Parker finished his food and wiped his mouth, his face grim. “Neville told me he thinks she’s going to leave him.”
Miranda stared at him. “For that Sebastian guy?”
“Probably.”
She wished she’d had a chance to ask Davinia about that.
“That might change now,” Parker offered.
“You’re right.” Hard to plan a funeral and a divorce at the same time. Funny how life could sock you right in the gut sometimes.
She stuffed the last bite of burger into her mouth, swallowed, and got to her feet. “We’ve got to get this guy, Parker.”
“We will.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
He paced back and forth in his narrow room, his head splitting.
He rarely drank, but tonight he opened a cupboard and poured himself a glass of old English rum. Ten-year-old alcohol. One of the few vestiges of antiquity that would truly be in his possession.
He swallowed down a draught and relished the burning in his throat. He set the glass on his desk and sank down into his chair, stared at his library.
Why could he never have what he wanted? Why did things always go wrong for him? He’d planned everything so carefully. He’d thought he’d had it all under control. He’d thought he’d be happy by now.
He’d thought he could fix things but he couldn’t. He couldn’t fix anything. He leaned on the desk and put his head in his hands, guilt chewing his heart to bits. Oh, dear God. Gabrielle Eaton. That poor young woman cut down in the prime of her life? How could he have let that happen?
He’d wanted to wound Neville but not like this.
He’d gotten in over his head. He’d been a fool. He should go to Inspector Wample. Confess it all. But how could he? He'd lose everything. What else could he do? His mind searched for possibilities. Go on as if nothing had happened? Leave the country? In the end, he could come up with only one solution that made sense. That would work. He’d thought about ending it before. Perhaps now was the time.
If he wasn’t too cowardly to do it.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The ride to Tottenham was nerve-wracking.
It was dark. It was rainy. Everything was on the wrong side of the road.
Parker drove—she wasn’t getting behind the wheel—but it still made Miranda feel uneasy sitting up front where the driver’s side should be.
They sloshed their way down the narrow city streets, zigzagging through roundabouts, past shops, pedestrians and endless rows of old buildings. While the wipers kept time to Miranda’s heartbeat, in the distance Big Ben tolled nine.
Twenty-four hours. Less than that now. And thirty minutes or so of that went by before they reached the Tottenham area.
It was a tough-looking spot. No graffiti on the walls or trash on the sidewalks like you’d see in certain places of New York, but it had a tired, rundown look.
Little groups of leather-and-chain types gathered in dark recesses along the streets, smoking and sneering at passersby. From a corner a pale young woman leered at them with a drug-induced stare. In the gutter the glint of what look like a syringe needle glittered. Miranda wondered how mild-mannered Toby Waverly had survived growing up here.
Parker pulled down a one way lane lined on either side by a row of tidy brick houses and slowed.
“This is the street.” His voice was low and ominous.
Miranda eyed a trio of toughies perched on a brick wall that ran in front of the buildings. They eyed her right back. “Looks like the welcoming committee’s here to greet us.”
Parker’s jaw tightened. He nodded ahead. “Fourth one down. With the blue gate.”
It was hard to make out the color in the dim street lights, but the gate stood open and led to a framed entranceway of a small, two-story house. Homey lights shone through lace curtains hanging in a bay window.
“Maybe lives with his ‘mum.’”
“Possibly.”
And maybe she could tell them whether old Malcomb had been in Soho that afternoon.
Parker slowed as they neared the house, about to pull over when the front door opened and a tall, lanky figure appeared.
Like the others in the area, he was in leather and chains, all black. He had a cigarette in his mouth, its fire lighting up the face and outlining the spiked hair just enough to tell her this was the guy she’d seen in the photo in Inspector Wample’s office.
“Follow him?” she whispered as if the guy could hear her.
“Exactly.”
The car was pointing the opposite direction so Parker pulled around the block and they picked up the guy just as he crossed the street at the end of it and headed in the opposite direction. Parker lingered back, let another car pull out in front of them while Miranda kept an eye on the dark figure moving ahead of them.
Two blocks down he rounded a corner. They cruised that way and when they reached it, she spotted a pub at the next light on the far corner. Had to be where he was heading.
Parker waited, followed slowly. As they neared, she read the sign over the door. The Winking Owl.
“That’s the place Toby Waverly told us about?” It seemed too nice for a dive.
“Yes. Apparently Shrivel’s a regular,” Parker said as Shrivel slipped through the corner entrance.
Made sense to be regular if he was after Toby’s sister.
The Winking Owl was a smallish place. The Tudor frame, old-fashioned lamps, and the medieval style sign over the door told her it might have stood here for centuries. The place where factory workers of yesterdays stopped in for a pint after a sixteen-hour day.
Tonight it was lit up and crowded. Cars lined both sides of the street, but Parker found a spot down the road and pulled over to the curb.
He turned off the engine and they sat there a moment studying the patrons going in. They needed a plan.
“Maybe we should go in separately,” she said.
“Separately?”
“So nobody suspects we’re together. Once we spot Shrivel, I can act like I’m cruising. You know, flirt with him. Dance with him.”
