The Agency (29 page)

I wasn’t going to lose.

I took out my phone there in the Circus and dialed the United
States, I held my other hand over my ear to block out the noise. When I reached David Milton’s voice mail, I left him a message. Short and to the point.

“This is Tess Drake. We both know your manuscript is a fake and a fraud. See you in court.”

I hung up and felt better. Maybe I’d have to eat my words, but it was time to put the fear of God into him for a change. When you have a lousy hand, go ahead and put on your game face and double the bet.

Someone was leaning against the railing next to me. You’re always surrounded by people here, so I didn’t pay any attention to him until he said, “Is that what the life of an agent is like? Leaving crank calls at midnight in Piccadilly Circus?”

I turned and found Nicholas Hadley standing there in his Burberry and gawking at the neon. He was eating chips from a greasy white bag.

“Are you following me, Inspector?” I asked.

Hadley shrugged and offered me a chip, which I accepted. There is nothing better than soggy, yellow-brown, straight-from-the-lard British chips.

“In fact, I am. Your assistant told me you were at the premiere tonight. I saw you come out, and I tracked you here. Sorry for eavesdropping on your call, but that’s the kind of thing I do.”

“It’s late,” I said. “Couldn’t this wait until tomorrow?”

“It could, but I thought you’d want to know.”

“What?”

“The DNA isn’t a match,” Hadley said.

Hooray. Finally, some good news.

“I don’t want to say I told you so, but I told you so,” I said. “Never have my lips connected with any of Lowell’s private parts.”

Hadley cocked his head and nodded. His jaw worked on his chips.

“Does this mean I’m officially cleared?” I asked.

“Well, let’s say I’m not as convinced of your guilt as I was a couple of days ago.”

“That sounds like you still have a sliver of doubt.”

“Yes, but only a sliver.”

“Was it the DNA that changed your mind?” I asked.

“Oh, that was a big part of it, but there’s more. Actually, my superintendent informed me in a loud voice that I had better make damn sure of the evidence against you before I made an even bigger fool of myself. So with that cheerful advice, I took another look at Mr. Bardwright’s apartment.”

Hadley didn’t look happy as he said this.

“Do I know your superintendent?” I asked, wondering why one of the muckety-mucks among the police would want to do me a favor.

“No, but apparently your father does.”

I tried not to laugh. I really owe that lovely, exasperating father of mine a kiss. Every time we try to prove that we can make it on our own, our fathers go and do something to make us realize they are irreplaceable.

“I didn’t ask him to interfere,” I said.

But I’m glad he did.

“It was just as well,” Hadley admitted. “When I took a second look, I realized that things didn’t add up quite as neatly as I thought they did.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, it was one of those crime scenes where everything makes sense until you realize that nothing makes sense,” he explained. “Take the wineglasses. I checked Mr. Bardwright’s kitchen cabinets and found that the rest of his crystal set didn’t match the two glasses I found on his coffee table. The glasses with your and his prints on them were unique. That seemed very unusual to me.”

“Very.”

“I also checked with your dry cleaner about that dress.”

“Former dry cleaner,” I said.

“Indeed. There was still a tag on the dress in Mr. Bardwright’s closet. The nice Asian woman who runs the store in Putney had no trouble remembering you or the dress you accused them of losing. Apparently, you used a long list of expletives when you went to pick up the dress and it wasn’t there. Including questioning the
marital status of her mother and making a few slurs against the Chinese people as a whole.”

“That does sound like me,” I acknowledged.

“Yes. She seemed hopeful that I was planning to arrest you for something.”

“I guess it’s not her day.”

“Well, I’m a little disappointed, too,” Hadley admitted. “Anyway, I also spent a long hour on the phone with an excitable publisher in Italy, who shared the sentiments of your dry cleaner with regard to your imminent incarceration. He swore up and down that you were a liar, a thief, a cheat, and a whore.”

“Three out of four ain’t bad,” I said.

