Strip Poker

by Lisa Lawrence

  The Federation of State Medical Boards in the US had its Federation Credentials Verification Service set up in 1996. According to its website, it allowed somebody “to establish a confidential, lifetime professional portfolio that can be forwarded at the individual’s request to any interested party, including, but not limited to: state medical boards, hospitals, managed care plans and professional societies.” Terrific. Assuming my guy had applied and was in there. And they probably didn’t just hand out that kind of information to anyone.

  Maybe I was going about this the wrong way. I could go to Simon and suggest we join forces. He had the broad strokes, but I had key details about the actual murders themselves that, paired with the right information networks, could nail our blackmailer. If the Scorpions in Johannesburg could pick up Simon on their radar, certainly he must have spook resources to find out whether one of our players had also been jetting back and forth to his neck of the woods. In fact, South Africa kept back channels of communication going with Zimbabwe, so the net could spread a little wider.

  But he must have done this already. Damn, it would have been the first thing he’d do, Teresa. Think.

  It came back to me in a flash, the thing that bothered me about Anthony’s murder, that nagged at me even while I was briefing Helena and Janet Marshall about the GHB found in the law chambers. Carl had said a Scotch bottle was in the top shelf of the filing cabinet. Anthony Boulet “liked his Glenfiddich.”

  When Anthony had a drink with his killer, it was Anthony who had likely suggested it. It was his bottle, and it’s not like it was out in the open—it was in the filing cabinet after all. But Anthony booked a minicab to pick him up at his house in Islington. The police found he had used the service before, and the dispatcher recognised his voice.

  Now if Anthony was going to stop in at his house first before going on to Janet’s, what was he doing using up precious time on drinks with our anonymous killer? He knew he had to get going. No one books a minicab from one spot that’ll pick him up from somewhere else, unless he’s about to leave.

  So why offer the killer a friendly glass of Scotch? It was late. If it were somehow a business-mixed-with-pleasure, sociable occasion, Anthony would have put off the call for the cab. He could have shot the breeze, no pressure to get home in time. No, Anthony was surprised by the guy’s arrival. He had felt threatened. Let’s talk it over. Here, have a drink.

  But the more important question, the question I didn’t ask because we all thought we knew the answer, was: Why did Anthony Boulet feel he had to rush over to Janet Marshall’s home in the middle of the night?

  At first people thought they were having an affair. They were, but Janet claims things had cooled down between them. Even though he had his own key, he probably would have phoned first. If she weren’t home, he would merely wait. I had concluded he must have wanted to tell Janet about the Coltan, the whole reason for this nightmare she was being subjected to. That’s why Anthony was killed, I had told Helena and Janet. He had figured out the paper trail of manufactured capacitors to the tantalum, and all the money changing hands right back to Kinshasa.

  Only I was wrong.

  It’s not enough, and I should have known it. It didn’t ring true. When I figured it out myself, I had waited a little before going over to brief Helena and Janet. I arrived with a reason, sure, but I only had suspicions about Simon. And Anthony could have told Janet the next morning as well. He had the paper trail. The information wasn’t going to change overnight, so…

  When do you rush to someone’s home and wake her up in the middle of the night? When you know the woman you love and idolize is in imminent danger from a specific individual. When you can point an accusing finger and be sure it’s at the culprit. Only that person confronted Anthony first in his office.

  Anthony had to talk to her immediately because he knew it was one of her strip poker acquaintances. And yet both Helena and Janet said he had never taken in one of the games. That meant our killer’s name had to have been dropped in conversation, probably more than once, and Anthony put two and two together.

  It wouldn’t be a name that popped out at him from the mining files on Orpheocon. If it were that simple, Simon would have known the murderer’s identity ages ago and hunted him down first. Work locally, think globally, Teresa. Corporations are wheels within wheels. Orpheocon was a large conglomerate, and that’s why I had wrestled with the question of Ayako’s involvement, finally ignoring it as mere coincidence. Look for the wheels within wheels.

