Meaner Things (29 page)

“For us it was personal. He was just a rich, faceless stranger to you.”

“Not any more, mate.” Charlie fumbled around on the far side of his deck chair and produced a newspaper. “They have the Canadian papers in our hotel foyer.” He held up a recent copy of the
Globe
&
Mail
so that I could see the front page. “Your Mr. Zheng has been moaning ever since Tuesday morning.”

I grinned. “I’ll bet he has.” I took the paper and noted that it was claiming an exclusive interview with Zheng. The photographer had captured him standing outside the Zheng Building, its sign visible in the background over the shoulder of his expensively cut suit. I scanned the article quickly; curious about how much Zheng had figured out about the heist. Various phrases jumped out at me:
Canada’s
biggest
heist
. . .
internal
investigation
underway
. . .
long
-
serving
security
guard
suspended
in
the
interim
. . .
video
evidence
missing
. . .
the
police
are
following
every
lead
. . .
cannot
divulge
security
details
. . .
unknown
how
thieves
obtained
vault’s
combination
code
.

I paused halfway. The bit about the police was vaguely worrying, but it sounded like boilerplate jargon for ‘leaving no stone unturned’. Of course Zheng wasn’t going to really say anything specific at all. For one thing, he’d have insurers breathing down his neck. If he was smart – and he was – he’d had his corporate lawyer present during this interview. I finished scanning the piece, expecting little more.

Admits
it
may
have
been
an
inside
job
. . .
building’s
tenants
being
questioned
. . .
all
are
co
-
operating
fully
. . .
some
are
out
of
country
and
still
to
be
questioned
. . .
no
suspects
to
date
.

“A whole lot of nothing much.”

I looked up. “You’re right there, Charlie,” I agreed. “But at least he doesn’t mention Emma.”

“You’re still going to send those documents?”

“I’ll wait a while until the furore dies down, then send photocopies to Zheng, threatening to make them public.”

“Be careful he can’t trace the origin.”

“Of course. And I’ll include suitable warnings of what will happen if he tries.”

“What then?”

“He divorces Emma quickly and quietly then I send the documents to the police anyway.”

“Isn’t that a bit . . . underhand?”

“You’ve seen what he’s up to. I don’t owe him a thing.”

Charlie nodded. “You’re right. Human trafficking stinks. Take the bastard down, buddy.”

“A package to police headquarters in Vancouver, marked ‘Zheng Corporation Investigation’ should do the trick. When the detectives open it they’ll discover they have something even bigger to investigate than a jewel heist.”

“Bigger even than our record-breaking break-in.”

“Proud as we are of our forthcoming entry in the Guinness Book of Records,” I agreed.

Charlie sat back in his deckchair. “Does Emma want a financial settlement too?” he asked.

“She doesn’t need it anymore. Let’s face it, all three of us are now millionaires several times over. Emma can simply disappear, adopt a new identity.”
It
wouldn’t
be
the
first
time
, I thought. “It will take time for the police and courts to send Zheng down and Emma will be out of sight long before then.”

“You and her together, eh?”

“Yup. That’s exactly right.”

“Beach wedding? Can I be best man?”

I smiled and left without saying another word.

28.

THE PAST AND THE FUTURE

“Do you think they’re running your name through Interpol’s database?” Emma said.

“Well, my name at the Zheng Building was ‘John Robie’. Google is all they need to figure that one out.”

“How’d you mean?”

“It’s the name of the main character in ‘To Catch a Thief’.”

“The movie?”

“The Hitchcock movie, from a novel by David Dodge. I have it in paperback. Nice story, but impossible heist.”

“You never told me that. Once they figure it out they’ll know it was a pseudonym.”

“Of course, but it won’t do them any good. Maybe they’ll think my real name’s Cary Grant.”

She smiled. “Guess that makes me Grace Kelly.”

Emma and I had left Barbados two days ago, having decided that a month of frying on the beach there was more than enough. Charlie had stayed behind, citing an affinity with the place and especially with the local girls in the nightclubs. He said he might buy a yacht. We advised him to learn how to sail first.

It was a new feeling for me to know that I could now go anywhere in the world I wanted. Emma and I had decided to explore Europe together. We had to start somewhere and ended up on a flight to Milan, Italy. But when we got there, we both realised that we felt like staying somewhere quieter than a big city, even an historic one. Emma had consulted her guidebook yet again and we’d rented a car and driven north east up to the Italian Lake District, stopping at a slim finger of water called Lake Iseo. Smaller than Lake Como, it was just the sort of tourist-free place we were seeking, with beautiful countryside dotted with vineyards, medieval castles and monasteries, steep rocky hills and a stunning Alpine backdrop.

