Fifth Victim tcfs-9

by Zoe Sharp

  Bearing that in mind, I looked for meaning in every gesture, however pointless they told me that might be.

  Sighing, I let my thumb stroke the back of his right hand. Without animation from within, his skin felt different, alien to the touch. And I remembered, with splintered clarity, every moment we’d spent together. Sean was everything I’d ever wanted, even before I’d known what that was. He understood me better than I understood myself, and he would have understood, better than anyone, how this slow limbo was crushing me from the inside out.

  ‘I need you,’ I said out loud. It sounded stark and craven in the quiet room.

  Gently, I let go of his hand and stood up. I shrugged into my jacket, picked up the cooling coffee from the cabinet.

  ‘Last chance,’ I murmured, waggling the cup slightly. Sean didn’t stir. ‘Maybe tomorrow, hey?’

  I walked out of the room and along the corridor, resisting the urge to look back.

  We’d talked about death, in a roundabout kind of way. We couldn’t do the job we did without the subject coming up and being faced in advance. Sean had always said, calm and casual, that when his time was up he wanted to go clean, fast, and know nothing about it.

  Well, two out of three ain’t bad.

  A sudden dazzling image exploded behind my eyes, the way his head had snapped sideways from the bullet’s impact, the slash of blood, the instant drop.

  It didn’t give any comfort that he’d gone down in the line of duty, as he would have seen it. Doing his job. Hesitation had never been a possibility with Sean and it seemed that to hesitate now would be to let down everything he’d stood for. So if it came to it, I thought fiercely, then yes, I would die to protect Dina Willner, as her mother had asked.

  And maybe I’d do it just a fraction more willingly than I might have done, a hundred days ago.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘Isn’t this just to die for?’

  Dina opened the ring box and turned it towards me. Inside was the biggest, ugliest yellow diamond I’d ever seen. It looked like nicotine-stained glass and cost the same as a car.

  I held up my unadorned hands with the fingers splayed, and shook my head. ‘I’m the wrong person to ask about jewellery,’ I said evasively. ‘But couldn’t a ring as a birthday present be … misconstrued?’

  She coloured slightly, snapped the box shut again and handed it back to the eagle-eyed sales assistant. ‘You’re right,’ she agreed. Her eyes drifted indecisively across the glittering display cabinets. We’d been into a dozen similar high-end stores so far on this street alone, and all that dazzle was starting to give me a bad head.

  ‘The party’s the day after tomorrow. I just wish Mother had given in earlier, then I would have had more time to find something suitable,’ Dina said. She sighed. ‘Tor’s so difficult to buy for. I mean, what do you give the guy who’s got everything?’

  Recognising that Dina was clutching at straws on the ideas front, I refrained from the old joke about penicillin. Torquil Eisenberg, whose twenty-first birthday celebration was the cause of all the fuss, was the son and heir to a vast transportation empire. Eisenberg Senior, so I understood, owned a large percentage of everything that flew, drove or floated with a bellyful of bulk goods, from crude oil to car parts. There was rich, and then there was Eisenberg rich. I took a wild stab that suggesting some aftershave and a pair of socks was probably not quite going to cut it.

  ‘You’ve seen the necklace Tor’s mother has, of course – the Eisenberg Rainbow?’ Dina said now, undeterred by my silence. ‘All these rows of beautiful diamonds – different cuts and colours. Not just white, but some are pale pink, or deep blue like sapphires. It’s priceless, and utterly fabulous.’

  She sighed, as if – by courting Tor’s favour – she might get to wear it herself one day. I’d seen news photographs of the jewellery in question. To me it looked as fake as something from a cheap Christmas cracker, but I thought it best not to say so.

  ‘What’s he like – Torquil’s father?’ I asked instead as we walked back out into the sunshine. I checked the passers-by out of habit before we crossed the street and I blipped the locks on Dina’s Mercedes SLK. ‘Have you ever met him?’

