With a sigh I laid aside the brush. ‘Sorry, G, that phone’s getting on my nerves. Gotta go.’ I gave her a light prod.
Cue for well-rehearsed battle manoeuvres. G stiffened her legs, claws emerging in readiness to clamp. I rose speedily to my feet, pausing long enough midway for her to abandon ship.
Perleep perlee…
‘Hi, DJ.’ Jayne’s voice. ‘You’ve a summons from Monique Devereux. I’ll read it out. Ms Smith has omitted to leave me the arrangements for the next Outing. Ask her to bring them to Exclusive’s premises at 5 p.m. today. Monies due to her will then be paid. Hey, must be missing you already. Maybe a chance to get reinstated.’
‘Bit of luck, then, that I took my Outing notes home to work on. Thanks, Jayne.’
I had till 5 p.m. Plenty of time to re-establish relations with a somewhat peeved cat before venturing into the lion’s den.
With the arrangements for the Sunset Outing clutched in my hand, I pushed open the etched glass doors of Exclusive’s office suite. There were a couple of little details still to complete. Monique, or my successor, would have to see to those. Tough, mala suerte, as the Spaniards say. I clip-clipped across the expanse of polished marble towards the reception desk. My arrival had been radioed from the gate, so Miguel was expecting me, but there was no customary greeting of Buenas tardes, guapita. Instead, he kept his head lowered, ostensibly reading the Exclusive newsletter. Upside down.
I came to a halt in front of him. He didn’t look up. I gave a little cough. ‘Hola, Miguel. I’ve an appointment with Señora Devereux.’
‘She is expecting you, señora. Please go up.’ Averted eyes, a faint flush along the cheekbones evidence of his embarrassment.
I turned away.
His soft whisper just carried. ‘They find your message on the answering machine. They go crazy.’ I felt his eyes on me as I made my way to the lift.
With all that fuss about gatecrashing the party, the message I’d left on the answering machine to divert last night’s calls to Jayne had slipped my mind. Oh well, this didn’t really add to my woes. Perhaps I could even turn it to my advantage, proof that I’d not been totally irresponsible.
The brushed-steel elevator doors opened silently onto the corridor. In the coming meeting with Monique, now that things were past redemption, should I be devil-may-care, or penitent and apologetic on the thousand-to-one chance that she might change her mind?
I pushed open the door to my ex-office and stopped in amazement. Less than twenty-four hours ago it had been decorated in modern minimalist style – white walls, white ceiling, white marble floor, black leather furniture with shiny chrome tubular legs.
All gone. Goodbye the black and white minimalist style, the primary colours of the Mondrian painting. Hello, the heavy brocades, dark furniture and gloomy decor of seventeenth-century Spain.
Monique was standing near the window. ‘As you see, Cousin Ashley and I have made a few changes.’ An open-necked white shirt and pinstripe suit had replaced the Snow Queen’s glittering gown, but the frost was still in her voice. The frost hardened into ice. ‘This is the Deborah Smith who took your job, Ashley.’ Pointedly, she didn’t ask me to take a seat.
I looked over at the elegant woman sitting at my desk. Except for her elfin hairstyle she was a clone of Monique. She had the same large brown eyes and perfect facial bone structure, the same expertly pencilled eyebrows and enamelled nails.
It had been obvious all along that Monique had never reconciled herself to my appointment as her assistant. Unfortunately, when it came to the crunch Vanheusen had had other priorities in the shape of a gingery bride for Black Prince. Now that I’d blotted my copybook, she had seized her chance and lost no time moving Ashley in – stepping into the shoes of the departed while they were still warm, and all that.
Cousin Ashley, as the pseudo-owner of that villa named Shangri-la, was almost certainly an accomplice in his money-laundering scheme, involved right up to the tips of her shell-like ears. And while I was in cliché mode, this new broom had certainly swept clean. A few changes, eh? There was nothing left of the old office, nothing at all.
‘I can see you’ve made changes, but…but…’ I floundered to a halt.
I’d hit the right note. They exchanged gratified smiles. Ashley crossed her elegant legs and sat back in the chair behind the desk, not my familiar tubular chrome and leather swivel but an ornately carved throne padded with velvet cushions.
