Under Suspicion (16 page)

A loud burst of laughter from somewhere behind me drowned the rest. Then they were past, their words reduced to an indistinct murmur by the long
scrrr-unsssh
of pebbles dragging in the waves.

Just the info Gerry wanted. On their next approach perhaps I’d get a clue to what the business deal was. I waited.

‘…thing is, Las Américas already has a casino. Can’t see them licensing another one.’

Another tinkling laugh from Monique. ‘No problem there. Ambrose can guarantee…’ Frustratingly, a gust of wind blew the rest of the sentence out to sea.

So Vanheusen had plans for a new casino – a much more efficient laundering-machine than property sales. The Alhambra would be an ideal front… No wonder he was so keen to persuade Mansell to become a business partner… Damn, damn,
damn
. If only they would stand still. They stopped and gazed out to sea as a particularly large wave crashed thunderously onto the shore. I leant forward, straining to hear more, but could make out nothing, only an indecipherable murmur.

They made their way back to mingle with the crowd. I’d learnt all I was going to learn. Time to go, but the cliff path was out because of the security guard now stationed at the top. I shuffled off towards the main steps on a course that would take me round the fringe of the party.

I’d just reached the steps when a chord from the band cut through the noise and Vanheusen’s voice boomed through the speaker system. ‘Guys, I think you’ll agree we’ve all enjoyed this celebration of the Feast of the Three Kings.’

Whoops and cheers.

‘Glad you enjoyed it. Now, let’s draw it to a close in the traditional style for this time of year.’

The band launched into the introductory bars of ‘Auld Lang Syne’.

A kilted Scotsman seized my fronded arm. ‘C’mon, hen,’ he slurred in a cloud of alcoholic fumes. ‘I’ll show you how we dae it in Scotland, darling.’

‘Yo, ho, ho, palm tree.’ A laughing pirate, complete with eyepatch and assorted blackened teeth, grabbed my other arm, and I was caught up in an exuberant circle of linked hands. There was nothing I could do. To resist would draw unwelcome attention.

‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot…’ The pirate and the Scotsman swung my fronded arms vigorously up and down. ‘An’ never brought to mind…’

‘Go easy on the swings, guys, for God’s sake,’ I yelped. I might as well have kept my mouth shut.

‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot…’ My right arm was swung forward, my left jerked painfully back. ‘For the da-ays of auld lang syne.’

The Scotsman and the pirate surged forward with the others in the circle, dragging me behind them. ‘Now gies a hand, my trusty friend…’

‘Guys,’ I yelled, ‘I can’t—’ I teetered precariously, lost my balance and collapsed sideways on top of the pirate, pulling the unsteady Scotsman with me. By the time we had sorted ourselves out, the whole thing was more or less over.

Boom. Boom. Boom
. Under the cover of an explosion of red and green maroons, I turned to shuffle quietly away. A crash of chords from the band and deafening cheers heralded another announcement but, intent on making my getaway, I wasn’t paying much attention.

‘…Snow Queen.’ A roar of applause.

‘What was that all about?’ I shouted to the pirate above another roar of applause.

‘Best costume. Nobody else stood a chance, did they?’

Everyone was watching Monique as she shimmered and glittered her way onto the platform to claim her prize. She clutched the microphone. ‘Thank you
so
much, Mr Vanheusen. This is
so
unexpected…’

I put a foot on the first step. ‘Keep talking, Monique,’ I muttered.

A burst of applause.

‘In addition to the first prize,’ Vanheusen had taken the mike again, ‘the judges have decided to give an award for the most original costume…and so…’

I reached the fourth step.

‘…I’ll ask the Snow Queen to announce their decision.’

‘I’m
so
honoured, Mr Vanheusen.’

Six steps negotiated, only another eight to go.

‘The winner of the most original costume is…’ A dramatic pause, much rustling of paper and thumping of microphone. ‘…that adorable little palm tree.’

Shit. Hell and Damnation.

‘Whey hey! Thaar she goes.’ The pirate’s halloo sank my last chance of sneaking away unnoticed.

Eager hands pulled me back down the steps, pushed me through the crowd and lifted me onto the
platform.
Please, please, please, don’t let them discover who I am.

‘Congratulations to a worthy winner.’ Vanheusen held out an envelope.

‘Thank you,’ I squeaked.

‘Ah, I detect a palm tree of the female kind.’ He put an arm round my shoulder and drew me towards him. ‘As
my
prize, I claim a kiss from the winner.’

