Wicked Beauty

by Susan Lewis

  Moments later the pilot and his two passengers, one male, one female, were descending the steps and getting into the van. He reflected on how much less complicated certain lives would be were the woman Katherine Sumner. But that was another issue, for another day; hopefully never for him.

  As the van pulled away his eyes returned to the jet. It was unmanned and unprotected now, with sixteen million dollars in hard currency on board. It would have been twenty, but the other four had taken an earlier flight and had already reached their final destination.

  He waited for the minivan to stop and those inside to enter the airport building. Then bringing the walkie-talkie close to his mouth, he said, ‘OK, time to unload.’

  Half a dozen or more vehicles started moving sedately towards the aircraft. He remained where he was, his engine idling, though not yet in gear. Adrenalin was pumping into his veins. The bank van was heading for the plane too; the Mercedes hadn’t moved. The first vehicles to arrive kept the stairway clear, so that the bank van could back in, then half a dozen men were bounding up the steps into the body of the jet.

  He noticed that the customs officials had disappeared, then spotted one lying on the ground behind the Mercedes. He had a gun clasped between both hands, but so far no one had fired. His own gun was still in the glovebox, along with the mobile phone he used to speak to his wife.

  ‘Bingo!’ Rudy shouted over the airwaves, telling him that the steel boxes were there. Moments later he saw them being passed down the human chain on the stairway, and thrown into the back of the armoured bank van. The rear doors of the van were sealed shut, the driver leapt back into his seat and he waited only until the Mercedes had fallen in behind the van before sliding his own car into gear ready to depart the scene.

  Thanks to fog at the originating airport it had all happened three days later than planned, which had played havoc with everyone’s nerves, but it was over now, and he was just wondering if anyone had ever acquired sixteen million dollars with such ease when a sudden eruption of gunfire behind him caused his eyes to jerk up to the rearview mirror, and his foot to slam on the brake.

  Chapter 4

  IT WAS BARELY more than a week since the funeral, but already Tim’s enemies were at work on the press, not exactly vilifying him, but planting the kind of suspicions that questioned his honesty, both in business and in politics, while also reminding the public of what a playboy he’d been before his marriage. The implication was that the partying and womanizing had never stopped, even though there was absolutely no evidence even to suggest that he’d ever been unfaithful. He hadn’t, Rachel knew that in her heart – until Katherine, of course, but despite everything, she still wasn’t prepared to believe that yet either. Nor was she even going to attempt to deal with the way she too was being criticized for the ‘soulless ambition’ that had ‘pushed her husband to the top and then into the arms of another woman’. It would do no good to try to address it, because this was just the beginning, and getting into the mudslinging would only demean her, and worsen the situation to a degree she probably wouldn’t be able to stand.

  Now, as she sat on the sofa in the drawing room, her face was pinched and agitated as she watched Anna pour the tea that Lucy had just brought in. On her lap were the notes she’d made in the early hours of that morning, when, unable to sleep and consumed by grief, she’d tried to distract herself by scribbling out some reminders to help them get started on this, their first strategy meeting. For the moment only she and Anna were present, but Nigel would be here soon, and possibly Gordon and Dennis too, if they could make it.

  ‘So,’ she said, tapping her pencil against the page, ‘we now know that there was no semen on the sheets, and no used condoms, which means that unless Katherine took the condom with her, which hardly seems likely, there’s a very good chance they didn’t make love.’

  Anna lowered her eyes to hide her dismay, for this was the third time in less than an hour that Rachel had made the point. It was almost as if she was trying to convince herself, while deliberately ignoring the fact that Tim had been naked, that the condom could easily have been flushed down the toilet, and that the forensic tests were still incomplete. But she could see that Rachel was in no mood to tolerate a dispute, so she merely passed her tea, saying, ‘Is Haynes coming here again today?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Rachel answered. ‘I hope not.’

