“Liam? Davey?” I called.
Nobody answered.
But there was the noise again—close by. Two thumps. Footsteps. “Hello?” I called again. “Who’s there?”
A voice shot from the shadows, deep and male. American.
“I’ve got a knife, so don’t try anything stupid, lady.”
Chapter 46—Home is the Hunter
A man emerged from behind a stack of books, brandishing a camping knife—not huge, but with a blade long enough to do damage. He wasn’t young—maybe in his mid-sixties—but powerfully built, and over six feet tall, with wild white hair and a scar running down his cheek.
I’d seen that scar before—on a book jacket.
“Gordon Trask?” I couldn’t keep my voice from squeaking.
“One and the same,” said Mr. Trask. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry.” He lowered the knife. “You’re Jonathan Kahn’s ex-wife, aren’t you—that society chick?” He extended his hand. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Kahn. Sherwood bragged that he was going to lure you over here.”
I took his hand, still on guard. It was all so surreal. “I use my maiden name now. Camilla Randall.”
“Camilla! I remember. I went to one of your parties once.” He laughed. “At some mansion in the Hamptons. Back when I was a somebody.”
“When we were both somebodies.” I gave a half smile. “Welcome to anonymity.”
Mr. Trask gestured at a pallet of Rodd Whippington books.
“More like infamy.” He lowered his voice. “Are any of our pornographer friends around?”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to let Mr. Trask know how alone I was.
“Liam and Davey are around somewhere,” I said, without quite lying.
He lowered his voice to a whisper.
“So have you discovered their secret yet? Do you know who they really are?”
I stiffened. “If you mean that Davey and Liam have had a, um, colorful past, yes, I do. But they’ve been very kind to me.”
“Davey and Liam? They’re small fry.” Trask gave a snarly laugh. “I’m talking about that asshole who calls himself Peter Sherwood—and his enforcer, Mr. Ratko. They’re a couple of crooks. Smugglers. All this—it’s just a cover.”
“Smugglers?” The information hit me with staggering logic. It made perfect sense that Peter, with all his overseas travel, might be involved in smuggling. But my heart fought back, trying to disbelieve. “Who told you that?”
Trask laughed. “A friend who used to work for Interpol. That’s why I got my ass the hell out of this freak show. Do you think I wanted to skip out on my first published novel in fifteen years—probably the best thing I ever wrote?” Trask reached down and picked up a copy of Home is the Hunter he had stuffed in his backpack. “My agent says nobody wants to read about war when they get their fill on the evening news.” He put on a Brooklyn-girl falsetto. “Vampires. Werewolves. Zombies. That’s what’s hot. Can’t you at least put in a couple of trolls?”
I let out an uncomfortable laugh. Again, what he said made sense, but I didn’t want to believe it.
“Peter loves your book,” I said. “He was proud to be publishing it. And he never mentioned its dearth of trolls.”
Trask snorted. “Right. Proud I provided him with believable cover for his operations. You think he can make any money publishing a couple of dirty books a month—with all the porn you can get on the Internet?” He gestured around the vast building. “His book business takes up, what—about a tenth of this space? Storage is what he’s got here. That’s where the profit is. Floor space. To store contraband.”
I could hardly breathe. That certainly would explain the crates in the warehouse. Were they full of drugs and guns?
Trask went on. “My Interpol friend told me that a major international smuggler was on his way here. He used to run drugs all around the Caribbean. Heroin, coke, fake pharmaceuticals—whatever.”
“So Peter isn’t a major smuggler?” I don’t know why this made a difference, but somehow it did.
“Not like this guy. He’s a sociopath named William Barnstable. He’s been in custody for a minor offence in Tobago, but he was released two months ago, and made a bee-line for England—and Nottingham. No doubt looking for his old partner—the man who is now calling himself Peter Sherwood.”
