Fifth Victim (17 page)

Parker’s lips quirked. ‘We don’t think so. Why?’

‘I just wondered why Torquil’s behaving like something out of a bad junior version of
The Godfather
,’ I said, still keeping my voice low. ‘Perhaps this might be a good chance to find out?’

‘Just be careful,’ he warned, almost into my hair. ‘After all, the Willners have horses – you do not want to wake up in bed with part of one of them.’

I pulled a face and got to my feet as casually as I could manage, collecting my evening bag to add a touch of authenticity to the exercise. And just when Torquil’s bodyguard might have overridden his principal’s wishes, I heard Parker’s voice behind me ask him some seemingly loaded question about his experience in the business.

I glanced behind me long enough to see Lurch torn between a possible job opportunity and disobeying a direct order. I think Gleason’s scowl finally swayed him, like she thought he’d been chosen over her. Lurch hesitated a moment, then turned back and took the seat I’d just vacated next to my boss. I could have told him that – by doing so – he’d just lost any chance he might have had of being offered employment with Armstrong-Meyer.

Beyond Torquil’s obvious charms, what was it about working for the Eisenbergs, I wondered as I headed for the restrooms, that made people so desperate to get away from them? But Brandon Eisenberg had offered to find a place for Sean in the best neurological rehab centre in the world. Despite the obvious drawbacks, was that temptation enough?

No, I decided. It wasn’t. Because if Sean came out of his coma and discovered what I’d done, there would be hell to pay.

Not ‘if’, dammit – ‘when’!

I excuse-me’d my way out of the ballroom, through a set of double doors and down a plushly carpeted hallway, punctuated by spotlit marble busts of what I think were supposed to be Greek gods, although one bore an uncanny resemblance to Brad Pitt in laurel wreath and artfully draped toga.

I paused by the door to the men’s room, undecided. The music was more muted here, so that the piercing notes of the
Mission: Impossible
theme ringtone was easily recognisable from within. It hadn’t taken Torquil long, I realised, to reboot his phone once he was out of his father’s earshot.

I hesitated a moment longer. Parker had told me to tread carefully around Torquil, so I pushed open the outer door to the men’s room with great care. Like the ladies’, it had a little vestibule which I assumed was supposed to operate as a kind of airlock as well as a modesty screen.

Not that it smelt in there. The country club did not permit that kind of thing. When I cracked the inner door a fraction and peered through the gap, the overwhelming odour was of expensive perfumed hand soap. It could have been a lot worse.

Inside was an extravagance of marble tiles and subdued lighting, which made the usual row of urinals seem more out of place than usual. Torquil was the only occupant, something he had evidently been told to verify, judging by the way he was nudging each of the cubicle doors open with his foot, the phone tucked against his shoulder as he did so.

‘Yeah, yeah, so there’s no one here,’ he said into it then, his voice impatient. ‘Why the cloak-and-dagger stuff? Why couldn’t you just …? Oh, OK, I get it …’ Then his voice rose, almost jubilant. ‘Cool, man!’ And then he seemed to realise how gauche he sounded and made an attempt to play it down. ‘Hey, listen. Just make sure they make a better job of it this time, OK? I’m not fooling around—’

Suddenly, the outer door behind me swung open and I was faced with a startled man in a tuxedo.

Unable to think of any reasonable explanation, I beamed stupidly at him and lurched against the nearest wall, putting as much slur into my voice as I could manage. ‘Hey, buddy, I guess one of ush ish inda wrong placesh, huh?’

‘Yeah, lady, and I think maybe it’s you.’ He gave a nervous laugh and steered me towards the outer door, edging around me. ‘Try down the hall.’

‘Oh, OK,’ I said with false brightness. ‘’Cause I need to pee-pee
real
bad.’

Any thoughts he might have had of lecturing me to be more careful where I headed in future died instantly. He shoved me back out into the corridor and disappeared towards the inner sanctum.

I quickly nipped behind Brad Pitt’s marble effigy. The startled man reappeared shortly afterwards and headed back for the ballroom without checking the rest of the corridor. So, at least I knew he wasn’t security of any kind. I debated briefly on whether he’d had time to do what he needed to
and
wash his hands. On balance, probably not.

