For The Death Of Me ob-9

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘Well,’ he said, greeting us. ‘Bloody Trevor, eh? Stupid lad. I just had the Lord President on the phone: he’s absolutely livid and is insisting that he be charged with gross contempt. I tried to intercede, but he’s adamant’ He looked at me. ‘Why did he do it, Oz? All to do with Maddy, I expect.’

  ‘Yes, as far as I can see, she’s blaming us for disturbing her happy life.’

  ‘Silly bitch. Is there anything more we can do to help her?’

  ‘I’ve got someone working on it. You forget about it, though, you’ve got an installation to prepare for, and a practice to wind up.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. The LP told me that the announcement’s been accelerated, in view of what happened. It’s being made this morning. God knows what Madeleine will do when she reads about it’

  I grinned at him; couldn’t help it. ‘I don’t think it’s going to be the top item on the news in Ho Chi Minh City, Harvey.’

  I left the two of them there, eventually, and went out to Crewe Road to look for a taxi. I had no clear idea where I wanted to go, but finally when one stopped I was forced to it. I decided on Ricky Ross’s office and gave the driver his address. Ricky was with a client, but his secretary was happy to lend me a desk and a phone. I began by calling a travel agent to book a scheduled one-way flight to Nice. Eventually he found me one that left at six thirty and got me there at midnight; it meant going to Frankfurt again, but I booked it anyway.

  Next I called Alison Goodchild at her office and told her that the threat to Harvey was probably still active, but that if it happened the family reaction was going to be ‘So fucking what?’ as politely and eloquently as she cared to put it.

  Finally I dug out the list of numbers I had acquired over the previous few days and called Janine Raymond, Madeleine’s mum. She really did sound like a vicar’s daughter, very soft-spoken, very polite and very sorry for Harvey when I explained to her what had happened to him.

  She sounded sad, but not surprised. ‘My younger children have been a great disappointment to me as adults, Mr Blackstone,’ she admitted. ‘I rarely see or hear from either of them.’

  I didn’t tell her how much trouble Maddy was in, but asked when she had last been in touch.

  ‘I had a postcard from Singapore three months ago,’ she said. ‘Thankfully, Theresa is everything a daughter should be. She calls me every weekend without fail, and we see each other twice every year. It’s a pity she’s so far away.’

  ‘Where is she, Mrs Raymond?’ I asked.

  ‘New Jersey,’ she replied. ‘She has a chair in philosophy at Princeton University. I go there every Thanksgiving; it’s a lovely place, not like you expect America to be.’

  I left it at that: if I’d pressed her for a phone number she’d have twigged that I hadn’t just called her to tell her the bad news about Trevor.

  I was at a loose end, for the first time in a couple of weeks, but fortunately, before I could get up to any mischief, Ross came back from his meeting and announced that he was taking me for an early lunch. I was expecting the Doric Tavern, or the New York Steam Packet, but I must be a good client for he forked out for Oloroso, on the roof of the building at the corner of Castle Street and George Street.

  We were able to eat outside: good, in that the weather was kind enough to allow it, but bad, in that it means the mobile-phone reception is full strength. It was like a pop concert up there; however good the food was, it was beginning to get on my tits, till Ricky’s cell played a tune that sounded suspiciously like the chorus of ‘The Ball o’ Kirriemuir’. He laid down a forkful of distressed spinach or some such, and answered its summons.

  ‘Indeed,’ he said, then nodded and muttered for about half a minute, until he looked at me. ‘Yes, he’s here.’ He passed the phone across. ‘Ollie Coffey.’

  ‘Oz,’ said my former colleague. ‘I’ve got some more on the fugitive lady.’

  That got my attention. I hadn’t really expected him to come up with anything, for he’s pretty low down in the food chain of the intelligence community. ‘Do tell,’ I invited.

  ‘She caught a plane from Ho Chi Minh to Tokyo, about two hours after she called her brother on Wednesday. There, she boarded another flight to Los Angeles, which got her in yesterday morning local time, yesterday evening BST. The only problem is she doesn’t appear to have got off. Madeleine January boarded the flight at Narita Airport, but she didn’t fill in a US landing card or Customs declaration.’

