Under Suspicion

by The Mulgray Twins

  In the hall I hesitated, then on impulse went back to the living room and scooped up Brunhilda and her fishy meal. I closed the front door and turned away. That was it then. Nothing more to do. I’d the feeling that I wouldn’t be back.

  Chapter Seventeen

  My role in Operation Canary Creeper could very well be at an end now that I’d been cut off from my Trojan Horse role at Exclusive. An unsettling thought. The sun was hot on my back. I closed my eyes and let the stress and tension of the last two days seep away into the warm sand of the beach in front of the five-star Hotel Bahía del Duque. Masterly inactivity would be the order of the day… Here, no loud conversations in English, German or Russian, no tedious shouted discussions of last night’s football match, no raucous purveyors of doughnuts, pineapples and coconuts. The Duque’s five-star charges for sunbeds and umbrellas made sure of that. Here, the public beach had been groomed to meet the expectations of the super-rich. Shaded from the sun in blue-and-white tented pavilions, the Duque’s guests reclined on white-cushioned mattresses twice the thickness of any found elsewhere.

  It was free of charge to lie on the sand, though. I’d spread my towel beside the white-painted wooden pier that supported the Duque’s beach-café – not a cheap and cheerful chiringuito bar, but resplendently equipped with white tables and chairs and smartly uniformed waiters.

  I let the sounds flow over me…distant cries of children playing in the waves…the clink of china from the café tables above my head…

  Chairs scraped on the boards above me. A snippet of conversation drifted down ‘…wasn’t my fault. I don’t know why you keep going on about it. Yes, I know it was a bit of a disaster, but the trip wasn’t my idea—’

  Somebody was having a bad day.

  ‘Outing, not trip. You can’t even get the word right.’ The words were hissed sotto voce.

  Outing. Like a drop of icy water on my back, the word jolted me wide awake.

  ‘How was I to know it was Booze Cruise night? The Outing was planned by that girl you sacked. Probably did it deliberately—’

  ‘Well, you should have known,’ snapped Monique’s voice. ‘It was you that chose Tuesday and you should have checked with me before booking.’ I could tell she was in a towering rage. ‘Our clients were exposed to drunks and—’

  I mustn’t miss a word of this. I reached out for my T-shirt, wrapped it round my head and face as if to protect myself from the sun, and rolled over to prop myself up against a wooden pier-support directly below the speakers.

  ‘The señoras wish to order?’

  ‘Two coffees. Black.’ Monique snapped out the words.

  ‘But, Nicky, you know I don’t like—’

  ‘Shut up, Ashley. You’ll need your coffee black when you hear what I’ve got to tell you.’ Monique swept on. ‘As I was saying, I have something unpleasant to tell you.’ I adjusted the T-shirt to free an ear.

  ‘Ambrose rang me this morning at my apartment. He was positively incandescent about that Sunset Outing fiasco of yours. I had to plead with him, Ashley, to let you stay on, to give you one last chance.’

  ‘One teeny complaint and the man—’ Outrage in Ashley’s every word.

  ‘Not one complaint, two. Both our clients voiced their displeasure. Mr Wainwright was particularly upset. I believe he phoned Ambrose at some unearthly hour to tell him so. I have to say, Ashley, that this all reflects badly on me. I recommended you, after all.’

  ‘Anyone can make a mistake, Nicky. What about the time when you—’ Her voice dropped to a low murmur.

  A long silence, then the creak of wooden boards heralded the return of the waiter. ‘Your coffees, señoras.’

  I heard the soft chink chink of china.

  Another lo-o-ng silence. ‘But I thought—’ Ashley, on the defensive.

  ‘At Exclusive, you’re not being paid to think, Ashley, you’re being paid to know – and if you don’t know, you check. One more mistake, one more, and—’

  With a sharp chunk cup forcibly hit saucer, the executioner’s axe hitting the block.

  How long before Ashley again blotted her copybook? Three days? A week? Perhaps, after all, there was a chance that I’d see my office again…

  The phone call came two days later.

  ‘I’ve got good news for you, Deborah. Mr Vanheusen has reconsidered your case, and is willing to reinstate you.’

  ‘Oh, Monique, that’s wonderful. Thank—’

  ‘You realise, of course, that I had to plead quite strongly on your behalf. Yes, quite strongly. In view of your cavalier attitude to following instructions on at least two occasions, it took some effort to convince him. However, he has agreed to give you one more chance. One more.’

