The Hogarth Conspiracy (33 page)

Hearing his cell phone ring, Victor glanced at the unfamiliar number, then answered it.

“Hello?”

“Is that Victor Ballam?”

“Yes. Who's this?”

“Elizabeth Wilkes,” the voice said crisply. “Ring any bells?”

Forty

W
ALKING THROUGH THE
A
RUNDEL
C
ENTRE,
L
IZA STARED INTO THE
window of Boots the Chemist, checking to see if anyone was following her. When she had first arrived in Manchester, she had decided not to go to her parents' home, worried that she might bring trouble to their door. She had gone to a friend, another working girl, who was happy to get the additional rent from a roommate and not interested in asking too many questions. All Liza offered was a story that she had left her pimp in London and come back to the north for a break. Don't worry, she told the girl. I won't be competition; no working up here. I just want a few weeks off.

The first night she had slept on the sofa in the shabby front room of the apartment, listening to the sound of someone's television, and when she finally dropped off, a car alarm woke her around one. Disoriented, Liza had gone into the kitchen, the apartment empty, a note pinned on the fridge—get some milk and bread. Homesickness had overwhelmed her as she looked around at the squalor. This was how she once had lived, the life she had fled when she grabbed the chance Mrs. Fleet had offered.

That was still on the game, yes, but on the game in comfort. Liza studied her reflection in the Boots window and thought of Marian Miller. Then she thought of Annette Dvorski and the flight in Bernie Freeland's plane. It seemed like another existence, another time, so different from the bleak northern afternoon that she shivered and pulled her coat around her. Her fear was always present, intensifying as the days passed.

She had believed herself to be under threat at Park Street, but since leaving the familiar surroundings, she found herself startled even by shadows. Increasingly desperate to make contact with Annette Dvorski, she told herself that if she could just talk to Annette, she would calm down. Just talking would help; after all, they had been on the same flight. Not knowing where Annette was or if, God forbid, something had happened to her was unbearable. The cell phone number Liza had used so many times before kept ringing out unobtainable. But that morning, after one more queasy night, Liza remembered something: years previously, Annette had handed her a note with another cell phone number. “Don't use it unless it's an emergency,” she had said. “If you need me, you can call it, but
only
in an emergency.”

Liza dug out the faded Post-it note from her Filofax and looked at the number. Well, she thought, this was an emergency, wasn't it, and the only way she could get to talk to Annette—if the number was still valid. She knew how often working girls changed their cell phones, sometimes to avoid suspect johns and sometimes to drop out of sight for a while. It was a familiar ploy to give a client the number of a phone you would dump later, so Liza knew that the chances of Annette keeping the cell phone for over three years were less than slim.

But still, it was worth a try.

Glancing once more into the window of Boots, Liza searched the faces in the crowd. Nobody looked obviously suspicious, although there had been odd phone calls late at night at the apartment when her friend was out working. And the previous week she had been followed by a couple of men. Liza realized that her courage was disappearing fast; every day was taking her farther away from London and the familiar, into the shadowy and threatening life of streets she no longer knew. Comforting landmarks from the past—roads, shops, houses—had all gone. She'd found herself in a city that had changed beyond all recognition. Killing time, she had passed boarded-up churches and job centers, walking without knowing where she was going, the memory of the flight in Bernie Freeland's jet replaying constantly in her head. And along with the images, there was the knowledge that something was terribly, terribly wrong.

Taking a deep breath, Liza punched in Annette's emergency number on her cell phone but missed a digit and had to start again. She tensed, expecting to hear the disconnected tone or a mechanical voice telling her that the phone was no longer in use. But instead the number rang.

Hopeful, Liza felt her heart racing, her mouth pressed to the phone as it was answered.

But instead of Annette's voice, she heard a man's.

“Hello? Who's this? Hello?” he snapped irritably, his voice hoarse. “Oh, for fuck's sake!”

And then silence, the connection severed.

Shaking, Liza leaned against the wall and stared at the phone in her hand. She didn't wonder why she hadn't spoken; she was just glad she'd stayed silent.

Because there was something wrong about the man who had answered the phone. Something familiar. Something that made her breath catch in her throat. Of all people, she had not expected
him
to answer Annette Dvorski's cell phone.

Fighting panic, Liza rang another number. “Victor Ballam?”

“Is that you, Liza?” he asked, relieved. “Are you all right?”

She wasn't all right; she was terrified. “I need help. I'm in Manchester.”

“Are you on your own?”

“Yeah. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to think anymore. It's all muddled up, and I'm scared; I'm so scared.”

“Get the next train back to London. I'll meet you at the station—”

But Liza was past reason. “I shouldn't have rung the number! He shouldn't have answered.”