  Anna picked up her own cup and went to sit on the armchair next to the sofa. ‘I know you don’t trust him,’ she said, already feeling anxious about how Rachel might react to what she was going to say, ‘but I’d like to know, just for my own information, if you’re hoping to achieve some kind of cover-up of your own by not telling him about the money and the phone calls?’

  Even before Anna finished the question Rachel’s heart was turning over, for the subject of Haynes and the money distressed her almost as much as the subject of Katherine. ‘I know it might look like that,’ she said, ‘but what I’m trying to do is get to the truth. I mean the real truth, not a version of it that someone has spun into … No, listen,’ she said, as Anna started to interrupt. ‘Whoever made that phone call to Michael Jarrett obviously doesn’t want me to go to the police, so maybe I can use that to help us find out who he is and how Tim got the money. A trade-off, as it were – my silence for his information.’

  Anna was looking very uncertain. ‘That’s presuming he gets in touch again,’ she said.

  ‘If he doesn’t, then I’ll go to the police. I just want to give it some time before I do. See what we can find out ourselves.’

  Anna was still frowning.

  Suddenly Rachel’s patience gave out. ‘We’re on our own now,’ she cried. ‘Don’t you realize that? We have to forget the privileges I had as Tim’s wife. They’re over. We have none of the power or even the back-up. That was made abundantly clear to me the very day he died. Mud’s flying and no one wants it sticking to them, least of all the PM – the one person I really thought was a friend and ally. It’s obvious to everyone now that he’s distancing himself. They all are, which makes us the little people, and that’s exactly how they’re going to treat us if we allow it. In fact they’re already doing it, because they’re telling us nothing about what they’ve found in Tim’s private papers, and they’re refusing to let me have any of them back.’

  Anna sat with that for a moment, wishing that someone who knew about all the complex aspects of Tim’s office were here to advise, but Rachel was right, his colleagues, even his so-called friends, had given her such a wide berth since the funeral that it almost broke Anna’s heart to think of how ostracized her sister now was. Even Gordon and Dennis were starting to show signs of discomfort around her, and Anna wouldn’t be at all surprised if they failed to turn up today. ‘Do you think,’ she said, returning to the subject of the money, ‘that this anonymous caller is the same person who called Tim and Katherine on the mobile?’

  Rachel shifted uncomfortably. ‘He could be,’ she answered, looking up as Nigel came into the room. ‘The foreign accent makes it possible, but there are a lot of foreigners out there.’

  ‘Who are we talking about?’ Nigel said, giving her a hug. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked, showing concern as he looked down into her swollen eyes. ‘Still not sleeping?’

  ‘Not very well,’ she answered. ‘The doctor’s given me some Valium, but I can only take a small dose.’ She tried to smile, but it didn’t quite happen.

  As she poured him some tea Anna filled him in on what they’d been discussing before he’d arrived. ‘So what’s your opinion?’ she said, offering him a biscuit as he sat down. ‘Should we tell the police about this money?’

  ‘Mm, it’s a hard one,’ he responded ponderously, ‘because although the immediate answer is yes, of course we should, when you start getting into how he might have made the money, and who else was involved … Well, frankly, I think Rachel’s right, it’s great bait for getting to a truth that someone somewhere might rather we didn’t have. On the other hand
,’ he continued, looking at Rachel, ‘I guess you realize that by not telling the police you’re allowing them to build on the theory of it being an affaire manqué.’

  ‘They’d do that anyway,’ she responded tersely. ‘But whatever they try to make of it, they won’t get away with it being just that, because to paraphrase Rupert Bloch in the Times today, whether Katherine Sumner’s in Timbuktu or Tehran, someone must have helped her get away, and someone must know where she is. So affaire manqué, crime de coeur or whatever other French epithet you want to put on it, she didn’t act alone.’

  Nigel nodded. ‘Do you know if the police have spoken to her old boyfriend yet?’

  ‘You mean Franz Koehler? I’ve no idea. They don’t tell me anything. But I think we should try speaking to him ourselves.’

  ‘From what I hear no one seems to be having much luck on that front,’ he told her, dunking his biscuit. ‘What about her connection to Iran? Tell me about that again.’

