‘I thought it was Charlotte trying to ring me but …’ his voice faded.
‘Are you on the train to Bruges? I told you to wait in Brussels till I’d decided what was to be done.’
‘I couldn’t think what else to …’ His voice came and went. Bad reception. Or perhaps the battery on Zander’s phone was running out as well? ‘… but she’s in a terrible state.’
Rafael was impatient. ‘So what! She won’t dare go to the police or she’ll land herself in jail. Now listen carefully. You’re going to arrive in Bruges too late to pick up the goods from the girls so I’ve arranged for someone else to do it. I want you back here in London tonight. The train stops at Ghent on the way to Bruges, right? Get off at Ghent and take the next train back to Brussels. If you manage the connections properly, you can be back in London and at the flat well before midnight.
‘I won’t be able to leave the gallery till the early hours, and tomorrow morning there’ll be all the clearing up to do. I’ll meet you at your flat at, say, twelve o’clock tomorrow morning. I’ve got another job for you, and this time you’d better not mess it up.’
‘But what if Charlotte—’
‘Herman will deal with the girls. Once they’re safely back in London you can chat Charlotte up as much as you please, promise her another jaunt to the Continent in the autumn. After taking the stuff over there for us once, she won’t be able to refuse when we ask her to do it again. And next time, she’ll know better than to open the parcels in her luggage.’
Liam quacked like a duck. ‘You intend to use her again?’
‘Naturally.’ Rafael shut off his phone, and returned to the foyer. The guests were arriving, and he needed to flatter one, mislead another, and seduce a third. All in a day’s work.
Twelve
Monday, early evening
Bea’s wrist was on fire, and she’d been pushed off-balance. She couldn’t breathe properly. She’d no doubt at all that the two men intended to take her off in the car till she agreed to hand over the two packages. There weren’t any helpful passers-by coming and going over the bridge. But she had one last weapon she could use.
Well, two weapons, actually. She brought weapon number one into play. Dear Lord, help! Surely you don’t expect an old-age pensioner to tangle with hard men like these? I need some assistance here.
Weapon number two. She lifted her free hand to show him that she was holding a piece of paper. Her voice came out in gasps. ‘The registration number of your car … it was noted because … you behaved strangely.’
‘What?’ Herman’s grip on her relaxed, and he turned to look up at the hotel.
Bea’s voice wobbled. ‘If anything happens … he’ll ring the police.’
Herman didn’t know what to do. He bent down to speak to the man in the car. Would they still try to whisk her away, even though they now knew the car could be traced?
‘Get her in!’ said the man inside the car. Herman swung Bea towards the back of the car … just as a large coach drove over the bridge and came to a halt outside the hotel with a sigh of air brakes.
Bea yelled ‘Thief!’ as loudly as she could – which was not very loud – but the first tourist to descend from the bus turned his head to see what was happening.
‘Help! He’s stealing my watch!’
A burly German dropped down into the road, followed by another of similar bulk. They were not young and they carried too much weight for perfect health, but they relished a call to arms.
The man in the big car yelled something and thrust open the driver’s door.
Herman sent Bea spinning across the pavement into the path of the tourists and slipped into the car, the door swinging shut even as he started the engine and accelerated, screeching round a corner and away from the canal. Bea was caught and held by the foremost tourist, while the other pounded after the car only to give up the chase as it disappeared out of sight.
The coach load of tourists were shocked and helpful, but they were also tired after a long journey and were only too happy to be assured by Bea that there was no damage done – no really, she was quite all right. Shaken, of course, but a quiet sit-down for a few minutes would put her right.
The tourists trouped into the foyer, their baggage following them. Erik sent an anxious look in Bea’s direction as she tottered through the foyer to the lift. She gave him a thumbs-up sign, and pressed the button for the second floor.
Her wrist burned.
She leaned against the side of the lift, trembling, wanting to cry and not allowing herself to do so, telling herself that she was in shock, that she had never, ever, had such a thing happen to her before. Telling herself that she was too old for these shenanigans. Her knees wanted to sag. She told herself she was pleased that she hadn’t given in. Hamilton would have been proud of her.