‘Isn’t Monique marvellous.’ She made it a statement of fact, not a question. ‘These furnishings are so much more in keeping with the Exclusive image. And they give a real sense of place.’ She settled herself against the velvet cushions and gazed round appreciatively at the gloomy decor. ‘You never liked that modernistic scheme of his, did you, Nicky? Ambrose only needed the teeniest of prods and—’ A warning look from Monique cut her short.
‘Let’s just say that I advised Mr Vanheusen that the modern look was cold and soulless,’ Monique was smoothly diplomatic. ‘Our clients have firm roots in the past.’
That translated as fuddy-duddy, conservative and dull. It summed up rather nicely what I felt about this make-over of theirs.
‘Now, if you’ll just hand over the arrangements for the next Outing…’ Ashley, overeager, half-rose from her seat.
There aren’t many pluses to summary dismissal, but one was that I didn’t have to be on duty in Exclusive’s office at 8 a.m. I could lie in bed a little longer in the morning. To savour that pleasure in full, I left the alarm switched off. Best-laid schemes of mice and men and all that. I’d forgotten to communicate this decision to Gorgonzola. Dragged into consciousness by fishy breath on my face and a persistent twitch of the sheet, I levered open one eyelid. Pitch black, not even dawn, early even by feline standards.
‘Gerroff, G.’ I dragged the sheet over my head, buried my face in the pillow and drifted down…down…
Thump thump thump. An infantry battalion plodded up and down my back, merciless, relentless. Only four feline feet, but it felt like forty. Eyes shut tight, I willed myself to stay asleep. Relax…Relax… Think of it as therapeutic foot massage in some expensive Asian spa resort.
It was no use. I flung back the sheet. ‘Can’t I have one decent night’s sleep?’ I snarled. ‘It’s not even dawn, for God’s sake.’
I heard the soft thump of feet on floor, followed by a faint piteous mew. Enormous copper eyes stared at me, plaintive, reproachful. All an act. I knew it. She knew it.
‘OK, G, you win.’ I padded my way to the kitchen, wincing as my bare feet made contact with cold terracotta tiles. She scampered ahead, bushy tail a triumphant moth-eaten banner.
I retired back to bed, drew the sheet round me, closed my eyes and waited for sleep. And waited… And waited… An hour later I was staring at the ceiling, now faintly visible in the grey light of dawn. I might as well get up… I was lying there, still contemplating action, when the phone call came from Jayne at the office.
‘Hi-i-i, Jayne,’ I yawned. ‘You’re the second female to disturb my beauty sleep this morning. Something come up?’
‘We’re going to have to make some modifications to today’s trip to the north. Come in early, will you.’ None of the usual banter, an alarm signal that brought me wide awake in an instant.
‘OK, Jayne.’ For the benefit of any listener on the line, I heaved a sigh. ‘See you.’
Early was the Department code for urgent. From her subdued tones, I gathered that Jayne was signalling some sort of a setback. And it must be a big one for the bouncy, voluble Jayne to be reduced to a couple of sentences. All the way to the office I worried about it.
The cheerful rainbow logo on the plate-glass windows only served to deepen my sombre mood. No pot of gold, but something dark and disturbing, waited behind this rainbow, I was sure of it. The Department didn’t issue alerts lightly. Whatever it was, I wanted to delay discovery – my fingers were fractionally slower unlocking the door, my traverse across the floor to the one-way m
irror fractionally protracted, my smile in the one-way mirror forced. Behind me in the mirror, I could see Jayne’s desk, papers precision stacked, computer covered, the only sign of life the red glow of the light on the answering machine. The levered locks clicked softly. I could put this off no longer. I took a deep breath and pushed open the door.
‘What’s this all about, guys? Has—’ The words died in my throat.
They were sitting there in silence, staring at the floor or the wall or the ceiling. Nobody met my eye.
Only Gerry looked up as I stood in the doorway. ‘Sit down, DJ.’
He had never addressed me that way. My legs folded beneath me and I sank into the nearest chair.
The cough as Gerry cleared his throat sounded shockingly loud. ‘Now that we’re all here—’
There was one seat still unoccupied.
‘Aren’t we going to wait for Jas—’ I stuttered to a halt.
