“Damon would only say the experience was not what he hoped it would be,” she replied. “I wondered if he had been cheated by agents, or the real value had been far less than he paid, but he said his problems were personal—that he would have to make changes regarding a woman.”
“Isolda,” I said with a nod.
Birgit paused for a moment as if I had gone too far. I couldn’t decide if her expression was one of surprise or anger.
“I apologize, Mr. Morgan, I don’t understand what that means.”
“Isolda Marquez—Damon’s girlfriend?”
“I see,” Birgit replied, but the sad smile and a subtle shake of her head described something else.
“A school teacher,” I continued. “There was a falling-out and they separated recently. He didn’t mention her?”
“Not to me,” she replied. “I didn’t consider it carefully but it seemed very odd behavior.”
I replayed in my mind our brief conversations at Damon’s funeral. There had been loud disagreements between them in the months before his death, but Isolda insisted it was only her desire for him to stay closer to home. She urged him, we were told, to take a permanent local teaching job and settle down, but he refused and the rift was opened. It’s not very nice to say but at that moment, on a remote Swedish estate amid swirling questions from a growing mystery, I didn’t care what happened in Spain.
“Thank you for seeing me, Miss Nyström,” I said at last. “I hope something will show in the paperwork to explain all this, but I do appreciate the time you’ve given me today.”
“Not at all,” she replied. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, Mr. Morgan.”
On an impulse, I paused for a second.
“If anything pops up, I wonder if I could call, just in case we need your perspective?”
“Of course,” she said. “Wait a moment and I’ll give you my number, but you must promise me you will keep it strictly confidential.”
“I will and thank you again.”
HALF AN HOUR later, Daniel and Mats waved goodbye at the curb outside my hotel, and I hurried to pack. When the door closed behind me, I was already dialing and Vienne answered after several rings.
“Did you find Birgit Nyström?” she asked immediately.
“I just left her house but she wasn’t much help.”
“You went to Sweden?”
“I had to; there was no number to call, so I flew into Stockholm this morning, then caught a train to Karlstad with the hope somebody in the local art community would know how to find her. I asked around at a gallery but the guy working the floor wouldn’t give up anything directly. He knows her so I told him who I am, and a couple of hours later they sent a van to take me up to her estate.”
“That was easy!”
“She seemed nice enough. Amazing place, too—money is never going to be a problem for ol’ lady Nyström.”
“Okay,” Vienne continued with clear excitement in her voice. “What did she say?”
“We chatted for a while, but she was just as surprised as we were about Damon’s sudden switch from ordinary bank transfers to cash payments and then again to property rights. She didn’t know about Isolda, by the way; he must’ve kept that detail from everyone except you.”
“The switch wasn’t Birgit’s idea?”
“Funny you should ask because she wondered if you suspected her, but there’s something else: just as I was leaving, she mentioned the farm in Wales, right out of the blue.”
“What about it?”
“Nothing specific, but Birgit noticed Damon’s behavior changed around that time, and she said he was having trouble with some woman. I thought she meant Isolda but when I asked, Birgit had no idea who I was talking about. If there was a connection, we need to know how and why.”
“You’re going back to Spain, aren’t you?”
“Maybe. I’ll call Isolda first and see how it goes, but there’s still the weird timeline. Birgit saw and wondered about it the same as we did, but that’s all she knows.”
“I don’t follow,” Vienne said.
“She just meant the move away from bank transfers to cash and all the property rights stuff began shortly after Damon renovated the farm.”
“Okay, but if it wasn’t Isolda, then who is this woman Damon was talking about?”
“I can’t be sure, but it might’ve been Aline.”
“Who is Aline?”
“His neighbor; the lawyer in town said she and Damon weren’t exactly close, so it’s possible she’s our mystery woman. Either way, there’s a connection between Damon’s jackass behavior about money and the timeline when he acquired the old farm. Birgit knew it, and now it makes me wonder, too.”
“If that’s true, maybe we missed something in the paperwork,” Vienne added. “Hold on a second while I look.”
I paced in my room, waiting while she searched. I could hear rustling as she pawed through the papers until she spoke slowly and with a decidedly muted tone.
“Okay, I’m looking at the closure document Damon executed with Jeremy Collingwood; it shows a signature date from two years ago…August 22nd.”
I nodded quickly and said, “Jeremy told me Damon left in October last year; does anything show when he made the switch to cash or property?”
Again, she flipped through the notes, whispering words from document titles in the odd habit people keep so that somebody listening on the other end of a phone conversation can follow along. Finally, she stopped.
“I’ll be damned—right there.”
“What are you seeing, Vienne?”
“A memo from Birgit to Edward Vaughan instructing him to begin the process of transfer in partial interest certain percentages of businesses she owned into Damon’s name. It doesn’t say anything about currency or gold, but the properties are listed on the last pages of the document.”
She went silent and I thought the call had dropped.
“Vienne?”
“Evan, the date is the eleventh of October—just over a year ago and right around the same time he left Wales.”
I went back in my mind to what Birgit had described, and the fleeting, wispy clues were beginning to gel.