Hadley managed a smile at that one.

“However, the more I talked to him, the more I realized that he had no evidence of any wrongdoing on your part, other than disbelief that his competitor in Milan had outbid him on several successive deals. Also, as you indicated, it appeared to be at least six weeks since he had had any communication with anyone at the Bardwright Agency about your dealings with him and Leonardo Santelli. So I had to wonder why Mr. Bardwright would have an old e-mail open on his computer, since these allegations didn’t appear to carry much weight against you anymore.”

“I’m feeling vindicated, Inspector.”

“And I’m feeling more than a little stupid. Which is not a feeling I enjoy. I’m not in the habit of apologizing to murder suspects, but in this case, I appear to have misjudged your involvement.”

“Thanks, but you said you still have a sliver of doubt.”

“I always have doubt. I’m a professional cynic.”

“Funny, so am I,” I said.

“So a little part of me still thinks you could have masterminded all this phony evidence in order to deliberately point suspicion at yourself and then ensure that it all falls apart.”

“That seems like an awful lot of trouble,” I said.

“It does. Also, you may be smart, but, no offense, you don’t strike me as being quite that smart.”

“Your apologies need a little work, Inspector.”

“That’s because I don’t get much practice,” he said. “I still need to ask you some questions, though. It appears that someone went to a lot of trouble to point a finger in your direction. It makes me wonder who would be so intent on watching you rot in jail.”

“It’s a long list,” I admitted.

“So I gather. Anyone near the top?”

Cosima. C-o-s-i-m-a. Backward? Amisoc. Anagram? Mosaic. Just tell him. TELL HIM.

“I probably shouldn’t be saying this,” I said. “After being on the business end of a false accusation, I don’t particularly want to paint a target on anyone else’s back.”

“Who?” Hadley asked.

“My boss. Cosima Tate.”

Hadley slapped his forehead with greasy fingers. “Yes, of course! The woman who takes over the agency after Lowell’s death and makes millions! Why on earth didn’t I think of that before?”

I got the feeling he was being sarcastic.

“Okay, so you’ve already looked at her,” I concluded.

“Up and down, Ms. Drake. No offense, but she was a far likelier suspect than you. Unfortunately, she has what we call an alibi.”

“Maybe she hired a hooker to take care of Lowell.”

“Hookers as a general rule aren’t a murderous lot. They’re usually the ones who wind up dead.”

“Well, I’m afraid I can’t think of anyone else who benefits from Lowell’s death,” I said.

“Nor can I, but we’re reviewing his recent deals now. If you think of anyone else, I hope you’ll call me.”

“Of course.”

Hadley finished his chips and crumpled the bag. He shoved his hands in his Burberry pockets and headed for the Tube.

I was a little discouraged, because I had a fantasy of Cosima being led away in shackles and strip-searched. That would have been an easy solution to my problems. Still, I was pleased that one of the storm clouds hovering over my head had cleared. On the other hand, it made me wonder which of my other enemies had it in for me. And Lowell, too.

I WOKE UP
on Sunday with one thought in my head. Darcy.

Tonight was the night I would parade through the lobby of the Hilton on Park Lane in my fur coat. Jaws would drop. Men would swoon. Flowers would be strewn in my path. I wondered if I had the guts to wear nothing under the coat. That would be the sexy thing to do, but with my luck, the taxi would get in an accident on the way to the hotel, and I would be forced to use my fur coat to cover the bloodstained victims. I would stand there naked on the street in front of all the American tourists. Someone from South Dakota would ask me directions to Speakers’ Corner.

Go naked? I think not.

I was nervous. Even a little scared. This was not my typical, no-strings-attached rendezvous. Nothing screws up a simple affair faster than an old-fashioned case of love. I wasn’t sure what I would say or what he would say or who would say it first. In an odd way, I felt as if we were strangers now who needed to get to know each other all over again.