  ‘So she’s got two passports.’

  ‘She must have. Given time, the US immigration service will be able to come up with the name under which she was admitted, but LAX is a hell of a big airport and they don’t have a lot of time on their hands.’

  ‘She’s gone anyway. That’s eighteen hours ago.’

  ‘Yes, but,’ DCI Coffey had the air of a man who was desperately pleased with himself, ‘about half an hour ago, her brother’s cell-phone rang. The detective constable on whose desk it was sat at the time showed remarkable initiative. He answered it, told the female caller that Trevor was in the bog and that he’d left his phone. He told her to call back in ten minutes, then hung up before she had a chance to ask who the hell he was. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Right, so we then take the phone to Trevor’s cell. By this time, he’s worked out that his brief had better have something to offer the judge in mitigation, and also, I think, that we’re the good guys. So he plays along. He tells her that everything’s kosher and he’s still in England, and he keeps her on the line so that we can pinpoint the origin of the call. . the fatal weakness of cell-phones, as you probably know. It was made from the Shoreham Hotel, number thirty-three West Fifty-fifth Street, New York City.’

  ‘Yes!’ I hissed. ‘Ollie, that selection panel was right: they did pick the right guy for the accelerated promotion course. Thanks, mate, the fucking Milky Bars are on me. Plus, you are now owed a big-time favour by a High Court judge, which you can put in the bank for future use. Cheers, mate.’

  I closed the phone and tossed it back across the table to Ricky, then fished my own from my pocket. Ten minutes later my Nice flight was cancelled and I was on the two-ten British Airways shuttle to Heathrow, connecting to JFK. I’d brought enough bloody luggage for two nights, maximum, and I was going to New York: happily I also had all my credit cards and fifty thousand in readies, which for some blessed reason I’d brought with me, possibly because Susie’s parting words, not entirely in jest, had been ‘Don’t come back until you’ve found this woman and got her out of our bloody lives!’

  39

  It was tight, but Ricky got me to the airport in time; I was the last person to board the flight and got the usual friendly glares from my fellow passengers, but I ignored them all. I called Dylan’s mobile from the devil’s playground that is Heathrow on the move between terminals.

  When he answered, I could hear more background noise. ‘Benny, where are you this time?’

  ‘The Carnegie Deli, having a late breakfast.’

  ‘I thought you lived in the Village.’

  ‘I do, but I’m with the friend I told you about. She’s staying in the Algonquin.’

  ‘You got a spare room?’

  ‘No, that’s why she’s in the Algonquin.’

  My favourite New York hotel. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘book me in there too, for tonight, maybe tomorrow as well. Meet me in the Blue Bar at seven thirty.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Of course I’m fucking serious. See you later.’

  When I called Susie from the departure gate a few minutes later the idea that I might be kidding never crossed her mind. ‘You’re taking me at my word, aren’t you?’ she said.

  ‘I always do, love, I always do. But I promise you now: when I get home this time, we’re going away. Maybe Los Angeles, maybe Spain, but wherever it is, we’re not going to tell anybody, not even family, where the hell we’re at.’

  The New York flight gave me plenty of thinking time, if I’d
been able to take advantage of it, but to be honest my brain was numb. All I could focus on was number thirty-three West Fifty-fifth Street, and whether Maddy January was still there. Eventually, as a distraction, I tried to watch Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith, or Taking the Pith, as a perceptive critic christened it. Ten minutes of that and I was asleep.

  The immigration queue at JFK can be a real bugger, even when you have a permanent visa like me, but when you travel upstairs in a jumbo, you’re first off the plane so I got through quickly. I rated a ‘Have a nice day, Mr Blackstone,’ from the desk officer. She didn’t even ask me about the fifty grand declared on my landing card: she probably thought it was just walk-about money for a movie star. (To some I know, it is.)

  There were the usual guys outside touting limos, but they can take you anywhere, and very often anywhere other than the place you want to go, then charge you a few hundred dollars for the privilege. I chose an ordinary Yellow Cab, and the driver had me at number fifty-nine West Forty-fourth in just over half an hour.