  Ashley had obviously messed up her chance.

  ‘Er…Ashley?’ I ventured.

  ‘Promotion.’ Monique moved smoothly and briskly on. ‘Before she left, Ashley was dealing with a somewhat unusual request from Mr Mansell. I’m up to my eyes in work so I’m delegating it to you. Come in this afternoon and I’ll fill you in on the details…’

  They were as hard as rocks, those velvet cushions on the over-carved chair, recently graced by Cousin A, so suddenly and mysteriously translated to higher things. For the second time I flipped through Exclusive’s photo-library of scenic shots. Jonathan Mansell’s requirements were very exacting – somewhere off the tourist track, somewhere special, somewhere the Alhambra could escort favoured guests. And the deadline was tomorrow. Had Ashley, unable to come up with a suggestion, thrown in the towel, or had a desperate Monique finally lost patience with her? I was getting pretty desperate myself. Seeking inspiration, I stared for a long time, chin on hand, at a picture of snow-capped Mount Teide…been there, done that… the reds and browns of the multi-hued caldera really did look like the surface of the moon…

  I’d cracked it. The Lunar Landscape on the flank of Teide would be ideal – a star attraction, but not easily accessible even by car, and so, definitely off the tourist track, and definitely special. The Paisaje Lunar fitted Mansell’s requirements exactly. Those bizarre, wind-sculpted, creamy yellow columns would be a breathtaking sight against a blue sky. I’d drive him from Vilaflor to the small car park at the end of the Lomo Blanco, and from there we’d go on foot through the pine trees and lava fields to the site itself. On the way I’d do my utmost to find out Mansell’s line on that proposed casino deal.

  Vilaflor’s long main street was deserted except for a stray dog and a workman painting a wall. Across a narrow barranco a huddle of whitewashed houses with faded pantiled roofs slumbered in the pale sunshine.

  I drew up the 4x4 outside a pavement café-bar guarded by a gnarled almond tree, its bare black branches sprinkled with delicate white flowers. I’d had an ulterior motive for putting a café on the itinerary sheet. While we sat drinking our coffee and gazing over patches of garden planted with vegetables and orange trees, I’d steer the conversation round to casinos. The opportunity came sooner than I dared hope.

  Mansell looked up from his study of my Paisaje Lunar info sheet. ‘I laid it on the line to Vanheusen that I wasn’t going to waste time on an uninspired wine tasting in Icod when I’d plenty of teething troubles to sort out at the hotel. If this trip lives up to your description, it’ll be exactly what I had in mind, a day excursion to make the guests remember their stay at the Alhambra.’

  I saw my opening. ‘You’ll need something special for evening entertainment, too, I suppose?’

  ‘I’ve got something in mind for that, but it’s still very much in the planning stage. Now, if the Paisaje Lunar is to be part of the Alhambra experience, how would you suggest…’

  Casino subject closed. Stymied.

  At the wooden sign Lomo Blanco we left the smooth tarmac to bump along a beaten earth track with the pine-covered slopes of Teide on the left, and a sheer drop to the valley floor on the right. The sun was burning down from the bluest of skies and the heady scent of pine wafted on the wind – all spirit-lifting stuff
, but not for me, for I couldn’t see any way of steering the conversation back to casinos in general, and the Alhambra’s casino in particular.

  As I’d promised it would be, the Paisaje Lunar was spectacular. The crème caramel-coloured columns, carved and chiselled by the honing wind into fairytale towers, pillars and buttresses were framed against a cobalt blue sky. Mind-boggling, awe-inspiring, sensational.

  Mansell got out his camera. ‘Fits the bill exactly, Deborah. You’ve hit the jackpot for me with this.’

  But I hadn’t as far as Gerry was concerned. I was back to square one. I’d found out nothing.

  It just shows that you should never give up hope. Forty-five minutes later when we got back in sight of the car park, Mansell gave me just the opening I needed.

  ‘Hope we don’t find the car’s been broken into.’

  ‘Oh, criminals are busy with much more lucrative things back in Las Américas,’ I laughed. ‘The real money’s in drugs nowadays.’

  He gave me a quizzical look. ‘You’re not speaking from experience, I hope?’

