by Lucy Carver
‘Do you have an appointment?’ he asked.
‘No, but he’ll see me.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Tell him it’s Alyssa Stephens.’
The receptionist was unimpressed. ‘I could tell him it was the prime minister and you’d still need an appointment to see Mr Earle.’
At this point I felt like banging my head on one of the travertine walls. ‘Look, are you even going to try?’
‘Not unless you make –’
‘An appointment!’ I snapped. Funnily enough, I hadn’t predicted this problem, which shows you I didn’t yet belong to the world of work.
A woman in a suit tip-tapped by in stilettos, a courier in a helmet handed a parcel over the desk.
‘OK, I’ll make an appointment,’ I conceded. ‘Can you put me through to Adam Earle’s PA, please?’
The receptionist was busy looking at a screen and tapping at a keyboard. Behind him a lift door opened and, guess what, Robert and Adam Earle stepped out with their entourage. Within ten seconds they were through reception, out on the pavement and getting into a supersized silver car.
I don’t know if the Earles even glanced in my direction and if they did they certainly didn’t acknowledge me.
‘Maybe write the PA an email?’ the receptionist suggested with a big dollop of triumph.
It had been easy to look up the location of Comco, but I guessed Adam Earle didn’t advertise his home address. I Googled him over a cup of coffee at the nearest Pret a Manger.
No – right. I was stuck unless I hung out here within sight of Comco’s revolving door and waited for Adam to come back from whatever meeting he and his tyrant dad had gone to.
Three coffees later I was buzzing from a caffeine overdose and still waiting.
‘Hello, Alyssa,’ a voice said over my shoulder.
I jumped out of my skin.
As I steadied myself, Adam sat down on the stool next to mine. He was dressed in a dark blue suit and white shirt, but his pale blue tie was loosened and the top button open. ‘I’m sorry about Paige,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry, you’re sorry, everyone’s sorry.’
‘I saw you in reception. I invented an excuse and got back as quick as I could, hoping that you’d hang around. I knew it must be important.’
‘Thanks.’ Thanks that he’d made this special effort, and thanks that he’d come through as a genuine, caring human being and not the automaton that he’d first seemed.
‘Has anything happened? Did you find out any more about the baby’s father?’
‘No. I heard you made them do the DNA test.’
‘No result yet, but it won’t be much use anyway until the police are able to pin down a suspect. They’ll need to find a match.’
‘There is something else,’ I confessed against the clink of crockery and the hum of conversation. ‘Just a few hours back, in Ainslee Westgate, I found out the name of the guy who rode his motorbike at me then attacked Paige’s horse. He’s called Chris Cooke – he lives in Chartsey and he would be able to get access to the Queen Elizabeth morgue.’
Adam had taken out his phone and was on the point of making a call to Inspector Cole before I stopped him.
‘Yeah – I’m not finished yet. Chris Cooke is local, but I think there’s something much bigger going on. That’s what I want to talk to you about.’
‘What do you mean – how could it be bigger?’ Adam spoke slowly, as if what I’d said didn’t come as a complete surprise. I saw him retreat temporarily behind his robot shield.
‘Suppose he’s a small cog in someone else’s very big wheel,’ I suggested.
‘Which someone?’
‘Not an individual, more an organized group.’ I knew I had to come out and say what was on my mind, but it was proving tricky. I decided to find another way in. ‘So how’s Anna?’ I asked.
‘No change.’
‘Is she still seeing her rabbi?’
‘No, my father put a stop to that. He was convinced it was adding to her confusion.’
‘Plus, I expect he doesn’t want to draw attention to her religious beliefs,’ I said pointedly.
The point must have been needle-sharp because Adam reacted as if he’d been stung or bitten – a silent ouch! and then an attempt to brush the insect off his neck.
‘I guess you planned to mention her connection to Lion Films eventually’ I went on. ‘And the free newspapers, the TV station and especially the planned exposé of the international neo-Nazi groups?’
