel suite in Portofino, a crime long suspected to’ve been committed by the thief known as the Cat.”
“How about the plastique?”
“Uh, tests showed the presence of…” Davies pulled a notepad from his pocket. Flipping through, he shook his head slowly.For fuck’s sake! “The techs mentioned something, but…”
“Does PETN ring a bell?” the girl asked. “Penta-erythritol tetranitrate? Traces of it have been found on each safe the Cat’s blown.”
Oh, sod off, Miss Know-It-All!Making little effort to conceal his scowl, Davies nodded.
“If you could give me a second…” she murmured.
Davies watched her reach into her purse.What, does she need to powder her nose? The girl seemed to find what she was looking for, slid a piece of paper out, and handed it to him. Davies frowned. It was a Xeroxed page from a society rag. He hated that nonsense.
“Look in the lower right corner,” she suggested. “At the man on the left.”
Fuckin’ hell, it’s him.“ ‘Simon Trevor-Jones, Lord Astley,’ ” he read from the caption beneath. “The thief was a baron?”
The girl nodded with what appeared to be…what is that? Wistfulness?
“If you analyze Trevor-Jones’s offshore accounts, I bet you’ll find large amounts coming in right after the Cat’s known heists and anonymous donations to charities going out soon after. That’s probably as close to certainty as we’re going to get.”
“I’ll look into it,” Davies said tightly.
“I’m sorry if you think I’m stepping on your toes, Sergeant,” the girl said. “But a man has been murdered on account of the manuscript the thief was after. I’m just trying to figure out why and to make sure no one else dies.”
“Murdered?” he asked skeptically.
“In Oxford,” she said. “A few days ago.”
Then Davies noticed that Medina had arrived. In a Ferrari, naturally.
“Good afternoon, Sergeant.”
Bollocks to you.
“Want a drink?” Medina asked, ushering Davies into his foyer.
“No thanks.”
“What’d I miss?”
“Your thief was a baron named Simon Trevor-Jones,” the girl said, “and we’re close to confirming he was the Cat.”
“It’s only been a few hours. How—”
“Well, the police are doing the tough stuff,” she said. “I just flipped throughHello! magazines till I saw his face.”
Reaching over to hand Medina the photograph, Davies noticed the man flinch at the mention ofHello!. Davies smiled.He must hate that crap as much as I do. Maybe he does deserve to live…a little longer, at least.
“Oh, that’s your copy,” the girl told Davies, handing Medina another. Then, as Medina walked over to a lamp for a better view of the Xerox, she added softly, “If you tell the super you identified the Cat today, I bet you he’ll choke on his fag.”
Davies couldn’t help but grin. The chief superintendent of the Met-ropolitan Police was known for always having a cigarette in his mouth. Always. Very few people had ever seen him take it out; the man breathed and spoke through the corners of his mouth. And the girl was going to let him claim all the credit? With a start, Davies realized he’d probably get his long-awaited promotion.
“Mind if I look around Trevor-Jones’s house with you sometime?” she asked him.
“Shouldn’t pose a problem,” Davies said with a smile.
“Oh, and the marchioness, Lady Halifax; would it be all right if I’m the one who lets her know her ring’s been found?”
His smile widening, Davies nodded. “Be my guest.”
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, Cidro,” Kate said, after the detective had left.
Medina was sitting across from her in his living room with a dish of ice cream in his lap. “Yeah?”
“I was thinking about what I would do if I were desperate to get my hands on the manuscript, and I were, you know, an unscrupulous criminal.”
“Mmm-hmm?”
“I’d take something that matters to you more and hold it hostage. Like someone you love. A sibling, a girlfriend, your parents…. I think mycompany should—”
“Actually, that’s one prospect we don’t have to worry about. I was an only child, I don’t have a girlfriend, and my parents live in Spain.”
“I’ll have our Madrid office keep an eye on them,” Kate said. “And I’ll leave the manuscript here,” she added, taking Phelippes’s pewter box from her backpack. “Let’s put it in your new safe.”
Medina nodded. “That thief, though, Kate. The photo of him still alive—it struck me as familiar. He might belong to my club or something.”
“I’m pretty sure he overlapped with you at Oxford. He graduated from Magdalen twelve years ago. That could also be where you’ve seen him.”
“Maybe. You sure you don’t want a bite?” he asked.
“Okay,” she said, reaching for the spoon. As she swallowed the mouthful, she saw him open his briefcase and pull out a small white box wrapped in silver ribbon. Judging by his expression, it was for her.
“Oh, I know all about yourgifts, mister. What’s this, another test of my abilities? Another hoop you want me to jump through?”
Smiling, Medina shook his head, then stood and moved to sit on the sofa beside her. Facing her, with his elbow resting on the back of the couch, he said, “I stopped by the Yard on my way home and, well, told a bit of a fib. I said the thief got his gun from my desk, that it was mine. An unregistered antique. They hadn’t any use for it, and I thought you might want it.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Kate said, opening the box. “The Cat’s pistol—I’ve never gotten something so thoughtful, so…thank you.”
