Fifth Victim tcfs-9

by Zoe Sharp

  Parker smiled more fully then, as if glad to be back on safer ground. It made him look younger, too, despite the old gaze. ‘According to Dina’s mother, you’re the only one she’d trust to get the job done and not give a damn who you rode over to do it.’

  ‘Ah.’ I recalled with discomfort the reckless comment I’d thrown at Benedict Benelli the night before, about how if he turned out to be peddling drugs to his friends, I’d take him down regardless of family influence, and the ripples it was likely to cause. ‘I don’t suppose she qualified that at all, did she?’

  Parker made an amused sound in the back of his throat, too dignified for it to be a snort. ‘She likes you well enough and thinks you’re doing a fine job, Charlie,’ he said. ‘Someone offers you the moon, don’t ask for the stars as well.’

  I would have remarked on the exaggeration of that statement, had it not been for the fact that we both knew he wasn’t talking about Caroline Willner.

  Sean was still alive – for the moment. I tried to tell myself that anything else was a bonus.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I sat on the old Quarter Horse, whose name was Geronimo, and watched Dina cantering in decreasing circles on an increasingly het-up Cerdo. We were in the Olympic-size all-weather outdoor arena at the local riding club, where Dina took the white horse every week for private lessons in equestrianism.

  The instructor was a tall, well-built Australian called Raleigh, who seemed to take delight in pushing horse and rider to the point of explosion. They’d been trying to perfect a difficult dressage move, canter pirouette, for the best part of an hour, so far without satisfying Raleigh’s exacting standards.

  To my mind, Dina hadn’t attained nearly enough willing submission from her horse in order to achieve the lightness and balance required for the movement, so each attempt rapidly degenerated into a hauling match. I reckoned Cerdo was consistently ahead on points.

  But I kept such an opinion firmly to myself.

  Raleigh turned and caught me watching. ‘Taking a breather already, hey?’ he demanded. ‘Let’s see you try it, then, Pom.’

  I gave him a bland smile, ignoring the vague insult, and nudged Geronimo forwards. First into an ambling trot – not his best pace – and then into a collected canter around the outside edge of the arena. Although I hadn’t been on a horse seriously since I’d left home as a teenager, riding out with Dina on the beach every day had rekindled those half-forgotten skills. In that respect, it was very much like riding a bike, as well as giving me aching seat bones for the first few days.

  This was our second time under the stern scrutiny of Raleigh. Dina told me that his nickname was the Wizard of Aus because of his ability to turn out first-class competition riders in a very short space of time. It seemed to me that his reputation was rather more important to him than the kind of gradual progress that Dina and Cerdo needed to make together.

  I kept that one to myself, also, but I’d made a point of riding just a little more sloppily than I was capable of in front of Raleigh. I’d found out very quickly in this business that nothing gets a bodyguard fired faster than showing up their principal in public, particularly at any kind of sporting activity. Obviously, that did not include anything involving firearms or martial arts. If your principal thought they could outshoot or outfight you, they also tended to think they could do without you. The best plan was not to accept that kind of challenge in the first place.

  We were riding with English saddles, which were not as armchair-like as their western counterparts, and it was clear that Geronimo was more at home in less formal attire. Now, I neck-reined the Quarter Horse in a fast tight circle, feeling him squat down on his ageing haunches as he spun round like we were roping a zigzagging steer.

  As expected, Raleigh yelled, ‘Jeez, Pom, call that dressage? Useless!’ and turned his attention back to Dina.

  I let Geronimo fall back to a walk and patted his sweating neck as I scanned the area near the arena. The riding club consisted of a smart collection of horse barns built around a central courtyard, surrounded by white-railed paddocks and a substantial cross-country course that ran for the best part of a mile.

  In the yard, there was even a clock tower with a weathervane on top, tubs of well-tended flowers evenly spaced along the neatly swept concrete, and a café with tables arranged along an open balcony for a view of the arena where we practised. I ran a critical eye over the few spectators, but none of them rang any alarm bells.

