by Eva Hudson
“The RSPCA?” He shrugged. “I’ll call the office, see what they suggest.”
Three hours later, Ingrid was in the back of another cab riding back into Central London. As the bees didn’t pose an operational threat, Director Aziz of the National Crime Agency made the call to leave them where they were. Ultimately Pinball was his rodeo, and he determined the greater threat was a beekeeper turning up in the body suit and mesh hat only for one of the dockworkers to film them. A light-hearted report on the local news was just what they didn’t need.
Ingrid’s taxi stopped at traffic lights near London City Airport. Sitting at the intersection of four roads, she saw that each of the four road signs all had the code ‘E16’ on them. She was still thinking about the colored Post-its—west park, 36, E 16—when the driver pulled away from the lights.
She knocked on the dividing glass.
“Yes love?” He made eye contact via the rearview mirror.
“Is there a street near here called West Park?”
“Yes,” he said slowly as the cogs in his brain clunked and whirred. “You want to take a detour?”
Four minutes later, he pulled up outside number thirty-six.
7
Ingrid had to remind herself of several things on the drive back into Central London. One, she had no idea if the three Post-it notes containing three separate pieces of information referred to an address, let alone the one she had spent twenty minutes staring at while the cab driver kept the meter running. Two, she couldn’t come up with a good reason why someone wouldn’t have just put ‘36 West Park E16’ on a single Post-it if they wanted to write down an address. And three, she really was utterly clueless about why any of those photos had been taken. Even though, or possibly precisely because, she would never know, her thoughts kept returning to the packet of photos locked in her top drawer.
Thirty-six West Park was a newly built row house, part of what a realtor would call ‘a boutique development’ of twenty small houses, all clad in charcoal timber to resemble the wharf buildings that would have once lined the Royal Albert Dock. They overlooked a small rectangle of grass that was barely bigger than a decent-sized back yard—she certainly wouldn’t have called it a park—but if the good weather held, Ingrid planned to return with a beach towel and some sun tan lotion. It wasn’t often that such an easy surveillance opportunity presented itself.
The downstairs window of number thirty-six offered a glimpse of the room beyond, but in the bright sunshine all she had seen was the cactus on the window sill and backs of several photo frames. The window above was filled with stickers and lined with a row of soft toys. Ingrid had called Zeke and asked him to find out everything he could about who lived at the address. It would be a good test of his competency and skills.
As she didn’t yet have proof of Zeke’s abilities, Ingrid asked the driver to drop her off outside Foyles bookstore. Foyles was one of the oldest and biggest book stores in the world: if anywhere in London had a copy of David Steiner’s book, it would be Foyles.
The air inside was cool, but not cool enough. The good thing about living at the Hilton in such heat was the prospect of a swim when she finished work. Maybe today she’d even go straight to the plunge pool. Ingrid navigated her way through aisles of books to a map of the store, and from there she plotted a course to the information desk on the second floor. The assistant behind the counter looked exactly like every other bookstore clerk: studenty, hipsterish, one of those metal holes in one earlobe, unsmiling.
“Hi.”
The clerk didn’t even say anything. The heat was clearly getting to him.
Ingrid loosened her shirt from her damp skin. “Can you tell me which section has a copy of National Affront by David Steiner? Please?”
His eyes bulged slightly before he wordlessly turned to his computer screen and typed in her request. “It’s out of print.”
“Does that mean you don’t have a copy?”
He tilted his head. “That means we don’t have copy.” He could use a little customer service training.
“You know where I might get a copy?”
“There’s this really big website these days that sells books. You may have heard of it?”
Such wit. “Amazon doesn’t have it.”
“Have you tried the secondhand shops? Atticus on Charing Cross Road has quite a lot of Nazi stuff.” His lip curled as he uttered the word ‘Nazi’. Ingrid was suddenly very aware of being blonde, blue eyed and, well, Aryan. She thanked him, then walked the short distance south to Atticus.
