I sat up sharply. ‘What about Paul?’
TWENTY-THREE
‘You always want the truth, don’t you?’ He sighed, grasping my hand. ‘Well, here it is so far. The Sussex police are on to it, as you’d expect. They’ve checked A and E at all the hospitals in the area. Kent, London, Hampshire – I’m sure they’ve done a thorough job.’
‘But they’ve found nothing.’
‘In a sense, that’s good news.’
‘No body, you mean?’ I asked bitterly.
‘So far, no. So far, so good, I’d say.’
‘The man tried to warn me off. I should have given up on that bloody play as he said. And made sure Griff did too!’
He got up and poured me a glass of mineral water from an elegant and expensive-looking bottle. ‘And how would you have done that? Once Griff’s set on anything, it’d take a miracle to stop him.’
‘I don’t know – I could have confiscated his pills or something.’ I gulped down the water, which was foul. ‘There’s something more serious, remember, Morris. Charles Montaigne knows about your daughter. He knows about Pa. He even knows about Mrs Walker and her fiancé.’
‘He may know more. Those postcards of France, Lina – it wasn’t me that sent them.’
‘Not you? But – oh, my God!’
‘Another reason I wanted you safe with me. Now, I know this sounds brutal, but I’ve not got much time. How do you get Charles Montaigne connected to the play? Not a man for am-dram, surely.’
‘But a man for revenge. He threatened to break my fingers, for starters.’
‘My God! You never told me that!’
‘Well, not so much a threat as an implied threat. I told Freya Webb, and at the time she was very interested and promised to investigate further. But, apart from that visit of Wayne’s I told you about, I’ve heard nothing, nothing at all. And she’d already warned me in no uncertain terms to keep out of her hair. Griff said that her hormones were raging. All I can say is, the rest of her was too. I’ve seen nothing of Robin either, or I could ask him.’
‘And your theory is?’
‘Overwork?’
‘A hell of a lot of that, with all these cuts.’
‘Or,’ I added more soberly, ‘trouble with the pregnancy or between her and Robin?’
‘Marry in haste, repent at leisure,’ he mused bitterly, speaking from experience.
I didn’t want to go down that avenue; I really wanted Freya and Robin’s child to be brought up in a Velcro-tight marriage. ‘But we weren’t talking about Freya. We were talking about people who might be at risk,’ I pointed out.
‘And the rationale is?’
I could have shaken him for being so dense. ‘My theory is this. The unit on the industrial estate which I wasn’t supposed to go anywhere near is dealing in something illegal – just what we won’t discuss yet. I get warned off because I was nosing round – I wasn’t looking for anything, just mooching. I might even have been trying to get a signal to call you. When the police turn up mob-handed because some stupid over-the-hill actress says someone’s stolen a priceless ring, the people warning me off think I’ve got something to do with their arrival – hence I get another text from Paul, saying getting in the fuzz wasn’t a good idea. Maybe his employers knew he was trying to get rid of me gently and thought he should have done a better job.’ I sipped the horrible metallic water.
‘It wasn’t just Griff and me they wanted out, by the way,’ I added, recounting the whole catalogue of harassment, ranging from Andrew Barnes’ fright to the silly business with smoked fish. ‘I still reckon they were after the planks that Griff was using as a desk top. Andrew claimed he got them out of a skip near his home; I reckon they came from a skip outside the unit where Paul works. Anyway, he had the fear of God put into him so successfully that he quit altogether. And Emilia, the woman in charge of the whole shebang, is acting dead weird. The other thing I can’t work out is why they don’t just burgle the place – the locks are pretty simple.’
He held up a hand to stop me and then made little rewinding gestures. ‘But how does this relate to Charles Montaigne? And how to the safety of Leda and the rest of them? Montaigne wants you to work for him. You say no. He gets peeved and steps up the pressure, including references to your personal life. But what’s he got to do with Paul Whatshisname?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But I think he might just be his boss. I’ve seen him on the estate, though I don’t think he saw me.’
He was about to say something but thought better of it.