  Adjacent to the outdoor arena was an indoor one of similar enormous size, for use in bad weather. A far cry from the muddy farmyards and patchwork buildings of my youth.

  It had rained lightly during our previous visit, and Dina’s lesson had taken place indoors as a result. From a security point of view, I would have preferred the same again, but Raleigh told us it was already in use. I thought about making an issue of it, then just shrugged. Dina and I had still not regained our earlier easy relationship after the party, and I knew that she would consider any insistence on my part as showing her up in front of her mentor.

  Something else to be avoided.

  Besides, in light of the previous two ambushes, I was more worried about being tagged while we were en route from the Willners’ house to the riding club in the Navigator, which was considerably slowed down by having a horse trailer on the back. Making aggressive evasive manoeuvres with such an unstable cargo would be impossible.

  I didn’t like the arrangement, and said so, at which point Dina dug her heels in, much as she was doing now. Cerdo didn’t appreciate it any more than I had.

  It was late morning and the day was nearing its hottest hour, but that alone wasn’t enough to cause the sweat to cream into lather where the reins rubbed against the horse’s arched neck. He gave off waves of agitation in the lash of his tail, the uneven stamp of his gait, the laid-flat ears and white-rimmed eyes.

  He couldn’t have given any more warning of impending trouble if he’d hired a giant neon billboard in Times Square.

  Eventually, after another barrage of scorn from Raleigh had translated its inherent tension into Dina’s seat and hands, Cerdo threw in the towel.

  Or rather, he used a couple of squabbling birds as an excuse to leap sideways towards the middle of the arena and drop his outside shoulder. Dina, unbalanced by his sudden swerve, didn’t stand much of a chance. She went catapulting off into the sand at his feet and the horse shot off loose for a victory lap, tail streaming out behind him like a banner.

  Abandoning finesse, I booted a startled Geronimo into action and was by Dina’s side in moments, almost sliding the poor old Quarter Horse onto his rump in his anxiety to obey my instant go-stop commands.

  Dina was floundering on the ground. I jumped down alongside her and ran my hands quickly along her limbs, despite her gasping protests. All her bones were the shape they were supposed to be, and she gave no flinches of pain anywhere.

  Just winded, I concluded. Wounded only in pride.

  I sat back on my heels, saw that Raleigh had managed to recapture Cerdo, who was looking more frightened than triumphant by the success of the ditching operation.

  Dina scowled in his general direction, although to be fair she might have been pulling a face at her instructor as much as her horse.

  ‘What did I tell you?’ she muttered. ‘Lives up to his name, huh?’

  I put out my hand to help her to her feet and murmured quickly, ‘He’s confused and frustrated, Dina. You’re pushing him too fast and he doesn’t understand what you want. Have you come off him before?’ She shook her head, watching as Raleigh walked the horse back towards us. ‘Well, he’s just scared himself as much as you – look at him. Take five or ten minutes just to walk him round and reassure him that he can trust you again, otherwise that’s not going to be the first time you bite the dust today.’

  She threw me an entirely disbelieving look as she slapped the loose sand off her clothing, but when Raleigh brusquely ordered her to get back up there and do it again, s
he looked him firmly in the eye and said she wanted to give the horse a breather to resettle him.

  Raleigh shrugged as if to say the meter was running and it was up to her how she spent the remaining time, but agreed more readily than I’d been expecting, giving Dina a leg-up into the saddle and watching them walk away on a loose rein. Maybe he, too, had realised they’d been getting nowhere. Somehow I doubted I’d get him to say so out loud.

  ‘Go easier on her,’ I said to him, keeping my tone light to offset the words. ‘They both need a bit more confidence in each other before they aim for greatness.’

  The Australian gave me a calculating glance, then went back to studying Dina, walking large circles at the far end of the arena. She was leaning forward to stroke the white horse’s neck and was talking softly to him. Cerdo had started to relax, his stride smoothing out and one ear flicking back and forth to listen to her.

  ‘Shame it’s not you on that horse,’ Raleigh said, keeping his own voice low. ‘Got some great potential.’

