by Roberta Kray
‘Do you recognize the others? I mean, apart from Terry.’
Eve had to squeeze the question out. Her throat had dried, choking her voice. Fortunately, Sonia was too distracted to notice.
‘Nah, never seen them before. Some cardsharp mates of your dad’s, I shouldn’t wonder – and one of their tarts. Must have a few bob too by the looks of the place.’ She gazed down wistfully at the sun-drenched courtyard. ‘Who says cheats never prosper, huh?’
Eve drank her tea, glad of the restorative powers of the whisky. She cleared her throat. ‘It does look nice. Do you remember where it was?’
‘Not Southend,’ Sonia grinned. ‘That’s for sure.’
‘Did Peter not say?’
She shrugged. ‘Oh, one of them hot foreign islands.’
‘It was somewhere in Greece,’ Eve prompted, trying to jog her memory. ‘Dad always liked it there. I was just trying to think exactly where.’
But Sonia’s train of thought had already drifted. ‘You know, maybe I’ll get our Darren to paint my front door too. They’d be matching then, wouldn’t they? A splash of white always spruces things up.’
‘Corfu maybe. Do you think that was it?’
Perhaps Sonia was finally picking up on her desperation because she lifted her gaze and said, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’m fine.’ Then, placing her elbows on the table Eve sank her chin into her hands. ‘It’s just … just that I hate forgetting things. It was only a couple of years ago. He told me and now I can’t remember and …’ She didn’t even need to feign the emotion. Sheer frustration was bringing tears to her eyes.
Sonia reached out to pat her gently on the arm. ‘Don’t worry, love. Hey, don’t get upset. It doesn’t matter.’
Eve shook her head. Of course it mattered! She had to find out where this photo had been taken. Without that simple but essential piece of information all her father’s efforts would have been in vain. He had left it for her to find, bequeathed it for a reason.
She had a sudden vivid image of him in the Bauchin Chapel, down on his hands and knees, carefully taping the picture to the underside of the shelf. What had he been feeling? Fear? Satisfaction? Hope? He must have been listening out, just as she had, for any unwelcome interruption, worried that someone might walk in on him. Not that he wouldn’t have come up with some thoroughly convincing explanation – when it came to charm there never had, and never would be, anyone to surpass him. Thinking of his soft persuasive smile she almost smiled herself. It had barely touched on her lips before it faded again. She wondered if he had gone to the cathedral on the same day as he’d decided that he’d had enough, that whatever was left was not worth holding on to, and her mouth slid slowly back into despair.
Why hadn’t he talked to her?
‘You know,’ Sonia said, ‘I think it was Corfu.’
But Eve knew she was only trying to console her. Other than the country, she had no more idea of where the three of them had gone that summer than she had.
‘Perhaps.’
‘I could always ask Val. I could give her a ring. She might—’
‘No!’ The idea of Sonia even inadvertently broadcasting the existence of the photograph was enough to send Eve hurtling into panic. She gulped out her objection. ‘No, don’t. Please. It’s not a problem.’ Standing up, she grabbed a couple of glasses off the draining board, and poured them both a large straight Scotch. It gave her a few seconds to get her thoughts together. ‘Now I come to think of it you’re right, it definitely was Corfu. I’m sure it was.’
Sonia nodded. ‘Well, if he was staying with one of his mates, he probably wrote the address down some place.’
Eve’s jaw fell open. God, how did she keep overlooking the obvious? She thought of the battered address book lying in the top drawer of her father’s desk and her heart began to pound again.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Going through the names one by one, Eve had almost given up hope by the time she hit the letter S. She ran her finger down the list: Smith, Stevens, Shipley, Silk, Sanderson. And she might have flipped over the page if an address hadn’t leapt out at her. Under the name J. Silk were three entries, the first for an office in Docklands, the second for a house in Surrey, and the third for The Villa Marianne in a place called Elounda.
Her breath caught in her throat. Now that sounded Greek.