‘Meanwhile, in early September, I came across a load of wooden items at a fair – a very mixed bunch, just as if someone had been practising restoration skills . . . or otherwise. Hell, they were a mess. There’s a whole lot of dodgy furniture at the antiques centre down the road from Bredeham: I think I told you that Griff’s on the action committee to shut them down.’
He gave a sigh laden with exasperation. ‘He’d just have be, wouldn’t he? So are you saying the unit is somehow connected with the problematic items at the centre?’ When I hesitated he continued, ‘What was the quality of the china at the centre?’
‘I didn’t get a close look because we were being well and truly monitored by that time. But what if Montaigne wanted me to do a really good job on badly damaged goods he’d then pass off as genuine and undamaged?’
‘I can see that Freya would think there were too many ifs, Lina, and wouldn’t want to commit manpower without more to go on – particularly when every officer has to look at each paper clip twice.’
‘But you’ve got a much closer interest in the business than she has if he knows about Leda. Come on, you cared enough to get me over here – or was that just to do my divvying?’
‘I cared enough about you and, I have to admit, about my job. I’m still on secondment to Interpol, but my role, as you’ve gathered, has changed somewhat because the man you’re going to dine with tonight has burnt his fingers on some wrong ’uns. When the topmost brass say jump, I just have to ask how high. Monsieur and Madame le Fèvre were high-class guinea pigs. If you did the business for them, then you could be trusted to do the business for the Prime Minister.’
‘The Pri— Hell’s bells, I wish you hadn’t told me. I can’t do Prime Ministers! Not if it involves eating and drinking with them.’ I looked at him. ‘Your career’s on the line? OK. But that doesn’t mean I’m not scared shitless.’
He shook his head. ‘He’s actually more “ordinary” than Monsieur le Fèvre.’ He inserted quotation marks with hooked finger. ‘You’ll be fine.’
‘Without you?’
He looked nonplussed. ‘Why without me?’
‘Because you have to check that Leda’s safe. And get Freya to check on Pa – talk to her boss, if Freya acts awkward. And someone must tell Mrs Walker she mustn’t dream of opening the shop. I’ll call her and Pa myself as well, but you know Mrs Walker’s a born martyr and Pa – well, he’s Pa.’ I managed a smile. ‘I don’t know how long all that lot will take you, but you have to do it. And Leda’s your priority. Look,’ I added, urgently shaking his wrist, ‘if Charles Montaigne knows so much about me, I’d guess he knows I’m over here. Join the dots.’ This time I didn’t attempt a smile.
My calls took only a few minutes and had me fizzing with frustration, since neither Pa nor Mrs Walker thought there was any threat to them. Let the police try to persuade them. Morris nodded, but was too involved in his own call – in French – to do more than that. I called Griff on the room phone to say I was taking a shower and I’d be over to his room for him to check my slap and the dress in half an hour.
I was covered in foam when Morris, fully dressed, but not in a DJ, put his head round the bathroom door and tried to yell over the rush of the jets. He’d seen me naked often enough, but not naked and wet with a hotel shower cap drifting over one eye. But I might have been wearing thermals buttoned to the neck for all the notice he took.
‘I have to go. A car will take
you: don’t go down to the foyer till they ring for you. The driver works for – well, you can trust him. Raoul. I won’t let you down altogether, but I will be late. I’ve notified the PM’s private secretary.’
My eyes rounded. ‘You can just tell a prime minster you’ll miss the soup?’
‘On this occasion, yes.’ He took my steamy face between both hands and kissed me on the lips. And scooted before I could ask what was up, not turning round when I called after him. But, afraid that the situation was as serious as his face suggested, I didn’t call again.
The evening was a repeat of the afternoon, only in a posher dress (a slender column of silk – think Pippa Middleton’s bridesmaid’s outfit) and with slightly less good champagne. The only difference was that I did my divvying act before we dined, since we were waiting for Morris. If the Top People were irritated by his non-appearance, they were far too polite to show it, and I did my best not to reveal my screaming anxiety. Griff repeated his charming anecdotes, and I picked out a really obvious fake escritoire, so bad that the PM’s wife said she was ashamed not to have seen the problems herself.
