“Money,” Riley agreed. “Whatever they do — or did — it had to involve lots of cash.”
When Marion told them she had switched off the alarm, they followed her to a small side gate and were ushered into the kitchen.
“Shall I leave you to it?” said Marion. “There’s things I can be doing upstairs. I’ll make coffee in a bit, if you like.”
“We’re fine, thanks,” said Riley. “This is really sweet of you.”
As soon as Marion disappeared, Riley began a quick search of the ground floor while Palmer left her with the tape and clipboard and went back outside to look at the garage.
The kitchen was a shade smaller than vast, with quarry tiles covering the floor and elegant, hand-made Italian tiles running from floor to ceiling. State-of-the-art gadgets were everywhere, and she got the impression that the house might have been designed around this one room. Evidently Mrs Grossman liked entertaining or cooking.
She walked across the kitchen into a large hallway. A circular table big enough to seat eight people in comfort stood against one wall with a large vase of dried flowers in the centre. A smaller one holding a telephone and a directory stood against another. To her right was a staircase with polished mahogany banisters; to the left were two doors. One led to the sitting room at the rear of the house. She tried the other and found a walk-in clothes cupboard fitted with shelves, drawers and hanging space for coats. On the hooks hung a variety of coats, waterproofs and jackets. Recalling what the cleaner had said about the keep-fit fanatic, Riley checked all the pockets. Nothing.
She spotted a large laundry-type bag in one corner and flipped it open. Inside was a crumpled tracksuit, still sweat-stained. She pulled it out and checked the pockets. In the jacket was a scribbled note, limp with dampness. The writing was barely legible, but she could just make out the words ‘Bentley’s. Tickets’.
The other pockets yielded nothing of interest, so she prowled the rest of the ground floor looking for clues. Photos on the cabinets caught her eye. They were mostly family snaps at various celebrations. The same man and woman appeared in several of the shots, smiling at the camera. They were both expensively dressed, the man in suits with a flash of a large ring on his left hand and an opulent wristwatch clearly visible at his cuff, while the woman varied from an exotic sweep of hair and large drop earrings to a more severe bob cut and a display of gold chains at her neck.
To Riley, for all their cosy, middle-aged smiles, neither looked the sort she would like to share living space with. She guessed the man must be the late Mr Grossman.
Interestingly, none of the photos included children.
She drifted quickly up the carpeted stairs and into the bedrooms. She could hear Marion opening and shutting drawers at the other end of the landing. Two small rooms were full of toiletries and clothes, clearly belonging to younger men. Neither gave any clues to their occupants’ names, and she realised they had been expertly cleaned of all means of identification.
The largest bedroom overlooked the sweep of stepped lawns, and was bigger than most living rooms. There were no signs of a man’s effects in evidence, nor any jewellery. Odd, she thought. Every woman in creation has something of value lying around.
She discovered why when she moved aside some dresses in the wardrobe; a small, steel door with a central dial gleamed in the dark recess. She was tempted to try the dial but decided against it; the house alarm would be off but the safe might not be.
Back downstairs she looked through the kitchen drawers. Kitchens were where people spent most of their time, and all the bits of paper that concerned daily life found their way tucked into drawers or clips, pending being moved to a better place.
Her search yielded two items of interest. One was an instruction booklet for a motorised wheelchair. On the back page was a guarantee and the manufacturer’s address. The second was a small brochure for a private airfield near Rickmansworth. Inside were details about hangar facilities and membership fees. She pocketed both and went back into the hallway, where she found a telephone directory on the smaller of the two tables. Bentley’s turned out to be a local travel agent. That made sense, since the note in the tracksuit jacket had mentioned tickets. She noted the address and phone number and went in search of Marion, to say they had all the information they needed.
Two minutes later, Riley was taking them at speed back along the road.
Chapter 22
“I thought you said you’d buy me a cream tea, you cheapskate.”
Riley stared at the battered decor in the cafe off the North Circular, and at the heavy tan liquid that passed for tea. Outside, evening rush hour traffic crawled past in a welter of exhaust fumes.
Apart from the owner, the place was deserted. Palmer set two plates down on the table, each bearing a solid looking currant bun of indeterminate vintage.
“Sorry,” he said. “No cream, no jam, strawberries are off. Champagne isn’t quite chilled enough for the wine waiter’s liking.”
Riley stabbed her bun with a battered knife. It was solid and unyielding. She sighed, pushing the plate away. “Okay, so what have we got?”
Palmer picked up his bun and bit into the crust. He chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then put it down and drank some tea.
“We have a house of some size, owned by an elderly woman, possibly the widow of an old, bad man who never got caught. Whatever — there’s money in there somewhere. We have at least one very fit man — possibly ex-army — who lives in, who may or may not be strange.”
“A toy boy?” Riley ventured. But even as she said it, she couldn’t summon up much enthusiasm for the notion. Something about the austere atmosphere of the house ruled out any idea of physical passion.