  The killer had wiped out Anthony’s web pages and the files linked to Coltan. But only those files. He assumed that if he covered up the reason for the murders, he covered up his own discovery.

  Or maybe…He was ignorant of just what tipped the solicitor off so that it wouldn’t occur to him to delete any other files.

  Either way, the reference to the killer had come as a thunderbolt to Anthony, and it must have been through a case that at first looked totally unrelated. But like Simon Highsmith of Sudan appearing out of nowhere to get dealt into strip poker games, it couldn’t be coincidence.

  Our blackmailer would turn out to be someone who wasn’t what he appeared to be. That’s what I had told myself weeks ago, and I was pretty sure it would still be true.

  Afternoon became early evening as I stared at a computer screen and photocopies of notes, print-outs of archived files. More cups of coffee than were probably good for me.

  Orpheocon, it seemed, had a pharmaceutical division. And why not? Especially when its forestry division in South America probably got its hands on the plants used for scores of patented drugs. And digging through web archives and my photocopies of scribbled notes from the law office, I learned that about ten years earlier Anthony Boulet, as a young investigator, had been poking around in the Orpheocon pharmaceutical company. He was working for a long-forgotten royal commission started during John Major’s term in office. It was supposed to look into the over-prescription of anti-depressants, and Anthony was concerned chiefly with the over-medicating of black British males.

  And one of his case histories was a teenage minor named Neil Kenan.

  Jeez. It explained a lot. Here was Anthony, doing his best to be on the side of the angels, but part of his ambivalence towards Janet’s lover could be explained by his own wrestling with the stigma of Neil’s mental illness.

  And it got better. In Anthony’s correspondence was a letter from a law firm in Massachusetts requesting information on his old research. The lawyers in Boston had launched a class-action suit against Orpheocon Pharmaceuticals over one of its drugs. “Clinical trials and post marketing reports” showed it caused in “both pediatrics and adults, severe agitation-type adverse events coupled with self-harm or harm to others. The agitation-type events included: akathisia, agitation, disinhibition, emotional lability, hostility, aggression, depersonalisation. In some cases, the events occurred within several weeks of starting treatment.”

  I watch the news. I knew what this was about. There had been studies done recently that showed heightened suicidal behaviour in kids taking anti-depressants. Not that it was relevant to what I was doing, but the law firm in Boston planned to demonstrate Orpheocon knew about these trials and didn’t adequately advise physicians about the danger. So. Their pill-makers and their mining and oil executives all worked from the same ethical songbook.

  What concerned me was that Anthony got regular updates on the case, and he must have bolted upright in his chair when he saw who Orpheocon was calling as one of its star expert witnesses.

  Doctor Daniel Giradeau.

  A doctor attached to a respected clinic in Bruges. As in Belgium. As in Belgian Congo.

  But Anthony wasn’t the only one recognising old names. What do you want to bet that when the decade-old commission research made it to those Boston lawyers, Orpheocon made sure they got their copy? Or maybe it had to be passed along under disclosure rules? I’ll bet they took great interest in Anthony Boulet’s name.

&
nbsp; And Neil Kenan? Sure, he was a minor at the time with a private medical history, but it wouldn’t take much for that big corporate octopus to learn his name. Two black men near the top of the enemies list for the UK.

  Oh, my God. Knowing Neil’s clinical history, Giradeau could whip up quite a cocktail to mess him up and implicate him in anything that happened to Janet.

  I ran—I didn’t walk, but ran—to where Wendy the receptionist had reserved a monitor for me. It was to spy on Giradeau’s fax machine, and it took me a moment to recall Jiro’s instructions on how to download the thing.

  After a moment, the image popped up—exactly as Jiro had theorized. Bloody brilliant. In neat bold printing on an angle was written: APPROVED USE OF GAMMA HYDROXYBUTYRIC ACID & KETAMINE HYDROCHLORIDE DO ASAP DUST HER & PERSONNEL AS YOU DEEM FIT.