  Mike had booked me a suite, more than I needed for a short stay, but it was pretty classy so I didn’t mind. I dumped my stuff, shaved, and rode the lift down to the Blue Bar. There was a table with a spare Budweiser; Dylan was there, and so was his friend.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, her cheeks turning a nice shade of pink beneath the Mediterranean tan she’d acquired.

  ‘Primavera.’ I chuckled as I picked up the beer and took a long swig. ‘Why am I not surprised?’

  ‘I was bored up in Perthshire.’ She pouted. ‘I’ve been here since Tuesday. Our Benny got a hell of a shock when I called him.’

  ‘I’d a notion it was you when he mentioned the Algonquin.’ When we were together, Prim and I had a couple of holidays in New York, and we’d stayed there. ‘How did you get into the country?’ I asked her. ‘They’re a bit fussy about admitting convicted felons.’

  ‘No problem,’ she replied cheerfully. ‘I lied on the landing card.’

  ‘Imagine,’ said Dylan, mournfully. ‘I get home midday Wednesday, jetlagged and full of hell, and at five o’clock this one phones me, to be taken out on the town. I’m glad to see you, pal, for lots of reasons.’ Then he looked me in the eye, serious all of a sudden. ‘Has she surfaced?’

  ‘Right here in good old New York.’ I glanced at the Breitling. ‘About twelve hours ago, eleven blocks away from here.’ I drained the Bud in a second pull. ‘Fancy seeing if she’s still there?’

  ‘Sounds interesting; I’ll go along with it.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Prim, ‘whatever it is you’re talking about.’

  ‘Maddy January,’ I told her.

  ‘Then I’m definitely coming.’

  ‘I’m not so sure. She might turn nasty.’

  ‘It won’t be anything you two big strong boys can’t handle, I’m sure. Come on.’ She slid out from behind the table and headed for the door.

  ‘Eh, honey,’ I called after her, ‘I hate to point this out, but you don’t know where we’re going.’

  We followed her, though.

  It was a powerfully warm evening, more humid than Monaco but nothing like Singapore. We started walking, on the look-out for a lit-up taxi but at that time on a Friday evening they can be hard to come by. We’d reached Sixth Avenue and Forty-eighth by the time we spotted one, but by then we were half-way there, so we decided to continue on foot. We strolled on, past Radio City. I was astonished to see that the Moody Blues were scheduled to appear there on the following Thursday. I found myself wondering if they’d written any new stuff since I was five years old. I said as much to Dylan.

  ‘Who the fuck are the Moody Blues?’ he muttered. Back from the grave, but still a Philistine.

  West Fifty-fifth was as narrow as most of the trans-avenue streets are in Midtown Manhattan. The Shoreham Hotel wasn’t hard to find; its sign hung out over the street and a modern, fairly tasteless steel canopy hung over the entrance. I caught Prim frowning. ‘Hey,’ she exclaimed, ‘we were near here this morning. The Carnegie’s just round the corner.’

  ‘Too bad Maddy didn’t fancy chicken soup and matzoh balls for breakfast,’ I grunted back at her, ‘or you might have saved me a trip.’

  We went into the bar by mistake before we found the reception desk. When we did, it was staffed by a couple of young ladies who seemed to be doing their best to bristle with efficiency.

  ‘Hi there,’ I said, giving them my best smile, ‘we’re looking for a friend. I believe she may be staying here. The problem is, we’re not sure what name she’s travelling under. Her Christian name, though, is Madeleine, Maddy for short. You can’t miss her: she’s tall, looks mid-thirties, although it may say different on her passport, and she has sensational auburn hair, like in the L’Oreal ads.’

  The older of the two receptionists, a chubby black girl, nodded. ‘From the description, that would be Mrs Lee.’ She broke off for a few seconds to refer to a computer terminal. ‘Yeah, that’s Mrs Madeleine Lee, travelling on a Singapore passport. She was our guest.’

  ‘Was?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I’m afraid she checked out midday.’

  ‘Damn,’ I whispered, and then I saw her smile.

  ‘Would you be Mr Blackstone?’ she asked. ‘The movie star?’

  I gave her my Gary Cooper. ‘Yup.’

  ‘She left something for you.’

  ‘She did?’