“What are you talking about? What number, Liza? Who shouldn't have answered?”

Her mouth was pressed against the cell phone. “You have to help me!”

“I will.”

“People are
dying
. They're killing all the people on that flight.”

She stopped talking suddenly. “Liza? Are you there?” Victor asked, anxious.

“I don't trust that bitch Fleet. I don't trust anyone. I shouldn't even be ringing you; I don't know who you are really.” Her voice speeded up; her hand gripped the phone tightly. She sounded confused, childish almost. “I tried to ring Annette Dvorski,” she said, explaining about the emergency number.

Victor's stomach turned over.

“I rang the number,” Liza went on, “and a man answered.
I knew him!
” She sounded almost hysterical. “The man who answered Annette's phone? I know who he was; I recognized his voice. It was Malcolm Jenner.”

“Malcolm Jenner?”

“The steward who worked for Bernie Freeland!” Liza went on blindly. “He was on the jet! He was on the flight we were on. He was there; I remember him. I remember his voice. Jesus,” she said, her voice plummeting. “Why did
he
answer? And why has he got Annette's cell phone?”

Forty-One

E
VERY DAY IN
L
ONDON, EARLY RISERS WALK THEIR DOGS IN THE PARK.
There are numerous plastic doggy bags attached to bins so that no one leaves a souvenir of his or her animal on the large verdant expanses where the dogs run. While cabs and buses begin to crawl down Park Lane and up Piccadilly, buses empty out groups of tourists, and rain falls on the shop windows and concrete pavements—while all this is happening, the dogs in the park bark for bones, for balls, for attention. They bark enthusiastically at passing horses or aggressively at airplanes overhead. The dogs bark early in the mornings and in the cold gray winter afternoons before night falls.

And they bark when they are afraid.

This morning in Hyde Park, a young woman ran toward the sound of her dog barking. She called him, but he didn't respond, remaining a little way off and snarling. As she approached, the woman saw her pet and peered over to where he was looking and barking. She thought for some moments that she had happened upon some discarded Guy Fawkes left over from the fifth of November, but when she drew closer, she stopped, a hand covering her mouth to prevent a scream. The dog had stopped barking. He was now whimpering, down on his haunches, staring at the tableau in front of him.

Lim Chang was bound tightly with rope around his chest and ankles, his head bent at an odd angle on his shoulder. He was propped up against a water fountain, and his left arm was depressing the nozzle so that a steady stream of water had soaked his scorched sleeve and run down into the blood around his feet. His clothes had been stuffed with straw and Chinese firecrackers had been pushed deep into his ears and mouth, and both were set on fire. His trousers were undone, and around his private parts there was a smearing of what looked like some kind of food paste; what was left of his penis was little more than a bloodied gnawed stump. There had been no clean, surgical cut—just a jagged tearing of the flesh, an eating away of the organ. An animal attack. A hungry animal going for the scent of food, eating away at flesh and muscle that had been prepared for it. As the woman stared, immobilized with horror, she saw to her disbelief Lim Chang's eyes flicker for an instant, then roll upward, the whites exposed as his body gave a sudden ghastly shudder before death.

All the time he had been tortured, Lim Chang had been alive.

No one had seen or heard a thing.

He had died within walking distance of Piccadilly, of Bond Street, of the many London galleries and auction houses he had dealt with for decades. Later the police would find in his inside jacket pocket an airline ticket to Hong Kong dated the following day. They would also find, behind his bare feet, a briefcase, now empty.

Nobody knew what had been taken from the case or why he had been tortured to death. Nobody knew that of the six passengers who had taken that ill-fated flight in Bernie Freeland's plane, only two were still around.

And the painting that had led indirectly to their deaths was on the move again.

Part Four

Forty-Two

W
ITHOUT
I
NGOLA REALIZING THAT HE WAS WATCHING HER,
C
HRISTIAN
studied his wife's blond hair and the line of her cheek. He thought, as he had so often over the years, that he had been a very lucky man—even though it was only because of his brother's fall from grace that he was able to claim Ingola as his own. Guilt, as it did often, nudged Christian. And, as he did often, he reassured himself that it had been Victor's wish for him to marry Ingola and take care of her. And he had been more than willing to do so. When his son was born, Christian had felt himself blessed. By default, but blessed nonetheless.

He knew that if Victor had continued his spectacular rise, Ingola would have been married to his brother now, living in London, a talented couple, inviting admiration and provoking envy. Ingola would not be leading an unremarkable life in Worcestershire. Still staring at his wife, Christian wondered if she regretted her decision and realized that of course she did. Ingola had been very much in love with Victor. Christian's devotion, however much needed, would have come as a poor substitute.