‘Man, are you from Zurich? I thought you guys had given up on this shit years ago.’
Haynes held the phone away from his head for a moment. Wished he had the guy in the room with him.
‘Zurich? I’m calling from the UK.’
‘The fuck? Listen man, not the place, the insurance company.’
‘The Zurich insurance company?’
‘Yeah!’
‘What about them?’
‘They were, like, all over that shit. When all those Jap dudes bought it, the insurance got involved, and there was all sorts of shit. But I haven’t heard from those guys in years.’
‘Can you remember a name?’
‘Of what?’
‘Anyone at the insurance company?’
‘Are you fucking kidding me, man? Seriously? I can’t remember what I had for breakfast.’
Haynes wrote down Zurich, although he wasn’t likely to forget it. If he was going to call someone at the Zurich office in London, or wherever, he was going to have to get on with it. The guy had given him a decent lead, and he made the decision that that was the only useful thing he was likely to get out of him.
‘Right, I’ll let you get to bed. Maybe I’ll call you again next week.’
There was a slight pause, then, ‘Sure, man, whatever. I’m always here, man. Always here.’
Haynes hung up, exhaled, and quickly went about trying to get a number for the head office of Zurich Insurance in the UK.
*
Forty-three minutes later he walked into Dylan’s office. He’d debated calling Jericho first but had decided to talk it over with the superintendent. If what he’d discovered was really as significant as it looked, why wouldn’t Jericho already have known about it?
He had ten minutes, he thought, before he was going to have to leave, head home, pack, drive dangerously quickly to the train station, and get the last train to Paddington that would get him into London in time to make it to St Pancras for the twenty thirty-one. The last train to Paris.
He liked the sound of taking the last train to Paris with his new love interest, but for the first time since he’d got back in touch with her earlier that week, he wasn’t thinking about Margot Leighton. His throat was dry, his stomach was churning, his skin felt clammy and uncomfortable.
Was it fear?
Definitely fear.
‘How’s it coming, Sergeant?’ asked Dylan, then she noticed his complexion, the anxiety on his face. ‘What’s happened?’
‘The boss,’ he said, sitting down. ‘I mean, the Chief Inspector, his wife... DCI’s Jericho’s wife... I thought she was in the police. That was how they met.’
‘Yes,’ said Dylan, looking curious. ‘You’re all right, Sergeant. Calm–’
He shook his head.
‘Was she still in the police? I mean, when she disappeared?’
Dylan made a slight gesture with her hands.
‘I don’t think so, but obviously it was up in London. I think she’d moved on about a year earlier.’
‘What was she doing?’
‘Sergeant?’ said Dylan, her question more of a rebuke for the tone.
‘What was she doing?’ he repeated.
‘Insurance investigation, as far as I know. I mean, major company fraud, not car accidents or injuries at work.’
Haynes sat back, biting his bottom lip, his mouth dry.
‘How much did the DCI know about what she was doing?’
‘I really don’t know, Sergeant, and I don’t know where you’re going with this.’
Haynes swallowed, exhaled, leaned forward. Was about to relate what he’d just learned, then instead said, ‘Is it possible they never discussed cases with each other? Did they have that kind of relationship, or some sort of code where they wouldn’t–?’
‘Sergeant! Please, for the love of God, will you get to the point?’
He nodded, swallowed again, then stared at the floor.
‘I’ve been trying to find out if there have been any other instances of the deaths of climbers from a Kangchenjunga expedition. There’s only one similar occurrence, eleven years ago. Four Japanese guys all died, in weird accidental ways, within a few months. One suicide. One–’
‘I don’t need to know about the individual deaths. They died, right.’
‘And of course there was all sorts of shit flying around, and although they were all Japanese, their expedition was funded from London. With them all dying, there was a lot of insurance money up for grabs. A big international thing, I mean, not really in the news, but the insurance company were looking into it before they coughed up anything.’
Immediately she could see where he was going, but she stared across the desk, not feeling the fear that Haynes had felt, but getting the uncomfortable grip on her stomach.
‘The lead investigator was Amanda Raintree.’
She nodded, swallowed, her eyes dropped.
‘That was his wife, wasn’t it? That was her name?’
Dylan nodded. Still not talking.
‘It doesn’t sound...’ he began. ‘I mean, it’s not like Smith or... it seems like an unusual enough name, it’s too much of a coincidence.’
‘No,’ said Dylan finally. ‘It doesn’t sound like a coincidence.’
‘But surely he would have known? Even if he hadn’t known what she was working on, he would have investigated her disappearance?’
Dylan sat back, her eyes still down, staring at her desk. Fingers started tapping rapidly.
‘So DCI Jericho’s wife disappeared while investigating mysterious deaths surrounding a Kangchenjunga expedition. Now, he’s investigating a similar case, but tied to that we have these tarot cards, which is a clear link to the case he had last winter, and to this mysterious instance of the DCI coming to inherit all that money.’
‘Yes.’
She finally raised her eyes.
‘So everything that’s happened to him in the last year, all that shit to do with Durrant and that absurd television show, has been organised by the same people his wife was potentially investigating eleven years ago.’
