by Eva Hudson
Ingrid’s thoughts homed in on the roadside flowers that had been left for Matthew Harding.
12
Jen looked up from her screen. “You’re soaked.”
“I’ll dry.”
“Apparently it’s going to snow tomorrow.”
“You remember the last time it snowed?” Ingrid said, “London shut down for a week.”
“You’d think the amount the Brits talk about the weather they’d be better at, like, dealing with it.”
Ingrid pushed the wet hair off her face. “Well, it’s not a patch on a Minnesota winter.”
“Nor a California one.” Jen propped up her chin on her hands. “You bought a new laptop?”
“Not exactly.”
“D’you steal it?”
“Um. Kinda.”
Ingrid filled Jen in on her interview with Carlos Estevez and how she had confiscated his hardware without the necessary paperwork. She wasn’t even sure if, outside the United States, she was authorized to seize property, but as the gaming console hadn’t provided him with an alibi, she’d insisted.
“What are you working on right now?” Ingrid asked.
Jen looked sheepish. “I have some spare capacity, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Can you go through these?” Ingrid pointed to the phone and laptop. “And find out what Estevez was up to on November eighteen and nineteen?”
“You know I’m not an expert, right?”
“Sure.”
“And we have a department that does this stuff for real.”
“I do. But without the paperwork, I’m figuring I should do this on the QT. Plus,” Ingrid failed to suppress a smile, “You’re probably working on the seating plan for your wedding, so…”
Jen wrinkled her nose. “You better hand them over then.”
If his devices gave Estevez a bone-dry alibi, Ingrid was going to need a witness who could confirm a man had been riding on the morning of the hit and run. She had to speak to the woman who had made the 999 call and searched for her files from the day before.
“Ew.” Jen looked appalled.
“What?”
Jen held out Estevez’s phone. “Porn.”
Hardly a surprise. Ingrid stared at the phone number on her screen and prepared what to say. She couldn’t be sure the woman who’d called 999 had seen the accident, but she’d been in the right vicinity at the right time. Ingrid knew nothing about the phone’s owner except that she had cared enough to phone for an ambulance, but not enough to make sure one was dispatched. Ingrid tried not to judge. Shock can make people behave in odd ways.
She lifted the receiver on her desk phone, took a deep, calming breath, and dialed.
It didn’t even ring. It went straight to a message that said ‘this number has not been recognized’. Ingrid put down the handset and closed her eyes. Never had an unobtainable number felt so ominous. Had the same people who got to Steve also found the owner of the cell?
“Earth to Ingrid.”
Ingrid looked up. “Hey.”
“Just passing,” Lexi Traynor stood in the doorway, her smile wide and bright. “You were miles away.”
“Sorry.”
“How you doing, girlfriend?”
Ingrid presumed she called everyone ‘girlfriend’ and smiled back. She gestured to the chair in front of her desk.
“I heard from Thames Valley Police.” Lexi sat down and crossed her legs. Nothing about her appearance suggested she had been caught in a downpour or stepped in a puddle. She was, as ever, immaculate as she smoothed her fitted skirt over her runner’s thighs. Not even a chip in her nail polish. “It was kinda strange.”
“Strange how?”
Lexi’s eyebrows narrowed. “They asked a couple of times if you’d ever been known by another name.”
Ingrid’s eyes immediately darted to the drawer containing her Russian passport.
“I said it was possible you’d been married or something like that.”
“Nope, never married,” Ingrid said, recovering her composure. “Odd they didn’t call me.”
Lexi tilted her head to one side. “Had the same thought myself.”
“They say when I can get the Triumph back?”
“You’d know better than me how long forensics take.”
“Weeks, in my experience.”
“You gonna be okay without your passport that long?”
Heat flashed over Ingrid’s face. Was Lexi fishing? Did she know about Portugal? Did the cops? “I reckon I can prove it wasn’t me. Hopefully get it back in a few days.”
“Well, that’ll be nice. You can go home for Christmas,” Lexi said.
