Kiss Me When I'm Dead

by Dominic Piper

  He points to a black handle with a built-in keyhole.

  ‘Wouldn’t you have to have a key?’

  ‘Well, yes. But these are pretty easy to open without one. I have mentioned it to security, but they just laughed and said there was no need to be concerned about suicidal cleaning staff. Watch.’

  He takes out his wallet and removes a credit card.

  ‘There’s a latch bolt at the top and lock bolt directly underneath. But the lock bolt is small, and doesn’t quite fit into the strike plate. A lot of this type of lock has this sort of design fault. The hotel probably got them on the cheap, maybe just for these windows. So you can push your credit card like so…’

  He pushes his card into the gap between the window and the window frame, and then bends it to the right. I can hear the lock bolt make a loud click as it opens. He then turns the handle downwards and the window opens.

  ‘See? No one bothers about this because you can’t break in from the outside. My concern was more to do with cleaning staff stealing stuff and dropping it out of the window to their mates waiting down there with a shitload of bin bags. I can’t imagine anyone bothering, though. I mean – who wants tons of miniature soaps and tubs of fake milk? But seriously, it’s a safety issue.’

  I lean out of the window and look down. I can see what he means. You probably wouldn’t survive a drop like that if you jumped, and if you did survive, it would be with broken legs and a variety of serious internal injuries. There’s nothing in the alley below, apart from a solitary rubbish bin with the lid broken off and a couple of cardboard boxes.

  ‘Where does that alley come out?’

  ‘The only access is from Stratton Street. You can’t get to it from Bolton Street, though I think you must have been able to at one time. The Bolton Street entrance to it is bricked up now. I’m not sure it really belongs to anyone. It isn’t hotel property.’

  ‘OK. Thanks for everything. I’ll let you get back to work.’

  ‘Ah, that’s alright. I enjoyed myself. Any time you want anything else, let me know.’

  Before I take the tube back to Covent Garden to freshen up for Anjukka, I stroll up Stratton Street to take a look at that alley from street level. There’s a Turkish carpet place on one side and a house on the other. There’s nothing stopping you from walking into that alley, it’s wide enough to back a car into and there are no signs telling you it’s private.

  I walk down it towards the bin and boxes I noticed from the window on the third floor. Even though the weather is mild, it’s cold enough to make me shiver. This is a place the sun never reaches. I look up at the window of the cleaners’ room. The wall is sheer and Kerrigan was right; you’d have to be Spider Man to get up there.

  I shrug and head for Green Park tube. Well, at least I know that Lara Holland was really Amelia Finch and that Amelia Finch and Viola were both here at some point. The odd thing is why they left without checking out. I try to put myself in their shoes. Amelia first.

  I’m still assuming that Amelia was what she seemed. Booking the courier under a false name may just have been paranoia on her part. She turns up here, checks in and goes to her room, excited about what the evening may bring. It could have been that she was afraid of bumping into someone she knew, which may explain the glasses and wig. If she planned to have dinner with Viola, then it wouldn’t have been at the hotel, or she would have booked it online.

  Then something happens. Perhaps she gets cold feet. Perhaps she leaves before Viola even gets here. There was a one and a half hour gap between her arrival and Viola’s. Maybe that was enough for her to think it through and wonder what the hell she was doing. Maybe the reality of what she was embarking on suddenly hit her now she was actually at the hotel. She panics and leaves the hotel without even bothering to check out, possibly from embarrassment.

  Then Viola turns up and checks in. She goes to her room to freshen up. She knocks on Amelia’s door, but no one answers because there’s no one there. But that doesn’t really hold water, because Viola sent Sakura the text saying that everything was OK and she was going ahead with the job.

  So an alternative scenario would have to be that Viola knocks on Amelia’s door. Amelia answers. They exchange pleasantries and Amelia hands Viola the balance of the fee. Viola goes back to her room to count the money and to text Sakura. She then goes back to Amelia’s room to tantric massage her and do whatever else they’re going to get up to. I can’t speak for Amelia, but I think if it was me and I had hired Viola for the night, I might have ordered something from room service, even if it was a solitary bottle of champagne. It could be that Viola brings her own bottle of champagne, but I don’t think that’s very likely.