  ‘Mr Eisenberg?’ Dina looked blank for a moment, then shrugged. ‘A couple of times. He’s OK, I guess,’ she said, and heard the doubtful note in her own voice. ‘Well, he can be OK – when everything’s going Tor’s way. Which is kinda weird, because from what Tor says, he’s hardly ever around.’

  So, money can’t buy you everything.

  We climbed into the car. I fired up the engine to let the air con disperse the heat that had built up inside the cabin, and found Dina watching me.

  ‘Why did you ask?’

  My turn to shrug. ‘I’m just surprised, that’s all,’ I said, ‘that he’s putting on a big birthday bash for his son when there’ve been these kidnappings. You would have thought he’d be wary of conspicuous displays of wealth – go out of his way to make his son seem a less attractive target.’

  She laughed. ‘From what I hear, Tor hasn’t had to ask twice for anything since he was about six years old,’ she said wryly. ‘Can you imagine what would happen if his twenty-first birthday party was cancelled because it might be risky?’

  ‘He likes taking risks?’

  ‘He wrecked his first Ferrari when he was sixteen. He’s into skydiving, snowboarding, you name it,’ she said. ‘If it’s dangerous, Torquil will do it.’ But where there should have been a certain amount of respect or admiration in her voice, something more heartfelt took its place.

  I checked the mirrors and slid the Merc out into traffic. ‘You don’t like him very much, do you?’

  ‘I—’ She flicked me a telling glance and lapsed into glum silence for the next couple of blocks before finally admitting, ‘It’s not that. He just doesn’t know when to stop, you know? Like, it’s not funny until someone gets hurt.’

  ‘Yeah, and then it’s hilarious,’ I muttered, glanced across and caught her frowning. ‘So, why are you going to all this trouble over his birthday? Your mother obviously didn’t want you to go, and you’ve admitted you don’t really like the guy …’

  ‘It’s not for Tor—,’ she began, biting off whatever she’d been about to say next. ‘Oh, never mind!’

  I wasn’t being paid to be easily offended so I just shrugged. ‘OK.’

  We drove on in silence, with Dina staring pointedly out of the window. It was the first hint of discord, of temperament, she’d shown in the three days since I’d been assigned to her.

  Dina swam every morning in the heated outdoor pool on the lower terrace, while I made a show of apparently lounging around, keeping her company. At varying times we rode out on the beach – Dina on the showy white Cerdo, and me on an elderly chestnut Quarter Horse that had apparently been her previous mount.

  Dina had been friendly and chatty enough, without actually revealing much of herself to me, nor enquiring too deeply in return. She seemed most interested in my riding skills, acquired in my childhood and not used much since.

  Apart from that, she’d shopped, and gone to hairdressing and beauty appointments, all with me firmly in tow. I’d done my best not to crowd or irritate her and it had seemed to be working fine ’til now. When she’d lunched with her mother at a fashionable restaurant, I’d excused myself to the adjoining bar area and kept a discreet watch over the pair of them from there. If body language was anything to go by, they ended the meal in excruciatingly polite disagreement over something. I didn’t ask, and Dina didn’t tell. We didn’t have that kind of relationship.

  And today, she’d quickly accepted that I was not going to act as her own personal pack mule, not that she’d bought much so far. Certainly nothing suitable as a birthday present for the thrill-seeking only child of a billionaire.

  I checked my mirrors again before changing lanes, indicating late before our turn-off to flush out a possible tail. There had been no hint of anything so far, but it did no harm to be cauti
ous.

  Our destination was a shopping mall that seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see in all directions. My heart sank at the prospect of a long afternoon’s continued dithering, but when I parked up near the main entrance, Dina made no immediate moves to get out.

  ‘I’m sorry about … before,’ she said in an awkward rush. ‘But, you see, there will be other people there – at the party. People I kinda like …’

  ‘So, putting up with an evening of Torquil’s dubious sense of humour is the price you’re prepared to pay.’

  ‘Yes … I guess it is.’ She gave a wan smile. ‘Doesn’t make it any easier to choose a gift for him, though.’