Parker turned his head to her and slowly raised a brow. He didn’t care for that idea at all.
She huffed out a breath. “You know I used to beat up guys in bars for fun.”
“I’m sure you’re quite capable of taking care of yourself. And your idea has merit.”
“But…?”
“It might not be the best approach.”
She folded her arms. “Okay, let’s hear your idea.”
“If Shrivel is our suspect, that means he just committed murder. He’s not going to let slip any stray details about his whereabouts this afternoon to a stranger he meets in a bar.”
He had a point. The guy couldn’t be that stupid. And it would probably take a long time and a lot of beers to get even a little bit of information out of him.
“The better tactic might be observation.”
“You mean stay incognito and just see what he does?”
Parker nodded. “For the time being. We can close in at whatever point we feel it’s necessary.”
Sounded good. Still, if this guy was Gabrielle Eaton’s killer, she was hoping for a chance to kick the shit out of him.
She reached for the door handle. “Okay. Let’s go then.”
The pub was smoky and loud and packed to the gills. Polished wood covered the floor and the walls where green globe scones and posters of the local soccer team hung. In one corner a jukebox competed with a TV playing some sports station, the jukebox clearly winning. In the opposite corner a group of rowdy young men were tossing darts at a board.
There were dark booths and small tables—all full.
They sidled up to the bar and Parker ordered two bottles of a German beer Miranda didn’t recognize.
It took awhile to get the drinks.
There were only three bartenders, each of them dressed in green vests and bowties, each of them humping it, racing around trying to keep everyone served. A young
guy with a strained look worked a tap while a dark-haired girl shoved bottles into customers’ hands and hurried around the bar to see what the four guys pounding on the table and shouting for service wanted.
Miranda lingered at the bar a moment, studying the third barkeep. Shock of red hair pulled back in a messy bun, freckles across the nose. She’d bet her paycheck that was Winnie Waverly, Toby’s sister.
The girl turned to set down a drink and she got a glimpse of her face. Lots of makeup. Too much, especially under one eye. It was hard to tell under the lights, but Winnie might have been hiding a bruise.
Anger boiled in Miranda’s gut but she knew she had to keep her cool.
She followed Parker to a spot at the end of the bar where someone had vacated a stool and sat down. Parker hovered behind her. She could feel his body tense and ready to pounce like a wolf on the hunt.
They scanned the room.
Three couples stuffed into a booth across the way. Four card players at a table next to them. Miranda eyed the faces at each table one by one. When she got to the end of the row of booths, she thought the last one was empty. Until she saw the shape of a booted foot sticking out.
A dark figure leaned forward from the wooden seat and rose.
The leather and chains were almost camouflage in this place. But the spiky hair, the narrow face and nose, the sunken eyes gave him away.
“It’s him,” she whispered over her shoulder to Parker.
“I see.”
Shrivel stuck his thumbs in his belt and sauntered over to the bar like he thought he was a cowboy in an old Western. He pushed the people in front of him away and glared at the redheaded barmaid.
She ignored him.
His fist came down hard on the bar’s surface. “Service!” he bellowed.
Alarm in her eyes, she turned and hurried over to him, presumably to shut him up.
As soon as she reached him he grabbed her by the lapels of her vest and gave her a shake. He pulled her close and muttered something to her.
Miranda went rigid. She felt Parker’s body tighten behind her.
“Patience,” he breathed.
Winnie took Shrivel’s hands and pulled them off her as she replied.
Yeah, patience. But if that jerk did anything else, Miranda was going to have to go over there and bloody his lip. If Parker didn’t beat her to it.
The bastard reached for Winnie again but she ducked away in time. He was about to lunge. Miranda shot up from her stool.
But before she could move someone came up behind the guy and yanked at his arm. He spun around. They spoke just a few words. Then they turned and headed out the door.
“Let’s go,” Parker said.
But Miranda was already pushing through the crowd.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
As soon as they stepped outside and into the damp night air, Miranda saw Shrivel and his buddy hop on a motorcycle and take off.
“Damn.” She turned and scrambled for the rental car with Parker right beside her.
The car was around the corner, down the street. They raced to it as fast as they could. But as Miranda yanked the door open and jumped inside, she feared they’d already lost him.
Parker started the car and tore off down the street and around the corner. Finally, the glow of the cycle’s taillights appeared as they halted at a street light and Parker slowed.
“We’ve got them now,” he breathed and she heard the anxiety in his voice.
“Where are they going?”
“We’re about to find out.”
They tailed the cycle through a maze of old, narrow streets, the shops growing grimier, the buildings rattier, and the corners darker as they went. At last the cycle turned down a tiny little road with a brick wall on one side and rows of old rusty warehouses on the other. Chicken wire and chain link fences and locked gates stretched along the properties, all topped with barbed wire to keep out intruders.
The cycle pulled up to one of the gates. Shrivel hopped off the back, opened the entry with a key from his pocket. The bike cruised into the yard. Shrivel shut the gate while his partner leaned the cycle against a wall, and the pair went inside the building through a side door.