  So everything’s going to plan, but then something goes wrong. I can’t imagine what this could be, but it’s so serious that both women flee the hotel, neither bothering to check out. Despite what Mr Kerrigan said, I think both women would have left the hotel via reception, and not through a storage room window that neither of them would know existed and which possessed a drop that could have killed them. And then, to make things even more confusing, why didn’t Viola contact Sakura and tell her what had happened?

  Then there’s another possibility. Amelia Finch hired Viola with the express intention of doing away with her for reason or reasons unknown. But if that was the case, she was taking a hell of a risk and spending a hell of a lot of money. Perhaps she was a psychopath, and none of those things mattered to her. Perhaps she looked at Sakura’s site, saw the photographs of Viola and thought to herself, I would like to kill her.

  So my visit to The Bolton Mayfair threw up more questions, bafflement and dead ends, even if I now know that Lara Holland was Amelia Finch and I’ve got a passable sketch of what Amelia Finch looks like. Despite all the negatives, though, I feel I’m getting closer to Viola. It sounds stupid, but I feel that she’s holding out a hand to me to be rescued or something, and my hand is now a lot closer to hers than it was a couple of days ago. But I’m not sure I want to know what will happen when our hands finally meet.

  16

  WICKED THOUGHTS

  It’s only when I get home and get into a hot bath that my body kindly reminds me of the thrashing I received today at the hands of Sakura. I lie there, staring at the ceiling, while trickling in as much hot water as I can stand. I’m trying to have a break from thinking about this case, but as soon as I start anticipating tonight with Anjukka, I start thinking about how she was fitted up by Tote Bag.

  If I was Tote Bag, I’d certainly keep that embarrassing episode in Liberty’s to myself. It would be too embarrassing and make me look like an unprofessional idiot. In which case, Raleigh, or whoever she reports to, would still think that I was unaware that they had a tail on me, which would be a good thing. I’m surprised, however, that I haven’t spotted another one. Maybe they’re using someone better.

  When I get out, I take a look at myself in the mirror. I look better than I feel. There’s bruising around my breastbone from those kicks I received while I was busy with a towel around my head and there’s a bit of a black eye starting from those occasions when my skull collided with the wall.

  I turn around so that I can see my back in the mirror. There’s dark bruising around the area where I received that murderous kidney punch, but at least the pain has gone down now. There’s also a big bruise on my shoulder and another whopper on my collarbone. I’m not sure how I obtained those two. I’ve also got small bruises on the side of both forearms from blocking Sakura’s multiple blows. I have to admit it, though, she was really fuckin’ good. God help anyone who tried to mug her.

  I pick up a London A-Z and look for the address that Amelia Finch gave the hotel with her booking. 59a Acorn Street, London SE19. Sounds like it might be a flat. It’s a long shot that it’ll be a real address with Amelia Finch actually living there waiting for me with a cup of tea, but if it is, I’ll have to go and check it out tomorrow morning. I’ve never actually been to Crystal Palace, so if not
hing else, I’ll have got a tiny bit of London tourism out of the way.

  Predictably, there isn’t an Acorn Street in SE19 or anywhere else, for that matter. Well, I’ve still got the telephone number. I type it into my mobile, call it and wait. After a little bit of silence, there’s an automated message telling me that the number I have dialled has not been found. It’s probably a PAYG number which has been discontinued. Mrs Amelia Finch is a very cautious woman indeed. I didn’t expect any of her personal details to be true, but I’m still annoyed with this. If she’s not the real deal, as presented to Sakura, then what the hell was she? I have to admit I’m totally baffled when it comes to her motivation for all of this.

  The other thing is the credit card. Her address and telephone number were fake, but how did she manage the card? The obvious answer is that somewhere there is a real Amelia Finch who is not connected with any of this. She had one of her credit cards stolen and didn’t report it missing during the two or so days that fake Amelia required it. That way, it would pass muster with the pre-authorisation check made by The Bolton Mayfair.