She got herself out of the lift, couldn’t face the stairs to the top floor and let herself down gently on to the settee on the landing. She wept a little, allowing herself a few minutes to give way, annoyed with Hamilton for dying, because if he’d been with her none of this would have happened. Men do have their uses, don’t they!
The last time someone had hurt her physically had been at school, when a bullying sixth-former called … what was her name? … Petronella something … had given Bea a Chinese burn over some fancied slight or other. That had hurt, too.
The lift whirred, and she realized that the first of the coach party would be disembarking on to the landing any minute now. She couldn’t be found, weeping, on the settee.
She dragged herself up the stairs to the top floor, holding on to the banister, thinking, You can do it, girl! She reached the landing. There! She congratulated herself. You did it!
She tapped on the door to the girls’ room. Maggie flung it open, arms akimbo, in a state about something. There was no sign of Charlotte but water was running in the bathroom.
‘Believe it or not, she’s washing her hair,’ said Maggie, grinding out the words.
‘What!’
‘Apparently she feels the need to wash her hair in moments of crisis. I’d like to shake her till …’
Bea wanted to laugh. She wanted to sink down on the nearest piece of furniture and have a full-scale hysterical fit. She wanted someone to take over for her, decide what needed to be done. She wanted to be back home in her own quiet little house, contemplating a quiet evening with a smoked salmon sandwich and a not-too-worrying programme on the telly.
She gulped, controlling herself with an effort. She touched the corners of her eyes to flick away tears. Maggie wasn’t looking at her. Maggie was pacing the room, muttering. If Maggie had been a cat, she’d be lashing her tail. It seemed that relations between Charlotte and Maggie had deteriorated even further. Oh. Dear.
Maggie pointed to the window sill, where she’d laid out nineteen gold boxes in three lines, and almost as many miniatures. ‘Nineteen boxes. Twelve miniatures. You wanted to photograph them?’
Meekly, Bea got out her mobile phone and took pictures, sending them off to Mr Goldstone.
‘What about fingerprints, Maggie? It would be better if yours didn’t appear. Will you clean your prints off everything with a tissue, and wrap them up again?’
Maggie slapped her forehead and delved in her handbag for a pack of tissues. ‘A fine investigator I’d make! What did Herman say?’
‘He wants the goods and is prepared to turn nasty if he doesn’t get them. He was waiting downstairs in a big car with an older man in the passenger seat. I suppose the other man might be the fence. An interested party, anyway.’
‘What’s wrong with your wrist?’
‘Nothing.’ Bea noticed she had a couple of voicemail messages on her phone, so turned away to listen to them. The first was from Oliver, back at the office. He’d had a phone call from Velma. Sandy had come through the operation well enough but would be in intensive care for a couple of days, and had Bea any news for her? Well, no. Bea hadn’t. She was horrified at herself for having forgott
en about Sandy and his operation.
The second message was from Piers, light-hearted as ever. He’d been invited to some junket or other that evening and thought it might amuse her to go with him, if she were free. She wished he were here with them. She scolded herself. What could Piers do, if he were here? Answer; lift their spirits. Take them out to supper. Make them laugh, even. She rang her office, but the phone was engaged, so she left a couple of messages. ‘Oliver, would you please ring Piers and tell him I can’t come out to play tonight but will get back to him as soon as I can. And as for Velma … on second thoughts, don’t ring her. There’s no good news and she doesn’t need to be worried with what I’ve found out so far.’
Charlotte clicked open the door to the bathroom and emerged, her head surrounded by a bush of hair even more electric than before. She said, ‘I’ve come to a decision. If Liam’s in trouble, then my place is with him. I’m going back to London straight away, to stand by him.’
Bea was happy to endorse this. ‘A good idea. Perhaps you can change your tickets to go back on the ferry tomorrow.’
‘Maggie can do what she likes, but I’m going back tonight.’
‘Better check that you can get the car on a ferry tonight, before you decide.’
‘You needn’t speak to me like that. I’m not an idiot, you know.’
‘Of course not. Have you also decided what to do about the smuggled goods?’
‘We must hand them over, get rid of them. Then we can go back through Customs without any trouble, and there’ll be no proof that Liam was ever involved in anything.’