  ‘Her father was posted there, back in the seventies. He worked for the American Bureau of Intelligence and Research. She went to the International School in Tehran for a while, but after her father was killed her mother took her and her brother back to the States. She would have been about eleven at the time. Since then there’s no record of her going to Iran again, so as a connection I’d say it’s pretty tenuous now.’

  ‘It was obviously pre-Revolution, that she was there?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How was her father killed?’

  ‘He was shot during what was thought to be an assassination attempt on Amir Hoveyda, the Prime Minister at the time. It happened at Ramsar, a Caspian Sea resort, where they were all on holiday. Hoveyda survived it; so did everyone else, as far as I’m aware. Everyone, that is, except her father who died from his wounds a couple of days later.’

  ‘Was Katherine there when it happened?’

  ‘Apparently, yes.’

  ‘Did she tell you about it, or was it in her dossier?’

  ‘Both. She didn’t talk about it much. It was a long time ago, twenty-seven years, and it’s hardly the sort of thing you want to keep bringing up.’

  ‘Where’s her mother now?’

  ‘In the States. She has Alzheimer’s.’

  ‘Did the mother ever remarry?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘And the brother?’

  Rachel frowned. ‘I’m not sure what happened to him. Presumably he’s still in the States too.’

  Nigel glanced at Anna as she said, ‘He could be the one who’s helping her.’

  ‘I’m sure the police will have spoken to him by now,’ Nigel said, ‘but it’s worth checking. What about marriages, or serious relationships for Katherine?’ he said to Rachel. ‘Do you have anything on that?’

  ‘She’s never been married. There was a bit of a scandal when she was in her early twenties over a relationship with some senator – or was it a congressman? I can’t remember. It’s in the file, anyway, if we could get our hands on it. He was married, of course, or there wouldn’t have been a scandal. She never mentioned it, but it was so long ago it would have been surprising if she did.’

  ‘Did she ever talk about Franz Koehler? Tell you about how it ended, or even how it got going?’

  ‘No. I never heard her mention his name.’

  ‘What about any more recent relationships?’ Anna prompted.

  Rachel’s eyes flicked to hers, and Anna’s heart sank as Tim’s name seemed to scream between them. ‘No one she ever discussed with me,’ Rachel said, feeling herself fill up with hurt and anger as she recalled the times she’d seen Katherine and Tim together, their apparent ease and enjoyment of each other, the thrill of the campaign trail, the intellectual sparring and moments of triumph they’d all shared. Then there were the phone calls, that she, Rachel, had been excluded from, and that last day when they’d obviously been rowing. Would she ever find out what that was about now?

  ‘What was she planning to do once the election was over?’ Nigel asked. ‘Wasn’t there some talk of a career change?’

  Rachel’s laugh was derisive. ‘Apparently she was intending to go on some kind of spiritual journey, to nourish her soul and find the right path for her life.’ Her expression was loaded with bitterness as she looked at them. ‘I don’t suppose she’ll be sending any postcards, do you?’ she said.

  Rachel’s eyes had become almost feverish, but Anna could sense the underlying bewilderment and despair, and all the other emotions too, that ranged from blaming herself for bringing Katherine Sumner into Tim’s life, to the terrible, wrenching pain of his death.

  ‘Of course, what we really need,’ Rachel suddenly said, ‘is someone over there in the States, talking to the people she knew.’ She was staring at Anna, though Anna could see her mind was elsewhere. ‘Who do we know over there?’ she demanded, looking at Nigel now. ‘There must be someone we can trust.’ She took a breath, then realizing that this time the queasiness wasn’t just going to pass, she excused herself and left the room.

  ‘She’s having a pretty rough time with morning sickness,’ Anna explained, just in case Nigel didn’t connect with why the departure had been so abrupt.

  He smiled briefly, then stared thoughtfully down at his cup. After a while he put it back on the table, and turning to Anna said, ‘You know, she shouldn’t be doing this, and I shouldn’t be encouraging her. It’s too much for her to deal with. She’s too close. She’s pregnant, bereaved … For God’s sake, the funeral was only just over a week ago, and we both know what a strain that was on her.’