In Barbados we’d stayed at a modest mid-range hotel and made do with meals at back street cafes and fast food joints, even though we could have afforded anything we liked. In the days following the heist it was hard to shake off a feeling of having to lie low, be as inconspicuous as possible, even thousands of miles away from Vancouver. Now, more than four weeks on, we wanted to make a conscious effort to live like normal people again. Normal, very rich people.

So we’d booked into the L'Albereta in Erbusco, a nineteenth-century villa with its own helipad. Our bedroom was supremely comfortable – it even had a retractable roof for a night under the stars – and the bathroom was exquisite. I was still getting used to forking out six hundred and twenty-five dollars a night for such luxury.

Those rates didn’t even include breakfast or dinner, so tonight we’d decided to dine in the hotel’s restaurant, the Gualtiero Marchesi. Three Michelin stars, and named after an elderly Italian chef famously temperamental, according to Emma who, as usual, had read the guidebook. We’d both ordered the risotto with saffron and pure gold leaf, served
al
dente
, which Emma informed me meant ‘firm to the bite’.
So
rich
I
can
eat
gold
, I thought, as I put the first forkful into my mouth. We followed this with lobster, and washed it all down with an excellent sparkling wine called Franciacorta Bellavista, the hotel's own label. Not a bad bit of grog, as I delighted in telling Emma quite loudly.

We passed on dessert and settled for coffee instead. While the waiter was bringing it I looked out the window behind Emma and thought about the last time that she and I had gone fine dining together, on top of Grouse Mountain. Without fully realising it, I’d carried an enormous burden on my shoulders back then. I felt freer now, shorn of responsibility for planning and executing the seemingly impossible.

“You’re better company these days, now that you’re unburdened,” Emma said, as if reading my mind.

“Thanks. I feel as light as a feather to be honest.”

“Do you think you’ll get back into the saddle eventually?” she asked.

I laughed. “Never,” I replied. I looked around, checking that I couldn’t be overheard, before adding, “If you mean another heist. The Zheng Building was both the climax and the end of my career. I have no desire to ever repeat it.”

Emma looked relieved. “You’d better not,” she said.

I thought about it for a moment. “It does feel good,” I said quietly. “It was one hell of an achievement. There’s the satisfaction of an incredibly difficult job well done.” I looked straight into her eyes. “But I did it for a higher cause.”

She smiled. The waiter brought the coffee and we were quiet while he served it. As soon as he was gone she said, “I heard from him, through his lawyers.”

She didn’t have to specify who she meant.

“Don’t worry,” she continued, “I called them before we left Barbados. They don’t know where I was or where I am now. He’s divorcing me.”

“Sudden change of heart?” I said.

“He got the documents you sent him and now he can’t get rid of me fast enough. He always gets his priorities right.” There was an understandable bitterness in her voice.

“We still have to stop what he’s doing,” I said, “No more human suitcases full of shiny stones.”

She nodded agreement. “Do it,” she said.

We sipped our coffee and left it at that.

*

“There’s something else we have to talk about, Mike.”

“Yes there is, isn’t there.” It wasn’t a question. There was something hanging over us, we both knew what it was, and we’d both been putting off discussing it. But now that the way was cleared for Emma and I, there was no more avoiding it.

“Let’s take a walk in that odd-looking sculpture park.”

I’d already paid the bill – in cash of course – and we rose and left the restaurant. It was only a short stroll to the ‘Parco delle Sculture’ which, according to the brochure, was ‘a genuine open-air museum’ with ‘thirteen contemporary art sculptures’ promising ‘an intriguing dialogue with nature’. More importantly to us, it was an extensive area of parkland where we could talk in private.

Now that it was finally time to speak of the past, I didn’t know how to begin. We strolled past a massive concrete fist-in-the-air and a naked, stern-looking stone woman with large breasts and an unfortunate splattering of bird poop, which I thought would have been perfect for Charlie’s front yard. Still neither Emma nor I spoke. When we arrived at a pair of tall objects that looked like giant alien feet, Emma finally broke the silence.

“You came to Victoria afterwards, didn’t you? You called me one day?”

“Yes,” I replied. “But I couldn’t say anything.”

She turned and touched my arm. “Of course you couldn’t,” she said. “Neither could I.”

“I had to find you.”

“To get revenge?”

“To get an explanation.”

We walked a few more steps without speaking.

“How much did you find out?” she said.

“As much as I needed.”

She frowned. ‘Sit here and tell me.”

We sat on the soft grass and I explained to her how I’d found out about the motor accident and her change of identity. As I talked she sat quietly and looked at the ground, giving the occasional small nod as I narrated.

“Nice work, Sherlock,” she said, smiling faintly. I could sense she was embarrassed by this part of her past.

“That’s how I know your real name,” I said. I was still reluctant to ask the obvious question.

“I never liked it much,” she said, “Agneta wasn’t a cool name in high school. Too much like ‘Agnes’. I’ve been Emma for so long now it’s how I think of myself.”

“You don’t have to explain,” I lied.