“She told me they concluded a deal to buy a private collection in the UAE on Damon’s recommendation eighteen months ago, and payment for those pieces was the first made under this new arrangement.”
“What the hell happened?” Vienne asked suddenly.
“Something is screwy here,” I said.
The matching dates were impossible to miss if you knew where to look, but with them, the mystery grew.
“I’m going to call Isolda when I get back, but also, I want to talk to Jeremy—see if he knows something he forgot to mention earlier.”
“Are you saying he lied to you?” Vienne asked suddenly.
“I’m saying something happened to Damon in that place and time—something that suddenly turned him into a crafty businessman. Maybe Jeremy knows more than he let on, or maybe not, but something went sideways. Damon had trouble keeping his goddamn checkbook balanced, Vienne; how did he go from scatterbrain academic to hard-ass business fanatic almost overnight?”
She waited a moment and I know Vienne wished she couldn’t say the words.
“I get the feeling you’re not looking forward to the answer,” she replied.
BY SATURDAY THE weather across most of Wales cleared. After several frustrating and unsuccessful tries, Isolda Marquez finally answered her phone, but she was in the process of relocating to her childhood home outside Barcelona. Damon had no trouble navigating between Spanish and Catalan, but English was all I could manage. Regardless, the conversation was brief and even terse.
We spoke about Damon for a while, and it surprised me to learn how close they were. Isolda still held obvious disappointment he never told me about her and the seriousness of their relationship. Inside her words, it was easy to detect the unmistakable tone of betrayal and injured feelings. I insiste
d my ignorance had nothing to do with her and more likely the product of our distance as brothers, but it was clear she didn’t accept the idea.
I asked Isolda how much she knew of Damon’s business arrangements with his clients, but she would only say he kept those details to himself. Was it only the aftermath of a love affair gone wrong, now made forever irreparable? She wouldn’t say it outright, but I was left with a distinct impression their separation was never intended to be permanent (at least by Isolda). There were tears and awkward pauses and it was understandable so soon after Damon’s passing. I was surprised to find they never traveled together outside continental Europe, and because of it, she had no knowledge of the farm in Wales or any other property.
When I asked about Birgit, the question was met with suspicion as though Isolda heard in error the name of a rival—a carefully hidden mistress, perhaps. I assured her Damon was interested in many things but an elderly Swedish woman wasn’t one of them. It seemed to make her feel better to know their relationship was only business, but that didn’t get me any closer to understanding Damon’s sudden move with his finances.
After we hung up, I thought about the conversation for a while, hoping in retrospect a hidden clue might emerge not evident when we spoke. There was no signal or red flag to indicate Isolda was anything more than a grieving ex-girlfriend trying to make her way through the sadness and crushing feelings of loss. Our discussion by phone at least negated another plane ride and an uncomfortable meeting in Spain, but my report to Vienne left us both stopped at an invisible barrier; we were left to figure out Damon’s strange behavior alone. I decided to leave it for a while and concentrate instead on my immediate problems, pushed mostly by the nagging and persistent reminders it was time to call Tony and officially resign my position.
When he answered I tried to ignore the guilt my conscience wouldn’t let me forget, hoping he wouldn’t hear it in my voice and know. There was too much to do, I told him. My responsibilities had shifted, and with them, an impossible scenario had formed that would oblige me to remain in the UK into the foreseeable future. I expected disappointment, but he only wished me luck and promised to stay in touch. I felt the binds loosen like mooring lines released from a ship moving slowly away from its dock. The path waiting for me was still unknown, but I made the choice and severed the link; it was time to get on with a new life.
ALINE called to tell me her audit ordeal had ended without incident and to alert me she was on the highway headed south. I smiled and nodded as I listened and it occurred to me the otherwise innocent update was a signal the distance between us was narrowing. Not a ground-shaking event but it meant she would arrive home near dark and there would be another visit to the far side of the hill.
I invited her to join me and catch up or simply pass the time, and she stepped from her truck with a smile, giving my house a good once-over as she stood in the driveway. I wondered if she ever visited when Damon was there but she didn’t mention it. A brief struggle with the fireplace flue finally ended in victory, and we sat together as she told me about nitpicking auditors who took entirely too long to find nothing out of the way with her shop’s finances.
The conversation went to my decision to stay on and I wondered how she would react as I recounted my conversation with Tony Morales. It’s obvious today, but Aline’s reaction, knowing the outcome long before I told her, was strangely satisfying. I chose not to mention Karlstad and the previous week’s detective work trying to make sense of Damon’s strange behavior. It seemed out of context and awkward to bring it up until she walked to the hearth with her hands clasped behind her in the warmth of the fire.
“You went to Sweden, I see.”
I remember the moment clearly: a sudden and stark surprise that left me without a response. Again, she held me in her palm, watching to gauge my reaction, and I fumbled with an answer to avoid appearing flustered or taken aback.
“Oh, uh…yeah, I flew to Stockholm a couple of days ago.”
“How was it?”
“Rainy.”
She smiled and moved again to the couch.
“I meant your trip.”