  But that would be a risky way of going about it. As soon as you had access to the real Amelia Finch’s card, you’d have to do the whole thing pretty damn quickly: ring Sakura, book the hotel, book into the hotel, all the time running the risk that the card might be stopped at any time and you’d be found out.

  No. It can’t have been done that way. Someone, whether it was Amelia or some associate of hers, would have to have high level criminal or banking contacts to get hold of a card with a fake ID which actually worked, which you could actually buy things with and it would be OK. A card that would pass any validation that a hotel cared to put it through.

  I’m just making a coffee when my mobile goes off. It’s Sakura.

  ‘Hello, Daniel. How are you feeling now? Not too sore, I hope.’

  ‘Are we talking about you beating me up or the sex?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘Well, treating them as one combined experience, I don’t feel too bad, thank you. I look as if I’ve been involved in a car crash, though.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about when we were together,’ she purrs. ‘I’m thinking about it right now. It makes me feel so good. My body is tingling. I don’t know what to do with myself.’

  ‘Sorry – am I being charged for this call?’

  She laughs. ‘Listen – I spoke to Sally and Abigail after you’d left me this afternoon; left me all alone with only my wicked thoughts for company.’

  ‘Anything interesting?’

  ‘Well, Sally was very reluctant to speak to me and thought I was trying to get something over on her. It took a while to get her to hold a polite conversation. When I told her about Viola she went quiet. She’s always feared that something like that would happen to one of her girls one day, and she didn’t like to hear it had happened to someone she knew. She felt that somehow the whole thing was getting closer to her.’

  ‘But she hadn’t heard of any recent cull of call girls or any unusual gossip?’

  ‘No. But Abigail Gastrell came up with something interesting. I asked her if she’d heard anything on the grapevine and I told her that I was worried about one of my girls, and she said she’d tell all of her girls to be a little more cautious until we found out what had happened to Viola. She was very sympathetic. I’ve always liked Abigail. We were lovers for a while, but that was years ago.’

  ‘Thank you for that detail. So what was the interesting thing she came up with, Sakura?’

  ‘One of her girls, her name is Eleanor Wallis, rang her up a few weeks ago, and out of the blue told her that she was quitting. It took a while to get Abigail to pin this telephone call down to an exact date, but when she thought about it, she guessed it was either on the eighteenth or nineteenth of last month, because she temporarily removed Eleanor’s page from her website on the twentieth – she was able to check the date on her computer. She planned to talk her out of it, but when she spoke to her on the phone, she said that Eleanor sounded frightened, as opposed to bored with the life, or anything like that.’

  ‘And where is Eleanor now?’

  ‘Abigail didn’t know. Eleanor hasn’t been answering her phone.’

  I give my eyeballs a rub with my free hand. Is there a slight, fleeting chance that Eleanor Wallis might be Amelia Finch/Lara Holland? Somehow I doubt it. She might just be Eleanor Wallis. Will this be another dead end? Still, she’s from the world of high-class call girls, so there might be some sort of tenuous link.

  ‘Are you still there?’ says Sakura, with an impatient edge to her voice.

  ‘Yes. I’m still here. I’m just trying to get my head around this. You don’t know what Eleanor looks like, do you, by any chance?’

  ‘No. Would that make a difference?’

  ‘Possibly. If we could get an address for her it could be useful. I’d really like to see her and talk to her, but before that, I’d like to see what she looks like.’

  ‘Abigail isn’t keen on giving out proper, identifiable photographs of her girls, if that’s what you mean. She said that Eleanor was a university student, which means that even if she was still on Abigail’s site, she’d probably have most of her face obscured. That’s what they do, girls like that, and she’d have to respect that. Some don’t care, of course. Viola didn’t care.’