‘What has this got to do with finding Lily’s killer?’ he protested. ‘Isn’t that what you’re meant to be doing?’
‘That’s what I am doing. So tell me about Comco’s ownership of Lion Films for starters. Who set that up – Anna or your father?’
‘Anna,’ Adam said reluctantly. ‘She brought family money into the business when she married my dad – a lot. It makes her a major shareholder and she can make executive decisions. Besides which, her family has a long history of supporting Israeli-based arts organizations – dance groups, orchestras, theatres. It wasn’t out of character for Anna to establish Lion Films. She named it after the biblical story of Daniel in the lion’s den.’
‘How long?’ I asked.
‘You mean, how long is the family history of funding the arts? It goes way back to the 1920s and 30s.’
‘So have they ever been targets of fascist organizations before now?’
Adam nodded almost imperceptibly. ‘Yes. Back then they owned a chain of cinemas, which were destroyed by arsonists organized by the IUF – the International Union of Fascists. That’s partly why Anna was so determined to launch Lion Films and fund the exposé in the first place – as a tribute to her grandparents, who she thought were heroes.’
‘And more recently?’ I memorized the name – International Union of Fascists – then pushed harder. ‘Have there been actual protests against Lion Films?’
This time the answer took even longer.
‘Yes,’ Adam sighed. ‘Some big-name actors have refused to work for Lion and some premieres have been disrupted – one in LA, one in Chicago.’
‘What was Anna’s reaction?’
‘Hmm.’ Adam gave a small shake of his head. ‘Anna may look as if a puff of wind would knock her over, but underneath she has a hidden stubborn streak. She said the protests wouldn’t put her off making the big documentary.’
‘And what about your dad?’
‘Oh, well, he was in two minds. On the one hand, he didn’t see any good reason to hang on to an offshoot of Comco that didn’t produce much profit and was drawing the wrong kind of publicity. On the other hand, he always hates being put under pressure from extremists of any sort – it makes him bite right back. Look, Alyssa, this all seems miles away from what we should be focusing on.’
‘Not really.’ In fact, I had an increasingly heavy, depressing sense that history could, in fact, repeat itself. Mosley’s Blackshirts and the boycotts and protests surrounding Lion Films might be separated by eight decades, but there were too many similarities to ignore. ‘Anyway, who won the argument – Anna or your father?’
‘It’s ongoing,’ he told me. ‘Or it was until he had Anna sectioned and tucked safely away. Now, God knows.’
‘And who led the recent protests?’ I had to know who we were talking about and how they might have tentacles long enough to stretch into a Cotswold backwater like Chartsey Bottom.
Adam’s brain was busy making the same connections as I’d made and his replies came more slowly then ever. ‘We investigated and found out it was an obscure group called the CRP – Campaign for Racial Purity. They’re associated with other right-wing nationalist parties but they’re less organized and more secretive.’
‘And more violent?’ I added. CRP – Campaign for Racial Purity – here was another name to hand over to historical bloodhound Hooper.
‘I can’t say that for sure.’ Adam did more head shaking and seemed lost in that maze of un
comfortable thoughts. ‘What I do know is they kept up the pressure against Comco and my father.’
‘And?’ I prompted.
‘They said if he didn’t halt the investigation into the CRP, they would take action against members of his family.’
‘Ouch!’ I shook my head in disbelief. ‘Why didn’t this come out earlier?’
‘Because Comco is an enormous, multinational organization and the world is full of crazy individuals. We get phone hackers, spies and nutcases contacting us every day of the week.’
‘You didn’t take the threat seriously?’
‘Alyssa, you have to believe me – neither I nor my mother knew about it at the time it was happening. It’s not something my father told us about until after Lily disappeared.’
This helped explain why Adam hadn’t hit the panic button when Lily first disappeared, why he and Anna had waited almost a week to show up at St Jude’s. ‘She was meant to come home,’ I reminded him.