Charing Cross Road was one of those London thoroughfares that always disappointed American tourists. If they had read Helene Hanff’s book, or watched the Anne Bancroft movie, they had an impression of a studious street where every shop sold books, and where the knowledge and beauty that wasn’t on the page was lurking in the minds of the charming people behind the counters. The remnants of its bookish past were still visible in small shops like Atticus, but most of Charing Cross Road was now taken up by clothing chain stores, pizza-by-the-slice joints and Chinese supermarkets.
A small and neat store on ground level, Atticus became a meandering warren of small, airless rooms in the basement that ran beneath the neighboring stores. Every two minutes, the hot sticky caverns vibrated as the Northern Line rumbled just a few inches beneath her feet. Ingrid searched the British History section, the World War II section, the Social Affairs shelves and the Politics department. She didn’t spot National Affront, but she did learn that its title was a play on a defunct, or dormant, far-right political party called the National Front.
She emerged back at ground level with sweat running between her shoulder blades.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” The assistant was more like a university lecturer than a student. The kind her students had crushes on. Her curly hair was buffeted cinematically by a desk fan.
Ingrid told her about the Steiner book, and the helpful woman gave her a list of other titles about British far-right groups. “I really am just after this particular book.” And then for no particular reason, perhaps because she was worried that this nice woman would think she was a far-right sympathizer, Ingrid felt the need to add: “It was written by a friend. More a friend of a friend.”
The woman’s eyes brightened. “Does that mean you know Daisy Steiner?”
“Um.”
“The crime writer? She’s his daughter.”
“I can’t say I do.”
The woman shifted on her stool, and leaned in, conspiratorially. “Don’t tell anyone, but I love her books. They’re a bit infra dig, especially if you work somewhere like this, but I could read one every day if she wrote more quickly. Here.” She got to her feet with more energy than Ingrid had seen anyone display since the thermometer topped eighty degrees. She zipped to the rear of the store and Ingrid followed. “Yup. I knew we’d have some. I’m going to give you this one because it’s the first in the series.”
Ingrid held a slim volume. A slim, pink volume. This really wasn’t Ingrid’s sort of thing.
“I love a bit of crime fiction,” the assistant said. “Especially the cozy stuff. So much more of an escape than romance. Plus, you always get a resolution, unlike half the stuff that wins the awards.”
Ingrid flicked through the pages. “It’s not much of an escape when you’re an actual detective.”
The woman’s eyes popped. “Really?”
“Kind of,” Ingrid said, keen not to have to reveal who she worked for. The Brits tended to overreact to any mention of the FBI. “Any idea where I can get hold of her father’s book?”
“You tried Amazon?”
8
Ingrid killed the engine and hauled the Ducati onto its stand. She eased off her helmet, draped her jacket over the warm seat, and took a deep breath. She stretched her bare arms toward the sun. For the first time in she didn’t know how long, she was smiling so much her cheeks hurt. God, it was gorgeous out here.
The valley sprawled
below her toward a hazy horizon where the lion-colored fields bled white into the palest of pale blue skies. Behind her, a cluster of stone-built farm buildings basked in the heat like seals on a rock. She hooked her helmet on the handlebar and stepped away from the sting of gasoline and toward the rich summer scents of warm grass and wild flowers.
“Can I help you?”
Ingrid turned back to see a teenage girl carrying a saddle at the threshold of a barn. “I’m looking for Daisy Steiner.” Her throat was dry, but her hair was drenched in sweat.
The girl looked Ingrid up and down and suppressed a smirk. “She’s down with the pigs.”
“And, where are they?”
“Down thataway.” She nodded at the valley. “See the trees at the bottom of that field?”
Ingrid shielded her eyes. “Yes, yes I do.”
“Well, if you get that far, you’ll not be far away.” The girl slipped back inside the barn.
Ingrid fetched a bottle of water from her top box and quenched her thirst. It was warm and musty after two hours inside a plastic bottle, inside an aluminum box, inside a heatwave, but it felt like the elixir of life. She exchanged the half-finished bottle for a tube of suntan lotion. Arms and face duly smothered, Ingrid climbed over the gate and walked through the field. She followed a hedgerow that bounced with the nodding bells of bindweed and waving hands of cow parsley. It hummed with bees and on the short walk through the sunshine she spotted three different types of butterflies. She needed to get out of London more often.