  ‘Only hearsay from Ramón, the guy I go out with.’ I pressed the remote to unlock the car. ‘According to him, drug barons launder their profits through clubs, fake time-shares and casinos.’ As I turned the key in the ignition, I added, ‘It seems that casinos are the prime target for dirty money. Cash flows through, and it’s impossible to check on where it comes from and where it goes. That’s Ramón’s job, to give businessmen advice on how to avoid being caught up in dodgy schemes.’

  I left it at that. If Mansell asked me to contact ‘Ramón’, we’d know for sure that he was in the clear.

  Chapter Eighteen

  On the days that I didn’t come home for lunch, Gorgonzola tended to be in a bad mood. She hated being ‘home alone’ for a whole day, though she was quite able to come and go through the barred pantry window to access her water bowl and any morsel that remained from her breakfast. With this in mind, on the way back from the successful outing to the Paisaje Lunar I stopped at a supermarket and bought two tuna steaks, a large one for her and a smaller one for myself.

  Tactics would be critical when G and I came face to face. Should I grovel with much wringing of hands? On the lines of, ‘Oh, my poor neglected and abandoned Gorgonzola. How can I make it up to you? As a token, please accept this large tuna steak – much bigger than the one I’ve bought for myself.’

  Or should I briskly brazen it out? ‘Don’t be a wimp, G. It’s time you dieted anyway. If you were hungry, why didn’t you go out and catch yourself a mouse like any self-respecting cat?’

  I inserted my key in the lock and tiptoed down the hall. As I eased the kitchen door open, I crooned a honeyed, ‘I’m back, tresorita mía.’

  Silence. No thump of paws landing on the tiled floor, no appeased purr or even a querulous yowl.

  Perhaps an ingratiating, ‘Cariñita, cielita mía’ would do the trick?

  Nope.

  Either I’d not grovelled enough, or, more likely, overdone it with ‘my little treasure, little darling, my little angel’. G’s ear for detecting insincerity was rivalled only by her nose for sniffing out drugs.

  Time to get tough. I flung the door back on its hinges. ‘OK, G, quit sulking. Duty is duty. We all have to make sacrif—’

  No cat.

  Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap. It took me a moment to realise the sound was coming from the back door. Tap tap tap.

  ‘Señora, you are there? I bring the cat.’

  I put the tuna steaks on the kitchen table, and turned the key. The door edged open, three centimetres, five, ten. Just above ankle level, a gingery face materialised, nose twitching. Before I could say, ‘Missed me, G?’ furry shoulders forced their way through the widening gap and a furry body hurled itself through the air to make a precision landing on the table. In a blur of movement both tuna steaks, clamped in slavering jaws, disappeared into the setting sun.

  ‘G!’ I screeched.

  ‘Madre de Dios.’ A startled Jesús stared after her. ‘She have the hunger.’ He lowered himself creakily onto a kitchen chair. ‘Señora, I have come to tell you that this afternoon I hear the noise of pans in your cocina. I know you not home, so I say to myself, they have come back, los vándalos. I look in your window. Mío Dio! What am I seeing?’ Eyebrows raised, eyes round with astonishment, Jesús was not to be hurried. The telling of a story was all.

  I played along, thumping a hand on my chest in a suitably theatrical gesture. ‘What are you seeing? Tell me, Jesús. This is giving me a heart attack just hearing of it.’

  ‘I am seeing nothing. Nothing, señora.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘I hear the sound of the pans, but I see nothing. No peoples going up and down in the cocina.’

  ‘But what…?’

  ‘I think they are making the fool. They are hiding and seeking, as you say. Quick as the lightning I unlock the door, and like this, I shout, “AA-EEE.” The noise, it stop. Like that.’

  ‘And…?’ I breathed, entering into the spirit of things.

  ‘And,’ Jesús narrowed his eyes, ‘I see who is doing this.’ He paused for maximum effect. ‘It is the cat,’ he cackled. ‘The cat, she is los vándalos. Heh, heh, heh!’

  ‘The cat?’ I echoed.

  ‘She throw her plates round the cocina. It make much noise. She very hungry.’ Another cackle. ‘But I think she no hungry now.’

  I’d just sat down to a scrambled egg supper kindly supplied by Jesús, when my mobile’s perleep perleep perleep peep peep stopped my fork halfway to my mouth. I hadn’t been expecting the office to call. Perhaps tomorrow’s debriefing session had been rescheduled.

  ‘Jayne here. Sorry to disturb your evening, Deborah, but could you just nip in and sort out a couple of things that have to be in place by tomorrow?’