  ‘Yes, sir. She said that if Oz Blackstone came looking for her, I should give you this.’ She took a hotel envelope from under the desk and held it out. ‘I thought she was maybe a little crazy,’ the receptionist confessed, as I took it from her.

  ‘This is New York,’ I reminded her. ‘It takes a lot to count as crazy here.’

  Mike and Prim watched me as I turned my back on the desk and opened Maddy’s gift. It was lightly sealed and peeled back at the touch of a finger. There was a single sheet of paper inside, folded twice. It was only rough, a file that most probably had been copied on to a computer, printed, then, I guessed, deleted. It had been done on ordinary paper, not high quality, but I knew what it was, almost before I glanced at it. When I did I saw red robes; that was enough. I refolded it quickly and slid it back into the envelope, then pocketed it.

  ‘What’s that about?’ Dylan asked.

  ‘It’s why I’m here. I think it’s a warning to leave her alone.’ I looked at the girl behind the counter. ‘The chambermaids didn’t find a body in her room, did they?’

  She stared at me as if I was the crazy one. ‘No, Mr Blackstone,’ she murmured uncertainly.

  ‘That makes a change,’ I told her.

  ‘Another cold trail,’ said Mike, grimly.

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  I walked through a door to the left of the desk, back out on to the street. What passed for a doorman was on duty there, a guy with a West Indian look, wearing a long jacket and a leather pork-pie hat. ‘Were you here at noon?’ I asked him.

  ‘Yes, mon,’ he drawled, confirming my guess about his origins.

  ‘A woman left here then; striking, tall, with long dark hair.’

  ‘I remember the lady. I got her a cab.’

  I gave him twenty bucks, up front: I didn’t want him making up a story just to get his hands on it. ‘Do you remember where she went?’

  ‘Sure, mon. She asked for Penn Station, that’s Thirty-third and Seventh.’

  I slipped him another twenty. ‘Thanks, mate.’ He’d told me where she was going.

  40

  Dylan ducked out of dinner: he said he was knackered, but I wasn’t sure. I reckon he’d been at enough tables with Prim and me.

  I told him that if he wanted to be part of the continuing adventure, he should meet me at the Algonquin at ten thirty next morning, with an overnight bag as we’d be going on a trip for a day or two.

  ‘In at the death, eh?’ He grinned. ‘You don’t think I’d miss that, do you? Make it eleven thirty, though. I’m not an early riser these days.’

  ‘Me t
oo,’ Prim piped up. ‘I’m coming.’

  ‘I know you are,’ I told her. ‘You might have a part to play in this unfolding drama.’

  Dylan headed for the subway, while my good buddy on the door got Prim and me a cab. We went back to the hotel and to the Round Table restaurant. The Oak Room had been our favourite when we had been there before, but there’s no cabaret in July, and that’s why you go there.

  We both knew what we wanted without looking at the menu: lump crab cocktail and spring chicken pot pie, with a bottle of Ruffino Pinot Grigio. The waiter gave us a nod of approval, always a good sign. That was how it worked out.

  ‘Well, Tom’s mum,’ I said, as the last of the chicken disappeared from her plate; Prim could eat for Scotland. ‘How do you feel?’

  She looked at me. ‘Now I’m properly back in the world?’ I nodded. ‘Settled,’ she replied. ‘Oddly content. I don’t know what the rest of my life holds for me, but I don’t give a damn because I’ve got my son and I know he’s well loved and looked after even when he’s not with me. There’s more too.’ She laid her hand on mine. ‘The way things are, it keeps me involved in your life. I really hated it when I wasn’t; that’s how I got so bitter and twisted and vengeful. I’m sorry for that, but please, love, don’t shut me out again. You can’t deny it, we share something, you and I. We’ve got a bond. We’re joined in. .’

  ‘Wickedness,’ I finished it for her. ‘You’re the bad cherub and I’m the devil.’

  ‘That’s a bit hard on both of us.’

  ‘If that were only true, baby. Remember that man in Geneva.’

  ‘That was different: he was trying to kill us.’

  ‘More fool him, then.’ Our eyes met and we both smiled. . wickedly: we were talking about the death of another human, and grinning.

  ‘Hold on, though,’ she said, ‘we can’t be all that bad. We made Tom, after all.’