“I usually have to spring for diamonds to get a reaction like that,” Medina said wryly. Lowering his hand to her shoulder, he added with concern, “That bloke came after you in New York, and I’m just worried something like that could happen here. I hope you don’t need it, but just in case…”
What’s that hand still doing on my shoulder?
Medina continued, “You do know how to use one, right?”
Buddy, I could hit an apple off your head from two hundred yards away.“Uh, Cidro, weren’t you the one who compared me to history’s most illustrious double-dealing trollops?”
“I believe so.”
“Then you must know that when it comes to taking out the enemy, we’re all highly,highly skilled.”
“Oh, that’s interesting,” Medina said, pausing to stroke his chin with theatrical flair. “Because I seem to remember that Mata Hari was supposed to be a real bumbler of a spy, that her most notable skills were of the bedroom variety. I wonder if…”
“Oh, I can shoot in there, too. Music, dim lighting—they don’t distract me.”
Medina laughed. “I’ll be right back,” he said, standing up and leaving the room.
He returned a few minutes later with a plate of grilled cheese sandwiches. “Fancy one?”
“Grilled cheese after ice cream?” Kate shook her head, and as Medina sat down, she noticed that his eyes appeared darker than their usual pale blue. Looking closely, she realized that his pupils were almost fully dilated.Ah-ha. “You have another business meeting pretty soon, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you always go t
o them, uh, altered?”
“Only when I know they’ll be really,really boring. You want some? It’s Northern Light. Won the Cannabis Cup not too long ago.”
“Cannabis what?”
“In Amsterdam there’s a contest every year. Though with sampling contender after contender, the judges perhaps lose their ability to make the most scientifically adept assessments. Not that a panel of stoners would ever be the most scientifically adept lot, but…anyway, you interested?”
“No thanks,” Kate said, shaking her head with amused surprise. “I’m meeting a friend pretty soon, and I don’t think she’d appreciate it if I showed up high.”
“Oh,” Medina said, visibly dismayed.
“What’s with the hangdog look? Some kind of peer pressure?”
“No,” he said, smiling once more. “It’s just that I was hoping you’d be going out with me later tonight.”
“Uh…”
“How about afterward?” Medina persisted.
“I won’t have any new information at that point, so—”
“In case you haven’t noticed, Kate, I’m trying to ask you for a date.”
“Is that you talking, Cidro, or the gold-medal ganja?”
“Me. Most definitely.”
“Oh. Well, I can’t date a client. Office policy.” It wasn’t exactly true—Slade had never said anything to her one way or another—but it sounded better than anything else she could come up with.
“How about I fire you now and rehire you in the morning?”
Laughing, Kate shook her head. “Okay, I lied. There’s no policy. It’s just a personal thing. You know, what if it’s awful and I’m stuck interacting with you till I close your case?”
“Understood.”
Checking her watch, Kate got ready to leave.
Medina wasn’t finished. “Okay, no date. Yet. Just a drink to plot your next move…on the case. How’s ten? Eleven?”
“If I’m free then,” Kate said, walking toward his door, “and soul-crushingly bored, Imight give you a call.”
KNIGHTSBRIDGE, LONDON—6:12P.M.
A few blocks south of Hyde Park in Montpelier Square, Kate stepped from a black cab and walked over to a white brick townhouse. She pressed Adriana Vandis’s buzzer, then headed up to her flat.
“Nice outfit,” Kate said.
Adriana was wearing a gold lace strapless bra, a matching thong, and nothing else. “I’m sorry to be running so late,” she said, kissing Kate’s cheeks and welcoming her in.
“No problem.”
“I just bought this bra at La Perla. Makes my breasts look divine, don’t you think?” she asked, pivoting to give Kate a multiangled view.
“Seriously, Ana. If I weren’t staunchly heterosexual…”
“If you’re lucky, I’ll restrain myself from caressing them lovingly in public.”
“Not on my account, I hope,” Kate said, grinning. “I’d love to see how those Sotheby’s guards react.”
Petite but curvy, with black hair to her shoulder blades and a sultry Mediterranean glow, Adriana Vandis did not remotely resemble a banker. No one would ever guess that she was one of the most highly paid traders in the City. She was also one of the least popular. Of course the women hated her for her looks; long stressful days in the City left most of them with drooping figures and faces as haggard as Edvard Munch’s screamer. The men, on the other hand, who loved her looks but wished they belonged to a secretary, hated her for her talent and sky-high salary. And both sexes hated the fact that Adriana tended to roll in late and waltz out midafternoon, using her trademark combination of purposeful stride and sexy sashay.
The bank she worked for, Silverman Stone, exalted its team-player philosophy to the level of a religious mantra, which made Adriana a veritable Antichrist, but since she made the company four times the money any of her colleagues did and the CEO liked to look her up and down at least a dozen times a day, her position was more than secure. Which suited Adriana, because she intended to stay until she had enough money to drop it for good and open up her own art gallery in a hip part of town.
She and Kate had been freshman year roommates, and they’d continued living together throughout college.