Haynes nodded.
‘You know the story of his wife’s disappearance?’ asked Dylan. ‘Does he ever talk about it?’
‘Just what I heard around the station when I joined,’ he said. ‘He never mentioned it himself.’
‘No, nor to me,’ she said. ‘I do know the story, though. From what I gather he saw her off to work one morning, and then never again.’
‘Did she reach her office?’
‘She worked in the morning, then went out on a lunch engagement. She didn’t tell anyone who it was with. Then she never came back. Her phone, her cards, nothing was ever used again.’ She dragged up the story, trying to remember if there were any more details, fingers going all the time. ‘The fact that she was secretive about the meeting, that was the thing. The thing that threw some people off. I read the report. There was a suggestion she’d just arranged to go off with someone, planned it all along.’
‘Where did that suggestion come from?’
Dylan shrugged.
‘Common sense, maybe. She wasn’t usually secretive about her assignations, so why this one?’
‘Seems thin.’
‘Perhaps some people were looking for it... The DCI... I’m sure he’s not just been difficult since she disappeared. He’s brilliant on occasion, I’ll give him that, but he’s a miserablist arsehole just as often. Maybe he had enemies. Maybe people were just happy to believe that his wife would walk out without a word.’
‘Did anyone at the company take up the investigation?’
‘I don’t know. We should find out.’
The tapping stopped. The tension of the moment seemed to ease away from her, and she sat silently, her eyes at a spot on the far side of the room. The silence, after the conversation and the rhythmic drum of her fingers, was huge. Haynes began to feel his trip to Paris run away from him. He could hardly abandon his post. This was more important,
and if there was something to be gained in the investigation by going to Paris, he would just have to rely on Leighton to uncover it.
‘What would you like me to do?’ he asked.
‘You’re going up to London tonight or tomorrow?’ she asked, surprising him.
‘Tonight. Well, actually, we were going to go to Paris.’
‘Paris?’
He nodded.
‘Sorry, Sergeant, but I think your–’
‘It’s not that. There’s an academic library the professor needs to visit. She has an appointment tomorrow morning. On the chase of the references in the standard on the Death cards. They weren’t very helpful over the phone.’
Dylan held his gaze. Finger started tapping again.
‘If you’re supposed to be in Paris tonight, you’d better get a move on.’
‘It’s all right, I can–’
‘You’ve got one of the Blackberries?’
Haynes nodded. ‘I mean, I never use it...’
‘Blackberries...,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I mean, is anyone anywhere in the world still using the Blackberry apart from down here in the sticks? You getting the train from Castle Cary?’
‘In forty minutes.’
‘Right, get going. Take what you need, send me a report from the train. Once I’ve got it, I’ll get onto that, see what I can do on a Friday evening. I can take it up in the morning.’
‘If you’re sure, ma’am.’
She nodded.
‘I expect the DCI broke my confidence and told you I’m leaving?’
Haynes smiled in confirmation.
‘I thought he might. I’m in my last few weeks, Sergeant, I can afford to be nice. You’d better get going.’
Haynes got to his feet.
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Would you like me to call the DCI?’
‘Yes,’ said Dylan straight away, having already been thinking about it. ‘I’m going to call him now. You can try it later, from the train. Once you’ve done what you have to do. Maybe one of us will get him. You’ll be in on Monday?’
‘Of course.’
Finger going, head bowed again in thought, she indicated the door. Haynes turned and quickly left.
27
Friday evening. The players were on the move, the opening was done, and they had settled into the complex middle, everything still in play.
Jericho lay in bed on a warm Marrakech night. He was wearing pyjama shorts, lying under a single sheet, watching the fan whir above him. Wide awake. Thinking about Amanda more now than at any time since he’d finally cracked and given up the investigation into her disappearance. Kicking himself for letting the Death card go the previous winter. For putting it in a drawer and forgetting about it. For thinking out of sight, out of mind.
He had waited eleven years for a link. Now it was here, and he hadn’t realised until the moment he’d heard the word Kangchenjunga. Indeed, the link had been waiting for him for the past seven months, and he’d put it away. He wasn’t to have known, but that didn’t matter. Regardless of who was behind the business in January, there was no way he should have let it go.
His phone had rung throughout the evening before he finally turned it off. Badstuber had looked at him curiously over dinner when he hadn’t answered. Haynes had rung four times, Dylan three. They must have worked it out, he thought. Haynes would have worked it out. He didn’t want to talk about it, though.
He watched the fan whirring round, every now and again concentrating on one blade and trying to follow it to achieve that fleeting second when the individual blades could be seen in amongst the blur.
Hands clasped behind his head, Jericho’s mind was not entirely unlike his view of the fan. A constant whir of motion, occasionally becoming clear, a millisecond or two at a time.
*
Badstuber had the switch that facilitated a work/life balance. She devoted the required amount of time to the job, then when she had done all she could, or needed to devote time to her family, the switch was flicked and she put her work into a closed compartment, to be opened at the appropriate time.