Palmer also looked sceptical. “If there was any hanky-panky going on I think Marion would have known. She seemed the observant sort. There are no obvious signs of children, so that does away with the heirs inheriting the club empire bit. But other than that, we have nothing else that makes any sense.” He sighed and prodded the bun as though it might stir into life. “All in all, I’ve never seen a house with fewer clues in it. Almost as if it’s been swept clean by experts.”
“You think?”
“Definitely. I know the signs.”
“If it’s the right place,” Riley observed. “The only link we have is your friend knowing the address of Ray Grossman — who’s probably dead, anyway. This Mrs Grossman could be a sweet old cousin with the same name.”
“I bet she isn’t,” Palmer muttered cynically. He chewed another piece of bun.
After leaving the Grossman house, they had driven to the nearby town centre and found the travel agents. It was a small family firm and the young girl behind the desk looked bored with the lack of business.
Riley had plunged straight in. “I don’t suppose you handled the Grossman party tickets, did you?” she’d asked. She wanted to present the picture of someone in a jam, but not about to forget other wage slaves with too much to do.
“We handle all Mrs Grossman’s travel arrangements,” the girl replied formally, as though she’d been reading from a prepared script. “How can I help you?”
Riley explained about the house being about to go on the market with her agency, and that an urgent buyer had popped up. “Problem is,” Riley continued, “Mrs G didn’t leave us her number in Spain. We didn’t expect to have anything until she got back, you see.”
The girl continued to look bored and Riley had seized on a sudden flash of inspiration. “Gary was supposed to give it to us before he left, but I think he had other things on his mind.” She raised an eyebrow and gave the girl a knowing look. “I wonder what that could have been.”
The girl blushed. Evidently tickets were not the only things Gary got at this travel agency. “I’m not sure,” she said, glancing towards the back office. She pulled a note-pad towards her and copied a number from a file, then passed the piece of paper to Riley. “I don’t have the address,” she said softly. “Only Gary said he
was driving from Malaga up the coast towards Almeria. If you see him, will you get him to call me?”
Riley smiled. “Of course. But I bet you’ll be seeing him soon.”
The girl shook her head. “I don't think so. We probably won’t be handling their account anymore.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because Mrs Grossman’s got herself a private plane. Gary said these tickets would be the last ones.”
Riley took one last chance and nudged the girl a bit further. “You couldn’t tell us who they were for, could you?”
The girl stared up at her, before shrugging and tapping at her keyboard. “They were for a Mr Duggan, a Mr Howard and- ” She paused as if teetering on the edge of changing her mind, then added, “ — and a Mr Mitcheson.”
Riley turned and walked out, leaving Palmer to thank the girl for her help. When he joined her on the pavement, her face was pale and tight. She spoke briefly before listening, then switched off.
“Riley-” Palmer began, but she cut him off with a raised hand.
“Don’t, Frank.” She glanced at him, her face softening a little, but the muscles in her jaw were bunched with tension. “Please don’t say a word. That was the International Operator. She couldn’t put the number any closer than Malaga — which doesn’t help us. Come on. I need some tea.”
Now, in the quiet of the café, she pulled out the other two bits of information she’d found in the kitchen drawer. One was the leaflet about the airfield at Rickmansworth, the other was the motorised wheelchair brochure. “All we’ve got is these.”
“Interesting,” Palmer commented, studying the wheelchair details. “I wouldn’t have thought this would be very practical around all those terraced bits of garden, would you? I didn’t see any ramps.” He reached for her mobile and dialled a number. While he was doing that, Riley stood up and went to the washroom. When she came back he was sitting with two fresh cups of tea looking very pleased with himself. On the brochure he had written an address. Villa Almedina, Moharras. In brackets he had written the word Nerja.
“Are you going to tell me how you did that?” Riley asked coolly. “Or are you just going to sit there all day looking smug?”
“I told them I’d been asked to fit ramps for a wheelchair at the Grossman house, and could they give me some measurements. They told me it was being delivered anytime now — but by special instructions to this place in Spain.” He grinned. “Easy when you know how.”
“Don’t be a smart-arse. What about the airfield?”
He handed her the phone. “That’s more an insurance thing, I reckon.”
“I see.” Riley gave him a flinty look. “And playing the insurance role is a girlie kind of thing.” She snatched the phone and dialled the number on the leaflet, asking to be put through to the airfield manager.
“Hi, General Accident here,” she announced smoothly. “We’re just checking details of a group of policies on behalf of a client. Could you confirm the location of a private plane? ” Riley fought for the name of a likely model. “ It’s a Beechcraft, I believe, with secure facilities at the airfield. Mrs Grossman is the owner. Thanks, I’ll wait.”
The manager came back moments later. “Yes, we have a plane owned by Mrs Grossman, but it’s a Cessna Titan.”
“That’s great,” Riley intoned. “If we need to inspect the aircraft, would that be possible? It’s only a formality.”
“It would, normally,” the manager told her. “But the plane’s not here. The pilot filed a flight plan for Spain, I think, coming back in a day or two.” He hesitated. “Why are General Accident involved? The plane’s already insured. We checked all that out.”
Riley clicked the off button and turned to Palmer. “Well, we know they — whoever they are — are in Spain, and they’ve got a Cessna Titan. The question is, who is the wheelchair user?”