  14

  I stared at the page and the names of the drugs. Took me all of thirty seconds on broadband to learn that one, gamma hydroxybutyric acid, was a colourless liquid. Ketamine hydrochloride was usually in pills. Oh. Shit.

  Date-rape drugs. There could only be one reason he would use these, and it wasn’t for rape.

  I picked up the phone and dialled Helena’s mobile. No, she wasn’t in Richmond, but at The Lotus Eaters club in the West End.

  “Where are you?” she asked. “Aren’t you coming?” Damn it. The game, I had practically forgotten all about the game. George was playing host back at The Lotus Eaters, and he had insisted everyone come for Janet’s sake. His party to celebrate her appointment. Of course, it would be better if she didn’t play, not when the media jackals would be sniffing around at this critical time, but she could make an appearance.

  “Helena, this is very important,” I said as I ran out the door to the BMW. “Who’s there tonight?”

  “Gosh, darling, I don’t know, everyone—Westlake, of course, Vivian, Neil, Simon, Ayako, me—”

  “Is Janet there already?”

  “Yes, but we don’t need to worry. She’s just staying for a couple of drinks and then going home with Neil to be a good girl. Bad enough someone thought they spotted a Sun photographer hanging around—”

  I was stalled at a red in Brompton Road when the policeman spotted me with the mobile to my ear. He glowered at me and with a pantomime gesture, ordered me to ring off. Shit.

  “Helena, keep her there,” I ordered. “And keep Neil there, too. Don’t let either one of them out of your sight until I get there. I don’t care if they have to go for a wee, you make sure neither one is ever alone. Don’t let them drink anything, not even water! Understand? And worst of all, don’t leave Janet and Neil together alone!”

  “Oh, my God! You’re not telling me Neil’s the killer?”

  Now the cop was making a beeline for the car. And still that light was on red, no escape.

  “No, Helena, he’s not, it’s—I can’t explain it right now, but I’ll get there as soon as I can!”

  “Should I tell Simon?”

  “No!”

  Simon’s regular answer to big problems was to start shooting, and while I had no doubt he had learned from his Secret Service trainers how to do it quietly, he might treat the others there besides Janet as collateral damage. No, thank you.

  I could only give Helena so much information over the phone. If I told her it was Giradeau, she’d freak and any suspicious behaviour around him would probably make him bolt. Helena would have a weird vibe going with Janet and Neil, but better that than my friend taking on our blackmailer all by herself.

  I had Giradeau’s true background, but I was still running with a light load when it came to hard evidence tying him to the murders.

  No answer at Carl’s extension at work. Please pick up, please pick up, please pick up—

  No response on his mobile either. As they say, you’re on your own, kid. I bring regular cops into this, it could end up a shooting gallery or at the very least a tabloid scandal.

  Unfortunately, the cop in front of me at the moment was getting really pissed off, yelling more orders that I could barely hear through the windshield and practically on top of me. I raised my hand in surrender and dropped my Nokia onto the passenger seat. Shit, shit, shit—

  But just before the policeman reached the driver’s side window, the light turned green, and I roared off. I heard him curse after me.

  From the passenger seat, my phone bleeped, and I saw from the caller ID it was Helena ringing back. I took my eyes off the road for an instant to stab the green button with a finger, and I heard her start a protest. She would be even more upset when the cop’s ticket caught up with her.

  “Teresa, if Janet hangs around, she’ll have to play!” bleated the tinny voice from the mobile on the chair. “She can’t risk public embarrassment now. It’s only days after her appointment!”

  Raining again. I turned on the wipers as I passed Hyde Park Corner. “I don’t care if she has to do tag-team humping, don’t let her leave!”

  Because the minute Janet was out of sight, Giradeau would kill her. Even better that Neil had accompanied her tonight. Daniel would make it look like a crime of passion, murder-suicide, and that was the reason for the GHB and the ketamine.