“Do you need a dress or—”
“I’ve got one in my bag, but if I could borrow some shoes…”
“Of course. Want a shower?”
“That’d be great,” Kate said. “So how was work today?”
Pulling a towel from her linen closet, Adriana shrugged. “Less awful than usual. I started trading exotic options a few weeks ago. It’s kinda fun.”
“You’re dealing with strip club stocks now?” Kate joked, following Adriana to her bedroom.
“Ironically,exotic just means there’s more math involved. Like, instead of buying the right to buy a specific stock—shares of Ralph Lauren, for example—for a certain price on a certain day, you’re buying the right to buy, say, the third best performing fashion house stock for that price on that day, whichever one it might turn out to be.”
Kate noticed a new painting hanging over the bed. “Oh, I love that one!” Adriana had taken up oil painting their senior year of college and had been doing it ever since.
“Notice the hat covering most of her face? I gave up. Still can’t do faces.”
“Well, you’re partway there. I think that might be the perfect chin.”
“After a whole weekend, it ought to be,” Adriana laughed, shaking her head. “You know, there’s a Cézanne watercolor for sale tonight, same blue and green in it. I’m hoping to hangit in here, too.”
“Sounds good.”
Adriana opened her closet and gestured to the full-length red halter dress hanging on the back of the door. “My new Valentino. What do you think?”
“Perfect. Totally you,” Kate said enthusiastically, though she wasn’t nearly as taken with designer clothes—or other trappings of material success—as Adriana was. Kate had always been far more interested in looking behind glittering façades than in creating them, but she was proud of her friend. Adriana had grown up poor on the Greek island of Santorini, helping her mother clean rooms at one of the seedier hotels. A widow, her mother had lived with an abusive boyfriend out of financial necessity. Adriana’s earliest memory was of resolving to become rich enough to buy her mother a spacious apartment on the beach. Spending summers at Silverman Stone and starting to work there full-time right out of college, she’d been able to make that purchase by the time she was twenty-five.
“Try the body wash on the windowsill. Honey vanilla, smells amazing.”
“Will do,” Kate said, heading into the bathroom. She pinned her hair on top of her head, showered quickly, then slipped into her black strapless sheath and the shoes Adriana had left outside the bathroom door.
“I’m in the kitchen,” Adriana called. “So what’s this new case?” she asked when Kate entered the room.
“It involves a collection of sixteenth-century spy reports that someone is trying to steal from my client,” Kate said, watching Adriana splash a little orange juice into two flutes of champagne. “Remember how I wrote my college thesis on Christopher Marlowe?”
“How could I forget?” Adriana moaned, playfully rolling her eyes. While she’d spent their senior year painting most days and going out every night, Kate had spent her time in remote corners of the library stacks.
“Well, this afternoon I came across what’s got to be one of his first intelligence reports. He identified the assassin who murdered the eighth Earl of Northumberland in the Bloody Tower, along with the prominent Catholic family who paid for the hit. You know, to keep their plot against Elizabeth from being exposed.”
Noticing that Adriana’s expression remained blasé, Kate added, “Until now, very little has been known about Marlowe’s espionage career. Thisis thrilling.”
“Let me get this straight. You’restill reading about a guy who’s been dead for centuries?” Adriana sighed. She preferred the here and now. “And here
I was, telling everyone you were some kind of Charlie’s Angel seductress battling villains in a white bikini.”
“Not yet, but…” Clasping her hands together, Kate said dreamily, “If I’m lucky, maybe someday my bikini assignment will come.”
They sat at a glass table by a bay of windows overlooking the garden behind Adriana’s building.
“Have you heard of a guy named Cidro Medina?” Kate asked her.
“The hot blond fund manager who eats female hearts for lunch? Every woman in the City has. I met him at a party a year ago.”
“Were you interested?”
“Well, to see him is to be interested,” Adriana said, grinning. “But at the time I was too hung up on Mark to pay much attention.”
“Which Mark?”
“The cokehead.”
“Oh, right,” Kate said, remembering. There had been a lot of phone calls and tears over that one. Though Adriana was the liveliest, most stunningly beautiful woman Kate had ever seen, her friend was in a state of perpetual heartbreak. Lost her marbles over one sleazy cad after another. “I’m glad he’s out of the picture.”
“Me, too. Anyway, Cidro. Why’d you bring him up?”
“He’s my client.”
“And he’s hitting on you.”
Kate nodded.
“Be careful. I once overheard him cooing to one girl on his mobile withamazing sincerity, while another girl was groping him and kissing his neck. If I hadn’t seen it myself, I’d have had no idea he was full of shit.”
“It’s not like I’d ever fall for him.”
“I know,” Adriana said sympathetically, fully aware that Kate stillmourned her dead fiancé. “But as soon as Medina senses that it’d be easier to doodle a nose ring on the Mona Lisa than get access to your heart, he’ll be relentless.”
“A minor inconvenience,” Kate said with a shrug. “But I can’t say I’d mind allthat much.”
MAYFAIR, LONDON—7:20P.M.
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