‘Sounds good,’ said Bea, ‘though I can see a couple of snags.’
Charlotte was becoming aggressive. ‘What’s it got to do with you, anyway?’
Bea’s arm hurt. ‘I want to keep you two out of jail if I can.’
‘We hand the stuff over to Herman, there’s no problem. I can manage perfectly well without you, thank you. Or Maggie. If Maggie wants to go back with you on the train, that’s perfectly all right by me and she can move out of the flat straight away. Once we’re back in London I don’t want to see her ever again.’
‘Mutual, I’m sure,’ said Maggie, shoving the last of the miniatures back into its tin box.
Bea tried not to look at her wrist, which was colouring up nicely. ‘Calm down, both of you. We’re all in this together, aren’t we? I have a nasty feeling that we haven’t seen the last of Herman. Charlotte, he’s a bully boy with a nice line in hurting women. I’m glad you decided not to have supper with him.’
Charlotte was busy on her mobile. ‘I haven’t time for all that. I’ll eat here in the hotel and by that time—’
‘The hotel doesn’t do evening meals,’ said Bea. ‘Only breakfast and drinks in the bar.’
‘What sort of hotel is it that doesn’t do food?’
‘A Continental one,’ said Bea, through her teeth. ‘We’ll have to go out for something to eat. I know a couple of places locally that do Flemish dishes.’
Charlotte said, ‘I’m not hungry. Anyway, do you two mind leaving me alone? I’ve arrangements to make.’
Bea shrugged, collected Maggie with an eye-roll, and returned to her own room.
Maggie plumped herself down on the big bed. ‘I’ve messed up again, haven’t I? I shouldn’t have let Zander fool me. I shouldn’t have accepted the package for Liam, and I shouldn’t have let Charlotte rile me.’
‘Easy to do.’ Bea sat down at the dressing table, found some hand cream in her bag and put it on her wrist, which had stiffened up. She could have done with some arnica but hadn’t any with her, not having anticipated that she’d be tangling with a no-neck man.
Looking in the mirror, she saw that Maggie was weeping, without sound. Bea was tempted to pretend she hadn’t seen anything. Fatigue hit her. It was impossible to get off her chair and cross the room to comfort Maggie.
Impossible or not, she did it, somehow. She put her arm around Maggie’s shoulders, and pulled the girl to her. ‘There, there.’
Maggie swiped the back of her hand across her eyes. ‘I really liked Zander, you know.’
‘I know.’ Bea’s mobile phone rang, and she released Maggie to search for it in her bag. It was Mr Goldstone, confirming that the goods were the real thing, and wanting to know what she was going to do about it.
‘I’m trying to think,’ said Bea. ‘There’s a thug over here trying to get the stuff off us. It would be easiest to let him have it and then we could get back to England without being tripped up at Customs for smuggling.’
‘I would agree with you, dear lady, if it hadn’t been for the fact that Leo and I were friends for fifty years. I want his death avenged.’
‘I’m not much of an avenger, I fear,’ said Bea. ‘I’ll let you know what I decide.’ She clicked off the phone as Charlotte barged into the room.
Charlotte was in a temper, hair whirling around her head, eyes snapping. ‘I can’t get anything on the ferry till midday tomorrow. Oh, you may well laugh, but how am I to stop Liam doing something stupid if I can’t get back to look after him?’
‘I’m not laughing,’ said Bea. ‘Far from it. And neither is Maggie.’
‘Oh, pooh to Maggie. Let her find her own way back.’
A mobile trilled, and Charlotte’s face changed. ‘It’s Liam! Oh, Liam! Where are you? … What do you mean, you want to warn me? … He intends to use us again? He can’t do that, can he?’ She turned away to the window, lowering her voice, but Bea and Maggie could still hear her side of the conversation.
‘But Liam, I wouldn’t … no, I understand that but … your friends don’t frighten me!’ Charlotte collapsed into a chair. ‘Yes, but Liam, listen to me! I’m coming back on the ferry at noon tomorrow and then we can talk, right?’ She listened some more, then turned the phone off. She was weeping, too.