  ‘OK. Can we go and talk to Abigail, in that case? I’d like to ask her some questions. I think I’ve got a visual identification of Amelia Finch which is fairly good. It’s only a sketch, but it worked for a guy at The Bolton Mayfair. If Abigail thinks it looks like Eleanor, then we’ll have to find her. If it doesn’t look like her, then we can forget about Eleanor being Amelia. It would be good if you could come with me to see Abigail. It’ll change the atmosphere if you know her. By the way, the woman who booked the courier to send you the deposit did so under the name of Lara Holland, but that was almost certainly the same person as the Amelia Finch who turned up at the hotel.’

  ‘Interesting. So many names. Of course I’ll come with you, Daniel, if you think that would help you in some way. When would you like to see Abigail? Tonight?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning would be better. Ten o’ clock, something like that. Where does she live?’

  ‘Ewell.’

  ‘In Surrey? OK. I’ll come to your place at nine-thirty. We can get a cab down there. It’ll be more like ten-thirty when we arrive. Could you contact her and then send me a text if all that’s OK?’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  ‘And you’ll be OK, will you? I mean…’

  ‘I’ll be fine. In a cab I’ll be fine.’

  ‘OK. Tomorrow, then.’

  I consider checking Amelia’s credit card number with the issuing bank, but can’t imagine I’d have any luck there, even if banks were prone to giving out other people’s confidential information to complete strangers, which they aren’t.

  Besides, the person who organised the card would have known there would be a risk of someone trying to track it down, even if it was just the hotel, so any follow-up would be an impasse and a waste of a phone call. Whoever Amelia is or was, she’s covered her tracks pretty well. I’d dearly love to know who’s helping her with this and why. I don’t think it’s something you could do on your own.

  There are so many pieces of half-baked information here that it’s giving me a headache. Part of me is trying to struggle with what Amelia’s motivation might be, but then I start thinking motivation for what?

  Motivation for visiting a courier company and using another name? Motivation for booking a couple of hotel rooms then leaving without checking out? Motivation for arriving at the hotel in disguise?

  And, of course, the fact that both she and Viola didn’t check out of the hotel might have been pure coincidence. The fact that Viola disappeared might have been nothing at all to do with Amelia Finch. I must ask Sakura whether this lack of checking out of hotels is a common thing in her world.

  I get dressed and p
repare to leave for my date with Anjukka, then remember I have to make one more call.

  I put my jacket on, make sure I’ve got all the other crap I need and head down to Exeter Street, which already has more than its fair share of lost tourists, bewildered theatregoers and diners dribbling into Joe Allen.

  Just as I’m strolling past the wine bar at the end of the road, I notice a guy walking past me in the other direction and give him a half-second peripheral glance. He’s aged between fifty-five and sixty-five, short grey hair, big nose, long sideburns, medium height, sports jacket, white shirt, dark green tie with thin red stripes, grey trousers, black leather shoes, fit looking, carrying the Daily Telegraph and walking with purpose.

  He’s walked past The Lyceum Theatre so he’s not going in there. He’s walking on the side of the road with no entrances to anywhere, no shops to look at and no restaurants of any kind. He doesn’t look lost, doesn’t look like he’s a theatregoer, doesn’t look like a tourist and doesn’t look like a Joe Allen person. What he does look, however, is totally out of place in Covent Garden.

  I turn left into Wellington Street and after about a minute, have to cross over the road at Tavistock Street. I don’t turn my head to my left, but I can see him down the far end, across the road from the back of Covent Garden Market. He must have turned right at the end of Exeter Street and doubled back. Smart. I get out my mobile, press a button and keep walking down Wellington Street, but not too fast.

  ‘Hi. I don’t know if you remember me, but we met the other night.’

  I can hear Natalie’s dirty laughter on the other end. ‘How could I forget? I’ve been thinking about you.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Well what do you think? You’ve ruined me for other men.’

  I stop and look in Penhaligon’s window, using the screen of my mobile as a reflective surface. Grey Hair has caught up and is about one hundred yards behind me. He’s dumped the newspaper. I continue on my way and take a left into Russell Street. There’s a café bar about ten yards away. I go in, order a double espresso, take my jacket off and sit at the front, looking out at the street.