Jumping up, she dragged her father’s atlas off the shelf. A quick thumb through the index gave her the information she needed. Elounda was in Crete. Yes! This had to be it. And if the J stood for Joe there was every chance that she had just identified her persecutor.
‘The Villa Marianne,’ she said out loud.
No sooner had she spoken, than a distant spark ignited in her memory. Marianne. That name meant something to her. She had a glimpse of a teenage girl with long dark wavy hair, deep-set coffee-coloured eyes, her skin tanned to an enviable shade of bronze. How could she have forgotten? Two or three years older, and all the more glamorous because of it, the beautiful Marianne had been the subject of her first ever adolescent crush. Eve had followed her round like a lovesick puppy, only tolerated because there was no one else to talk to.
It had been one of those summers, a long time ago, before her father married Lesley. They had spent three months in Europe, touring Spain and Italy and Greece (he must have been in the money, must have pulled off one of his better cons) – and had stayed a few leisurely weeks at a villa with high wrought-iron gates and a turquoise pool. She would have been about eleven, maybe twelve.
Had Marianne’s father been called Joe? She couldn’t remember.
She leaned over to examine the photo again. Maybe there was something familiar about the man sitting beside Peter Marshall … or maybe she was only imagining it. People could change a lot in twenty years. And the girl definitely wasn’t Marianne although she might, at a stretch, be her daughter. It seemed unlikely with that fair hair but genetics could be unpredictable.
Eve racked her brains trying to think back, to resurrect her memories of that time, but they remained elusive. Like the faces in the photo, most of her recollections had blurred so that she couldn’t even swear that the villa they had stayed in had actually been in Greece. The odds, however, were on her side.
So, what to do now?
If she wanted Mr Silk off her back all she had to do was pick up the phone and call him. His London number, if it hadn’t been changed, was sitting right in front of her. But her father had gone to all that trouble for a reason – and until she knew what that reason was she couldn’t afford to simply hand the picture over.
What she needed was more information.
She rang Patrick on his mobile. ‘Hey, it’s me. How are things?’
His voice sounded drowsy, as if he’d just woken up. ‘Evie? God, do you have any idea what time it is?’
‘Ten past seven,’ she said, glancing at her watch. ‘And it isn’t even dark yet.’
‘Oh,’ he muttered. ‘Is it? Hang on a sec.’
She heard the rustle of cotton sheets, the murmur of a woman’s voice and then the rasp of a flint as he lit a cigarette.
‘Sorry, babe. I must have dropped off. It’s been a long day.’
Eve didn’t bother to pursue the cause of his exhaustion. She had a pretty good idea that it was still lying naked next to him.
‘How’s the flat? Did you manage to get it sorted?’
‘Not exactly. It’s more … well, more of a work in progress. I’ve moved out for a while.’
‘Oh, okay. So where are you staying at the moment?’
‘Er … with a mate.’
She smiled at the evasion, not sure as to whether she should be flattered by his attempt to spare her feelings or offended that he thought she might actually care. She didn’t. Not in the slightest. That pang she felt, that tiny stab deep down in her chest, was nothing more than a minor dose of heartburn.
‘We’ve been divorced for years,’ she said. ‘You are allowed to sleep with othe
r women now.’
‘Seven years actually. Not that I’m counting but we may as well get the facts right.’ He laughed. ‘Thanks for the permission though.’
‘It’s a pleasure.’
‘It always used to be,’ he said provocatively.
‘For you, perhaps,’ she quipped straight back.
‘Thanks, you sure know how to make a guy feel proud.’ There was a slight pause while he took a drag on his cigarette. ‘Okay, so assuming that you’re not calling to beg me to take you back, I take it there’s some other way I can enhance the quality of your life?’
‘I could just be calling to see how you are.’
‘You could,’ he said, ‘and I hate to sound hard done by, or even mildly cynical, but that would be a first. And there’s a small voice in my head insisting that you’re after more than a cosy chat about the state of my health.’
‘A small voice huh? That’s not encouraging. You should get that checked out.’
‘Come on, babe. Spit it out.’