Shit
.

‘Now, let’s see whose pretty face is concealed behind all this greenery.’ He twitched the fronds aside.

‘My God!’ Monique shrieked. ‘It’s
Deborah
!’ She thrust her face close. ‘What are
you
doing here in that ridiculous costume? You’re fired. Do you hear me?
Fired
.’

‘Fired.’ Gerry’s tone was flat.

‘Sacked, booted out, given my cards. However you like to put it, out on my ear.’ I was despondent, even though my unmasking had been due to sheer bad luck, not incompetence.

‘Mustn’t feel bad about it, kiddo. No use crying over spilt milk.’

Kiddo, indeed. He was only a few years older than me. Still, I appreciated the attempt to make me feel better about this setback to Operation Canary Creeper.

He gave one of his thoughtful chews on the earpiece of his glasses. ‘That casino info is prime stuff. Now, is our friend Mansell going to throw in his lot with Vanheusen? And if so, does he realise the business won’t be the right side of the law? That’s what we’ll have to find out.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘On a scale of one to ten, what are the chances of them taking you back?’

‘Zero, Gerry,’ I sighed. ‘With the open microphone everyone heard Monique. And the jeers and catcalls of
We want the palm tree
– that sort of thing – made her madder than ever. They swept me away and carried me up the steps singing
Viva España
and
Viva The
Palm Tree
. No, not a chance.’

‘So we’ve lost you as our eyes and ears…’ He drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the desk. ‘But has it blown your cover?’

I shook my head. ‘I’m pretty sure that both Vanheusen and Monique assumed that I did it just to be part of the action. And talking about action, Jason seemed to be having a good time. Did
he
come up with anything?’

‘Jason?’

That blank look didn’t fool me for a minute. ‘A clown with an empty-headed girl in tow, that wouldn’t have been Jason, would it?’

‘A clown. A Jason look-a-like. Really?’ He looked back at me blandly.

I narrowed my eyes. ‘Really. Not just looking like Jason, sounding like Jason, behaving like Jason. C’mon, Gerry. Level with me.’

‘Talking about Jason,’ he sidetracked expertly, ‘that bug he helped you plant on
The Saucy Nancy
has delivered the goods. A consignment’s arriving, in…’ he glanced at his watch, ‘…about twelve hours’ time at the little cove below the village of Masca. At 0200 hours. Just the sort of romantic spot a courting couple
from Los Gigantes might choose for a bit of privacy. I’ll have Jason and a girl in the shadows among the rocks.’ He eyed me speculatively.

Jason given carte blanche to snog. There’d be no holding him back.
No way
was I going to spend even one second in a clinch with him. I opened my mouth to say so.

‘No, I’m not going to ask
you
,’ said mind-reader Burnside. ‘The smooching’s got to be for real. Can’t have you jumping up and socking him one when he gets too familiar, can we?’

Well, that was a relief.

‘He’ll use his camera phone to show us what’s going on,’ he added.

I sniggered.

‘The hand-over, I mean.’ His tone was severe, but his mouth twitched.

‘Who’s the lucky girl, then?’

Silence.

‘Sorry. Shouldn’t have asked.’ I got up. ‘I’ll let you know if I hear anything from Exclusive.’

‘Odds on you will, Deborah. That obsession of Vanheusen’s with your cat could still be a lever to keep the connection going’

I paused halfway to the door. ‘That’s just what I’m afraid of.’

He raised an enquiring eyebrow.

‘A hot tip from V’s Security, something I overheard at the barbecue. It seems he’s planning a wedding for
Thug Prince.’ I frowned, trying to relive the moment. ‘And there’s to be a Big Do on the 25
^th
. I’ve a nasty feeling there’s a connection.’

‘Slapped wrist, Deborah. I don’t recall you mentioning that.’ He poised a finger over the tape machine’s replay button.

‘Sorry,’ I sighed. With all the drama of my unmasking, it had completely slipped my mind.

‘The tiniest detail can be crucial, Deborah.’

Oh dear, I’d screwed up again. I crept out.

One of Gorgonzola’s endearing little traits is that she can tune in to my moods. She was there to meet me as soon as I let myself in, rubbing herself consolingly against my legs with tiny mews of commiseration. I scooped her up and pressed my cheek into her soft fur.

‘Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen
…’ I crooned in her ear. Her rough tongue rasped my face. ‘What we both need, G, is comfort for the inner woman.’ I broke open a couple of tins of tuna. I had mine on toast, she had hers in a bowl.