The look on every face, Gerry’s expression, told me before he put it into words. ‘Jason’s fighting for his life. Critical.’
A voice behind me muttered, ‘And Juanita’s dead.’
I stared at Gerry. ‘What—? How—?’ My mouth was dry.
His lips were moving but somehow I wasn’t taking in what he was saying.
Jason, smooth-talking, opinionated, brash, arrogant…In spite of all his faults and our little spats, I was rather fond of him.
‘…Jason and Juanita…attacked…knifed…sea…’ Gerry’s voice was coming and going. A strange effect, as if someone was turning on and off a switch.
I ran my tongue over dry lips. ‘I can’t take it in.’
Gerry got up and went over to the coffee machine. ‘It’s been a bit of a shock for you – for all of us.’ He handed me a black coffee. ‘A fisherman, a guy called Joaquín Suárez, has a shack where the ravine from Masca widens into the cove. It seems that he’d hurt his back, so hadn’t gone out fishing last night. He heard shouts and a scream, and when he looked out he saw two men scrambling into an inflatable that shot off in the direction of Los Gigantes. He’s had trouble before with local tearaways damaging his boat, so he went to investigate. He found Jason face down among the rocks.’ A long pause. ‘At our end, we knew something was wrong. We alerted the police launch standing by at Los Gigantes. Their searchlights found Juanita.’
I made myself ask, ‘What are Jason’s injuries?’
‘Massive blood loss from stab wounds to the back. Punctured lung.’ Another long pause. ‘Prognosis uncertain.’ He drained his coffee in one gulp. ‘Juanita didn’t stand a chance.’ He stared into his empty cup. ‘It was her first assignment.’
Juanita. I didn’t know her, had never met her. Her first assignment, he’d said. She’d have been young, keyed up, thrilled to be working with Jason – he had that effect on girls. Why did it seem worse that the dead colleague was young, at the start of her career? A dead colleague is a dead colleague, old or young. It could have been me. Would have been me, if I hadn’t drawn the line at Jason’s wandering hands. I had turned down the assignment – and Juanita was dead.
With an effort I concentrated on what Gerry was saying. ‘…attack pre-planned. They knew our operatives would be close by, observing. Which leads, I’m afraid, to only one conclusion. They’ve detected the bug on The Saucy Nancy. The whole bloody thing’s been a set-up.’
I glimpsed the depth of anger behind the calm exterior. Gerry seldom let his feelings show.
‘Yes, looks like it was pre-planned.’ Jayne sounded tired. ‘The men must have been landed hours earlier, or come down the track from Masca. But how could they be sure that Jason and Juanita were the right people to target?’
‘They’d have made a hit on anybody who was lurking about, on the off chance they’d be lucky.’ Gerry tapped thoughtfully at his teeth with a pen. ‘But my guess is that they homed in on the signal from his mobile phone. He was reporting the arrival of the boat.’
I gulped down a mouthful of lukewarm coffee. That would be it. Nowadays any self-respecting crook has the latest, most sophisticated tracking and eavesdropping devices at his fingertips. Even if Jason hadn’t actually been making a call, radio signals from his switched-on mobile could have been used to pinpoint his position to within a few metres. Poor Jase. Poor Juanita.
Gerry leant forward, resting his interlocked fingers on the desk, the signal that he was about to launch into his what-I-am-about-to-say-is-disagreeable routine.
‘We mustn’t let this get to us. Forget Jason, it’s time to move on.’
Murmurs of protest.
He swept on, tone brisk, matter-of-fact. ‘The minuses of last night are obvious. Suggestions as to the plus points?’
Stunned silence.
‘OK, I’ll start.’ He leant back in his chair. ‘Jason’s not been able to tell us anything, but the fisherman Suárez said the two men he’d seen were definitely black, dark-skinned. And that means…?’
We thought about it.
‘It means,’ I said slowly, ‘that they weren’t the crew of The Saucy Nancy, and so…and so…they wouldn’t have recognised Jason.’
‘Good, Deborah. And that means…?’
Did he have to inflict his brain exercising on us at a time like this? I felt like screaming, Just tell us, you silly bastard.
I took a deep breath, pressed my lips firmly together, took another deep breath. ‘I suppose it means that I’m in the clear.’
