Nicole stared at the woman in the passport photo, and her heart froze. What could this possibly mean? That the woman she’d known as Alice was really Muriel Lowry? That everything Alice — or Muriel — had told her was a lie?
She remembered, suddenly, the body the police had identified as Alice McConnehy. At the time, Nicole had thought Keaton was lying; how could Alice have been dead for several days when she herself had seen Alice the afternoon before? Now it struck her that Keaton might have been telling the truth. The real Alice was dead, and Muriel Lowry had taken her identity for reasons of her own. Nicole wondered how she could have been so gullible. She’d believed Muriel’s story — every word of it—even the overblown melodrama about her dead brother.
As she stared at the passport, other questions presented themselves. Had Muriel been in this house, this very room? When? And what had become of her? The purse didn’t appear to be dusty, which suggested it hadn’t been here long. She took it to the bed and dumped out the contents. Inside was a wallet, in which she found a £100 note. It was tightly folded into a square, just like the £20 note she’d found in the backpack.
She picked up the passport and examined it more carefully. The dark blue cover was stamped with the familiar gold eagle and the words United States of America. This confirmed at least one part of Alice/Muriel’s story: that she was an American and not a Brit. Then she remembered the musical pattern of her speech, the heavy Irish accent. My God, even that had been fake.
When she studied the photo more closely, she could see a slight resemblance between herself and the other woman. With her hair blonde, as it was in the picture, Muriel’s coloring was similar, and there was something about her mouth and the shape of her face. This made it easier to understand why Chazz and Kevin might have confused her with Muriel.
She walked over to the window and stared out, still struggling to understand. Okay, she thought, maybe Muriel had been in this house as a guest or a prisoner. But since Chazz and Kevin were part of Hayes’ London operation, maybe they weren’t here at the same time.
She thought of the implications of her own attempt to pass herself off as Muriel. Hayes would know she was lying, and this lie compounded her problems. But what did it matter? Hayes already had a pretty good hunch that she might know where his money was.
Nicole took another look at the items from the purse. Aside from Muriel’s passport, there was a checkbook with her name and address, a driver’s license, and a Barclay’s’ Visa card. These weren’t the sort of things a person easily left behind.
She glanced at her watch. She couldn’t afford to waste any more time.
She returned the purse to the top of the armoire, shoving it all the way to the back. Then she unlocked the door to the hall and leaned out. The corridor was empty, and she still didn’t see any sign of a surveillance camera. Reassured, she left the room and relocked the door.
At the rear of the house, Nicole found an alcove leading to the back stairs. This area hadn’t been modernized like the rest of the house, and it was easy to imagine the armies of servants who must have used the steep, winding staircase when the place was new. The walls of the stairwell were done in ceramic tiles: the lower half in a checkerboard of maroon and mustard, the upper part in faded yellow and dull, metallic blue. Dominating all was a narrow window of multicolored glass that appeared to reach all the way to the bottom floor.
She gripped the rail at the top and looked down. Below her, the wrought-iron staircase spiraled in a sharp, dizzying descent. She carefully placed her bare feet, one at a time, on the cold metal slats. As she descended, a man’s voice floated up from a lower floor. He spoke in a harsh tone that suggested an argument, but she couldn’t catch enough to make sense of it.
Abruptly, on the second landing, the spiral staircase became a broad, carpeted one. She was almost down the next flight when a door opened below. She hesitated, then retreated a few steps before turning to scramble back up the stairs.
Reaching the landing, Nicole opened the door, entered a dim hallway, and pressed herself against the wall, her heart racing until the footsteps hurried on up the stairs. A door slammed above, and the house was quiet again.
When she decided it was safe, she continued down the stairs to the bottom. Here she encountered two closed doors. The one directly ahead, where the staircase would logically continue downward, was locked.
The other door opened into an enormous laundry room. It was warm and steamy, the air charged with the chugging and churning of several industrial-size washers and dryers. Passing through, Nicole caught sight of an impressively-equipped workbench in one corner, complete with lathe and electric saw. She headed for a large alcove on the other side of the room that appeared to lead to an exit. Sure enough, the door to the garden was only a few steps away. Outside, daylight was fading. Through the slightly warped glass, she caught a tantalizing glimpse of neatly manicured lawn.
Next to the door, a rack held rows of rubber rain boots in a variety of sizes and colors. She grabbed a yellow pair that seemed about her size and tucked them under her arm.
Just as she’d expected, the back door was locked. She was reaching into her pocket for the keys when she noticed the lock, which appeared to date back to the original construction of the house. The keyhole was perhaps triple the size of a modern one, far too large for any of the keys on the stolen ring. She didn’t even bother trying them.
If this door was locked, the other exits probably were, too. To get out, she had to find the right key or get her hands on a tool that could be used to pick the lock.
She paused, standing first on one leg and then the other to pull on the rubber boots. Then she made her way back to the laundry room. All manner of tools were hung on a pegboard over the corner workbench. She located an awl that appeared the right size and shape, as well as a small screwdriver. In a drawer, she found a small folding knife and a leather pouch for carrying the tools.