Ingrid reached the small stand of trees and was instantly grateful for the shade they offered. A hand painted sign on a wobbly wooden gate said ‘Pigs—Keep Closed’. She unbolted the gate and closed it behind her. Birds sang in the canopy above her head, and in the distance, she heard more singing: Daisy Steiner was belting out a dire rendition of Springsteen’s Blinded By The Light.
“Hello!” Ingrid raised her voice and shouted through the trees. “Hello!”
Daisy stopped singing and turned toward Ingrid. “Hello?”
Ingrid picked up speed, glad of the biker boots to stride through the undergrowth. Up ahead, Daisy Steiner held a bucket of feed as a gaggle of brown pigs truffled at her feet. “Daisy, hi, it’s Ingrid Skyberg. We spoke on the phone?” Ingrid waved as she approached the clearing. “Hi.”
Daisy didn’t move. “You’re an FBI agent?”
Ingrid looked down at herself. Boots, jeans, sweat-stained tee shirt. “To be fair, you don’t look much like a crime writer either.”
“Touché.” She put down the bucket and extended a welcoming hand. “You’re early.”
“It only took an hour and a half.”
“I’ve never made the journey from London that quickly.” She pushed her collar length hair behind an ear. “Did you have flashing blue lights?”
“No, just two wheels.”
“Ah.” Her eyes widened. “That explains it. I had planned to be back at the house for your arrival. Just wanted to get these fellas fed.”
“Tamworths?”
Daisy took a step back. An eyebrow lifted with disbelief. “You know your pigs.”
Ingrid smiled as she crouched down to get closer to the animals. “I grew up on a hog farm. I had four thousand of these as my childhood pets. Is she pregnant?”
“Yup. Scan says a litter of twelve.”
“Oh, wow. That’s a lot for a Tamworth. She’ll be glad of the shade.”
Ingrid stood up and Daisy moved toward her. She reached out a hand and touched Ingrid’s face. Her fingers smelled of the Kalmbach feed her father used to swear by.
“Gosh, sorry,” Daisy said, embarrassed. “I don’t know what I was thinking. You’ve got some sun tan lotion on your cheek. I, um. I’m sorry. I was going to rub it in for you. Sorry. That was totally inappropriate.”
Ingrid raised her own hand and wiped her face. “Thanks.”
“I wouldn’t want you to look in the mirror later and think I hadn’t said anything. Don’t you hate it when that happens? You have a really nice lunch with a friend and you go to the ladies and you’ve got a bit of lettuce tucked between your incisors.”
“Yes, I do hate that.” Ingrid pictured the lipstick on Natasha McKittrick’s teeth. She should have said something.
Twenty minutes later, they sat under an umbrella on the terrace behind the farmhouse, a pitcher of iced water and a plate of bite-sized Greek spinach pies on the table.
“These are delicious,” Ingrid said, grateful for being fed.
“Special offer at Waitrose.” Why did the Brits always find it so hard to take a compliment? “I have a farmhouse kitchen, but alas no farmhouse cook.”
“I take it today isn’t a writing day?” She reached into her messenger bag for her notebook and pen.
Daisy lowered her head. “I write in the evenings. Four hours after dinner.”
“You work late.”
“That’s what seems to work for me.”
Ingrid placed her notebook on the table. “Writing and farming is an unusual combination, isn’t it?”
Daisy’s lips stretched slightly into a half smile. “The farm was my partner’s idea. Her dream, really. And now her ashes are scattered on the top field, I can’t ever leave.”
“I’m so sorry,” Ingrid said.