I thought of Birgit’s words as I was leaving and the presumption Isolda was somehow involved in Damon’s odd financial decisions, only to land on a suspicion the woman he mentioned to Birgit may well have been Aline.
“Not as well as I had hoped, unfortunately.”
She said nothing, perhaps waiting for me to explain further, and when I looked again her eyes were nearly closed. It seemed as if she was dozing off from boredom, but she nodded at last and said, “What did she tell you?”
“She?” I asked stupidly.
“Your travels took you to Karlstad.”
“How did you know that?”
Aline nodded at the stub of my train ticket where it lay open on a lampstand near the front door. I hadn’t noticed but her attention to detail was impressive.
“Ah,” I said. Knowing where I had gone was not at all equivalent to understanding why and I hadn’t spoken of it. I decided to play along and see where it led. She glanced at it for a moment, and as she replaced it, Aline smiled and said, “You went to see Birgit Nyström.”
I could feel my heartbeat and hear its thump in both ears. In the silence, she looked into my eyes and hers never blinked, unwavering and fixed, just as they had the day we met. At once, I felt my face redden and at each fingertip felt an odd, prickly sensation like static electricity discharging from a wool sweater.
“As a matter of fact, I did. Do you know Birgit?”
It felt as if time slowed and the silence was interrupted only by the crackling fire. I stood alone and exposed but also unsure what she might say or do and I teetered on the edge of indecision.
At last, she nodded and said, “I never met her but I know who she is. Damon said she was an important client.”
“Yes, she was,” I answered but still I watched her. “We discovered irregularities in Damon’s financial paperwork, and…”
“Irregularities?” she asked suddenly. Her expression changed abruptly, too: more serious and alert than before.
“It’s probably nothing,” I replied, “but he changed the way he did business with his clients abruptly last year.”
“The irregularities,” she continued suddenly, “were errors in the accounting numbers?”
“Well, no, not errors—it was just a sudden shift away from how Miss Nyström and the others among his clientele paid for his services, that’s all.”
“But you said the meeting was not successful.”
“For every answer, we were left with more questions.”
“We?”
“My sister, Vienne, and I; we’re looking into Damon’s business ventures together.”
“I see.”
Aline sat back on my couch, satisfied with what I had given her. It seemed strange, at first, but we left the subject and returned to other more customary topics for an informal chat. She told me a brief history of the place, having investigated it for herself in the days before she relocated from Scotland, and how long it had been since our two homes functioned as working farms. But then, and likely by an impulse, she turned to me with a new, almost precocious grin.
“Now that you’re settled, perhaps you’ll take some time and explore North Wales?”
I had thought of that very thing while looking out from my kitchen earlier, but her implied invitation was hard to miss.
“I’d like to,” I replied. “Can you recommend a route for me to follow?”
She paused a moment and said, “We can go together if you like; it would give me a chance to show you my shop.”
The idea was perfectly timed and welcome; a short road trip to Colwyn Bay and a ride together that might cement our friendship was suddenly obvious.
“Let’s do it,” I answered quickly.
“I’ll be ‘round to collect you in the morning. Nine o’clock?”
“It’s a date,” I said with a smile as she pre
pared to go.
I watched her amble up my driveway as the steam curled from her old Rover’s exhaust pipe in puffs that hovered in the still air. As she went the sensation returned—expected and persistent—and I let it wash over me without a thought. It wasn’t the usual gush of growing attachment, not like it often is when two people meet, and I felt a different, more familiar closeness. I grinned at the notion something beyond our fledgling friendship now seemed a possibility.
I thought about her, analyzing and determined to keep in perspective all that had happened. I was hardly an innocent schoolboy wallowing in a haze of hormone-driven desire or forming the lewd images in my mind we never talk about with others. I felt no compulsion, yet the certainty Aline was becoming more than just the girl on the other side of the hill was inescapable. Was it the same in her mind, I wondered? The excitement—and thrill of the unknown—had been muted by a calm, even soothing surety that all things were possible. Aline’s powerful lure did its work.
OUR DAY TRIP to Colwyn Bay was a welcome diversion, although the weather turned again and the surf pounded ashore only blocks from her boutique where it waited between a home improvement store and a hairdresser’s shop on Greenfield Road. I met Margaret Stiles, a wispy girl Aline had hired to look after day-to-day operations, and she showed me the racks and shelves where seasonal apparel took the place of summer wear. Above, stylish lighting hung from gleaming chrome bands suspended from the ceiling, aimed at precise places to lend a warm and sophisticated ambiance as holiday shoppers browsed in search of Christmas gifts.
I watched and listened quietly as she dealt with the logistics of a small business while Margaret described her frantic search for a specific sweater one of their customers was determined to find. Aline aimed short, reassuring glances in my direction, and it seemed as if she wanted to make sure I was still there, but an unsolicited smile or two made it clear there was something more. I tried my best to seem cool and unaffected—to pretend eye contact was nothing out of the ordinary—but Aline sharpened the effect when she steered me to a corner and announced we were leaving soon. It wouldn’t have been anything special until she smiled and said it was “nicer when there’s only the two of us.”
The Seventh Life of Aline Lloyd Page 8