Jen spluttered and the two other women looked at her. “Trust me,” Jen said, “Christmas with her mom is not something Ingrid looks forward to.”
Lexi turned to Ingrid. “For real?”
“Jen’s worked with me for four years. She knows I don’t even jingle half the way.”
“Oh, gosh, me neither.” Lexi flashed a wicked smile. “I got me two weeks in Barbuda.”
“Ooh, nice.”
“A bit of scuba, a lotta crayfish and whole heap of couples’ therapy, if you know what I mean!” She let out a dirty cackle and got to her feet. “Say, d’you hear the news?”
“What news?”
“About that guy who worked in the parking lot downstairs?”
The hairs on the nape of Ingrid’s neck stood to attention. “Which one?”
“The guy you were asking about. Steve something-or-other.” Lexi stood a little taller, firmly planting both stilettos into the threadbare carpet.
“Steve?” Ingrid thought she was keeping her voice nice and even.
Lexi sucked her teeth and raised her brow. “He died.”
Jen peered around her computer. “Who’s Steve?”
“He, um, was the chief mechanic,” Ingrid said. Was her expression displaying enough shock? “Ran the garage and the parking lot.”
Jen’s bottom lip protruded. “Don’t think I ever knew him. Was he ill?”
Ingrid looked to Lexi to answer.
“No. They say he fell off a balcony.” She made eye contact with Ingrid. “In Portugal.”
Ingrid’s insides constricted. “That’s awful.”
“I just thought it was so… coincidental, you know?” Lexi said. “I’m not sure I ever met him either, but two days ago you were looking for him and today I heard he’d died.” She picked a thread off her jacket. “I just hope you don’t ever come looking for me, you know what I’m saying?”
Ingrid still couldn’t make eye contact. “How did you find out?”
“My boss mentioned something. Don’t know who told him, but y’all know how quickly news flies around this building.” She reached out and tapped Ingrid’s desk to get her attention. “To be honest, I’m surprised you hadn’t heard already.”
Ingrid did a one-shoulder shrug. “Jen will tell you, I am always the last to know everything.”
Jen took a break from typing to chime in. “Totes true. Ingrid still doesn’t know the twist to The Sixth Sense.”
Lexi’s eyebrows moved toward her hairline. “For real?”
“Seriously,” Jen said.
Lexi turned for the exit. “Remind me not to ask you to join my quiz team.”
“Though,” Jen said, “she is excellent on sports.”
“I’m also very knowledgeable about sauvignon blanc and vodka.”
Lexi hovered in the doorway. “Good niches to know.” She winked before gliding out into the bullpen.
Ingrid slackened with relief. Was Lexi’s drop by as casual and spontaneous as she’d made out? Flustered, she forgot she’d already called the cell phone and dialed it again, only to get the ‘number not recognized’ message a second time.
“Hey,” Jen said. “You heard anything about who’s getting Marshall’s job?”
Ingrid turned away from her monitor. “You do remember the conversation we just had? The one about me being the
last to know?”
“Oh, sure, but, like, well…”
“Yes?”
“Well, see, I heard, or rather Jenna heard, and she works for the Legat himself, that well…”
“Yes?”
“Well, that you were going to get it?”
Ingrid frowned at her. “Sure, right. Because I’m so good at paperwork.”
“So, it’s not true?”
Ingrid shook her head. “It’s news to me.”
Jen’s shoulders softened. “Oh.”
They both returned to their work until, less than a minute later, Jen piped up. “That’s what I thought. I didn’t, like, think you’d walk out on me if you were getting a promotion and everything.” Jen waved Estevez’s phone in the air. “Is there a specific time of day you’re interested in?”
Ingrid opened an old bottle of Evian water. It smelled so musty she screwed the cap right back down. “Yup. After five o’clock. Anything that suggests where he was or who he was with.”
“Okeydokey.”