‘Liam rang to warn me. He says that I’ve no idea how vicious these people can be, that if we don’t hand the stuff over, they could do all sorts of horrid things to us. He says they’ll take photos of me handing over the parcels to Herman, and then they’ll blackmail me into carrying stuff through Customs again and again. He thinks we ought to hand the stuff over, but be careful not to be photographed with them. He says …’ She wept, sagging against the wall. ‘He says I mustn’t try to contact him again, that he’s not going back to the flat, that I must forget all about him. He says he was taking a big risk warning me … oh, I could just about die!’
Bea pushed herself off the bed. ‘That’s because you haven’t eaten anything much today. I feel the same way, but we’ll all be able to cope better when we’ve got some food inside us.’
‘Not hungry.’ Charlotte turned mulish.
‘I am,’ said Maggie, sniffing. ‘Mrs Abbot, did you say you know some place local?’
‘Get your jackets on, girls, and we’ll be off,’ said Bea. ‘Lock your door behind you and meet me downstairs in the foyer in five minutes. I’ll order a taxi.’ It wasn’t far to the restaurant but she wasn’t risking another encounter with no-neck Herman.
The Bistro den Huzaar was her restaurant of choice. They knew her there, of course, and looked behind her to welcome Hamilton as usual. Bea explained that he’d died, and they looked shocked. How many more times was she going to have to tell people he was dead?
The restaurant was a popular one but the mâitre d’ found them a table reasonably near the front. Dark wood, modern paintings on the walls including one of the chef, a long bar, waiters and waitresses who all spoke five languages each.
Bea said to the girls, ‘I’d advise drinking beer not wine.’
‘I’d like a glass of wine,’ said Charlotte.
Bea tried again. ‘I recommend the Flemish dishes; the pork casserole with cherries or the rabbit with prunes are both excellent.’
Charlotte shuddered. ‘I couldn’t eat a dear little bunny rabbit to save my life.’
The waitress met Bea’s eye with a flicker of sympathy, but was too professional to grimace.
Maggie said, ‘What’s this … smoked eel soup? I don’t think I’ve ever tasted eel, never mind in soup.’
‘It’s very good indeed. Hamilton – my husband – always used to order it.’ Bea’s throat closed up on her, remembering how much he’d enjoyed their visits here.
Charlotte threw her menu down. ‘I’m vegetarian, anyway.’
Maggie lost her temper. ‘Charlotte, you aren’t! When we had supper the other night—’
‘That was then. I don’t like fancy cooking.’
Bea struggled with her own temper, and pointed to an item on the menu which she thought would appeal to someone who didn’t want to be taken out of their British comfort zone. ‘Maggie, suppose we skip the first course and share a Flemish chicken casserole between us? And for Charlotte …?’
The waitress patiently suggested a couple of vegetarian items to Charlotte, who grudgingly said she supposed she could force some chicken down if she tried hard.
Bea wanted to shake the girl. She told herself that once this was over, she’d be glad never to see her again. Some pâté arrived with French toast. Charlotte took a tiny bite, grimacing, but graciously said it was quite nice, considering. Bea was tempted to tell Charlotte that it was made using some dear little bunny rabbit meat, but refrained.
Bea ordered beer for herself and Maggie, and a glass of wine for Charlotte. All the time she worried what on earth she was going to do about the stolen goods.
The girls ate in silence. So did Bea. She was worn out, couldn’t be bothered to make polite conversation. Maggie revived with her first helping of the casserole, had a second go at the dish and finished all their deliciously thin, crusty chips. Charlotte started by picking at her food, but polished off her plateful in record time.
‘No dessert for me,’ said Charlotte, shuddering as the sweet menus were brought for them to see.
‘Three special coffees, then,’ said Bea.
‘No coffee for me,’ said Charlotte. Predictably.
‘Two special coffees,’ said Bea to the waitress. ‘But perhaps, three spoons?’
A special coffee at this restaurant was expensive, but included a sorbet, an ice, some tiramasu, and a slice of chocolate dessert. Maggie said ‘Wow!’ when hers came, and Charlotte said she wished she’d known, as she’d have decided to have some, too.
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