The warehouse had a sign boasting batteries and car repairs, but most of the lettering was worn off. Still there were enough service vans and vehicles in its shadowy parking lot to indicate it was still in business.
The heavy garage-type doors were shut and there were no windows on this side. A dim street lamp was the only light and it cast creepy shadows along the walls.
Parker idled near the entrance, a black van parked along the street hiding the rental car from view. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel.
Miranda eyed the gate. “That barbed wire looks electrified.”
“There might be another way in.”
“You think we should go in?” She was all for rough and tumble, but they had no idea if anyone else was in there. Or how many of them there were. Or what they were doing.
“Let’s see what we can find.”
He eased around the block, past houses and hedgerows, a filling station, more houses, until he reached another repair shop that seemed to border the other one. This one was bordered with chicken wire and the enclosure here was lower and didn’t have barbed wire.
“We could scale that fence,” Miranda said. But would that lead to the right place? Even if it did what would they do when they were inside? They didn’t even have weapons.
Parker studied the grounds for a long moment then pulled off again and headed back around to the first repair shop.
They were just passing it when the side door opened and several dark figures emerged from the shadows. Two big thug-types. Shrivel. The buddy. And a shorter, stocky guy. If she wasn’t mistaken…
“Is that Scorpion?” The guy in the picture Ives had shown her in Wample’s office? The leader of the street gang named the Stingers?
“Keep an eye on them.” Parker passed by slowly, as if he were heading straight home while Miranda twisted around in the seat to get a better view.
It didn’t look like anybody had noticed the car.
The short guy gave Shrivel a hard shove, and he stumbled backward, catching himself on the hood of a car. The guy waved his hands then pointed to the two thugs.
Shrivel made a pleading gesture.
Short guy pointed at the cycle then off in the distance.
Shrivel nodded and headed for the bike while everyone else disappeared again into the repair shop’s shadows.
“The leader looks like he’s mad at Shrivel about something,” she said. “He just sent the jerk away on the cycle.”
“Some sort of errand?”
“Doesn’t look like he’s going for fish and chips.”
Parker pulled around the block once again. At the end of the last road they found Shrivel cruising along.
He slowed at a corner, made the turn onto a main road, and with the rental car tailing right behind, the cycle roared off into the night.
Chapter Thirty
Street after street they followed the cycle’s red taillights.
Through a dozen intersections, past parks and shops and government buildings. Miranda was grateful for Parker’s superb tailing skills or Shrivel surely would have made them by now.
“This has to be about the dagger,” she said half under her breath.
Parker nodded. “I suspect Shrivel tried to intimidate Toby through his sister again.”
“But he’s in jail.”
“He’s probably called and told Winnie where he is by now,” Parker surmised.
Miranda blew out a breath. “And if Winnie told Shrivel her brother is in jail, it made him blow his stack. He thinks Toby’s ratted him out. But that doesn’t explain where he’s going now.”
Parker turned another corner. “Perhaps to see a fence?”
“And get rid of the real dagger?”
“Perhaps.”
That didn’t sound right. Wh
y would the seemingly fearsome Scorpion, leader of the Stingers, send a guy like Shrivel out with a priceless relic? Alone? On a bike? “Maybe the fence is holding out.”
“Perhaps.”
No, Scorpion would have sent more thugs if he thought someone was double crossing him. He’d have gone himself. She let out a long breath. “And what does this have to do with Lady Gabrielle?” She could still see those lifeless green eyes staring out at nothing. They had to find whoever did that to her.
“No.” Parker was quiet.
She knew him well enough to know he was putting the pieces together in his mind. Or trying to. Like her, she supposed, he couldn’t make them quite fit.
She looked out the windshield and saw they were heading toward the city. The buildings were getting taller and more modern, the traffic heavier, the pedestrians trendier. Music and laughter echoed from nightspots. Up ahead the strange cone shaped structure loomed, twinkling with a thousand lights from its windows.
They went through more traffic lights. Passed more buses. More pedestrians. Where in the hell was that sonofabitch going?
They plowed through all of it and crossed London Bridge, the waters of the Thames dark and green and gurgling beneath them. The shadow of the Tower loomed in the distance. That place where long ago kings had had their wives’ heads cut off when they were through with them.
Her stomach twisted at the thought. There were still men today who thought women could be done away with and discarded like yesterday’s trash.
They followed the motorcycle’s taillights into another shopping district, down a few side streets and finally into a lane lined with rectangular four-and-five story buildings that looked like apartment dwellings.
In the next block the motorcycle pulled over to the curb and Shrivel hopped off. His lanky, black-clad legs carried him over the walkway and up the darkened stairs to one of the buildings. Just as Parker eased up beside the cycle, Shrivel disappeared inside.
Adrenaline pumping through her veins, Miranda hopped out of the car and raced up the walkway.
The door was locked, of course. Only residents could enter. Heart pounding, panting with frustration, she glared at the side panel.
An intercom. Access for secure entry. Names of the residents were listed, one for each button.
Heart Wounds (A Miranda and Parker Mystery) Page 15