‘When she didn’t make it, I wasn’t surprised,’ he explained. ‘She was seriously off the rails by this time and I resented the fact that my father had left me to do the dirty work as far as Lily was concerned. He wasn’t on hand to deal with family stuff – remember, he was still in Chicago.’
‘And when he did find out about her disappearance, how did he react?’
‘Dad says he still didn’t link it up with the CRP. He just blamed Lily for refusing to obey the order to come home.’
‘Unbelievable,’ I said, shaking my head in total disgust. I’d taken as much as I could stomach for now of the dysfunctional, mega-rich and ruthless Robert Earle so I picked up my bag and walked away from Adam without saying goodbye.
Turn right out of Pret A Manger then left down the Euston Road, striding out at top speed. Take the tube to Paddington and a late-afternoon express train straight back to ye ancient Cotswold town of Ainslee.
chapter fifteen
All the way home I made a million high-speed neural connections, synapse to synapse, and by the time the express train pulled into my station I had a clear new map of events in my brain.
Tyrant Earle had ignored the CRP threat to harm his family. Dealing with it had been so far down his to-do list that he hadn’t even informed Anna, who had pressed ahead with her plans for the CRP exposé, oblivious. And, what do you know, the bunch of political activists, or at least one lunatic member of the group, had eventually got mad enough with the head of Comco to carry out the threat. The kidnap had gone ahead.
Stay with me on this.
Lily had been going through her own personal Armageddon. She’d got pregnant by someone other than Jayden – she’d already flown to the smiley-face heights of hoping that he was the daddy and plunged like Icarus into a shark-infested sea of despair when she’d learned he wasn’t.
Did she want to keep the baby anyway? We’ll never know. Maybe her fleeing-from-St-Jude’s-disguised-as-suicide plan included an abortion, or maybe she intended to go through with the pregnancy and put the baby up for adoption, or even keep it. In any case, into this gut-wrenching mix comes a bunch of racial purists and one or more of them kidnaps her before she gets the chance to decide.
What happens next? Does the CRP put more pressure on Robert Earle? Does he still refuse to play their game? Do they lose it with him and kill Lily? Or does something else go wrong? I hadn’t figured out that part before the guard’s announcement came over the intercom: ‘This train will shortly be arriving at Ainslee Westgate. Please remember to take all your belongings with you.’
The forecourt was busy with tourists, tramps looking for a warm place to spend the night and couples saying goodbye.
I came through the ticket barrier and ran into Mr and Mrs Kelly. They stepped out of a taxi, their faces dazed and pale, not speaking to each other as they checked the departure board. When Paige’s mum saw me, she gasped then made a desperate little rush towards me.
‘Alyssa,’ she said, then stopped.
Paige looked like her dad rather than her mum, I noticed. He was tall and had dark curly hair, going grey at the temples, dressed for the journey in a dark brown Barbour jacket and checked scarf. He’d put down their bags, but hung back as Paige’s mum approached me.
‘Mrs Kelly,’ I murmured. There was no need to say sorry because they absolutely knew.
‘You were there,’ she said. ‘You saw what happened.’
I nodded.
‘Did she . . . was she . . . ?’
‘She was protecting Mistral.’
‘Did he . . . ?’
‘No. The guy went for the horse. It was meant to scare her, but it got out of control.’
‘Did she know what was happening? What I mean is – did she feel any pain?’
‘No, I’m sure she didn’t.’ It had been over in a second – Mistral rearing, Paige overbalancing, Mistral crashing down.
Mrs Kelly took in my answer then frowned and bit her bottom lip.
You’re wondering why I didn’t go on and give her Chris Cooke’s name right there and then – something concrete for Paige’s parents to hang on to. But I held it back, intending to hand it over to Inspector Cole first. Telling Mr and Mrs Kelly the name would be like lobbing a hand grenade into an already devastated war zone.
‘Joanna, we’ll miss our train if we don’t hurry,’ Mr Kelly said, still keeping his distance and re-checking Departures.
She nodded. ‘Thank you, Alyssa.’
I didn’t smile or say goodbye, just watched Mr Kelly pick up their luggage and lead his wife through the barrier on to their train.