She was sitting cross-legged in her bed, her iPad propped in front of her, talking to her daughters via Face Time. The children all used the verb facetiming, but she refused to treat it as an acceptable word in German, or even in English.
The girls took it in turn, usually starting with the eldest. The youngest, Heidi, always talked the longest.
She didn’t travel often, so usually the Internet chats happened in the early evening, when she would be stuck in the office and would flick the switch for fifteen minutes to speak to the children before bedtime. Now, however, she had the rest of the evening, and Heidi talked and talked until her father came, smiling into the screen, to whisk her away.
Badstuber laughed with her children in a way no one else saw.
*
Haynes and Leighton sat on the last train to Paris, as darkness fell upon the south of England. They sat together in forward-facing seats, drinking wine, eating olives and cheese sticks.
She had waited for him at the ticket barrier, knowing he was on his way but not sure that he would get there in time. She had watched the clock; the clock had seemed to turn with unusual speed. And then he had come, running past the piano that Morlock had played earlier in the day, running past the thinning crowds of the evening, laughing and joking and slightly breathless as he arrived.
Now they sped through the tunnel, on into the French evening, sharing stories and starting the conversation that somehow they both imagined might last for the rest of their lives.
They were not followed into the night. There was no one sitting four rows away, keeping a careful eye, no one aiming a recording device in their direction, picking up every word. There was no need. The Pavilion knew which train they were on, they knew where they were staying in Paris, and they knew where they would be at nine o’clock the following morning.
*
Morlock stood on a balcony overlooking a corner of le Jardin du Luxembourg, a cigarette between the index and middle finger of his right hand, a long glass of vodka and tonic tinkling with ice in his left. He wasn’t a smoker and neither did he drink often, but this was who he was on this occasion as he passed through Paris. The fact that no one would die at his hand that evening in the French capital was no reason for him to alter his working pattern.
Always leave a country as someone different from whom you entered. Live the identity when you are in the country. Never use the same identity twice.
The person he was for this evening wouldn’t be sleeping with anyone. He had work to do the following morning; that would be over soon enough, and he would be heading on to Morocco.
He took another draw of the cigarette, pinched the end between his thumb and forefinger, then slipped it into his pocket.
*
Dylan did not leave the office until almost eleven. Her husband had a business dinner, so she had no particular reason to be home. There would not be their usual Friday evening wine and movie night that they tried to stick to as often as possible. It had been postponed until Saturday for the week, the usual argument about which film to watch still pending.
She wanted to know as much as possible about the disappearance of Amanda Raintree. It was fascinating, right enough, and there probably wasn’t a detective in the country who, presented with the opportunity, would not grab it with both hands. That she wasn’t a detective wasn’t going to deter her.
She also had no reason to lie to herself. She loved the idea of being the one who worked it out, who saw what DCI Jericho had been unable to see. There would be no glory moment in it, of course, even if she managed to achieve it. She could hardly stand before the DCI, slap a file down before him, and gloat about the fact she had proof that either his wife was dead, or that she’d run off with a rich financier to his twenty-seven bedroom beachfront property in Palm Beach.
Yet there would be satisfaction to be had. She would know it, and so would
he. In itself, that would be enough.
Of course, she found nothing new that evening. There was nothing to be found on the files. Jericho might have been too close to the case, but he was still not going to have missed the obvious. And the lead investigating officers at the time had done everything they could.
The Kangchenjunga connection was all over the file. There was no way Jericho had missed it. Which meant that as soon as it had raised its head this time, he must have known.
At three minutes after eleven she received a text from her husband, and only then did she close the files, turn off her computer and leave the station for the night.
*
Geyerson and Emerick slept beneath the stars. There were always others staying at the huts at which they pitched up, high in the mountains. Others like them, and tour groups from Explore and Exodus. The floors of the bedrooms were usually packed, fifteen people sleeping noisily together.
Geyerson preferred to sleep outside, the universe above him. No light pollution, stars beyond counting. Emerick hated the idea, and would have been happy to have a look at the sky before retreating inside – it’s not as though you can see the stars while you’re sleeping anyway, he’d tried to point out – but as ever, he did what Geyerson told him to do.
*
Harrow was weak. That was his fundamental trouble. Weakness. He had a capacity for brutality; he could display strength when confronted with the frailty of others. He came across well in company when psychological strength was not necessary. However, deep down, underneath every other affectation of his personality, he was weak. He knew it, and so did those who dealt with him.
There was likely nothing that could ever have given Harrow strength. He imagined he’d found it on Kangchenjunga. He told himself. He lived the lie. He was blind to the obvious. Nothing had changed. The old Harrow was still there. He was fearless on mountains, yet he feared people.
He shouldn’t have come to Syria. The old Harrow would never have done so. The new Harrow, the one who had walked off that mountain, had felt confident. It had taken coming to Syria for him to realise what he had known all along.
Sitting around the table with seven men he didn’t know, each of them talking loudly, he had no idea what language they were even speaking. He did not know if any of them, other than the man directly across from him at the table, spoke English.
We Are Death Page 14