Hanging around my flat was doing nothing to calm my nerves, so I gathered up some of the materials from Dorothy’s box and headed out for the Boathouse, which is a pub near the high street that is one of my favorite haunts. They have an upstairs, outdoor patio overlooking the Thames that I adore. On weekday evenings, you can’t get near the place for the crowds. Jugglers and street performers do their thing by the water. They’ve known me for years, and they always manage to get me a corner table under a canopy, where I can sip bitter, stare at the river through my sunglasses, and do whatever work I feel like doing.

I ordered tempura prawns to go with my beer. It was much colder today, but with an unexpected appearance by the London sunshine. I checked my voice mail, but there was no retort from David Milton to my in-your-face message of the night before. Maybe he hadn’t heard it yet, or maybe he was going back and forth with Saleema about his reply. I called my father, got his machine, and thanked him for saving my arse with the coppers. I checked e-mail, too, and was puzzled. No one sending little notes of encouragement. No one buzzing about industry rumors. No one bothering me about their contracts.

Strange.

I made sure I had signal on my mobile, and I did. I began to have the tiniest feeling of unease.

When I finished my prawns and my first beer was half empty, I began to sift through the ten-year-old panda papers from Dorothy’s agent. By the time my third beer was half empty, I was no closer to finding something to back up my fighting words to David Milton. In truth, I wasn’t sure what I expected to find. I saw Dorothy’s original query letter, talking about the book she had written. I flipped through the pages of the signed first edition.
To Berta, who made this all happen
. Berta was Dorothy’s first agent, a sweet but supersized woman who had worked at a literary press before launching her modest agency in Buffalo.

Unpublished writers will throw themselves at any agent who gives them the slightest encouragement. The trouble is that many
agents can get you a deal, but then you drown in the midlist, wondering why your career isn’t going anywhere. What you really want from an agent is great contacts, and the only way to build a high-powered Rolodex is to live in London or New York. Not Buffalo. That was the problem with Dorothy and Berta. Dorothy got published, but she wasn’t going anywhere, not until Berta’s weight got the better of her heart and Dorothy called me.

The first edition in my hands could probably fetch a couple thousand dollars on eBay. They’re hard to find because so few of them were sold. With all due modesty, it wasn’t until I entered the picture that Dorothy started selling, thanks to the movie deal I landed that put Butterball and the other panda boys on the big screen.

My BlackBerry buzzed and did a little dance on the table. I grabbed for it, anxious to get an e-mail to break out of my dry spell, but my face fell when I saw that the sender was David Milton. I opened the message.

AM ATTACHING CHAPTER TWO. JUDGE FOR YOURSELF.

Cocky bastard. I opened the PDF attachment and saw more of the same—old paper, old ink, old typeface, old words that were just like Dorothy’s first edition but not quite. Just the way it would have been if Dorothy had modeled her panda epic on a novella by a dear friend. At first glance, Milton’s fake chapter two was as convincing as fake chapter one. I read a page and then gave up, not wanting to put myself in a worse frame of mind.

I finished my beer. Shivered a little when the wind blew. Stared at the water. Watched the jugglers. Ordered a bacon, brie, and cranberry wrap to follow my prawns. While I waited, a shadow fell across my face from a woman standing between me and the sun.

“Sunday afternoon at the Boathouse,” a familiar voice said. “You never change, Tess.”

She was small. Hands on her hips. Jeans and heels. Designer shades. Dark skin. Long black hair.

She was about the last person on earth I expected to see.

Saleema.

I have never been involved in a physical altercation with another woman. Well, once, actually, in college. A history teacher accused me of sleeping with her husband. You will probably not be surprised to learn that the accusation did have some merit, although in my defense, he assured me that he and his wife had an open marriage and that she regularly slept with her students. Turns out that was not entirely true. I apologized profusely, but we still wound up pulling hair, knocking over chairs, and sending two glass-framed watercolor paintings crashing to the floor of her office.