by David Linzee
“Have a run? Not likely. They’d take off in all different directions and I’d be the rest of the day chasing ’em. And God forbid I came back without one of ’em.”
“Dogs are rather doted on, are they?”
“Too right. They’ve got their grooming sessions and their nail-clippings and their play dates. I have to make an appointment to take ’em out for a shite.”
Renata laughed. She recognized it as the carefree trill of Musetta in La Bohème, a role she had sung for Opera North last spring. It caused the irritable man to glance at her for the first time, so she followed it up with the direct look and shameless-flirt smile Musetta gave the audience before launching into “Quando m’en vo.”
The dog walker smiled back, uncertainly. He had a long, sallow face, and eyes so close together they seemed crossed. She supposed he didn’t get much attention from the Musettas of the world.
“I’m headed for the Heath, too. Mind if I walk with you?”
The smile vanished. He blinked and tucked his chin into his collar, like a child expecting to be hit. “Best not.”
Not knowing what to make of that response, she walked on beside him, wondering what to say next. They were passing along the wall of one of the empty houses. As they neared the gate, the dogs picked up their pace. Moving as one, they veered toward it. The man clucked his tongue and tugged at their leashes in vain. In front of the gate they sat down, their long bushy tails sweeping the ground behind them.
“You go ahead,” he said to Renata. “Go!”
She twigged. “You bring them in here, don’t you? Let them off lead, sit and have a fag while they do their business.” He was a smoker; she could smell it on his jacket. “Saves you a quarter-mile walk to the Heath.”
He blinked and ducked again. “It’s not the walk I mind. But the bleedin’ dogs—one of ’em squats in the middle of somebody’s driveway, and some guard sees it on CCTV, and before the turd has dropped, he’s out there waving his Kalashnikov in my face and telling me to clean it up.”
The dogs were looking up at him with large, hopeful eyes. Pechorin was whimpering with excitement.
“We can’t just stand here,” he said. “Clear off, why don’t you?”
“I’ll go in with you.”
He was in no position to argue. Grasping the padlock with one hand, he pulled a key out of his pocket with the other.
“How’d you get the key?”
“Friend at the security firm gave it me. Same one who told me this was all bollocks.” He nodded his head at the no-trespassing sign, with its warning that the grounds were regularly patrolled and under constant CCTV surveillance.
He pushed open the gate and the dogs bounded through. Renata followed, looking around at the forlorn grounds. The concrete drive was coated with green moss, the lawn overgrown and dotted with fallen tree limbs. The house itself, a handsome redbrick Georgian, showed long rows of boarded-up windows. The dogs, frantic with impatience, were circling the man as he locked the gates behind them. Then he unleashed them and they scattered into the undergrowth, noses to the ground, snorting and panting with canine happiness.
The man came up to her. His head was down, too. “You said you’re a friend of the Grineviches?”
“Don’t worry, I won’t grass on you. I work for Mr. Grinevich, too. I’m a singer.”
He looked relieved. “Should’ve figured you for a musician, with a coat like that.”
Letting the insult to her well-worn Marks & Spencer’s anorak pass, she said, “My name’s Renata, and I should like to ask you a favor.”
“I’m Neal.” He gave a noncommittal shrug and offered her a cigarette. They sat on a noble balustrade that was cracked and chipped, on either side of an urn that had lost both handles. Neal smoked and Renata held her cigarette at arm’s length.
“Do you know Grinevich’s staff?”
“What, the girls in the office, ground floor at the back? There’s always a flap on in there, and they’re running about with two phones to their heads, but we nod to each other.”
“I’d like you to ask one of them for a paper. A guest list for the party Grinevich held on Saturday.”
Neal gave his blink and duck. “Don’t know if I can do that.”
“It’s terribly important. The party was a sort of concert. I sang. Bloke came up to me afterward, said he ran a small opera company and might have a job for me. And I lost his card. Such a fool.”
