Josh pointed at the rear doors of the van, still open with the ramp down.
‘Come on, inside,’ he said.
The back of the van was piled high with boxes and crates, but there was just enough space to squeeze behind them. Sophie froze as there was a clank, then a thud – and darkness as the driver closed the doors. She held her breath, only relaxing slightly when the diesel engine growled into life and they began to move. As they turned a corner, the boxes began to shift, and Sophie had to grab on to the side of the van, feeling Josh’s knee stabbing into her ribcage.
‘How long do you think we’re going to be stuck in here?’ she whispered.
‘Until he makes his next pit stop, I guess.’
That could be hours, thought Sophie. He could be going to Turkey for all they knew. She could feel the van take a left turn, then a right. It picked up speed, and from the change of gear and the rev of the engine, she could tell that they were going uphill. It was pitch black and hot in the back, and the dust from the floor was tickling her nose, but with every moment she felt a growing sense of relief; they had escaped again – but it had been close, very close.
‘How the hell did they find us?’ Josh hissed in the dark. ‘Damn Maurice; he was the only person who knew we were coming down here. You can bet he would have squealed if the Russians offered him some roubles.’
‘Russians?’ whispered Sophie. She remembered the man swearing as she had kicked him; it hadn’t been French, that was for sure. Had it been the same men as the night by the river? Had they followed them all this way? Somehow that was all the more terrifying – whatever they thought she had, they must really want it badly.
‘Russians, Germans, I don’t bloody know who they are,’ growled Josh. ‘All I know is they were waiting for us – they must have known we were on the train.’
Sophie felt a sudden wave of guilt.
‘It could have been me,’ she said quietly.
She waited for Josh to reply, but he didn’t say anything.
‘I’m so sorry, Josh,’ she whispered. ‘When you were buying the tickets, I phoned my mother. I thought it would be okay because we were leaving the city,’ she said, her words quickening up as she tried to explain herself. ‘As I was talking, there was a tannoy announcement about the departure to Nice and I said “I’ve got to go”. So stupid, it must have been obvious.’
‘But that would mean they’ve been bugging your mum’s phone,’ said Josh.
‘She did say she had been burgled. Maybe—’
‘You stupid bloody idiot,’ he growled, his voice rising. ‘You could have got us both killed, do you realise that? In fact you still might – why can’t you do anything I ask?’
‘Shh!’ she hissed. ‘Calm down, the driver will hear us.’
‘Fuck the driver!’ he snapped.
‘Look, it was a mistake, Josh. I’m sorry.’
‘The mistake was getting involved with you in the first place,’ he barked. ‘I could have been sitting on my boat right now, drinking a beer, enjoying the sunshine. But no, I got sucked in by a damsel in distress. I took pity on you and look where it’s got me! In the back of a bloody van hiding from an entire team of well-organised goons who all seem to want to kill you. I’m starting to think they’ve got a bloody point!’
‘Josh, please! None of this is my fault . . .’
‘Yeah? Well, those Russians or whatever they are seem to think differently. What is it they want from you, Sophie? You’ve clearly got something if they’re going to the effort of bugging your mother and following you to France. What do you know? Because I’m starting to think there’s something you’re not telling me.’
‘I don’t know anything!’ she shouted, but then was thrown backwards against the side of the van as it screeched to a halt. They heard footsteps on the pavement and then the back of the van opened, blinding them with the sudden light.
‘Mon Dieu!’
Calmly Josh stood up, ducking his head under the roof of the van.
‘Bonjour,’ he said to the flabbergasted driver. ‘Excusez-moi. Je pense que nous sommes perdus.’
Sophie crawled out from under the boxes and sheepishly followed Josh on to the street. The driver just stood there, his mouth open, watching as they walked away.
They were in a high part of the city, looking down over the terracotta rooftops of Nice, and beyond that the glistening silver of the Mediterranean. If she squinted, Sophie could just about make out the station and the train tracks that snaked out east and west. There was a bang behind them and they turned to see the van pull away.