The world goes on. Three girls tippety-tapped across the metal footbridge dressed in office-party high heels, short skirts and shiny, strappy tops. A guy in paint-spattered work clothes and scuffed builders’ boots almost bumped into me as I turned suddenly and headed for the taxi rank.
I felt sick for the Kellys’ loss.
There were about fifteen people ahead of me in the taxi queue, which meant a cold, dark wait of maybe five or ten minutes. I spent them Googling for info about the local branch of the CRP movement and found they had a website with an email address and a date for their next public meeting, but no actual names of party members.
I’ll get Hooper on to it, I thought, putting my phone back into the front pocket of my bag.
Now there were only five people ahead of me in the queue. I hitched the bag further up my shoulder and watched another taxi arrive. Two guys stepped out and instead of taking the normal route on to the forecourt, they vaulted over the railing and crashed into me, almost knocking me off my feet. The woman ahead of me began to protest on my behalf, but I was too busy trying to hang on to my bag to make any noise. One of the guys had dragged it down my arm but I’d managed to hold on to it. I tugged it back towards me but they tugged harder. The bag was wrested from me and the two muggers ran away. I gave chase back into the station, across the forecourt, under the Departures board and over the ticket barrier. A female station guard in a grey overcoat and a dark red pillbox hat yelled for us to stop. I scrambled over the barrier with the two muggers still in view. They ran up the footbridge steps out of sight.
A railway worker in a high-vis yellow jacket charged along the platform and joined the guard. They stopped to discuss the problem – as far as they were concerned, three passengers without tickets had jumped the barrier and were headed towards platform 3. I drew breath and watched the station guard take out a phone to speak to her supervisor. It gave me a bit of time so I ran up the steps and across the bridge, only to find when I got to the other side that the muggers had vanished.
Which way had they gone? To the left was a long, crowded platform, to the right a row of vending machines and an arrow pointing to the toilets.
‘Did you see two guys with a bright blue bag?’ I asked the nearest onlooker.
He hesitated then pointed towards the Gents. Oh great – my overnight bag was currently being disembowelled in the men’s urinals! Toothbrush and toothpaste, clean knickers,
a spare top, my iPhone. On top of which, station security would have swung into operation and I would soon be arrested for unticketed entry on to the platform. Could my day get any worse?
Yes, actually.
‘You want me to go in and take a look for you?’ the obliging onlooker queried. He was an ordinary guy of about fifty, carrying a laptop, on his way home from work.
I nodded and hurried with him towards the Gents but before he had time to push open the door, my two bag thieves burst back out on to the platform and thrust him against the coffee machine. They ran straight at me and knocked me to the ground. One hooked his arm round my neck and started dragging me towards the edge of the platform. Within seconds he had his hands round my throat and I was overhanging the track, staring down on to gravel and sleepers and steel rails, listening to the sound of an approaching train . . .
And what do you know, my unremarkable, office-worker Samaritan did what the thieves hadn’t expected any of the witnesses to do – he piled into the rescue. So did the high-vis railwayman who had followed his manager’s instructions and pounded over the footbridge after me. That made two against two with me kicking and clawing my way back from the edge.
I heard yells, saw the muggers punch their way out as more passengers closed in around us. Soon it was five against two, I was on all fours, crawling away from the track, raising myself up. Someone called 999 and yelled that the police were on their way.
The muggers were overwhelmed and they knew it. They both drew knives from inside their boots. They slashed them through the air and everyone backed off, like the reverse of iron filings to a magnet. One lunged at me, but I managed to dodge and run back towards the bridge.
Two more railway security guys sprinted along the platform as the train arrived. I heard the whine and grind of brakes, saw the two muggers make a split-second, high-risk decision to jump down from the platform and make their escape across the track. Their feet crunched over gravel as I lost sight of them again.
The train seemed to sigh and groan as it came to rest.
‘Are you OK?’ the nearest onlooker asked. ‘Did you get your bag back?’