She was rather proud of this tale, which she had made up on the spot. Peter himself couldn’t have done better. Neal seemed to accept it without question. But that didn’t mean he’d help her. He sat in silence for a while, nervously picking shreds of tobacco from his lips.
Finally he said, “Couldn’t do it now. Pechorin’s the first dog I drop off. If I go in the house with him, it’ll mean leaving the rest of ’em with Sean at the gate for too long. One of ’em’s bound to leave his calling card, and that’ll put Sean in a rage. He can be a surly bastard.”
Taking another leaf from Peter’s book, she kept silent, giving him time to talk himself into helping her.
“On the six o’clock round, though, Pechorin’s my only dog. I could maybe nip in the house then. Say I needed the loo. They always send me to the one at the back. Near the office. Girls’ll still be there. That’s when they get the calls from America.”
Renata smiled but kept her silence. He’d almost talked himself ’round. But abruptly he tossed away the cigarette and sat up straight, giving her a hard, sidelong glance. “Look here. How do I know you’re not one of that anti-Putin lot?”
“The demonstrators? No.”
“We’ve had them in front of the house, waving their signs and shouting all sorts of rubbish.”
“Neal, all I want is the guest list.”
“Maybe that’s not what you’re after at all. You know I bring the dogs in here. Now you’re trying to get something else on me. What’s your game?” His chin had sunk into his collar and he was blinking rapidly.
“I’m a singer. Looking for a job. That’s all.”
“Sing something then.”
“No. That’s ridiculous. I can show you ID—”
“What’ll that prove? You say you’re a singer. Prove it.”
“Oh … very well. What would you like to hear?” She searched her memory for the shortest aria she knew that would sound passable sung a capella. “How about ‘Voi che sapete’?”
He wrinkled up his nose. “None of that foreign muck. Sing ‘Memory.’ That’s a good one.”
Her heart sank. She had never seen Cats. Like everyone, she’d heard ‘Memory’ countless times in cars and waiting rooms. But she didn’t really know it. All she could do was an imitation of Betty Buckley, or Barbra Streisand, or whoever was singing it in her head. And it wouldn’t sound like them. She was a trained singer, and had never really figured out the crossover thing—not that anyone else had done it totally successfully, except maybe Frederica von Stade or Dawn Upshaw.
Neal lit another cigarette. Folded his arms and looked at her. Impatiently. Suspiciously.
Renata stood up, faced him squarely, breathed in, and launched into “Memory.”
It was acutely painful. Her breathing was off. She couldn’t quite recall where the key modulations happened. Sometimes she even failed to remember a word and had to slur her way through. And, unable to shake the voice of Barbra Streisand in her head, she could hear herself doing strange pop singer swoops that would make any other classical singer shudder. She hoped he would be satisfied and tell her to stop. But he made her go on to the last note. Perhaps she was butchering the number so badly he didn’t believe she was a professional.
She’d ended up gazing heavenward, which she hoped was an appropriate bit of characterization. Lowering her eyes, she found that Neal was standing with his back to her, shoulders hunched, both hands gripping the balustrade, like a passenger about to be sick over the ship’s rail.
“Sorry,” she said.
Neal turn
ed to her. His eyes were full of tears. A moment passed before he was able to choke out, “That was … beautiful.”
Chapter Nine
Renata spent the rest of the afternoon at the National Theatre. A friend who was an assistant stage manager there had offered her a gig as a light walker, which meant she filled in for a performer while they set the lighting cues. It didn’t pay much, but it paid at once. She would be handed a check before leaving the building. Considering her current cash-flow crisis, the check would be most welcome.
For a couple of hours, she stood, sat, or walked slowly up and down the stage of the Olivier Theatre, while at the back of the empty auditorium, the boffins on the lighting board tried out various hues, angles, and intensities. Since all she had to was reflect light, she had time to think. Far too much time.