‘There goes our ride,’ said Josh. He didn’t look angry any more, just shaken and resigned.
‘What did you say to him?’ asked Sophie.
‘I’m sorry, I think we are lost.’
Sophie couldn’t help it: she burst out laughing.
25
It hadn’t been a productive day at the Washington Tribune’s London bureau. Ruth rubbed her eyes and gave her piece one last read before submitting it. Looking radiant in a scarlet Issa dress, Kate held her husband’s hand and waved to the small crowd . . . She smiled ruefully; a story on the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visiting the American Embassy for a tea party wasn’t exactly Watergate, was it? Normally Ruth would have passed something like this on to Jim’s PA Rebecca – she seemed to love these kind of assignments – but as Rebecca had called in sick with a bout of menstrual cramps, Ruth had been forced to bite the bullet. Jim wanted 750 upbeat, smiley words about the royals meeting the ambassador, and Ruth needed to keep him sweet while she worked on the Riverton murder.
Clicking the ‘send’ button on her computer, she pulled out her earplugs, sat back in her chair and took a swig of her coffee. Eww – stone cold. She desperately needed a caffeine hit if she was going to make it to the end of the day; she’d been pulling too many late nights recently.
‘Hey, Chuck,’ she said, waving her paper cup at her colleague across the office. ‘Any chance of doing a coffee run?’
Chuck smiled and held up his own cup.
‘I went ten minutes ago,’ he said. ‘I did ask, but you had your headphones on and I didn’t want to disturb the master at work.’
Dammit. She dropped her coffee cup into the trash bin and looked across to Jim’s office; the lights were off. Chuck was right, Ruth had been ‘in the zone’, bent over her computer writing her royals story for the last hour – she hadn’t even noticed the bureau chief leave.
‘Where’s the boss man got to?’ she asked Chuck.
‘Pub, round of golf, shopping for shoes? Who knows – he never shares his plans with me.’
Ruth laughed. She liked Chuck. He was far too much of a company man to ever question Jim in an editorial meeting, but get him on his own and he could be sarcastic and funny.
‘Maybe he’s gone to help Rebecca with her women’s problems,’ he said with a knowing smile.
‘My money’s on that one,’ said Ruth playfully. Perhaps it wasn’t strictly professional to gossip about your boss behind his back, but it made the working day a little more fun. Jim’s relationship with his PA had been a running joke between the rest of the staff. It was pure speculation, and especially considering they were all hard news journalists, no one had a shred of evidence to back it up, but the two of them did seem particularly pally. Anyway, if it was true, Ruth could certainly have understood it. It was an occupational hazard of being a foreign correspondent that it was difficult to maintain relationships. There was a high turnover of staff and the particular stresses of the job tended to mean you were either absent, overworked or both; not ideal traits in a potential Mr or Miss Right – she knew that from personal experience. She was pulled from her thoughts by the insistent ringing of her desk phone. She grabbed it.
‘Miss Boden?’
The voice was American: Texan, Ruth guessed. Low slung and treacly.
‘Yes, this is Ruth Boden,’ she said.
‘This is Jeanne Parsons. I got a message from my ho
usekeeper to call you urgently.’
Ruth was surprised the woman had called back so promptly. Overnight, the Washington office had assisted in tracking down Nick Beddingfield’s girlfriend, providing her with a number first thing that morning. Ruth had indeed spoken to the housekeeper, who had rather tersely told her that ‘Mizz Jeanne is sleeping.’
‘Thank you for calling me back,’ said Ruth. ‘I’m phoning about your friend Nick Beddingfield.’
There was a pause, and Ruth could hear a door being closed.
‘Yes, Nick,’ said the woman finally. ‘How is he?’
‘I’m afraid I have some bad news. Nick Beddingfield is dead.’
Ruth clicked on to her computer and pulled up the photograph of Jeanne Parsons that the Washington office had sent over. It had clearly been taken at some sort of society function; she was wearing an off-the-shoulder ball gown and holding a flute of champagne. She was a perky, smiling forty-something blonde, with a tiny body and big breasts; the sort Ruth imagined to be the life and soul of any party, except she certainly wasn’t smiling now.