She grinned down the line. ‘Well, as it happens I would appreciate some help. What do you know about a man called Joe Silk?’
‘Christ,’ he groaned. ‘Please don’t tell me he’s the next on your prison pal’s hit list.’
‘This has nothing to do with Cavelli.’
‘Good.’
‘Why do you say that?’ Her smile was beginning to fade.
‘Because you do realize who Joe Silk is, right?’
‘Yeah, of course. Well kind of, vaguely.’
‘Then you know that he’s trouble. The serious kind. He owns a load of property, runs a string of clubs in the West End, a couple of casinos, but that’s just the legal side. He’s into all sorts of shit: drugs, girls, illegals …’
Eve gripped the phone tight against her ear, her palms starting to leak. This was exactly what she didn’t want to hear. That she might have been stepping on the toes of some minor thug was risky enough but deliberately crossing a major league gangster was heading towards the suicidal.
His voice became wary. ‘What’s the interest? Does this have anything to do with Jimmy Reece?’
‘No, I told you. It’s not connected to Cavelli.’ She should have guessed she’d get an inquisition. Needing a cover story, and fast, she settled on a partial truth. ‘I came across his name in Dad’s address book. It rang a bell but I couldn’t quite place him. I just wondered if they were close, if he’d heard, you know, about what happened …’
‘Oh, right. I see.’ Patrick seemed partly mollified by the answer. But then a hint of suspicion crept back into his voice. ‘To be honest I’m surprised they even knew each other.’
‘Well, it’s not important. Perhaps their paths crossed sometime in the past.’
‘Yeah, possibly. But I’d stay well away if I were you.’
‘Don’t worry, I will.’
She said her goodbyes, put the phone down and closed her eyes.
‘Damn,’ she murmured.
It was Saturday morning. A faint glimmer of sun broke through the clouds making the wet pavements shine. Eve was standing by the window waiting for the taxi to arrive. It was finally pulling up. At last! Grabbing her bag, she crossed the room, locked the door behind her and jogged down the stairs.
Now that she knew what she knew she had to act quickly.
The photograph was in the inside breast pocket of her jacket. Last night, on the pretext of sending some emails – an excuse that had permitted some temporary privacy – she had borrowed Darren’s computer again, scanned in the photo, enlarged the image and printed out a reasonable copy. She had thought about sending it down line to Henry but decided against it. There was no saying whose prying eyes could be privy to his email.
As if the button might not be enough to keep it from accidentally falling out, she anxiously felt for the picture again. Was it safe to leave the copy behind? She had taped it to the middle of The Collected Works of Shakespeare so that if someone did break in (and the odds of them getting through that door, never mind past Sonia, were pretty slim) they’d still be hard pressed to find it.
Anyway, so what if they did. In a few hours, so long as he agreed, the original would be securely stashed in Henry’s safe.
Micky Porter checked the arrivals board, noted the platform number and then strolled over to the nearest café. He ordered a bacon roll and a coffee, sat down, and opened his newspaper. He still had fifteen minutes to wait.
For the past couple of days, due to more pressing matters, the surveillance on Eve Weston had been suspended. Joe had needed him here in London. There had been trouble at the clubs, three arson attacks and an unexpected drugs raid. One of the buildings was a writeoff. Six of his girls had been arrested. The criminal world, for all its superficial secrecy, was a hotbed of gossip. Rumours were flying around: that Ritchie Frey was trying to muscle in, that the Empire was crumbling, that Joe was finally losing his grip …
Micky was keeping an open mind. He’d heard it all before. Recurring reports on the demise of Joe Silk had a tendency to be exaggerated. He was loyal to the boss – well, as loyal as any employee who continued to receive a healthy wage – and he wouldn’t jump ship until he was sure it was actually sinking.
However, with the current crisis, he did find it odd that Joe was back on the redhead’s case. He must have sent someone else up to Norwich to watch her. Weren’t there more important things to worry about? He still didn’t understand what she’d done, or maybe hadn’t, to warrant such attention. And Gruber, unsurprisingly, hadn’t shed any light on the mystery either. A few discreet inquiries about what he’d been asked to search for in the blond hustler’s flat had drawn one almighty blank.