At this point four other couples arrived, all dressed to the nines. More canapés and more champagne. A terribly camp young man materialized and fawned over Griff. Still no Morris; with no more not-exactly party-tricks to fall back on – and I certainly didn’t want publicly to pull modern rabbits out of antique hats – I felt completely at sea. Fingering the Cartier watch Pa had given me, I thought briefly of Pa’s mother: presumably, she’d had hours of training to prepare her for occasions like this.
I hadn’t.
Just as it was clear our hostess thought the food couldn’t be kept warm any longer, Morris appeared, so sexy in his black tie that I was hard put not to grab him by the hand and drag him off to some official bedroom. Or I would have been, if his face, when not stretched in official smiles, hadn’t been stressed enough to crack.
Considering it was a very formal meal, we rattled through the courses as if we were in an overbooked restaurant with someone waiting for our table. This suited me, because I could see that, despite his gaiety, Griff was fading. I’d also noticed Morris shooting swift glances at his watch. On the other hand, I couldn’t imagine getting a chance to wear a dress like this again, so half of me was disappointed that Morris and I weren’t going to go on to somewhere special later. A pretty large half, to be honest.
But it was something that Morris joined us in the car back to our hotel. Something, but not a lot, because all he had time for was to change into jeans and a sweater – he was off out again.
‘Leda?’ I prompted as he gave up wrestling with his cufflinks and held his arms out for me to deal with them.
‘Safe. But under threat, I’m sure. Despite what I said about having a regular, full-time nanny, Penny and her bloody horn player insisted on relying on an agency – some crap about not wanting Leda to get too fond of a stranger. This afternoon the agency phones to say the usual women aren’t available, but they’ve just signed a new recruit – would they like to try her? Wonderful references, blah, blah. They’re just off to work when I call – thanks to you. And they panic – thank God – and contact the agency. The agency says they’ve had a call from Penny to cancel the nanny’s booking.’
‘My God!’
‘But of course Penny is booked for a concert, so whatever her maternal feelings,’ he said dryly, ‘she’s unable to stay behind. Guess what, there’s a horn solo scheduled too. So I dashed off to stay with Leda until the real nanny turned up. She took her out – my insistence – to some friends of Penny’s, with a plain-clothes officer for company. I also organized a reception committee for the new “nanny” at their apartment. They’ve picked someone up. I’m not allowed to participate in any way in the interview, of course, but the authorities have cleared it for me to watch.’
‘Having dinner with the PM might have helped with that? Oh, hold still just one more second!’ At last I released him.
Horribly alone in the huge room, I called Griff to see if he was up for a late-night drinking chocolate. He insisted he was, but I could tell he’d been asleep until the phone had woken him. I think he fell asleep again even while he was claiming to be wide awake.
Somehow I couldn’t face trying to sort out enough French to organize room service for myself. It was only as I managed to wriggle out of the dress that I realized they’d probably have understood English, Croatian or even Outer Mongolian in a place like this. By now I couldn’t be bothered. Perhaps when Morris got back, though probably a stiff whisky would have been more his thing.
But I didn’t find out, because when I woke the next morning I was still the only person in my bed. And not even Tim the Bear for company.
Griff and I were just finishing our highly calorific breakfast in Griff’s room when there was a tap at the door. I peeped through the spyhole to see Morris winking back at me.
‘It’s like trying to unravel spaghetti,’ he declared, heading straight for the coffee pot.
I washed out my cup.
Griff poured. ‘So you spent the night watching other people ask questions,’ he prompted. ‘And to judge by your appearance, that must be almost as tiring as doing the interrogation yourself. Did you not sleep at all?’
‘Not yet. I shall snatch forty winks when I’ve finished your breakfast for you and then get back.’
‘And the news is?’ Griff asked.
‘Thanks to the information you’ve provided about the fake furniture, one way or another there’s a lovely big case building against some people I’ve had on the radar for some time.’