  Anna nodded gravely. ‘She held together well until we got home.’ She sighed as she recalled just how painful it had been witnessing and trying to soothe the sheer depth of Rachel’s grief during those hours after the funeral. Looking at Nigel again, she said, ‘You’re right, it is too much for her, but she’s seeing it as some kind of therapy, or duty, and until she’s ready to give up and hand over to the police, I don’t know what to do but go along with her.’

  In the silence that followed Anna watched him get up and go to stand at the window. There were still a dozen or more reporters camped out on the Heath, but she didn’t think he was looking at them, or the view either; it was more that he was deep inside his own thoughts in a way that appeared to be unsettling him. She was about to ask if he was all right, when her mobile rang. Seeing it was Robert, she clicked on to answer.

  Though she tried to keep the conversation short, Robert seemed determined to update her on what was happening with the shoot, and knowing how helpful he found it to run things by her, she listened, and encouraged, and wondered at the back of her mind how on earth she was going to split herself between those who needed her in the weeks ahead.

  When finally he rang off she put the phone back on the table next to Rachel’s, and said to Nigel, who was still standing at the window, ‘Why am I getting the impression that there’s something you’re not telling us?’

  His smile was wry as he turned round to face her. ‘Typical Anna,’ he commented, ‘always seeing through the façade and looking for the subtext.’ Then looking worried again, he said, ‘But you’re right, there is something. I had a call from Phyllis at the police labs this morning, she’s the contact Rachel and I have used for years. Rachel spoke to her yesterday about the sheets on Katherine’s bed?’

  Anna nodded, her throat turning dry for she could already guess what was coming.

  ‘There was semen,’ he said. ‘Phyllis couldn’t bring herself to tell Rachel, so she’s asked me to.’

  Anna’s heart contracted, for she knew only too well what a crushing blow this was going to be to Rachel. Then understanding that Nigel was hoping she would offer to tell her, she was about to ask more about it when, to her dismay, she realized Rachel was standing at the door. From the expression on her face there could be no doubt that she’d heard.

  ‘And you’re prepared to believe it was his,’ Rachel said hoarsely.

  Nigel too
k a breath, then letting it go, merely shook his head.

  ‘Rachel,’ Anna said softly.

  Rachel’s eyes were turning livid with pain and anger.

  ‘Look, I know how hard it is to accept that he might have been unfaithful,’ Anna started.

  ‘He wasn’t! There was no affair!’

  Anna turned to Nigel.

  Looking as inept as he felt, he said, ‘Rachel, honest to God, if I thought they were lying … But the circumstances, where he was found, how he was, and now this from Phyllis … The evidence is there … That’s not to say something else wasn’t going on … The money proves something was, but …’

  ‘Have you seen it?’ Rachel challenged. ‘With your own eyes? Do you really know that evidence exists?’

  ‘Rach, you know Phyllis as well as I do, she wouldn’t lie about something like that.’

  ‘But did she say it was Tim’s? Did she actually come right out and say that?’

  Nigel ran a hand over his face, then back through his hair. ‘No,’ he conceded, ‘she didn’t actually say it was Tim’s. But …’

  ‘But you’re willing to believe it was!’ Rachel cried again, half sobbing, half shouting. ‘Without waiting for the test results, you’re willing to believe it was his. Well, I’m sorry, but I’m not.’ She came further into the room. ‘Now, we’ve got a job to do here, so I suggest we get started.’

  Nigel glanced at Anna, then looking at Rachel again he said, ‘I’m sorry. I know how much this means to you, and how convinced you are – we all are – that there’s a whole lot more to it. I just don’t think you’re the one who should be doing this. No, hear me out. I agree that the investigation needs a journalistic watch on it, and God knows it’s got enough of them, but you’re too close, Rachel, and frankly, if you could be even sporadically objective at a time like this, then you’re not the woman I know.’