The Payback (20 page)

And after it had run its course, what would she do then?

That was a question for later.

Hungry suddenly, she ordered a pizza from room service, and while she waited for it to arrive she booted up her laptop. She got out the pages from O’Riordan’s diary that Milne had given her and examined them before Googling the name Omar Salic. There were no relevant matches. The same with Cheeseman. But Milne was right. The meeting had to have had a bearing on O’Riordan’s death, and she wondered if Salic was some kind of pimp with information about the abductions.

Lighting a cigarette, she looked at the tangled mess of doodles
and phone numbers that made up the other diary pages, thinking that it was highly unlikely she’d find anything of use there. But then she spotted a phone number running along the top of Friday, and next to it a scrawl which on closer inspection looked like ‘Marie at Jean-Pauls’. Tina remembered Milne telling her that Mrs O’Riordan had been staying out of town with relatives at the time of her husband’s murder.

A visit to a Philippines-based website providing census information and a single credit-card payment quickly elicited a copy of O’Riordan’s wedding certificate, and confirmation that his wife’s maiden name was Marie Gomez. Twenty minutes, one pizza and several more credit-card payments to various reverse look-up sites later, Tina had found out that the number on the top of the page belonged to a Mr and Mrs Simangan of Ternate, a coastal town about fifty miles south-west of Manila.

Tina sat back on the bed and rubbed her eyes, pleased that she’d found a possible location for O’Riordan’s wife. That didn’t mean she’d cooperate, though, particularly if she’d had any involvement in her husband’s death, and Tina wasn’t sure if she could allow Milne to put his gun to the head of a defenceless and recently widowed woman who might well not be guilty of anything.

The lead that Milne had to his old business partner, Tomboy Darke, might also be worth something, but Tina knew better than to rely on it. She needed more information, something that linked Wise directly to the killings she was convinced he’d committed. Now that he was back in the Philippines, she wondered if he had a house here. Because if he did, it was possible that Lene Haagen, who’d disappeared in Manila in 2008, had died there. And if she had, there would still be evidence, however microscopic, at the scene. Evidence that could be used to incriminate him.

She knew who she had to call.

It was early Sunday afternoon UK time, and Mike Bolt picked up after three rings. There was no small talk.

‘What can I do for you, Tina?’ he asked warily, as if half expecting that she’d got herself in trouble and needed his help – which, to be fair, had been characteristic of their relationship over the last few years. ‘I’m out with Claire at the moment. Is everything OK?’

Claire was his girlfriend, now fiancée, a woman Tina had never met, and didn’t want to know too much about. Even so, Mike had still taken her call, which she supposed counted for something (although she wasn’t a hundred per cent sure what).

She told him she was fine.

‘Where are you? It sounds like you’re somewhere abroad.’

There was no way round it, so she told him she was in the Philippines.

‘Christ, Tina.’ He paused briefly. ‘Have you heard about Nick Penny?’ he asked uncertainly, clearly thinking she hadn’t.

‘Yes. It wasn’t suicide.’

‘I thought you’d say that.’ He didn’t add that he’d heard she’d been having an affair with Penny, even though she was sure he would have done.

Having got this far with the conversation, Tina gave Mike a brief rundown of the events of the past forty-eight hours, including what Penny had found out about the two missing girls, as well as the attempt on her life and the fact that she’d seen Paul Wise in the flesh at Singapore airport. Sensibly, she made no mention of the fact that she’d now teamed up with a man wanted in the UK for mass murder.

When she’d finished, Mike let out a loud, frustrated sigh. ‘If you were attacked, why the hell didn’t you report it?’

‘Who’s going to believe me, Mike? There were no witnesses. No obvious evidence. And you know my history. The leave for stress, the drinking . . .’

‘So instead you disappear off to the Philippines, a dangerous country you know nothing about, on a one-woman crusade that’s either going to be a complete waste of time, or in the worst-case scenario might even get you killed.’