Later we sat companionably under the pergola on my little patio. To be more precise, I was sitting, she was standing on my lap, arching and purring contentedly as I stroked the grooming brush down her back and over her sides.

‘You gave Robocat her comeuppance all right, G, didn’t you?’

A loud, rumbling purr of agreement.

‘Do you know that Ambrose and Black Prince have designs on your body?’

A slow stre-e-tch of her forelegs, an unsheathing and sheathing of razor-sharp claws.

Perleep perleep perleep peep peep
. I let my mobile ring. I’d left Extreme Travel only an hour ago so it was unlikely to be the office. It was probably only Jason moaning on about Brunhilda.
Perleep perleep
perleep peep peep
. Or Victoria Knight with an update on her meeting about El Sueño, but I really didn’t feel up to soothing and consoling anyone just now.
Perleep perleep perleep peep peep.

With a sigh I laid aside the brush. ‘Sorry, G, that phone’s getting on my nerves. Gotta go.’ I gave her a light prod.

Cue for well-rehearsed battle manoeuvres. G stiffened her legs, claws emerging in readiness to clamp. I rose speedily to my feet, pausing long enough midway for her to abandon ship.

Perleep perlee
…

‘Hi, DJ.’ Jayne’s voice. ‘You’ve a summons from Monique Devereux. I’ll read it out.
Ms Smith has omitted to leave me the arrangements for the next Outing. Ask her to bring them to Exclusive’s premises at 5 p.m. today. Monies due to her will then be paid
. Hey, must be missing you already. Maybe a chance to get reinstated.’

‘Bit of luck, then, that I took my Outing notes
home to work on. Thanks, Jayne.’

I had till 5 p.m. Plenty of time to re-establish relations with a somewhat peeved cat before venturing into the lion’s den.

With the arrangements for the Sunset Outing clutched in my hand, I pushed open the etched glass doors of Exclusive’s office suite. There were a couple of little details still to complete. Monique, or my successor, would have to see to those. Tough,
mala suerte,
as the Spaniards say. I clip-clipped across the expanse of polished marble towards the reception desk. My arrival had been radioed from the gate, so Miguel was expecting me, but there was no customary greeting of
Buenas tardes, guapita
. Instead, he kept his head lowered, ostensibly reading the Exclusive newsletter. Upside down.

I came to a halt in front of him. He didn’t look up. I gave a little cough. ‘
Hola
, Miguel. I’ve an appointment with Señora Devereux.’

‘She is expecting you, señora. Please go up.’ Averted eyes, a faint flush along the cheekbones evidence of his embarrassment.

I turned away.

His soft whisper just carried. ‘They find your message on the answering machine. They go crazy.’ I felt his eyes on me as I made my way to the lift.

With all that fuss about gatecrashing the party, the message I’d left on the answering machine to
divert last night’s calls to Jayne had slipped my mind. Oh well, this didn’t really add to my woes. Perhaps I could even turn it to my advantage, proof that I’d not been totally irresponsible.

The brushed-steel elevator doors opened silently onto the corridor. In the coming meeting with Monique, now that things were past redemption, should I be devil-may-care, or penitent and apologetic on the thousand-to-one chance that she might change her mind?

I pushed open the door to my ex-office and stopped in amazement. Less than twenty-four hours ago it had been decorated in modern minimalist style – white walls, white ceiling, white marble floor, black leather furniture with shiny chrome tubular legs.

All gone. Goodbye the black and white minimalist style, the primary colours of the Mondrian painting. Hello, the heavy brocades, dark furniture and gloomy decor of seventeenth-century Spain.

Monique was standing near the window. ‘As you see, Cousin Ashley and I have made a few changes.’ An open-necked white shirt and pinstripe suit had replaced the Snow Queen’s glittering gown, but the frost was still in her voice. The frost hardened into ice. ‘This is the Deborah Smith who took your job, Ashley.’ Pointedly, she didn’t ask me to take a seat.

I looked over at the elegant woman sitting at my desk. Except for her elfin hairstyle she was a clone of Monique. She had the same large brown eyes
and perfect facial bone structure, the same expertly pencilled eyebrows and enamelled nails.

It had been obvious all along that Monique had never reconciled herself to my appointment as her assistant. Unfortunately, when it came to the crunch Vanheusen had had other priorities in the shape of a gingery bride for Black Prince. Now that I’d blotted my copybook, she had seized her chance and lost no time moving Ashley in – stepping into the shoes of the departed while they were still warm, and all that.