She was afraid that Neal the dog walker was going to get cold feet. If she never heard from him again, it would put paid to her attempts to find out whom Don was working for. She had no other ideas for preventing him from being deceived and manipulated. And Peter was on his trail. Literally. If Don caught him and they got into a fight, who would win? Renata was wonderful at coming up with questions she could fret pointlessly about, and this one tormented her for a good half-hour before she reached the satisfying conclusion that Peter was stronger and faster but Don would fight dirtier, and they would both end up in hospital.
The boffins were at last satisfied. She filled out the paperwork and collected her check. Climbing the steps to Waterloo Bridge, she set off across the Thames. It was dark now, and much colder, but even so, she had to stop for a moment, lean her elbow on a parapet, and take in the sweep of the riverfront. The floodlights did wonderfully by it.
Parliament stood forth in warm brown, highlighted in gold. She turned the other way, to the colonnade of Somerset House, the spire of St. Bride’s, the dome of St. Paul’s. Lights glittered in the glass skyscrapers of The City.
Ordinarily she took her native town for granted, abandoning its splendors to the tourists. But she had been feeling a renewed loyalty ever since Peter had suggested that her future lay elsewhere. She would inevitably be offered an administrative job in an opera company somewhere in America, he had said. She’d been arguing with him in her thoughts ever since. She was a Londoner. She was not going to leave the greatest city in the world for Minneapolis or Sarasota.
Renata did not need her therapist to tell her that this was avoidance. She did not want to think about retiring from the stage. A pessimist about most things, she had boundless hope for her career. This bad patch would end. The jobs would start to come. The ring of her mobile banished these pleasant musings. Peter, she thought, calling from the emergency room of Granger Hospital. She put the phone to her ear and said hello. The voice was so soft she couldn’t make out what it was saying. She covered her other ear with her hand. “What? Say again, please.”
“I said I’ve got it.”
“Neal? Oh, well done. Where are you?”
“Just left the house. I’m taking Pechorin to the Heath.”
“Ah, doing what you’re supposed to for a change.”
He did not respond to this sally. It seemed Neal wasn’t in the mood to join in her festivities. She said, “Did you have a hard time getting the list?”
“No. New York was on the line about some change in Grinevich’s schedule they hadn’t been told about. The whole office was at sixes and sevens. I grabbed this one girl by the elbow, told her about the list and why you wanted it, and she found it, made a copy, and handed it to me.”
“Oh, you gave them my name.”
“That was the idea, wasn’t it?”
It had been the idea. She wondered why it made her uneasy now. The anxiety in Neal’s voice must be catching. She said, “You’ve got the list. All’s well.”
“Not so sure. Don’t know what kind of reception I’ll get when I take Pechorin back. Grinevich’s usually home by then.”
“The girls don’t tell him half the things they do to smooth his path through life. Not to worry.”
“Look, I’m the one whose job’s on the line. If Grinevich sacks me and the other dog-owners hear why—”
“I’ll get there quick as I can and take the list off your hands.”
“Bring money.”
“What?”
“I’ll need money if I’m sacked. Bring two hundred pounds or it’s all off.”
That was more than the check she had just received. Her cash-flow crisis would worsen. Renata swallowed hard. “All right. Where do we meet?”
“Hampstead Heath. Top of Parliament Hill.”
He rang off.
Forty-five minutes later she emerged from a grove of trees and began to climb the grassy, steep slope of Parliament Hill. It was the highest point in all London, someone had told her, and soon she was breathing hard. Her nerves were taut. The journey had taken much too long. She’d had to locate a cash point, then a second one, because the amount was over the limit. She considered a cab, but it was rush hour and the streets were clogged, so she took a crowded and halting underground train. The wind grew stronger and colder as she climbed. She hoped Neal hadn’t given up on her, that his greed was holding fast against his nerves.
But all the while, in the darkness atop the hill, Neal was lying dead.
Chapter Ten
Renata stared down at Neil’s twisted, bloody form and bashed-in skull. She brushed in vain at the blood on her skirt. She had banged up one knee while tripping over the corpse, but other than the bloodstains on her clothing, she wasn’t much the worse for wear. Swallowing hard, she touched in 999 and said, in a voice she hardly recognized, that she had found a dead body on Parliament Hill. The calm woman said a car was on the way and began to ask her questions. They quickly became too complicated for Renata. She said she would stay here and rang off.
