I called Parker as soon as I got back to my room. It had been a hell of a long day for both of us, but he still answered his phone on the second ring. With Joe McGregor hovering over by the window, pretending not to listen in, I ran through the gist of Dina’s confession and Caroline Willner’s reaction to it.
McGregor had not been present in the kitchen, so it was news to him, although judging by the look on his face, it didn’t exactly come as a big surprise.
‘What happens now?’ he asked when I snapped the phone shut.
‘We both get some sleep before one of us speaks her mind to these bloody people and does something she might regret.’
He grinned at me. ‘Not you, Charlie. You might speak your mind, but you’d never regret it.’
‘At the moment, I could cheerfully strangle the lot of them,’ I muttered, shaking my head. ‘I should have known Manda Dempsey was trouble from the moment I laid eyes on her again.’
‘When they were all in the living room, before you’d gotten back, it didn’t seem like she was the one in charge,’ McGregor said slowly. ‘If anything, I woulda said the other girl, Orlando, was making all the noise, with that Brit boyfriend of hers backing her up.’
‘Hunt does seem the protective type,’ I agreed. I opened my mouth, about to ask him what else he’d noticed while I’d been otherwise engaged, but shook my head. ‘Look, I can’t think about this anymore tonight. Parker wants me to go into the office tomorrow. You OK to stay on out here?’
‘Sure. For how long, you reckon?’
I shrugged. ‘Until Mrs Willner stops writing the cheques, I expect. But I’ll be back by mid afternoon and you can fill me in then.’ I paused, diffident. ‘Actually, while I’m over there, I wouldn’t mind going to see Sean – if you can stand another few hours of Dina’s company?’
His face softened slightly. ‘No sweat, Charlie. Take as long as you need. I don’t have any plans.’
Five hours’ sleep was all I needed to feel reasonably human again. Plus a long hot shower and an equally long hot coffee – in that order.
As I left the house, I found Raleigh was already loading Dina’s horses into a trailer hitched to the back of the riding club pickup. His arm was in a scuffed cast, and he had brought along one of the ubiquitous girl grooms to help him with his cargo.
When he spotted me, he gave me a brief wave, but didn’t stop to chat. I guessed he was anxious to be out of there with his remarkable piece of good fortune, before anyone came to their senses about exactly what it was they were giving away. Geronimo might be getting on a bit, but he was a willing ride, and Cerdo had the potential to develop into a top-flight dressage horse. More than worth having an arm broken.
I didn’t see Dina before I left the house. She was, according to Silvana, locked in her bedroom, weeping. I wondered if Caroline Willner knew that her daughter would probably never forgive her for this. It was a sad reflection, I thought, that Dina was more upset by being forced to give away her horses than she had been about Torquil’s murder.
With the Buell consigned to the nearest breaker’s yard, I was in the agency Navigator. For once, I can’t say I was sorry to have more than three tons of steel around me as I went hand-to-hand with the morning traffic. Not to mention the visibility afforded by the vehicle’s extra height.
That, and the fact that the Navigator lived up to its name by having the latest satnav fitted – as did all Parker’s vehicles – the system linked to the traffic reports. It suddenly began warning of heavy congestion ahead on the 495, and advised me to get off the freeway, fast.
Without that, I might not have spotted the tail.
He wasn’t very good, which was the first reason I caught onto him. The second was because of a cluster of slow-moving trucks that meant I had to accelerate hard and then change lanes late to make my exit.
I heard a cacophony of horns blast behind me, and checked my mirrors just to make doubly sure I wasn’t the cause, even though I knew I’d left the other vehicles plenty of room and completed the manoeuvre smoothly. One advantage of this job was the opportunity to take plenty of offensive and defensive driving courses.
In my rear-view mirror, I saw an old tan-coloured Honda Accord pop out of the line of trucks onto the slip road behind me, like a cork squeezed from a bottle. I saw the front end of one of the Peterbilts dip as it braked hard enough to fishtail the trailer behind the massive chrome-laden cab.
I sucked in a breath, but the truck driver corrected the wriggle before it got anywhere near out of hand. His fist was still wedged on the horn as his rig disappeared from view, giving a nice working demonstration of the Doppler effect.
The lights at the top of the slip road were against me, which was maybe another reason I was feeling twitchier than normal. I wondered how long it would be before I’d be able to view a red light as anything other than the prelude to disaster.
With my foot on the brake, I watched the Accord roll up slowly behind me, just to get a look at the driver’s face. I suppose I was part suspicious, and part curious about a man who enjoyed the thrill of almost becoming the puréed filling in a truck sandwich on his morning commute. I half expected to catch him yacking on his cellphone, oblivious.
Instead, his reflected image showed someone who was intensely uncomfortable. It was a dull day, leaning towards overcast with a chance of rain, but he was wearing dark glasses and a baseball cap with the brim pulled well down. I could just make out the intertwined NY logo on the front. He was a young guy, from what I could see of the rest of his features, dark hair sticking out at the sides, pale skin, wearing a T-shirt. He rang no bells.
One hand gripped the top of the steering wheel so hard he was going to leave dents for each finger. He didn’t seem to know quite what to do with the other, and currently had his elbow resting on the door top, fingers rubbing at his temple in a self-conscious gesture that only drew attention to how hard he was trying to mask his face.
I’d already glanced down at the front of the Accord before it was hidden behind the Navigator’s tail, but there was no plate. Nothing overtly suspicious about that. Nineteen US states did not require a front licence plate, and neighbouring Pennsylvania was one of them, even if New York was not.
Still, it was … convenient, if nothing else.
I drove on, sticking to the speed limits, making no sudden moves and giving no indication that I’d spotted my tail, if that’s what he was. Coincidentally, he happened to be heading from Long Island towards Manhattan, but so were thousands of other people at that time of day.
My cellphone was slotted into the hands-free kit on the dash, and I had Parker’s number on speed dial. As usual, it hardly seemed to ring out before he answered.
‘Hi, boss,’ I said. ‘I think I may have a problem.’
‘Tell me.’
So I did, short and sweet, adding, ‘Could be nothing, but after yesterday I’m sure you’ll forgive me for being a little jumpy in traffic.’
‘You did right, Charlie. How d’you want to play this?’
‘I’m tempted to simply call the cops and get them to pick him up. After Torquil’s death, I would have said they’ll play ball with that.’
‘Yeah,’ Parker agreed, and I heard the marked reluctance in his voice. ‘But that may well cause big trouble for our client.’
‘Nothing she doesn’t deserve.’
I heard him sigh. ‘Yeah, well, not everybody gets what they deserve. While we’re still in Mrs Willner’s employ, we have to protect her interests as far as we can – and yours. Drive straight to the office. The parking garage has a security entry system. He can’t follow you there.’
‘So, we just let him get away?’
Another set of overhead lights loomed in front of me. I must have just hit the timing wrong, because all of them seemed to be turning against me. Maybe I’d offended the small god of traffic lights and he was showing his wrath in the only way he knew. I eased off the throttle. My tail was still following, again unhappy about being forced to close up.
‘We’re not law enforcement, Charlie,’ Parker said, a hint of pleading behind the firm words. ‘In theory it’s not our job to catch the bad guys.’
‘It’s our job to stop them.’ I glanced in the mirror again. ‘What’s the difference?’
‘Charlie, I—’
But suddenly I wasn’t listening to what Parker was saying, because in that moment’s slice of view, I realised the identity of the guy in the tan Accord, and now this wasn’t about theoretical boundaries anymore.
This had become very personal.