Torquil emerged a minute or so later, still looking at the display on his phone. He looked up with a jerk as I fell into step alongside him.

‘Hey, Tor, who’s on the phone?’

‘That’s for me to know and you … not to know,’ he said, but his voice didn’t have its usual brusque edge. However the call had finished, it had done so to his liking.

‘If it concerns Dina’s safety,’ I said quietly, ‘it
is
my business.’

He just stared at me oddly for a moment. ‘Why? So’s you can look good by “rescuing” her again, that it?’ he demanded, drawing little quote marks in the air with his fingers.

‘What is that supposed to mean?’ I put a hand on his arm when he would have brushed past me. He glanced down and I stepped in, speaking more urgently. ‘Talk to me. Please. You saw what happens when people get in the way – Raleigh’s going to need surgery to use that arm again.’

It was a slight exaggeration, but it seemed appropriate under the circumstances. Encouraged by his silence, I tried again. ‘If someone gets killed next time, even your father’s money and power won’t be able to save you from the consequences.’

But I’d overreached, and if the stubborn expression that stiffened his face was anything to go by, he knew it. His self-doubt collapsed and he yanked himself out of my grasp.

One of the doors to the ballroom swung open and Lurch loomed in the gap.

‘You got trouble there, boss?’

‘No,’ Torquil said, stowing his cellphone into his pocket and putting all his superiority into a single dismissive glance. ‘No trouble at all.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

And, for three days after the charity auction,
no trouble
was exactly what we got.

Despite her lack of actual employment, no one could accuse Dina of being inactive. Between her tennis lessons, and her lunches, and her personal shopper, and her personal trainer, there was barely a minute when her time wasn’t organised with something or other. And if I had my doubts about whether it was all worthwhile, I kept those opinions firmly to myself.

But despite the trappings of wealth, the only time Dina seemed to be completely relaxed and happy was when she was out with her horse. Cerdo was possibly the only one who didn’t make any allowances for how rich or influential his owner might be. He still tanked off with her along the beach if he was that way inclined, but equally he could behave like a gracious prince. I think his variable moods provided an area of rare uncertainty in Dina’s life that she genuinely looked forward to.

Other areas of uncertainty were my concern. As soon as I’d got back to our table that night at the country club, I’d reported the content of Torquil’s eavesdropped phone call in the restroom to Parker.

‘But there was no concrete threat,’ he pointed out at last, keeping his voice low. ‘Not specific enough to warrant pulling her out of here.’

‘Still …’

He sat back. ‘You’re the one in the hot seat, so it’s your call, Charlie, you know that.’ He paused. ‘But if Torquil
is
involved, do you think he’d be dumb enough to do anything here? Look around you – the close-protection teams outnumber the guests, and however many corners Brandon Eisenberg may have cut in order to make his money, these days he keeps his hands pristine.’

‘Whereas,’ I said slowly, ‘if I call in alternative transport and whisk Dina home separately – not in the limo with him – who knows what might happen en route.’

Parker simply smiled.

We stayed.

But on the ride back to the Willners’ place in the stretch Cadillac, Torquil’s attitude towards Dina had definitely changed – and I didn’t think that was solely down to the amount of alcohol he’d consumed during the evening. He swayed in his seat as the limo rolled along, smirking like he was in on the world’s best private joke, and it was all on us.

If I hadn’t known for a fact that Dina had never been alone with him anywhere private, I might even have suspected he’d got his leg over. He still might’ve, I conceded – just not with Dina.

When we’d pulled up in the driveway, Torquil’s father politely declined Caroline Willner’s offer of a nightcap. Perhaps it was as clear to him as to me that she had not wanted him to accept. But they nodded to each other, honour satisfied.

Torquil cocked an eyebrow towards Dina. ‘What about you?’ he said. ‘Wanna go find a nightclub or something?’

Dina, in the process of shifting forwards in her seat to rise, hesitated, glancing at me as if for advice. I kept my face professionally blank, even though I was willing her to make the right response.

‘I … um, I guess I’m pretty tired, so—’

‘No problem-o,’ Torquil said with insulting speed. He was still sprawled in his seat, making no moves to help her out. ‘I’ll call you,’ he added with a carelessness that meant the opposite.