‘I need your help,’ she said, in no mood to tolerate a lecture, even though she knew what he was saying was true.

‘You always need my help.’ Again there was that hostility in his tone that she’d detected the last time they’d spoken.

‘This time it won’t get you into trouble. I promise. I need to know if Paul Wise has property in the Philippines. And if so, where it is.’

‘Why? So you can go round and have it out with him? Demand that he confess to his crimes? It’s not going to happen, Tina, don’t you understand that?’

He was right. Even if she and Milne did track down Wise to whatever bolthole he was using, in reality there was nothing they could do about it. It was something she’d been conveniently trying to forget.

She sighed. The phone call to Mike had been a stupid move.

‘I understand everything you’re saying,’ she told him, ‘but I’m following up a couple of separate leads and it would help me if you could find out what property and connections Wise has here.’ She thought about adding that it would also be helpful if he could find out if the name Bertie Schagel came up on any of the intelligence databases, but decided against it, concluding that the answer might raise too many difficult questions. For the moment, she wanted to be as straight as she could be with Mike.

He told her that he’d see what he could do but was unable to
promise anything. Off the top of his head, he didn’t know of any obvious link Wise had to the Philippines, or even Cambodia. The Soca investigation into Wise had, he admitted, been scaled down on orders from high up, due to the lack of any concrete evidence linking him to any crimes, and the fact that he was prepared to sue anyone who suggested otherwise.

His tone angered Tina. ‘Don’t you want him caught?’ she demanded. ‘After all he’s done? His actions could have had you killed as well, you know.’

‘I know all that,’ he snapped back. ‘And I’ve done everything I can to bring him to justice, including risking my neck to help you, and paying the price for it. But I’m also a pragmatist. You can’t continue to pour all your resources into catching one man if you’ve got no evidence.’ He stopped his rant, took a couple of deep breaths, and told her he had to go, that he’d get back to her when he could. His last words to her were ‘be careful’.

Tina had never been careful in her life, and it was unlikely she was going to start now. She and Mike both knew that; it was one of the things that had finished their relationship before it had even started. As always, she’d rely on the potent mixture of cunning, determination and luck that had kept her going this far.

As weariness finally overtook her, she put the chain on the door and got ready for bed, hoping that she wasn’t making a terrible mistake by trusting the man who, only six hours earlier, had come to her room with the express intention of killing her.

The house was immense. Set back behind a high wall, fronted with a line of mature mahogany trees, it sat on an isolated stretch of road a few miles to the north-east of Ternate town. It was built in Spanish colonial style, over three floors, with a tiled roof and shuttered windows, while long sprawling fingers of ivy and bougainvillea climbed up the sand-coloured walls. It spoke confidently of money and taste, and I wondered if we had the right place, because whoever lived here had serious wealth.

I knew better than to question Tina’s information, though. In truth, I was impressed by the way she’d hunted down a location for Mrs O’Riordan so quickly, and had told her so – a compliment that she’d accepted with a single nod of the head. It was fair to say that our relationship was stuck fast on a cold, professional level, and would probably remain that way for its duration, however long that might be.

Tina had hired the car we’d come down here in, and had insisted on driving. Our plan was to see what we could find out from Mrs O’Riordan, then continue along the coast in the
direction of Mindoro, where Tomboy hopefully still resided. I’d tried to break the silence and make conversation during the hour-and-a-half-long journey down here, but Tina had made it clear she wasn’t interested in small talk.

I’d found it an uncomfortable journey, and not just because Tina didn’t want to speak to me. By now, Bertie Schagel would have realized that I’d betrayed him. Either he would give me up to the authorities or, more likely, he’d send someone else to take out Tina, and probably me as well. Either way, we were now racing against the clock to find evidence that would bring down Paul Wise. But even if such evidence did exist, and we found it, what would happen afterwards to me? Even if Tina didn’t turn me in – and there was no guarantee of that – my future still looked pretty damn uncertain.