My throat had gone dry. William Barnstable. Barnacle Bill. Peter had even admitted to owing the old sailor money. And to spending time in Tobago—the place where Liam and Davey said he sank his own boat and faked his death. It certainly would explain Barnacle Bill’s behavior. If Peter had been his partner and absconded with their ill-gotten gains while Bill was in prison…
I felt a wave of fear for Peter. Maybe Barnacle Bill had done something to him. Maybe Peter had never gone abroad at all. Maybe he was already dead, his body dumped in the Trent—an anonymous corpse carried far from Swynsby by that tidal bore.
With awful irony, I remembered what Peter had said: “I’d rather fight a Caribbean hurricane than the Aegir in April.”
“He kills people—this Barnstable person?” Mr. Trask’s story had my mind in an out-of-control fear-spiral.
“The police on several continents certainly think so. That’s why I got the hell out of this place. Either the guy was going to kill Sherwood, or team up with him and hang around.”
I didn’t want to imagine Peter dead. Even if he was some awful criminal, it didn’t bear thinking about. Because that would mean we were all at the mercy of Barnacle Bill.
Trask gave a rough laugh. “Either way, it would all turn into shit city for me. I’d already been working on killing the book deal, because of the weird stuff going down. I don’t mean the porn—to each his own—and it was a brilliant idea to use smut to fund real literature—but they never could meet their own deadlines. They kept changing my publication date. Until finally the contract ran out. I tried to renegotiate, and Sherwood had a fit. I was pretty sure that if I was still around when Barnstable showed up, I was going to end up in the river. That Serb had already threatened me. He loves to brag about how many people he’s killed.”
How awful. I was just an actor in an elaborate hoax—a cover for a crime ring.
“Liam, Davey, Henry—they’re all in on this?”
Trask shrugged. “Damned if I know. Probably not Weems. I think Sherwood partnered with him to give a little legitimacy to the operation. Henry’s pretty dense. Same with the office people like Vera. I don’t think they have a clue. Liam and Davey and Tom? I don’t know, but they’ve been buddies with Sherwood a long time. I’d watch out.”
He picked up two more books to stuff in his pack.
“So, are you going to rat on me—tell those guys that an old man is stealing a few of his books as souvenirs?” He gave me a challenging look. “I wanted to get something out of the three months I spent in this cesspool. The bitch over at the dump where I was staying already stole all the stuff I left there. She said she didn’t know I was coming back. Jeez, I left a hundred pounds and a note for her, but I guess she can’t read.”
I watched him arrange the books in his pack as I tried to collect my thoughts.
“A hundred pounds? In cash?”
“Yeah. I gave it to her asshole boyfriend.”
“You gave a hundred pounds to Alan Greene?” My tone was more bitter than I intended. “I’m sure Brenda never saw that money—or the note.”
I picked up one of the book copies, with its dramatic silver and blood-red cover. “Of course you should have some copies—after all you went through. They’re only going to shred them. Let me help.” I handed him two more books. “I’m sorry this happened. And I’m, um, grateful for the information about Peter Sherwood.”
I wasn’t really. It made me feel like I’d been kicked.
Trask grabbed my arm.
“Honey, you’re a classy lady, and I like you—even though you were married to that jerk Kahn. So I want you to promise me something.”
I stiffened. Trask’s grip was too tight, an
d his face too close. Why did people think it was acceptable to call one’s ex-spouse a jerk? Maybe he was, but I’d loved him once, and he was my jerk.
Trask kept his grip tight. “I want you to promise me you’ll get your butt out of this porno palace before you take an unplanned swim in the Trent, or have a run-in with Mr. Ratko’s knife, or…” He gestured at the shredder and, further down the room—the huge blade of the book-trimming machine. “Or you have an unlucky accident. Don’t think you’re not in danger because Sherwood’s romancing you. Promise?”
I gave a nod. The trimming machine did look dangerous. Meggy always called it “the guillotine.”
Everything Trask said made terrible sense. On the other hand, with his massive shoulders and scarred cheek, the man looked pretty dangerous himself. I was glad when he loosened his grip.
Trask lifted the pack to his shoulders and started toward the door.
“Oh, and if you’re looking for that crazy little dog, he’s not dead. I just fed him a little Valium sandwich. I remember how he used to bark like crazy whenever he got a whiff of me, and I didn’t know who or what I was going to find in this place.” He shone his flashlight under one of the long tables, where Much lay in an uncharacteristic sprawl.