Ingrid wandered out into the central bullpen and got a drink from the watercooler. She glanced over at Marshall’s office door. It was still preposterous that he wasn’t behind it, working out ways to make her life more difficult or sucking up to the bosses in DC. Her vision shimmered with disbelief, the floor apparently a little less solid than it had been moments before. Ingrid took a gulp of the cold water, then filled up her cup.
Back at her desk, she picked up her notes from the night before and scanned her hastily scribbled profile of Marcus Williams, the ambassador’s son. She’d circled ‘125cc’. Something Estevez said sprang to mind: ‘chicks dig bikes’.
If you could only ride a little bike, she reasoned, wouldn’t that make the prospect of riding her Thunderbird more enticing? If you were out to impress, you weren’t going to do it on something that was only two steps up from a bicycle. Ingrid opened up her file on Marcus Williams and reminded herself of his smug, privileged face. He even had a Wikipedia page. What twenty-year-old who wasn’t a child star has that? He’d probably set it up himself. She clicked.
Williams’s academic achievements and sporting awards were listed and a brief biography explained he had been born in Louisiana, the second son of Frances Byrne-Williams and Roy Williams.
Roy Williams. Ingrid knew that name.
The next click revealed Frances Byrne-Williams’ ex-husband—they had divorced in 1998––was the founder of an investment firm based in Greenwich, Connecticut, and had a net worth of $3.8billion. Williams senior had made his fortune speculating on currencies and commodities and now used his wealth to buy political influence. His own Wikipedia page showed him shaking hands with two presidents: one American, the other Chinese.
Ingrid interlocked her fingers behind her head and peered at the screen. Marcus Williams wouldn’t be the first rich boy to have his parents try to cover up a misdemeanor. She thought of all those frat boys accused of sexual assault whose sense of entitlement and access to five-hundred-dollar-an-hour attorneys had seen them avoid jail. Their only punishment was a lifetime of Google returns sullying otherwise golden futures.
An image search for Williams returned a photo of the tall, well-built young man squinting into the setting sun, a honey-color landscape of tall grass and scrub behind him. There was a rifle in his hand and the carcass of an elephant at his feet. Hunting hogs in Maryland was one thing, but an elephant? Ingrid felt sick.
Then she read the caption. Worst thing I ever saw. Volunteering with anti-poaching charity Tusk in Tanzania. Who does this?
She had been too quick to judge. Maybe he was one of those Princeton princes who planned on running NGOs before more decades of public service in Congress. Nevertheless, Marcus Williams needed to be ruled out. If she did things officially, Ingrid risked a diplomatic incident. She had only bumped into his mother a couple of hours ago. Maybe now was the perfect time to casually bump into her again, and this time start a conversation.
The floor above was much grander, and the ambassador’s suite smelled of beeswax polish and cut flowers. The sixth floor always reminded Ingrid of an old cruise ship with wood-paneled walls, shiny floors and art deco wall lights. She reached the reception area and was surprised to find the ambassador’s office empty.
She reached over the reception desk, looking for paper and pen so she could leave a note.
“Put your hands up.”
Ingrid did so and turned. A Marine stood directly behind her. His Beretta M9 was aimed squarely at her head.
13
It was almost dark by the time Ingrid arrived at the Sir Steve Redgrave sports complex in Oxford. She would have made it in daylight hours if it hadn’t been for the security breach in the ambassador’s suite. Frances Byrne-Williams’s computer had been accessed illicitly, and the Marines had shut down her office to investigate.
In the circumstances, Ingrid swiftly reconsidered the wisdom of asking the ambassador for help reaching out to her son. She spun the Marine a story about needing Byrne-Williams’s advice on a gift for a friend. Aware he was a likely ally of Estevez, she didn’t want to give anything away about her investigation into the accident on Greenacre Lane.
Marcus Williams was judicious about what he posted on social media, but his friends were less discriminating. It hadn’t taken Ingrid long to discover that Marcus Williams would be spending his afternoon at the rowing club. The first hour of the drive out to Oxford in a Hertz Toyota Prius was familiar. It was only after she passed the turnoff for Burnt Oak that Ingrid covered new ground. Despite Jen’s prediction, there was no sign of snow; there was even a brief break in the rain.