Dina flushed, eyes rigidly focused on him so she wouldn’t have to meet anyone’s embarrassed stares. He might show flashes of charm, but underneath Torquil was still a spoilt brat, I decided.

‘Fine,’ Dina snapped, and faced his father with some small measure of bravado. ‘Goodnight, Mr Eisenberg. Thanks so much for the ride.’

Torquil coloured up himself at that, opened his mouth and shut it again just as fast, scowling. I ducked out of the limo and slammed the door after Dina before I allowed the smile to form on my face.

‘Nicely done,’ I murmured as we climbed the front steps behind her mother and Parker.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said stiffly.

I let it go, but it was interesting that she had accurately pinpointed one of Torquil’s Achilles’ heels – that he was beholden to his father for everything, even down to transport for the evening.

Needless to say, Torquil had not called the following day, nor the day after that, and Dina’s reaction was a difficult one to fathom out. At first, I thought it was her pride that had been hurt, but there seemed to be more to it. I couldn’t believe she’d fallen for him, but being dropped had clearly sent her into the doldrums more than I would have expected.

And now, walking the horses side by side along the damp sand, there was still a trace of mournfulness about her.

‘He’s not worth it, Dina,’ I said quietly.

For a moment I thought she hadn’t heard me. Her eyes were fixed on a squadron of brown pelicans cruising the incoming wave crests in single file, ungainly birds on the ground who achieved an unexpected agile beauty as soon as they took to the air.

‘I know.’

‘O … K,’ I said slowly, twitching the reins as Geronimo ducked his head to snort at a wading bird who’d almost nipped between his front feet. ‘So, why have you spent the last couple of days looking like you’ve lost a million quid and found tuppence?’

She twisted in her saddle. ‘Excuse me?’

I sighed. ‘Why the long face?’

She shrugged, turning away again, and when she spoke her voice had a brittle quality. ‘And how, exactly, is that relevant to your job?’

That sent my eyebrows rising silently. It was the first time she’d played the ‘lowly employee’ card with me, although it tended to come with the territory on this kind of job. Back during the brief spell when I’d been assigned to the Dempsey family, I remembered suddenly, the young Amanda had reminded me on a regular basis that she considered me barely at a level with the gardeners. Still, at least she’d been consistent about it.

‘Look, Dina—’

‘Let it go, Charlie,’ she snapped, her tension making Cerdo break into an uneasy sidle. ‘For God’s sake! Do I have to fire you?’

It would do me no good, I reasoned, to point out that it was actually her mother who had that privilege. Instead, I waited until she’d got the white horse to settle, and pushed Geronimo into a longer stride to catch up.

‘We think Torquil Eisenberg is in on the kidnaps,’ I said then, conversational.

Cerdo bounced again, snatching at the bridle as he reacted to the slight contraction of her hands. It was as though Dina was sitting on a giant lie detector. Perhaps she realised that, because the abrupt way she grabbed at his mouth made him try to spring forward in response, and gave her an excuse to fuss for maybe half a minute persuading him to calm down to a walk again. Then she looked back at me.

‘How do you know?’

It took me a moment to work out what was wrong about that – not just the question, but the way she asked it.

For a start, where was the instant denial? Where was the protestation that surely nobody she knew could possibly have been responsible for any of it, and especially not chopping off a victim’s finger – albeit a largely redundant one? Where was the instinctive laughter, scorn even?

And, more than that, the emphasis was wrong. If she’d stressed the ‘you’ part, it would have seemed more dismissive, but she didn’t. If anything, the taut little sentence was weighted towards the ‘how’. So instead of expressing doubt at my deductive powers, it became somehow almost an admission of her own guilt.

If she’d been thinking coolly, logically, she would have asked a rake of questions I had no answers to. We had no proof other than an overheard phone call, a suspicion, a gut instinct.

Instead, more than anything she sounded scared. As scared as she had done the day I’d taken her to see Sean and she’d refused to run away from danger. What did she have to prove?

‘Dina—’

‘Hey, there!’

The voice came from up in the dunes to our right. I wheeled Geronimo round to put him between Dina’s horse and the shout, grateful for his quick responses.

Dina leant past me for a better view, shading her eyes with her hand. She stared at the figure who was now approaching in long sliding steps through the ankle-deep sand, and her agitation communicated itself clearly to Cerdo who began to stamp and fidget.