‘Oh no,’ she said, her voice trembling. Ruth heard the click and hiss of a cigarette being lit and imagined the hazy blue smoke being blown at the ceiling. God, I could do with one right now, she thought.
‘How did it happen?’ asked Jeanne.
‘He was found dead in a hotel room in London, the Riverton. The police are treating it as suspicious.’
‘And who are you, Miss Boden? Are you not a police officer?’
‘No, I’m a journalist.’
‘Ah, that figures,’ said the woman. ‘So if you’re a reporter, I guess you’ll know Nick was more than my friend.’
‘Yes. And I’m so sorry to have to tell you this.’
There was another pause.
‘So what do you want to know?’
Ruth flipped her notebook open.
‘I want to know who might have wanted to kill him. Did he have any enemies? Had any business deals gone wrong?’
‘That boy ticked off a ton of people over the years, honey. He was always hustling people.’
‘Hustling people? How exactly?’
‘Whichever way he could. Let’s just say he could charm the birds down from the trees – and he often did.’
‘So you’re saying Nick was a con man?’ asked Ruth, her pencil poised over her pad.
‘Well that depends on your point of view, doesn’t it? Nick was a salesman, he could sell anyone anything – does that make him a con man? He was a businessman, I guess, but he sailed pretty close to the wind sometimes.’
‘Like what?’
‘One time we went to Dallas and he talked a Ferrari showroom into letting him “borrow” some bright red quarter-of-a-mil monster for the week while he decided if it was “up to his standards”. I had to send someone to take it back because I knew he was never going to.’
She gave a gentle, affectionate laugh.
‘But he was such fun. He made life fun and you don’t realise how seductive that can be. When I was with him, I felt we were like Bonnie and Clyde. Little old me, boring society wife.’
‘You’re married?’ said Ruth with surprise, then felt foolish. Of course she was married.
‘And not to Nicky,’ laughed Jeanne. ‘Although sometimes I wished I was.’
‘How long were you in a relationship for?’
‘About two years on and off. I gave Nicky the keys to my bachelorette flat in Houston and he stayed there when he wasn’t flying off around the world.’
‘When was the last time you saw him?’
‘About a month ago, I guess. I live in Dallas with my husband and only saw Nicky about every month or so for a night at a time – I think you can guess how it all worked. But lately he’d been spending a lot of time in Europe. I did hear things, though.’
‘You heard things? About Nick?’
Jeanne sighed.
‘What we had was barely an affair, we were both too busy for that. But in my world, people like to talk. This life, this society as they call it, it’s a tiny place. Each one of us, we live our lives in a fishbowl, everyone knows everything about everyone. So yes, people knew about me and Nick and they would go out of their way to tell me how they’d seen him in Megève with an American heiress or in Monte Carlo with some old countess. People are vicious, Miss Boden. Quite vicious.’
‘And do you know why he was in London?’
‘Not exactly, but I spoke to him a couple of weeks ago and he told me he was going to be in England for a big business thing. He said if I heard on the grapevine that he’d been seen in London with a young, beautiful woman, I was not to worry because it was just work.’ She laughed again, but this time it sounded sad. ‘That was Nick; so sweet. He thought I didn’t know about the other women, wanted to spare my feelings.’
‘I’m so sorry, Jeanne.’
‘So am I,’ she whispered, her voice finally breaking. ‘So am I.’
26
Cannes was having one of its hottest days of the summer. In the harbour, the gleaming white yachts gently bumped together while the Mediterranean twinkled in approval, as if a thousand diamonds from one of the smarter jewellers on the quayside had been sprinkled over the tide. Sophie wound down the window of their taxi and closed her eyes, feeling the breeze in her hair, the taste of the sea on her tongue – she felt as if she was coming awake after a very long sleep. It was a day that made you feel glad to be alive, but for Sophie that feeling took on a quite literal meaning. She was still shell-shocked from their brush with the Russians and absolutely furious with herself for putting them both in danger.