Cousin Ashley, as the pseudo-owner of that villa named Shangri-la, was almost certainly an accomplice in his money-laundering scheme, involved right up to the tips of her shell-like ears. And while I was in cliché mode, this new broom had certainly swept clean.
A few changes
, eh? There was nothing left of the old office, nothing at all.

‘I can see you’ve made changes, but…but…’ I floundered to a halt.

I’d hit the right note. They exchanged gratified smiles. Ashley crossed her elegant legs and sat back in the chair behind the desk, not my familiar tubular chrome and leather swivel but an ornately carved throne padded with velvet cushions.

‘Isn’t Monique
marvellous
.’ She made it a statement of fact, not a question. ‘These furnishings are
so
much more in keeping with the Exclusive image. And they give a real sense of place.’ She settled herself against the velvet cushions and gazed round appreciatively at
the gloomy decor. ‘You
never
liked that modernistic scheme of his, did you, Nicky? Ambrose only needed the
teeniest
of prods and—’ A warning look from Monique cut her short.

‘Let’s just say that I advised Mr Vanheusen that the modern look was cold and soulless,’ Monique was smoothly diplomatic. ‘Our clients have firm roots in the past.’

That translated as fuddy-duddy, conservative and dull. It summed up rather nicely what I felt about this make-over of
theirs
.

‘Now, if you’ll just hand over the arrangements for the next Outing…’ Ashley, overeager, half-rose from her seat.

There aren’t many pluses to summary dismissal, but one was that I didn’t have to be on duty in Exclusive’s office at 8 a.m. I could lie in bed a little longer in the morning. To savour that pleasure in full, I left the alarm switched off.
Best-laid schemes of mice and
men
and all that. I’d forgotten to communicate this decision to Gorgonzola. Dragged into consciousness by fishy breath on my face and a persistent twitch of the sheet, I levered open one eyelid. Pitch black, not even dawn, early even by feline standards.

‘
Gerroff
, G.’ I dragged the sheet over my head, buried my face in the pillow and drifted down…down…

Thump thump thump
. An infantry battalion plodded up and down my back, merciless, relentless.
Only four feline feet, but it felt like forty. Eyes shut tight, I willed myself to stay asleep. Relax…
Relax
… Think of it as therapeutic foot massage in some expensive Asian spa resort.

It was no use. I flung back the sheet. ‘Can’t I have
one
decent night’s sleep?’ I snarled. ‘It’s not even
dawn
, for God’s sake.’

I heard the soft thump of feet on floor, followed by a faint piteous mew. Enormous copper eyes stared at me, plaintive, reproachful. All an act. I knew it. She knew it.

‘OK, G, you win.’ I padded my way to the kitchen, wincing as my bare feet made contact with cold terracotta tiles. She scampered ahead, bushy tail a triumphant moth-eaten banner.

I retired back to bed, drew the sheet round me, closed my eyes and waited for sleep. And waited… And waited… An hour later I was staring at the ceiling, now faintly visible in the grey light of dawn. I might as well get up… I was lying there, still contemplating action, when the phone call came from Jayne at the office.

‘Hi-i-i, Jayne,’ I yawned. ‘You’re the second female to disturb my beauty sleep this morning. Something come up?’

‘We’re going to have to make some modifications to today’s trip to the north. Come in early, will you.’ None of the usual banter, an alarm signal that brought me wide awake in an instant.

‘OK, Jayne.’ For the benefit of any listener on the line, I heaved a sigh. ‘See you.’

Early
was the Department code for
urgent
. From her subdued tones, I gathered that Jayne was signalling some sort of a setback. And it must be a big one for the bouncy, voluble Jayne to be reduced to a couple of sentences. All the way to the office I worried about it.

The cheerful rainbow logo on the plate-glass windows only served to deepen my sombre mood. No pot of gold, but something dark and disturbing, waited behind this rainbow, I was sure of it. The Department didn’t issue alerts lightly. Whatever it was, I wanted to delay discovery – my fingers were fractionally slower unlocking the door, my traverse across the floor to the one-way mirror fractionally protracted, my smile in the one-way mirror forced. Behind me in the mirror, I could see Jayne’s desk, papers precision stacked, computer covered, the only sign of life the red glow of the light on the answering machine. The levered locks clicked softly. I could put this off no longer. I took a deep breath and pushed open the door.

‘What’s this all about, guys? Has—’ The words died in my throat.