She looked up and stared at me. “Of course I have to explain. Isn’t that what this is all about?” As quickly as her frustration had flared it was gone again. “Sorry, Mike. You’re entitled to an explanation and I want to give you one. It’s just hard, that’s all.”

“Take your time,” I said. But I needed her to tell me. I always had.

She swallowed. “It’s so long ago,” she began, “And it’s a time in my life I’ve tried to forget about. I’m ashamed of it really.”

She told me her story. During her last couple of years at high school she’d mixed with the wrong crowd and specifically with the wrong boyfriend, a high school dropout called Ricky. He sold the older students dope outside the school gates. They hadn’t been together long before he’d introduced her to harder drugs, and her life had spiralled downhill from there.

“I’d always been naturally bright and a good student,” she said, “But now I began skipping classes and getting failing grades. Teachers were on my back and my dad was worried sick. One day I realised I had to do something quick or I could kiss university goodbye.”

That’s when the real trouble began.

“Thing is,” Emma continued, “Ricky had moved up the dealing ladder by then. By now he was driving a BMW and dealing more in hard drugs.” She gave me a sheepish look. “To be honest, I’d actually started dealing a bit myself by then. Just weed, not the really bad stuff. But I wanted out.”

“Let me guess: he reacted badly.”

“Ricky was mad when I told him. It was then that I realised he only wanted me as his sexy salesgirl. I tried to break up with him but that made things even worse.”

“What did he do?” I said, though I could already guess the answer.

The evening was warm and mild, but she folded her arms across her chest and shivered as if suddenly cold. “He beat me up; said there was no way out, short of a coffin. It scared me real bad.”

“You must have been in pretty deep.”

“Guess I was. I was so young, just a teenager. A very naïve one, I suppose.”

“So what did you do?”

“I got off the weed and my grades soared. But Ricky kept pushing, kept trying to get me to shoot up with him. When I refused he lost it completely, used his fists again. Said I was no use to him anymore, a liability, a useless bitch who should be put down. One time he choked me so hard I blacked out.”

“Why didn’t you run?”

“Where to exactly?”

I shrugged. She had a point. “But you didn’t give in?”

“No, but I was terrified of him. I couldn’t leave school with finals coming up, but I planned on leaving Oak Bay straight afterwards. I begged him to keep away whilst I sat the exams, and he did. But the day after my last one, he called and demanded I come over. I refused. Then I made a big mistake: I stupidly told him I was leaving. He said if I ran away he’d hunt me down and find me wherever I went. Said I was a dead girl walking or something crazy like that.”

“Then came the day of the accident?”

“It was no accident. He’d called that morning and I was so sick of it I told him to go to hell. He must have shot up afterwards and gone crazy. Anyway, Emma and I were walking home together that afternoon. She was one of my few remaining school friends. A good person; she kept her life pretty simple, unlike me. She didn’t deserve what happened . . .”

Her voice broke up and I could see that tears were close. “Go on,” I said gently.

“It was lightly raining. I had a waterproof top on so I lent Emma my yellow jacket. We were both tall blondes. She was a bit heavier than me, but with the jacket over her we must have looked alike from the back. I remember hearing a car coming up behind, but neither of us looked around. We were on the sidewalk, after all. That’s safe, right? The car seemed to be closing on us very fast. I finally turned and looked, but by then it had accelerated so fast that it was right up on the kerb right behind us.”

She paused for a moment and swallowed hard before continuing.

“It was Ricky, in some big ugly Jeep he’d probably hot-wired earlier. He must have thought that Emma was me and drove right into her, on purpose. There was an awful thump, Emma went down, and I heard the wheels go over her. It all happened so quickly; in a few seconds he was around the corner and gone. Emma actually got up, but fell again straight away. That’s when she died, they said. They took her to hospital but couldn’t revive her. I didn’t get a scratch.”

“You didn’t tell the police who it was?”

“I wanted to, so much, but when the cops arrived I just couldn’t. Ricky could have produced plenty of evidence I’d been dealing too, and it would have been my word against his. He’d have been out on bail within hours and he’d have come straight for me.”

I nodded.

“I was eighteen and terrified, Mike, just terrified.”

“I understand.” And I could imagine how she had felt when Jonathan Zheng came along and proved to be a nothing but a richer, cultured version of Ricky.

“I was sitting in the waiting room at Emergency, holding Emma’s bag in my lap when I got the idea. Ricky would find out he’d killed the wrong girl, but that wouldn’t stop him. Now he’d have a far bigger reason to finish me off. I still had to run away, but he’d find me in no time at all unless I could adopt another identity. I flicked through Emma’s wallet. She had a driver’s license with a blurry photograph that looked enough like me that I could use it for identification. Emma didn’t need it anymore. Using it would be a kind of tribute to her and give me the new beginning I needed.”

“What about Emma’s parents?”