  He would slip them into the couple’s drinks, and while Janet on the GHB might black out and be more docile or unconscious, vulnerable to attack, ketamine could induce not only date-rape drug symptoms like memory loss and blackouts, but aggressive or violent behaviour. When the cops arrived, if Neil was still awake at all, he would look drunk, and his judgement would be impaired. The set-up would be perfect.

  Dust her, they had scrawled across the page. What is it with these operations that they always have to find euphemisms for killing?

  Yes, Carl and his detectives knew drugs were used on Lionel and would have been used on Anthony. But it wouldn’t matter. They didn’t have a viable suspect to pin it on yet, and our Belgian doctor was going to give them one. Janet would be dead, and Giradeau would have enough time to fly out of the country.

  A line came back to me from Neil’s favourite play, a famous line that could fit a new context: Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men.

  I flashed my invite to the doorman at the club’s main entrance, and bolted through the revolving door. I knew where the party was (up on the third floor, conference rooms), but I had no clue if the poker game was nearby or on another floor. I flew into the party room and saw about a hundred people, more than I would have expected. I guess this was George Westlake’s idea of a “small” affair.

  That meant the poker game would probably be held at a discreet distance away from the festivities. Bouncing on my heels with frantic energy, I scanned the crowd—no Helena, no Neil, no Simon, no Giradeau. No Janet. All at the game. Damn it.

  I couldn’t find one familiar face that would be in the know about the cards and frolics.

  Okay. Do the chicken with its head cut off.

  I walked briskly across the floor and began checking side corridors. In these big club/hotels, there’s always more than one exit out of a conference. The first one, I found nothing but little alcove rooms with walnut desks and green-shaded lamps, old-fashioned paintings that depicted fox hunting.

  Next corridor. Same furniture, same bad art. And a whump. What goes whump all by itself behind a door marked STAFF?

  Helena. Her weight hitting the door as her body stirred. Her green silk dress didn’t go with handcuffs. Or the electrician’s tape over her mouth.

  She was unconscious, completely out of it, so I took advantage of the moment to spare her the pain and rip the gag off. Breathing, thank God, but I bet she’d have a hell of a hangover in the morning. She didn’t look like she’d been roughed up or molested. Just drugged.

  But there could only be a couple of reasons Giradeau had deposited her here. She’d either tripped onto what he was about or he was factoring her in as another one of “Neil’s victims.” He’d be coming back for her.

  The cuffs weren’t police issue—they were the novelty kind y
ou can buy in sex shops. A standard key works on them all, and I pulled out the one I keep on my ring next to my house keys and the key to my parents’ house in Oxford. Yeah, sure, I could explain why I keep a handcuff key handy. Let’s just say it’s good to have one on you.

  “Hel? Helena? Wake up, darling.”

  No good, don’t know why I bothered.

  But I couldn’t leave her there. Giradeau would be coming back for her.

  I had to think fast, so I put one of her arms around my neck and half-carried her, half-dragged her to one of the other alcove rooms with a closet that locked. I was gambling that she could sleep it off there, and if she happened to wake up, she could let herself out but Giradeau couldn’t get in. Best thing to do was to reach him first.

  Back to headless chicken mode. Only three corridors on this floor, and as I crossed back through the party and hit the third one I spotted Neil. He stood in the hall with a drink in his hand. And by himself. Not good. But he looked reasonably sober and in control.

  “Where is she?” I demanded.

  “Who?”

  “What do you mean who?” I shot back in panic. “Janet! Where is Janet?”

  The drink. The drink he was holding. Giradeau’s drugs. I knocked the glass out of his hand, spilling it onto the carpet. He took it for a gesture of anger.

  “Oh, shit, please, Teresa, don’t make a scene. Not here. This is a big night for her—”

  “No, you don’t understa—”

  “No, Teresa, you don’t understand! I care about you, but I’m in love with Janet, and we—”

  “She’s in danger!” I shouted over him.

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “Lionel’s killer! And Anthony’s! For God’s sake, tell me where—”

  “Lionel killed himself,” he answered, and I forgot he wasn’t in the loop. Talking to himself more than to me. “And some burglar killed Boulet—”