  So, her earlier dreaminess had been strictly for the necklace. I sighed. ‘From what you’ve said, it sounds like you can’t hope to buy anything that’s going to impress him, so why not get him something quirky instead? Something that will make him smile. It doesn’t have to cost a fortune.’

  She stared at me like I’d suggested she dance naked in the streets. ‘Like what?’

  I resigned myself to yet more shopping and nodded to the mall looming ahead of us. ‘Let’s go and find out, shall we?’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  In low heels and an all-purpose evening dress, I leant on the balcony rail of the yacht club and stared out across the glittering lights of the harbour.

  When Dina had said the birthday celebration was taking place at a regatta, I’d envisaged sailing boats of some kind, slim and sinuous. What greeted me instead was a collection of floating gin palaces, halfway to cruise ship size, bobbing fatly, gleaming and self-satisfied in their allotted mooring spaces, like prize pigs at a trough.

  Below me was a wide outside terrace area overhanging the water, strung with fairy lights and bordered by waist-high glass panels, presumably to stop the more enthusiastic partygoers tumbling into the murky depths. There were currently about thirty or forty of them down there, doing their damnedest to put that to the test.

  Our host for the evening, Torquil Eisenberg, was at the centre of things and working a little too hard at being the life and soul of his own party. He was a thin geeky kid with a long neck and prominent Adam’s apple above the bow tie of his white tuxedo. I guessed, in different circumstances, he would have had buck teeth and sticking-out ears, too, but Daddy’s considerable riches had fixed what it could and showered him with money in the hope of taking your mind off the rest. If he was into the extreme sports Dina had mentioned, it hadn’t helped convert his stringy physique into anything immediately impressive.

  It took me about ten seconds after meeting him to decide I didn’t like the kid. Dina had handed over her beautifully wrapped gift with studied casualness, like his reaction didn’t matter to her. He tore his way through the brightly coloured paper and ribbons and looked suddenly nonplussed when he came to the manufacturers’ logo on the box.

  ‘Victorinox?’ he said blankly. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Why don’t you open it and find out?’ I suggested.

  He managed to open the box itself and found, nestling inside, the most comprehensive and expensive Swiss Army knife in the shop, bristling with attachments for every occasion. After she’d chosen it, Dina had gone back to the jeweller’s and had six words neatly engraved along the side of the casing.

  FOR THE GUY WHO HAS EVERYTHING

  Torquil stared for a moment longer and I could have sworn I caught the slightest twitch at the corner of his mouth, then he looked up and it was gone, replaced by an indifferent contempt.

  ‘Is that it?’ he demanded, dumping the gift into the hands of a flunkey and elbowing his way towards the next hopeful bearer.

  Dina tried to affect a blasé pose in response, but I saw her quickly bitten lip and wanted to slap his legs for him. Sadly, such an action was not part of my remit, however much personal satisfaction I might have derived from it.

  The party had been going for about three hours by that point. Torquil had made a showy arrival by chauffeured Bell Jet Ranger, touching down on the yacht club’s private helipad, and been swept into a huge marquee on the lawns for a short but concussive set by a moody rock group. I initially had them pegged as a particularly good tribute band and only realised, when the lead singer nearly punched out the birthday boy for making a grab at his favourite guitar, that they were actually the real thing.

  The catered meal that followed defied belief, from the massive ice sculptures on the tables to the vintage champagne freely available. Then it was on to the yacht club itself and the partying had started in earnest. What it had all cost was anybody’s guess.

  Now I sipped my ginger ale on the rocks slowly, as if it were whisky, and looked for trouble.

  There was general perimeter security in place, a load of guys built like American football players, squeezed uncomfortably into dinner jackets and bow ties. Not bad as a gatecrashing deterrent, but with neither the agility nor the experience, in my opinion, to prevent an organised, well-orchestrated attack. They’d given my evening bag a cursory search on the way in, but had completely missed the SIG hidden beneath the back of my short jacket. I hadn’t enlightened them.

  If I’d been trying to guard Dina against potential assassination, the rear terrace of the yacht club would have been a nightmare to control and contain, even with a full team. Open on three sides, brightly lit against the darkness, the exposed location offered too much concealment on the far shoreline for a sniper, with too easy an exfil once the job was done.