‘You didn’t find it then? No joy the other night?’ (As if he knew what he’d been looking for.)
‘No.’
‘You must be losing your touch. Did you check under the bed?’
Gruber, unamused, had lifted his gaze and stared at him. ‘It wasn’t there.’
‘Joe can’t have been too pleased.’
He shrugged.
‘So where do you think it might be?’
Taking a moment to think about it, he had finished his pint, pulled his shaggy brows together and frowned. ‘Somewhere else?’
Micky still couldn’t work out if Gruber was thick as shit or just deliberately obtuse.
The journey had felt interminable, more like five hours than two. Eve had spent them in a state of barely suppressed panic. Patrick’s warning refused to stop spinning round her head. I’d stay well away. Which was exactly what she wanted to do – except the choice, she suspected, was not entirely hers.
She had moved places several times, starting off near the restaurant car (there was safety in numbers) and then changing her mind (wasn’t it easier for a tail to hide in a crowd?) before finally retreating to a seat at the rear of the last carriage. The photograph, like a bright magnesium flare, was burning a hole in her pocket. She was convinced that everyone could see it.
As the train pulled into Liverpool Street she took her time getting off, making sure that no one was behind her. Her eyes cautiously scanned the crowd in front, searching for anyone who might be deliberately slowing their pace. She was so on edge, so nervy, that should some poor soul suffer the misfortune of having to bend and tie up his shoelaces she would probably scream blue murder and kick him where it hurt.
Fortunately, nobody stopped, stumbled or even briefly hesitated, and she walked through the barrier and out on to the station forecourt with a sigh of relief.
As she mounted the steps to the upper level, she could see Henry already seated at a table outside the coffee shop. He was never just punctual, always early, for which she was grateful. The prospect of hanging around on her own, especially with what she was carrying, was not enticing. But it wasn’t just that. She felt a genuine rush of affection on seeing his face, a reminder of how much she missed him.
In his usual gentlemanly fashion he got to his feet, leaned over and ki
ssed her courteously on the cheek.
‘How are you?’
She was tempted to tell the truth. Instead, reluctant to alarm him more than she had to, she delivered a smile, arched her eyebrows and said, ‘Confused just about sums it up.’
‘Let me get you a drink and you can tell me all about it.’
‘Thanks. Shall we go inside?’ It was too public out here, too many passengers milling about. And apart from her concerns about a possible tail she also had his position to worry about. The fewer people who saw them together the better. Celia, she was sure, would not have forgiven him yet. He had taken a huge risk last week in Soho; there was no point tempting providence.
She laid a hand on his arm. ‘Oh, and Henry, thanks for coming today. I really appreciate it.’
‘Why shouldn’t I?’ he replied.
Although they both knew the answer to that. After Richard’s spiteful intervention – she felt a stab of anger at the thought of it – their meetings could only ever be surreptitious, stolen moments that would eventually, inevitably, fade away to nothing.
They went through to the back of the café and found a quiet corner. In need of something sweet and comforting she ordered a hot chocolate and while she sipped at the froth went over the events of the past few days.
Henry’s eyes grew ever wider as she explained about the hidden photograph. ‘In the cathedral? Heavens!’ Then, as if he had inadvertently made a bad pun, he pulled his lips into a fleeting grimace.
‘Yes, and if it hadn’t been for you, for what you said, I’d never have found it. Not in a month of Sundays. I just don’t get it. I mean, he couldn’t have guessed that I’d make the connection. Why should I? What have I ever known about Virginia Woolf?’
‘Perhaps he realized that your curiosity about the notes would ultimately lead you to the answer.’
‘Then he was taking an almighty risk. It’s almost as if …’ She stopped, frowning as she tried to sort out her thoughts. ‘I don’t know. As if he wasn’t quite sure that he wanted me to find it. Does that make any sense? That he left all the clues but made them obscure enough to rely on an element of chance.’