Josh was obviously unhappy too. He had been silent for most of the forty-minute journey from the outskirts of Nice – still fuming from her revelation in the back of the van – and not even the sight of the bright Riviera streets, hemmed in by happy holidaymakers and chic residents on both sides, was enough to make him smile.
The taxi stopped at a crossing to allow a tall, beautiful woman in a leopard-print bikini to pass. She was wearing five-inch heels and was carrying a tiny dog in a Louis Vuitton holdall.
‘I’m not sure Cannes has heard about the global recession,’ said Sophie, trying to lighten the mood.
‘Russians,’ said Josh flatly as an image of the stony-faced hit men jumped into her mind. ‘The West might be in a recession, but for lots of countries these are boom times. Ten years ago this place was full of the wealthy French and a sprinkling of the Euro elite; now they call the Riviera “Moscow on Sea”.’
His expression softened as he pointed to the swish shops and hotels all along the Croisette. ‘I bet you every one of those places has someone who speaks Russian these days. They can’t afford not to.’
At the harbour, the taxi turned away from the sea and into the old town, stopping on a narrow lane faced on both sides by little boutiques and cafés, a high-rent area for wealthy patrons with sports cars and Range Rovers parked at the meters.
‘Are you sure this is the place?’ Sophie asked Josh as they paused across the road from a wine shop with an arty display of fine champagne in the window. It had an ornate wooden frontage with carved stone pillars either side of the door; there was even scrolled gold lettering on the glass: M. Durand, Wine Merchant. It looked formal, establishment – the last place, in fact, you would expect to be a front for criminal activity.
‘A lot of things are not all they appear on the surface,’ said Josh, ‘I thought you would have worked that out by now.’
Sophie began to object, but then bit her lip. She really had no wish to provoke an argument, especially as she was still feeling so guilty about what had happened in Nice. But still, she felt nervous – intimidated, even – about going inside such a grand-looking shop.
‘What are we going to say in there?’ she asked.
‘You aren’t going to say anything,’ said Josh.
‘Of course, I’m not allowed to do anything,’ she said tartly. ‘But what are you going to say to him
?’
‘Give me your purse.’
Sophie frowned. ‘Josh, I asked you a question.’
‘Give me your purse,’ he repeated. Reluctantly she handed it over and watched as he took something out and put it in his pocket.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked, but he was already crossing the road and Sophie could only follow.
If the exterior of M. Durand’s establishment had looked exclusive, the inside was forbidding. There was a pyramid of Cristal champagne at one end of the shop, signs – as Josh had predicted – written in Russian, and a whole wall devoted to the finest red wines, their labels proudly pointing outwards for inspection. Not that you were actually supposed to touch anything, that much was clear. These wines were presented as if they were artworks, their green bottles sculptures in a museum.
‘May I help you?’ said a pinched forty-something man in heavily accented English. His black eyebrows rose as if to signify that he found the idea extremely unlikely.
Josh took the business card that had been in Sophie’s purse moments earlier and deliberately put it on the counter, facing the man.
‘Detective Inspector Ian Fox,’ he said. ‘From Scotland Yard in London. I imagine you’ve heard of it?’
Sophie saw the man’s manner immediately change. His initial self-possession melted away and he became instantly more compliant and eager to please. She imagined that a Russian wielding a chequebook would have had a similar effect.
‘Please, give me one moment,’ he said, walking behind them to lock the door and turn the ‘Ouvert’ sign to ‘Fermé’ before pulling down the blinds.
‘We can talk more privately now,’ he said slowly. ‘I am Monsieur Durand, the proprietor of this establishment. How can I help you?’
Josh cut straight to the chase.
‘I’m investigating the death of Nick Beddingfield,’ he said. ‘You do know Mr Beddingfield?’
There was a brief, telling pause as if Monsieur Durand did not know which way to jump.
‘Yes, I know him. Not well, but our paths have crossed through my business.’
Perfect Strangers Page 22