  As a possible ambush site for kidnapping, however, it wasn’t nearly so attractive. Anyone approaching from the water would be clearly highlighted all the way in to the lower landing stage, and the only landward exit meant climbing the short flight of stairs to the balcony where I now stood. From here, I could keep a watching brief on my principal without cramping her style, as per my instructions.

  And Dina seemed to be following hers – for the moment at least. She stayed in plain sight and kept tight hold of her champagne glass at all times. The three kidnap victims so far had all been slipped something to make them compliant, I’d pointed out. They could have been injected – any exposed muscle would do the trick – but there was no point in taking chances that the drug had simply been palmed into their unguarded drink.

  She had shaken off her earlier embarrassment without, I was interested to note, entirely blaming me for its cause. I had a feeling Torquil would have been determinedly unimpressed with anything she might have given him, and at least the Swiss Army multi-tool I’d suggested was a fraction of the price of that yellow diamond.

  After a few minutes of self-pity, she’d shaken herself out of it, agreed with my assessment that he was an ungrateful little bastard, and made a firm decision to enjoy the rest of the party as best she could.

  I remembered Caroline Willner’s quietly murmured last words before the limo had collected us from the house to bring us here.

  ‘Take care of her for me.’

  So far, so good.

  I caught movement behind me, shifted a little to see a young man step out of the bar, and recognised him as one of the many guests I’d seen earlier. He moved forwards to lean on the railing a couple of metres away. We nodded to each other. I kept my face blank to discourage small talk, but made a mental note of him, all the same. Sandy hair, medium height, thickset but light enough on his feet for it to be athletic muscle rather than junk food. He dressed like money was not a problem and probably never had been.

  I checked him out under cover of taking a drink, but his eyes were on the group below, where Torquil was refilling the champagne glasses of two giggling girls. They both had a lot of blond hair and tanned skin on show, and could well have been twins.

  ‘A regular Prince Charming, isn’t he?’ said my companion, as if reading my thoughts. I glanced across, surprised. His accent was classless English, with just a hint of American inflection in the way he asked the question to suggest a long stay here.

  ‘I’m barely able to contain my lust,’ I agreed dr
yly.

  He laughed, a pleasant uncontrived sound, accompanied by a flash of teeth. ‘You say that, but half the girls down there would crawl over broken glass to be the one he takes home tonight.’

  ‘Really?’ I murmured as I watched Torquil drape his arm across the bare shoulders of another girl, leaving it there just a little too long before moving on. I didn’t miss her exaggerated shudder and pulled face behind his back. If they really think so little of him, why are they all here? ‘What’s his trick, then? Can he breathe through his ears?’

  In the middle of taking a mouthful of drink, my companion spluttered and came close to choking. I kept my eyes on the throng, double-checking Dina’s location and too wary of deliberate distraction to come to his immediate aid.

  He recovered enough for speech, wiping his mouth on a folded napkin. ‘English, right?’ he said. ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Here and there,’ I said. ‘London latterly.’

  ‘I’ve been out here five years. Was at Oxford before that. Nice to hear a familiar accent.’ Something had sharpened in his gaze. ‘And here I was, expecting just another boring evening.’

  I cursed inwardly. If I’d smiled sweetly and made some vacuous comment, he would have soon ignored me. As it was, his patent interest was an inconvenience at best, and – if anything went down and he was overcome with stupid ideas of chivalry – it could turn into a serious handicap.

  ‘I’m Hunt, by the way – Hunt Trevanion,’ he said then, moving closer to offer me a tanned hand. He was older than I’d first thought, maybe approaching thirty rather than twenty, which gave him ten years on the average age of the crowd.

  I touched my fingers to his briefly, not letting him get a decent grip even if he’d been so inclined, and said, coolly offhand, ‘Trevanion? Isn’t that a Cornish name?’

  He shrugged. ‘Is it? I’ve never done the whole family history thing.’ He eyed me, assessing. ‘Have I seen you around before? At the tennis club, maybe?’