  ‘Oh yeah? I thought I was a useless Pommie bastard,’ I said dryly.

  ‘I was talking about the horse,’ he said, back to arrogance, but there was a smile lurking behind his eyes as he looked down at me. ‘And you are bloody useless – when you’re deliberately not trying.’

  I didn’t answer that, just said, ‘I’ll put Geronimo away, if you don’t mind? I think the old boy’s about had enough for today.’

  He waved me away, his interest lost. We were only a short distance from the gate out of the arena and I didn’t bother remounting to get there. Raleigh did not offer me a helping hand back into the saddle, in any case.

  As I reached the gate, one of the army of teenage girls who seemed to hang around the riding club just to be near the horses appeared and offered to walk Geronimo round for me to cool off. ‘So’s you can watch your friend ride.’

  Dina was still slowly circling, watched by Raleigh who seemed content, for the moment, not to interrupt.

  I thanked my wannabe groom and climbed the wooden steps to the café balcony, peeling off my gloves and riding helmet as I went. The latter left me with worse hat-hair than any bike lid ever did.

  When I reached the small balcony overlooking the arena, there was only one person in occupation. He was sprawled at the end table, with a large coffee, an expensive sleek cellphone and an extreme-sports magazine on the surface in front of him. His style of dress leant very much towards urban, rather than rural – baggy jeans and a huge warm-up jacket and baseball cap, which would have looked great … if he’d happened to be a black teenage rap star.

  He looked up with a grin at my obvious consternation. The last person I expected to see here. Or wanted to see anywhere, for that matter.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘Hiya, Charlie,’ Torquil said. ‘Surprised, huh?’

  His voice was almost a taunt. I made a point of looking round very carefully before I moved in his direction. He took that as the insult it was intended to be and fidgeted with the insulated band round his coffee while I bought a cold drink from the serving window.

  ‘Yeah, I’m surprised,’ I allowed at last, taking a seat at his table without waiting to be invited and angling my chair so I could keep an eye on Dina at the same time. ‘You alone?’

  Now it was his turn to make an exaggerated show of looking around. ‘Looks that way.’ He faced me with a sly grin. ‘Why – you wanna go somewhere?’

  I sat back in my chair and took a long swig of cola straight from the can. It was cold enough for condensation to have formed on the outside already.

  ‘You normally have a two-man detail covering you twenty-four/seven,’ I said, sidestepping the question. ‘One stays with the car, but the other should be all over you like a rash. Where is he, Torquil?’

  ‘Maybe I sent them home.’ Torquil shrugged. ‘Maybe I just got fed up with having someone looking over my shoulder. All. The. Damn. Time,’ he said, the precision of his words making a lie of the apparently light tone.

  I glanced around, keeping it casual, and saw a big short-clipped man in jeans and a casual jacket that he wore unzipped. The man was loitering by the edge of one of the horse barns, alert, balanced, and watching me with slitted eyes.

  I put down my drink slowly and gave him a slight nod, letting him get a good look at my empty hands. He tensed, then nodded back, one pro recognising another. I saw him relax, but wasn’t sure if it was because he’d discarded me as a possible threat, or thought I might be prepared to lend a hand if things went bad.

  He must have known that the latter was unlikely, though. Bodyguards, by their very nature, had to be utterly single-minded about their field of responsibility, or chaos would ensue.

  Torquil, catching my nod, followed its direction and scowled at his bodyguard, shooing him away with an exaggerated flap of his hand. He was not, I surmised, the easiest principal to protect. When they were young and arrogant, they sometimes seemed determined to do half a potential kidnapper’s work for them, defying precautions and creating a perfect window of opportunity.

  Out in the arena, Dina had gathered the white horse together again, but this time the pair seemed a little less combative with each other, as if that brief flash of equine temper had cleared the air. They had a long way to go, but I thought I detected the beginnings of trust between them.

  I turned my head, realised Torquil was watching her intently with a faint frown, like he was trying to work out how a conjuring trick was done.

  ‘You ride?’ I asked.

  He took a moment to drag his gaze back to me. ‘Horses?’