Oxford looked like the tourist version of England. Lots of ornate, lion-colored buildings set around green lawns and populated by people carrying books or riding bicycles. Home to one of the nation’s most prestigious universities, Oxford had long been a staging post in the career of successful Americans seeking a master’s degree to embellish their résumés with.
Ingrid drove around the parking lot until she saw what she was after––the motorcycle bay––and pulled in next to it. There were only two bikes, a scrambler covered in mud and a Suzuki Marauder, a black beetle-like ride that aped the curves of a Harley. Or a Triumph. She already knew from checking the records that it belonged to Marcus Williams.
She got out of the Prius and the December wind instantly scoured the inside of her collar. She pulled it tight against her neck. The Marauder, complete with matching panniers and top box, was spotless, suggesting either that Williams had cleaned it that morning—or more likely had gotten it cleaned—or that it was parked undercover. There was just one blemish on it: the L-plate he was legally required to display until he got his full license.
Ingrid got back in the warmth of the car to wait. She reached for her phone and checked her emails. Nothing from Thames Valley Police. Nothing from Lexi Traynor.
“Ooh.”
The dialing history of the number that made the 999 call had been sent through. Making sense of the document on a five-inch screen wasn’t easy, but Ingrid determined it was an unregistered phone. It had probably been paid for with cash and can add minutes using vouchers. With more manpower she could find out where those vouchers had been purchased, and if they had miraculously been bought with a credit card, it might be possible to identify the owner of the phone. But she didn’t have the manpower, and the chances were slim anyway.
The next page revealed the numbers dialed by the phone. Apart from the 999 call— which was the final call made from that number—every call was made to a number with a 993 prefix. Ingrid didn’t recognize the country code, but a quick web search revealed it was for Turkmenistan.
“Wow.” She marveled at the accuracy of the Bureau’s audio analysis that had predicted the woman was from central Asia. “Spot-on.”
Ingrid zoomed in. Every call was made to the same number in Turkmenistan. “Ooh,” she said again, sensing this would make it very easy to identify the caller. Ingrid wasn’t a
bout to dial the Turkic number––she didn’t speak the language and without further research she risked scaring off a witness––but she had a new lead, and that got labeled as progress.
Ingrid looked for a pattern in the calls. The phone wasn’t used often, and most calls were under two minutes. However, every week there was one longer call, usually around ten minutes in duration, always on a Thursday afternoon between two and four o’clock. The short calls all came via the cell tower used for the triple nine call, but the lengthier calls were made from a different location.
The next page of the report gave the GPS coordinates of each call. All the short ones were made from inside the grounds of Uppenham Hall. She typed the coordinates of the longer calls into Google Maps just as a commotion erupted outside the sports center.
Six tall, well-built men in their twenties tumbled into the parking lot, slapping each other on the back and shouting loudly. Rowers. She rolled down her window and listened.
“No fucking way.”
“Not fucking happening.”
“Well, we’ll see about that.” The last accent was American.
She opened the door and walked slowly in front of the car, stopping to linger next to the motorcycles. The group moved toward her, bleeping open their car doors as they walked.
“Look,” one of them said. “Marky Mark was right. Girls do like bikes.”
“Well they’re not going to sleep with him for his looks, are they?”
Marcus stepped away from his teammates, his helmet in hand. He smiled at Ingrid. “Hi.” He had the confident swagger of a man who had never once doubted his place in the world.
“Hi,” Ingrid said.
“See you at Jasper’s, yeah?” one of them yelled.
“What time you getting there?” Marcus shouted back.
“Depends how long things take with Michelle.”
“You’ll be early, then.”
Male bonding banter had not moved on since Ingrid’s university days. Marcus pulled on his helmet.
“You like bikes?” He fiddled with the chin strap