‘First things first,’ Griff protested. ‘The threat to your daughter’s safety?’
‘The heavies that turned up at Penny’s apartment claim they’ve no idea who employed them – that it was a cash in an envelope on a street corner sort of contract. The person who called the nanny-agency predictably withheld her number. However, given the seriousness of the situation, the police and mobile phone company are using a system called triangulation which establishes at least where the phone was when it was used.’
‘But you could shove it in your pocket and nip down into the Metro and travel heaven knows where,’ Griff objected.
‘Heaven might not have its eye on everything, but there must be CCTV cameras everywhere in a city this size,’ I said.
‘Actually, not as many as in London, which I read somewhere is the CCTV capital of the world,’ Morris said. ‘Anyway, some poor minion has the job of checking all available footage for known villains.’
‘Assuming it was the said known villain that made the calls,’ I said. ‘Could be another cash contract job.’
‘It could be,’ Morris agreed, lifting a silver lid to see what the salver underneath might hold. ‘Hmmm. I love pain au chocolat. Shall I order some more?’
Griff laughed. ‘If you think Lina will let me eat such delights, you don’t know her was well as I think you do. They’re yours for the taking.’
‘Until the great god Type Two Diabetes gets you too,’ I said, not quite joking. At what age should you start worrying about such things? I’d read somewhere when I was checking up on Griff that stress as well as diet might be a factor, and Morris had enough of that for two in his life. Perhaps breakfast wasn’t the best time to nag a man who’d not slept.
‘I don’t suppose you recall the name of the stall selling dodgy wooden boxes, do you? At Hythe?’ he prompted.
‘We do so many fairs,’ Griff murmured.
‘And that one was really only memorable for the way Emilia seduced Griff,’ I said. My eyes rounding, I added, ‘As I was saying yesterday, she’s been very weird recently – you don’t suppose she’s in cahoots with Montaigne and his merry men?’
Morris grimaced. ‘Connection?’
I sighed. ‘None except the location of the oast, spitting distance from the unit where Paul works.’ I used the present tense on purpose. There was nothing on the photo to suggest he was dead, if not a
lot to show he was alive.
‘If there is one –’ he yawned – ‘we’ll find one. In fact, if you’ve got her address, Griff, I’ll get the police to talk to her. And check the unit, if they’ve not already done so when they were looking for Paul, of whom there is still no news, as far as I know. If I were him, I’d have gone to earth and would plan to spend a long time with my head down, licking my wounds. Assuming that’s physiologically possible,’ he added, raising his hand in apology when he realized I didn’t appreciate his so-called joke. Quickly changing the subject, he continued, ‘As for the soi-disant Monsieur Montaigne, the French police are after him as we speak. They should have him in their hands by tomorrow morning.’
‘I’m not so sure about that nasty little word should. He’s over here, is he?’
‘We believe so.’
‘Oh, stop sounding like a policeman,’ I said, suddenly tetchy. ‘Is he or isn’t he? I don’t want him leaping out of the unit the moment Griff and I turn up for Sunday’s rehearsal.’
‘Neither do I, believe me. In fact, I’ll get the Sussex police to check that he isn’t. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it – had them look for blood there – but you can’t be too sure. I suppose,’ he added casually – or not, ‘that you still don’t remember the name of the stallholder at Hythe?’ He smiled apologetically. ‘Coming at it again sometimes works. No?’
I pressed my fingers to my temples. I’d have given my eye teeth to have made his trick work. But at last I had to say, flatly, ‘No. But the hotel should have the name of the organizers,’ I added. ‘As for Montaigne, I gave Freya details of his mobile phone, even his car reg numbers. Why reinvent the wheel? Just talk to Freya. She surely can’t tell you to mind your own business.’
‘I wouldn’t put anything past Freya, especially a pregnant Freya.’
‘She was going to get Trading Standards to check out the provenance of the stuff on sale at the antiques centre – they might have thrown up something useful too. Hell, Morris, why do I get the feeling this is a totally fragmented investigation?’
Guilt Trip Page 18