  I suppressed a sigh. ‘Considering our present location, what else?’

  Torquil dipped his head to leer over his designer shades at the girl groom who was walking Geronimo round in the yard for me. She was probably fifteen or sixteen, with blond hair in a plait, and she was wearing skin-tight jodhpurs that left remarkably little to the imagination about the nature of her underwear. ‘Well, I guess I could be persuaded to … mount up.’

  ‘Thoughts in that direction will land you in gaol,’ I said dryly, but the comment provoked a weary laugh.

  ‘You think?’ He shook his head. ‘You don’t know how things work in this country, do you?’

  ‘Why don’t you enlighten me?’

  Torquil sprawled back in his chair, as if he couldn’t believe I seriously needed to ask such a dumb question.

  ‘My old man has more money than God. Don’t ask how he made most of it. Hell, even I don’t ask how he made most of it,’ he added, as if he and his father had conversations about high finance all the time. He grinned. ‘But the long and the short of it is, money don’t talk – it sings. And, when it does, everybody dances.’ He leant forwards, elbows on the table, the smile dropping away. ‘And that means I can do, or have, anything I want, and nobody will lift a finger to stop me. Capiche?’

  I waited a beat. ‘How very boring for you,’ I said, letting my voice drawl.

  Torquil looked momentarily surprised at my lack of proper intimidation, and then he laughed out loud, a proper bark of amusement. ‘I like you,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why, ’cause you’re a bitch, but I really do like you.’

  ‘Thank you … I think.’

  He held my gaze for a moment longer, then turned his attention back to Dina. Beyond the waist-high kick boards that edged the arena, she had managed to coax Cerdo into a creditable canter pirouette to applause and cries of ‘Way to go, Dina!’ from Raleigh.

  Any moment now, I thought cynically, he’s going to suggest a group hug.

  ‘I wouldn’t put that untouchable status to the test as far as she’s concerned, if I were you,’ I said quietly. ‘She’s well protected.’

  ‘I kinda like her, too,’ Torquil said. ‘That was a cool gift.’ And as if to prove it, he reached into a pocket and dragged out the Swiss Army knife Dina had given to him for his birthday. He fingered the engraved casing, looking almost unsure of himself. ‘I thought I might invite her to dinner.
As a thank you and an apology. You think she’ll come?’

  I thought of Dina’s comment before the party, that Torquil was the price rather than the object of going. It was not part of my job description, I decided, to vet my principal’s choice of date unless they posed an actual threat.

  All I said was, ‘A little early in the day for that, isn’t it?’

  ‘Depends.’ Torquil checked the encrusted Rolex that swamped his wrist. If he ever fell into deep water wearing it, it would pull him to the bottom so fast his eardrums would burst. ‘I know a place does great seafood in Miami,’ he said, almost diffident. ‘And Dad’s just bought a new Lear 85.’

  ‘Nice choice,’ I said sedately. His expression turned slightly mulish, as if he’d been hoping for more surprised admiration of his father’s executive jet. I put my head on one side, asked in mild tones, ‘How do you live with such certainty? Once you’ve had everything – done everything – how will you even bring yourself to get out of bed in the morning?’

  Just for a moment, something flitted across his face. It took me a moment to recognise it as panic and I realised he’d already reached his boredom saturation point. He was a week past his twenty-first birthday.

  At that moment, his cellphone began to vibrate and emit the theme from Mission: Impossible. Now why didn’t that surprise me? Torquil snatched it up immediately.

  I tuned out his mumbled phone conversation and watched Dina instead. She was walking Cerdo in a cooling-off circle around her instructor at the far end of the arena. Raleigh was talking animatedly, mainly with his hands, and Dina was nodding seriously, a buzz of excitement about her. At least she hadn’t reached the same plane as Torquil. Not yet.

  It was a testament to the newly attained state of relaxation between horse and rider that the sudden clatter of hooves on the concrete yard didn’t startle Cerdo beyond a slight quickening of his stride, a twitch of his ears. But at least he didn’t try to dump his rider again.