  So it was something important, but not a crisis. I finished my emergency supper, then refilled G’s water bowl, but left the food bowl empty as a pointed reminder that she’d had her supper – and mine.

  Jayne wasn’t at her desk in the outer office. Unusual. It suddenly occurred to me that this summons might mean that Jason… I paused with my hand on the white door. I’d know by their faces if…

  Gerry was on the phone. I picked up a briefing sheet and took a seat next to Tomás, flicking him a covert glance to see if there was bad news. He winked and gave me his usual, ‘Hola, guapa.’

  That didn’t fit in with bad news. It was safe to ask, ‘Have you heard how Jason’s doing?’

  Before he could reply, Gerry cut in. ‘OK, everyone. This meeting’s to bring you up to date. We’ve a new member of the team, just flown in from London. Name’s Charlie.’

  Jason’s replacement. I made a tentative hand-raising movement. ‘Can I ask how Jason is doing?’

  ‘No longer critical, but I’m afraid he’ll be out of commission for some time. In the meantime, Charlie will…’

  Not critical, so there was hope that once again he’d be wowing the girls with his fancy sports car and his designer shades.

  ‘…and if this leads to the breakthrough I’m hoping for,’ Gerry was saying, ‘things will be all wrapped up.’

  Damn it, I couldn’t ask him to repeat. That would be putting my head on the block. I’d have to get the gist from Tomás later.

  ‘Any questions about your role, Deborah?’

  The bastard. He knew I hadn’t been listening.

  ‘We-ell, Gerry,’ I played for time, ‘I’m not quite clear about—’

  ‘Yes, Deborah?’ his expression was deadpan.

  ‘I mean—’ I floundered.

  ‘Mmm?’ Raised eyebrow. That translated as, ‘You’ve been rumbled, Deborah. Admit you weren’t paying attention – and grovel.’

  A bzzzz from the outer office signalled that someone had just pushed open the door from the street. Saved by the bell, as it were. All eyes switched to the one-way mirror. We watched a female, white-blonde hair gelled into aggressive spikes, ring through one nostri
l, give a cursory glance round the empty office, then wobble on ridiculous high-heeled sandals towards the white door. We heard her call, ‘Hey, you guys, where is everybody? I’ve got an appointment.’ She stood in front of the mirror, head on one side, as if studying her reflection. A hitch-up of tight leather micro-skirt, a hitch-down of skimpy orange micro-top and a display of toothpaste-ad white teeth.

  Behind me a chair scraped as Jayne rose to her feet. ‘Give me a couple of minutes. I’ll deal with this.’

  ‘It’s OK, Jayne.’ Gerry flicked a switch, the levered locks clicked open, and the twenty-first-century siren sashayed in. ‘Meet Charlie, everybody.’

  Jayne subsided heavily into her chair as if felled by a chop behind the knee from one of Charlie’s spiky-heeled sandals. We’d all assumed that our new colleague was male. This had been Gerry’s little joke, or, more likely, a reminder not to make assumptions and jump to conclusions.

  Charlie smiled that perfect smile again. ‘Hi, guys.’

  ‘Take a seat, Charlie. I’ll just recap to put you in the picture.’ Momentarily Gerry’s eyes rested on me. ‘As yet, we’ve had no useful feedback from the bug in Monique Devereux’s office, and after the regrettable Saucy Nancy episode, anything that did come in would be unreliable.’

  The room was silent while we all thought about Jason and the false information that had sent Juanita to her death.

  He swivelled slowly in his chair. ‘Tomás, I want you to remove the office bug. The risk of blowing Deborah’s cover is too high. We’ll liaise about it later.’ He stopped abruptly, mid-swivel. ‘We’ve established how Vanheusen launders the money, but to prove that the source of the money is indeed drugs, new tactics are called for. What I’m banking on is that our pal Vanheusen is greedy for cash, wants results quickly – and people in a hurry make mistakes.’ He tapped the briefing sheet. ‘As I’ve said here, The Saucy Nancy was the last link in the Vanheusen supply route, but is now useless to him because our planted bug shows that we’re onto John Sinclair. Until he can reorganise, he will have to fall back on a primitive, but tried and tested method of transport, the human mule. Our colleagues in Tenerife have been keeping tabs on lone female tourists who stay only a couple of nights before jetting back to Europe. They’ve built up a dossier of women and hotels.’