“It’s fine.” Daisy waved her hand in front of her face. “It’s been a few years.” The tears moistening her eyes meant it clearly wasn’t fine. She swallowed and continued. “The farm isn’t much of a business. More of a small holding, really. Luxury sausages at local markets, that sort of thing. A felt maker from the nearest village takes the wool. The honey is excellent, though. You must take some when you go. It’s all organic. If it was just me… If it had just been me, I’d be in a penthouse in New York. But,” she gestured to the far horizon, “it ain’t bad.”
Ingrid took a beat before answering. She was wistfully taking it all in. “It’s wonderful.” She thought of the shabby apartment on the river McKittrick had showed her. “I’d much rather be somewhere like this than the center of a city. But, then, this is what I grew up with.” She needed to pull the conversation back to the reason for her visit. She had to focus. “Thank you so much for agreeing to see me. It’s very nice of you to be so generous with your time.”
“Don’t be daft. I write crime fiction. I never pass up the chance to speak to a cop. You get double points for a Fed.”
“Ah. So that’s why we’ve got pies!” Ingrid paused. “Do you mind if we talk a little about your father?”
“Of course not. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You mentioned one of his books on the phone. Which one was it?”
“ National Affront. You don’t happen to have a copy, do you?”
Daisy shook her head. “Nope, I don’t think many copies were printed of that one. It wasn’t well reviewed.”
“Why?”
Daisy flared her nostrils. “Makes me a little angry now, but when it came out, he was the first person to say that Russia was funding the resurgence of the far-right in the UK. Now, of course, after Brexit, we know damn well that Russia is meddling in our politics. What better way for Putin to create havoc than by breaking up the EU?” She paused. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to rant. Still can’t believe we actually voted to leave. Anyway, so Dad said that Russia was behind groups like EFE—”
“EFE?”
“England for the English. Thugs. Absolute thugs. But with a few rubles they sort of became the paramilitary wing of the UK Independence Party. Sorry,” she stopped abruptly. “Is this what you wanted? Is this even relevant?”
The girl from the barn appeared at the open back door. “I’ll be off then, Daisy. See you in the morning.” She turned to Ingrid. “I suppose I’ll see you in the morning, too.”
Daisy spat her water out. “No, Amy. Ingrid’s here to talk about… It’s not like that.”
The girl’s cheeks bloomed with embarrassment before darting back into the house. “Sorry about that. It’s probably th
e motorcycle. She’s only fifteen. She thinks in clichés. Though, to be fair, she has seen quite a few women come and go this year. Who knew pigs and sheep would be such lesbian catnip?”
Ingrid suddenly thought of her mother, still looking after the pigs twenty-five years after her husband’s death. It had been a long time since Svetlana had even hinted at an overnight visitor at the farm, male or female.
“You’re not gay, are you?” Daisy asked, raising one eyebrow provocatively.
“Um, no.” Admitting to her one night of Sapphic exploration would be highly inappropriate.
“It’s just the bike. In the Venn diagram of women who ride motorcycles and lesbians, there is quite a large shaded area.”
Ingrid didn’t know how to respond.
“So, I didn’t realize,” Daisy put down her glass purposefully to change the subject, “that the FBI operated outside America.”
“I’m part of what’s known as the Legal Attaché Program,” Ingrid explained. “There are, currently, ten agents in London. No, twelve.”
“And what sort of cases—should I call them cases—do you work on over here?”
Ingrid picked up another pie. “We have a mandate to investigate federal crimes anywhere in the world, so long as we do so with the approval of local law enforcement.”
Daisy took a sip, the ice cubes tinkling in her glass. “You’ll have to forgive me, but I don’t know what constitutes a ‘federal crime’. It’s not really a distinction we have here.”
Ingrid had expected to be the one conducting the interview, but she obliged. “A federal crime is a crime against the US government, or a crime that has been committed in multiple states, or a crime against a federal employee.” It wasn’t an exhaustive list, but a cozy British crime writer didn’t need to know the intricacies of the American legal statute.
Daisy pushed her unruly hair behind her ear. Ingrid hadn’t yet worked out Daisy’s age, but she’d wager she was early forties, about five or six years older than she was. “And I thought it was all serial killers and profiling.”