Palmer shrugged. “Whoever they are, they’ve got plenty of money. Motorised wheelchair delivered to Spain, a Cessna, a tasty house, a live-in odd-job man and a team of former military gophers. You don’t get all that on a company pension.”
Riley chewed her lip and tapped the address on the wheelchair brochure. “Spain. That’s where I first saw Mitcheson, before we met at Gibraltar airport. If this villa is near Malaga, it makes it only a couple of hours from Gibraltar — three at most.”
A shadow loomed over the table and the proprietor cleared the cups and plates. “This ain’t the boardroom of Microsoft, you know,” he muttered bluntly. “You two gonna sit here all day, or what?”
Riley smiled sweetly and stood up. “Thanks, but no. I’m not sure all my jabs are up to date.”
They went outside where Palmer looked up at the grey sky, and stretched. He turned to Riley: “How important is this assignment to you?”
“Important? I don’t follow.”
“Well, the investigation. Would it matter if you dropped it here and now?”
Riley looked at him, her eyes narrowing. “I took this assignment on,” she said with quiet resolve, “and that means I have to see it through. And time is getting short. Are you suggesting I quit?”
“No.” Palmer was unfazed by her reaction. “I just want to know if you’re sure about it, that’s all.” He held up a hand to forestall her objections. “Frankly, I reckon the only way of getting more information is to follow the band.”
“You mean to Spain?”
“Can you afford it?”
Riley nodded with certainty. “If this story is worth anything, it’ll lead onto other things. I’m prepared to take a punt on it. How about you?”
“If you’re paying, why not? I could do with a spot of sun.”
Riley nodded. “I was thinking the same. I hope your passport’s up to date.”
Palmer patted his breast pocket. “Never travel without it. Shall I book tickets and rooms in the name of Mr and Mrs Palmer?”
Riley gave him a withering look. “In your dreams.”
Chapter 23
In the villa at Moharras, Mitcheson sat across the living room from Lottie Grossman. Alongside him sat Doug and Howie. Gary and McManus hadn’t yet returned from disposing of Bignell’s corpse.
Outside, the sun was sinking over the hills behind the villa, lending a soft, heavy appearance to the landscape. To the front, overlooking the sea a mile away, a fast boat carved a pale scar across the flat surface of the water, and closer inshore, two jet skis sent up fantails of spray. On the patio Ray Grossman sat in a new, motorised wheelchair, idly toying with the controls. An instruction manual lay on the ground.
Lottie glanced at her watch and put her cup down. “Well, I can’t wait all day for the others. As you know,” she said, looking at each of them in turn, “our first priority was to take over the controlling interest in three night-clubs — two in London and one in Brighton. This has been accomplished, and the managers are now happy to be reporting to a single owner rather than three. Business is good, but we’ll be making adjustments where necessary to reflect the change of… shall we say, emphasis.” The woman smiled coldly behind her glasses, oblivious to the lack of response from the three ex-soldiers. “We’re now moving into the next phase, which means improving turnover in this part of the world. And I’ve decided to make some changes.”
They all looked at her and she smiled with evident satisfaction. Mitcheson gritted his teeth at the false school teacher manner and wondered how he had ever managed to get embroiled with this madwoman.
“Shipping more drugs, you mean?” he said bluntly.
Lottie turned her eyes towards him. “I prefer to call it ‘the product’, Mr Mitcheson.”
“So where is this product going?”
“I think that’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“Through the clubs.”
“What’s the matter, don’t you approve?” She glanced at the others, who looked bored by the discussion. Then she sprang a surprise. “The drugs are just a side line. I’ve decided to move into a different product range altogether. W
e’re going into the people business.”
When nobody said anything, she continued: “I’ve been doing some research. There’s a high-value end of the people trade just like any other. Wealthy families prepared to pay extremely good money to get sons or daughters into any EU country — but especially Britain. They want them to have a new start in life and are ready to pay accordingly. In exchange for the fee, we get them into the UK and supplied with a full set of papers.”
“Illegal immigrants?” said Howie. “Bit risky, isn’t it, with all the fences and detection systems.”
“Not for the people we’re aiming at, Mr Howard. I’m not talking about shipping them inside the backs of lorries or packed in containers. We’ll take one in for the same price as half a dozen would normally pay to go through somewhere obvious like Calais. They can afford it, so why not? We’ll use top quality papers and take our time, and we’ll never use the same entry route twice. That way we avoid coming to the attention of the police or customs. If we do it right, word will start to spread. As it does, the price goes up.” She smiled. “Two or three a month maximum will bring in a great deal of money and with far less risk than drugs.”
Mitcheson was stunned. She had obviously thought this through, and it was daring enough to work, given the right handling. But he had severe misgivings. “You never said anything about illegal immigrants when you took us on.”
“Because there was nothing to say. Since then I’ve gone to a great deal of trouble to set up the right people. People who can supply the documentation we’ll need.” She smiled archly. “You’d be surprised how many civil servants we get as regulars in our clubs. And debt is such a cruel burden, isn’t it?”
“So what now?”
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