It had just turned 11.30 a.m. as Tina drove through the open gates towards the house, the car’s tyres crunching on the newly gravelled driveway. On either side sprinklers were spraying the emerald-green lawn, and a middle-aged Filipino man in overalls was pruning a hedge. As we got out of the car, he approached us, shears in hand, a less than cheery expression on his weathered features.

‘What do you want?’ he demanded, stopping in front of us, his grip on the shears just a little too tight for comfort.

Unfazed, Tina held up her British warrant card. ‘My name is Detective Inspector Tina Boyd from the British police, and this is my colleague . . .’

She hesitated briefly, so I piped up with my current pseudonym. ‘Detective Robert Mercer.’

‘We’re here to speak to Mrs Marie O’Riordan. Is she here?’

‘What do you want with her? My sister is very distressed at the moment. Her husband has just been murdered.’

‘We know,’ said Tina, softening her voice. ‘And we’re very sorry to hear it. We need to speak to her about the murder. We believe it has something to do with a related crime in the United Kingdom.’

‘She was staying with me at the time, and she has already spoken with the police. She knows nothing about any of it.’ He swept a hand back towards the gate. ‘Now, leave.’

‘Sir,’ I said, taking a step forward and looking him right in the eye. ‘If we leave, we will only have to come back with representatives of the Filipino police. Both our countries are cooperating in this case. We believe Mr O’Riordan was investigating a matter of great seriousness as part of his job, and that’s why he was murdered. We need to find out if your sister knows anything, however small, that might help us. Please. It’ll only take a few minutes.’

He seemed to relax a little, and thankfully, so did his grip on the shears. ‘Wait here. I will see if Marie is willing to talk.’

When he’d gone, I gave Tina a sideways glance, risking a small smile. ‘I think your haircut scared him. It makes you look like Brigitte Nielsen.’

‘Who the hell’s Brigitte Nielsen?’ she said.

‘She was an eighties film star, very Amazonian-looking. Married to Sylvester Stallone?’

‘Ah, long before my time, I’m afraid.’

We looked at each other. She didn’t return my smile, but nor was she frowning, and I thought I detected the first hint of a thaw in her demeanour. Or maybe I was just hoping.

Mrs O’Riordan’s brother reappeared in the open doorway. ‘Marie will see you for five minutes, but I don’t want her upset. She is very emotional at the moment.’

He led us through a beautifully tiled hallway with high vaulted
ceilings and into a light and spacious lounge, with old-fashioned furnishings and a huge bay window looking out on to the back lawn. Seated stiffly on an uncomfortable-looking chaise longue was a Filipina woman in her late forties, dressed all in black. She was clutching a tissue, and it looked like she’d been crying recently.

Straight away I thought she was trying too hard.

The brother stood behind the chaise longue, a protective hand on the recently widowed Mrs O’Riordan, while I made the introductions.

‘It’s a nice place you have here,’ I said, looking around admiringly.

‘It’s not ours,’ she said distractedly, waving an arm in the direction of some chairs. ‘Jean-Paul looks after it for the owners. I stay with him sometimes.’

‘It’s lucky you were staying here this weekend,’ said Tina as we sat down in chairs opposite her.

‘It isn’t,’ said Mrs O’Riordan vehemently. ‘My husband is dead. I wish I was with him now.’ Her face creased up and I thought she was going to cry, but she evidently stopped herself.

‘Do you have any idea who might have killed him?’ I asked.

‘Who are you? And what is your interest in Patrick?’

When Tina and I had discussed how we were going to play this interview on the way here, we’d decided to come straight to the point and tell Mrs O’Riordan everything we knew. The theory was that if she was involved in setting up her husband, she’d be overcome with guilt when she found out that the reason for his murder was because he was on the brink of exposing a group of western paedophiles involved in child abductions, and would tell us everything she knew.