My heart lurched.
“Much!” I crawled under the table. The little dog was limp and inert. “How much did you give him? You may have killed him!” I called over my shoulder to Trask. “We have to get him to a vet!”
I heard nothing but the slam of a door as Trask disappeared into the night.
Chapter 47—A Matter of Life and Death
I put my hand on Much’s snout. When I felt breath, I could finally get my own lungs to work. I slid the dog’s immobile body from under the table and lifted him—he was heavy for such a little guy—and carried him back to the canteen. I had to get him to a vet somehow. Where could I find one, without a car on a Saturday night? I laid him on the couch in front of the television and wondered if I should run to the Merry Miller in hopes of finding Liam and Davey.
No. Trask would have seen them if they’d been at the pub.
I needed to phone someone. Vera. Her home phone number would be listed somewhere in the office. That lock on the door was old. Maybe I could open it with a credit card the way people did in the movies. I pulled my wallet from my tote bag. Finally that maxed-out AmEx Card might be good for something.
After checking once more on Much, who seemed to be breathing regularly, I ran down to the office. I tried to slide the card between the door and the jamb but it wouldn’t fit. As my panic rose, I kicked the door a couple of times, hoping I might loosen it, but nothing happened.
Well, almost nothing. I might have imagined it, but after the first kick, I thought I heard movement inside. I did hope it wasn’t rats. Not when I was alone and Much was hors de combat.
There it was again. Something like a footstep, coming from inside the office. Had Trask got into the inner sanctum somehow? Maybe it was Davey. Or Alan. Probably Alan. Doing something kinky with some girl, no doubt. Obviously he wanted his privacy. Too bad.
I rapped briskly on the door.
“You in there! Open the door. This is an emergency.” I knocked again. “Please. It’s matter of life and death.”
“Life and death?” said a voice. “Are you sure you’re not exaggerating, Duchess?”
I’d know his voice through a dozen doors.
“Peter?” I said, afraid to believe.
The door opened and there he was—deeply tanned and dressed in jeans and his green San Francisco hoodie—faded now—with his shaggy hair pulled back in a pony tail.
Peter. Alive. Not murdered by Barnacle Bill. Not pursuing criminal exploits in some far corner of the planet. Here.
Safe.
He clutched me and gave me a kiss so delicious that for a moment I forgot the urgency of my mission—and how much I should fear him, if any of Trask’s stories were true.
When my brain regained supremacy over my hormones, I pulled away.
“There’s no time. Much needs help. Now. He’s lying unconscious in the canteen.”
Peter’s face went pale. “Dear God, Duchess. Why didn’t you say so? Come on. We’ve got to get him to a vet.”
I ran after him, my body flooding with relief. International criminal or not, Peter Sherwood made me feel safer than anyone I knew.
When Peter saw Much, floppy and unresponsive on the canteen couch, his reaction was as horrified as mine. He checked for breath.
“He’s alive. Let’s take him up to Vera’s straight away. She has a neighbor who runs a veterinary surgery.” He listened to the dog’s breathing and picked him up. “What’s happened to him?”
I gave a bare-bones account of Trask’s visit, leaving out his talk of Peter’s criminal past, and of course, my promise to “get my butt out of this porno palace.”
“I’ll kill that Yank if I see him.” Peter’s voice was cool and matter-of-fact as he petted the little dog with gentle care. “Trask never liked Much. I’m always wary of people who don’t like dogs. They usually don’t play well with others.”
I followed as Peter carried Much through the drizzly rain to his car—the same Mini-Cooper Liam had used to pick me up from the airport when I first arrived—less than two months ago. But another lifetime. Peter told me to get the car’s keys out of his pocket. He lifted his elbow so I could have access to his jacket while he murmured words of encouragement to Much.
I felt Peter’s body warmth as I reached into his fleecy pocket, wishing I hadn’t heard Gordon Trask’s awful accusations. For now, I had to allow myself to believe Trask was wrong.