Nicole put these things in her pocket and was checking around for a flashlight when she heard footsteps. In a panic, she looked around for a hiding place. Her eyes fell on a small closet with panels of blue and white checked fabric hanging over the doorway. She darted inside where she had to fight for space among a forest of brooms and mops.
Two men walked in and headed for the workbench. She couldn’t see their faces, but between the curtain panels that covered the door, she caught a glimpse of two sets of black-trousered legs—one pair skinny, the other wide. Right away, she knew who they were. So much for Hayes’ claim that he’d sent Chazz and Kevin away.
The owner of the wide legs took a set of keys from a drawer and unlocked a small cupboard on the opposite wall. As he opened it, Nicole parted the curtains slightly to get a better view. The cupboard held several rows of keys in assorted sizes and shapes, hung neatly on cup hooks. Chazz removed a key, relocked the cupboard, and put the original set of keys back in the drawer. This done, he started going through the other cupboards, removing an occasional item and tossing it on the floor. Meanwhile, skinny legs lounged nearby.
For a while, neither man spoke. Then Kevin leaned down and picked up a sack that Chazz had tossed on the floor. Kevin weighed the sack in his hands then wagged it at Chazz. “How do we know it’ll keep the body from floating to the top?” he said.
“Because it’s concrete, stupid,” Chazz said. “You put a great lump of it round the feet and let it set. Then the body sinks to the bottom of the loch, doesn’t it?”
“Don’t see how,” Kevin said, tossing the sack in the air and catching it. “This don’t weigh hardly noffing.”
“You mix in water,” Chazz was saying. “The water makes it heavy. Now, put that down and make yourself useful. Get a couple of those great black rubbish sacks from the store room.”
“He wants us to knock her off tonight, then?”
“I already told you. The guv don’t know what he wants.” From Chazz’s tone, he was supremely impatient with Kevin, Hayes, and perhaps the whole world. “Be prepared,” he went on. “That’s all he tells me. If you ask me, he thinks he’s going to make her talk by treating her like one of the royals. I don’t know why he doesn’t let me have a go at her.”
“You know how he is about women. He made Ben go easy on the other one, and she pulled a runner.”
Chazz gave a derisive snort. “You think she got away?”
“I don’t know. They says …” Kevin’s voice trailed off.
“Nobody gets away from Ben,” Chazz said. “Nobody.”
The pair stood in reflective silence until Kevin stirred himself and left the room, presumably to get the trash bags. Chazz resumed his search through the cupboards, tossing more items on the pile.
At last Kevin returned. “Put that whole load a stuff in the sacks,” Chazz said. “Then we slide off to my room with a couple a beers.”
“He told us no drinking,” Kevin said. “That shipment’s due in around 3:00 a.m., and he says meet him in the library at 2:00.”
“There’s beer in the larder,” Chazz said, holding up the key he’d taken earlier. “It’s eight at night. Nobody tells me I can’t have a pint or two at the end of me day. Not even the guv.”
The moment they were gone, Nicole hurried over to the drawer where Chazz had put the keys and took them out. It was hard to keep her mind on what she was doing. She kept hearing Chazz and Kevin, casually discussing whether or not they were going to kill her.
She had to get away — now.
Nicole unlocked the small cupboard and studied its contents. Only one key was large enough to fit the back door. She took it out and relocked the cupboard.
A moment later, she was at the back door, trying the key. It fit.
Slowly, she unlocked the door and opened it. She fully expected to hear the clanging of an alarm, but to her enormous relief, the house remained silent. Was it possible these people felt so removed from the outside world that they didn’t bother with any real security?
She stepped out onto a large, screened back porch then carefully closed and relocked the door. The sun had set, but it wasn’t quite dark. It was a good moment to slip away, before the house’s external lights came on. She had already decided on a route: She’d head for the rear of the house and the woods she’d seen from her window.
The moment she set her foot on the top step of the porch, a siren went off, and lights flashed in her face. The ear-splitting wail was like a physical assault. For a long moment she was stunned, rooted to the spot.
Then Nicole began to run. She got about twenty feet along the garden path before she heard footsteps thundering after her. When she glanced around, she saw that it was Ben. “Come back, you stupid cow!” he shouted. “We’re on a bleeding island! You’ll never get away!”
She kept running—across the broad lawn between the house toward the woods. Her ankle had begun to ache, and she was gasping for breath. She almost reached the fountain in the center of the lawn before he caught up with her. She struggled, but he twisted her arm behind her and half pulled, half dragged her back along the path and up the steps.
Inside the back door, he stopped to use his key to turn off the siren. The control was in a small white box attached to the wall. Then he waved away two scruffy-looking men who came running in response to the alarm. Neither Kevin nor Chazz were anywhere in sight.
“You’re hurting me,” Nicole said, as he hurried her through the kitchen. Ben didn’t answer, nor did he relax his grip. Instead, he marched her into the big central hallway and down the corridor that led to the library.