She had wandered a long way from the body while she talked. She forced herself to return to it. Should she search it for the guest list? The idea filled her with revulsion, and the 999 operator had just told her not to touch anything, but—
She broke off these pointless thoughts. How stupid could she be? She wasn’t going to find the list. Whoever had killed Neal had taken it. The list was the reason he was dead.
The blood-slick phone was still in her hand. She wanted to throw it away, but there was another call to make. She scrolled until her brother’s name appeared on the phone’s bright screen and pressed the call button, setting off the many digits of his mobile number. What time was it in St. Louis? The simple calculation was beyond her. The phone rang and rang. Then the recording.
She said, “Don, you are working for a murderer. Stop doing what he tells you. Get right clear of him. Now.”
Appropriately for the neighborhood, Hampstead Police Station was old-fashioned and rather high-toned. It had cream-over-light green paint on its walls, hissing radiators, and stout wooden doors with frosted-glass windows. Renata gave her statement to a young policewoman seated at a computer. Looking at the screen rather than at her, the woman asked innumerable questions, many of which seemed pointless. The police seemed to be keenly interested in Pechorin. Had she seen his leash? What about paw prints?
The paw prints of a gigantic hound, Renata said to herself, quoting Sherlock Holmes, and had to stifle a giggle. Her nerves were shot.
Finally, the interview was finished, and the policewoman left her sitting beside the desk. She waited for a long time. She wished that she could call Peter, but the police had taken her mobile. Its bloody state made it part of the crime scene.
At length, a portly man with gray hair, tufted eyebrows, and a ruddy face sat down behind the desk. He was wearing a tweed jacket and tie and carrying several folders. His manner, as he introduced himself as Detective Inspector McAllister and ranged the folders across the desk, was so deliberate that she felt he ought to be wearing a cardigan and smoking a pipe. He opened a file and began to read. Minutes passed. It was as if they were two strangers sitting next to each
other in a train.
She could stand it no more. “I know I’ve behaved very stupidly,” she blurted out. “I got that poor man killed.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Ms. Radleigh. You may have had little to do with Marsh’s death.”
This statement baffled Renata. She said, “Marsh?”
“Neal Marsh. He was known to police, as the saying goes. Only small stuff—drunk and disorderly, passing bad checks, that sort of thing.”
Renata blinked and shook her head. The police seemed to be awash in irrelevance. “You have read my statement, Inspector?”
“Oh yes.”
“The list I was talking about—the guest list—it wasn’t found on the body, was it?”
“No.”
“That means that the killer took it.”
“Or that Marsh never had it at all.”
“Of course he did. He got it from someone on Grinevich’s staff.”
“We’ve interviewed the young ladies. They all denied giving Marsh papers of any sort.”
“One of them is lying. She doesn’t want to get in trouble.”
The jutting eyebrows rose. “Lying to the police in a homicide investigation is one sure way of getting in trouble,” he said. “We rather think they’re telling the truth.”
“Then you think I’m lying.”
He shook his large pink-and-gray head firmly. “I’m making no such accusation, Ms. Radleigh.”
“Neal … Marsh … he told me he had the list.”
“In the course of maneuvering you into a pretty desolate locale, with a large amount of cash in your pocket. And he’s a man with a record. You may have had a narrow escape this evening.”
“You seem to think I’m quite stupid. You’re not taking my statement seriously.”
“Of course we are. But there’s little in your statement to concern the Metropolitan Police. You—or in fact it seems to be more your friend Mr. Lombardo—think that your brother is involved in some sort of dodgy real estate transaction in America. It doesn’t seem to me that Mr. Lombardo has evidence laws are being broken, but I’m the first to admit, I don’t know American laws. I would advise him to contact the local authorities. That’s really all I can say about your statement.”