I opened the passenger side door and sat, reaching up for the little dog, who whimpered in his sleep as Peter set him gently on my lap. Peter ran around to the driver’s seat, gave Much a reassuring pat, then drove with dramatic speed through the narrow, deserted streets and up a dark, winding road as emotions crashed in my head.
“What time is it?” Peter said. “I hope Vera won’t be asleep.”
I looked at my watch. “It’s not quite ten.”
His wrist was naked, his Rolex gone. And he wore cheap canvas shoes. I wondered if his rich-man trappings had financed his Croatian trip. And how he had acquired them in the first place. Were they stolen? Bought with drug money?
I had a thousand questions, but kept quiet as Peter launched into an emotional tale about a dog named Biscuit he’d had as a boy, growing up in the slums of Nottingham.
He looked like a father with a sick child—hunched over the wheel with white-knuckle tension.
It took me a moment to take in the implications of what Peter was saying: he had grown up in the slums of Nottingham. So much for Plant’s story of Peter’s rumored aristocratic lineage. Nothing I’d ever heard about Peter Sherwood—positive or negative—seemed to stand up to scrutiny.
The truth was—I had no idea who this man was who was driving me at such alarming speed through the rainy night.
Chapter 48—Leader of the Pack
When we stopped at a red light, Peter reached over to pet Much. “I think if I was an animal in a former life, I was a dog.” He gave an odd laugh. “Probably a stray that got flattened by a lorry, like poor old Biscuit.” He grinned, his teeth reflecting the red of the traffic light. The red teeth brought to my mind my dream of the were-coyote.
“What an awful thought,” I said, desperate to brighten the mood. “I think you would have been an alpha dog—with lots of buddies around you. Remember how that coyote ran from you in San Francisco? Maybe he knew you were the leader of the pack.”
Peter let out another bark of laughter.
“So you think I’m a coyote, eh? Poor, out of luck and friendless? Yes, I suppose you’re right.”
“Not that. Obviously you have lots of friends.”
He turned to me with a look that was all challenge. “Do I?”
I didn’t know what to say. Of course his people were loyal. Didn’t he know that? Maybe he fo
und it lonely at the top. But if he felt friendless, it was his own fault—taking off without a word, leaving his company, and me, at the mercy of Rodd Whippington and the mendacious Alan Greene.
But I decided this wasn’t the moment to say that. Instead I told him how relieved everybody would be to see him.
I started to ask if Ratko had come back with him, and if Ratko knew his home had been turned into a porn studio, but after a hair-raising turn, Peter squealed the Mini to a stop in front of a neat brick bungalow surrounded by a lush garden.
“I’ll get Vera,” he said. I watched him bound up to the door of the bungalow.
I tried to think rational thoughts as I sat petting the unconscious dog. No matter what anybody told me about Peter, I couldn’t believe he was an evil man, especially now I knew he hadn’t gone off with Barnacle Bill, abandoning me and his company for some nefarious criminal scheme.
And I was awfully happy Bill hadn’t murdered him.
Maybe Trask had made up those stories. He was a fiction writer, after all. Besides, the man was an admitted dog poisoner. How could I believe what a person like that said?
Peter came back a few moments later with a pale, anxious Vera. She wore a raincoat over flannel pajamas. She said she’d called the clinic—only a few streets away—and somebody would be ready to see Much.
Vera didn’t seem moved by Peter’s miraculous reappearance. All her attention was focused on Much—and her anger at Gordon Trask.
“I’m disappointed in that chap. If he wanted copies of his books, all he had to do was ring me. No need to resort to poison and thievery. Let’s hope it was only a tranquilizer he fed Much. But I wouldn’t put anything past a man who could do that. He’s nothing more than a common criminal.”
Common criminal. I wondered if there was such a thing. I’d met quite an assortment of criminals recently—all so very different. Some had their own code of honor, like Davey and Liam; some were parasitic and devious like Alan Greene; and others were threatening and violent like Barnacle Bill and Ratko.
Randall #03 - Sherwood Ltd. Page 16