‘Right.’ A twitch at the corners of his mouth registered and condoned that rebellious suppose.
Nobody else could come up with a plus point. Tactfully, Gerry didn’t recap on the minus points. The meeting broke up shortly afterwards. All I wanted was to get away, get into my car and drive. Drive away from everything, everybody.
‘Hold on a minute, Deborah.’
What did Gerry want now? Reluctantly I turned to face him.
‘It’ll be some time before Jason will be returning to his pad.’ The words if ever hung unspoken in the air. He slid a key over the desk. ‘I’d really appreciate it if you’d go there and clear out the fridge and get rid of anything perishable from the cupboards. Make a note of any portable items of value and I’ll have them put into secure storage.’
Clearing the deceased’s house.
‘Anything else?’ My voice sounded brittle. Why was he asking me to do this? Why hadn’t he asked Jayne? Sometimes I hated Gerry.
He didn’t look at me, merely started doodling on a sheet of paper. ‘Oh, and perhaps you’d better turn off the water and switch off the electricity, so that’ll mean emptying the freezer.’
I got it now. It was his way of saying that he didn’t think Jason would make it. Preparing me.
From the parking bay outside Jason’s apartment, the distant tower blocks of Las Américas waded through a silvery haze, the hum from the busy autopista far below a reminder that everyday life goes on for those not caught up in tragic events. I stood there for – how long? I don’t know. At last I took a deep breath. It wasn’t that I felt an intruder while the owner was away, more that I couldn’t shake off the feeling I was about to enter a dead man’s apartment. I steeled myself to unlock the door and start erasing his presence.
Tentatively I pushed open the living room door. Jason wasn’t dead yet. He still had a chance. Hot sunshine streamed across the polished flooring and ricocheted off the stark chrome furniture and modernist glass shelving. Laid out stiffly on one of the giant floor-cushions were the mortal remains of Robocat. Averting my eyes from this reminder of our last encounter, I flicked shut the vertical blinds.
In the kitchen, I set about emptying the fridge – milk down the drain, butter, cheese, eggs, a packet of bacon and half a loaf into a large black rubbish sack. I left the pack of San Miguel beers as a sort of talisman, amulet, rabbit’s foot, an offering to the gods for his return. There was no freezer to unload, just the fridge icebox containing an opened packet of peas and a half-empty tray of ice cubes. The fridge more or less emptied, I switched it off at the wa
ll and left the door ajar. There’d be no mould or nasty smells when – if – Jason came home.
I made a quick survey of the kitchen. Worktops clear, apart from a couple of cups upside down in their saucers. I put them in the crockery cupboard and lugged the rubbish sack into the living room.
A folded newspaper lay on the coffee table. I added it to the sack… With the blinds closed and the bright sunlight cut out, the minimalist decor seemed bleak and soulless. Jason really was – is – obsessively neat, I thought. Nothing else to tidy up here, but there’d be bedding and laundry upstairs.
I was about to close the door when I caught a glint of silver under the sofa. I reached under the heavy piece of furniture and pulled out a fish-shaped piece of metal with a faint, but unmistakably fishy, pong. The reverse was inscribed A Robomeal for Robocat. I laid it on the floor-cushion beside Brunhilda, gently closed the door behind me and made my way upstairs.
I’d never been in Jason’s bedroom, though every time we met he’d tried to lure me there. I’d imagined a giant waterbed, mirrors, that sort of thing. But it was all disappointingly ordinary, minimalist with an oriental slant. Two floor-to-ceiling black and gold banners hung on each side of the bed. Not to my taste, but rather striking against the rich red of the wall behind them. The rest of the room, with its white walls, black sheets, black cotton spread, had the same stark look as downstairs.
I bundled the bed linen and the contents of the laundry basket into a sheet and tied a giant knot. In a tall glass vase on the window sill was an amazingly realistic single white orchid, Jason’s seduction prop. I’d take it home with me as a reminder of our battles of wits.
I bumped the bulky laundry bundle down the stairs and left it in the hall ready for collection. All that was left to do was to dump that kitchen rubbish in the communal bin. I lugged the sack out to the front door and dropped it beside the services box. When it came to turning off the water and electricity, it felt horribly like switching off Jason’s life support system.
Under Suspicion Page 17