Dying to Tell (32 page)

"Yes. Echo's fine."

"She didn't sound fine."

"I saw her yesterday."

"I'm talking about this morning."

"This morning?"

"Yes. She phoned while we were having breakfast, asking if we'd heard from you and, if so, how she could contact you." (I hadn't told her where I was staying, of course, reckoning it was safer for her not to know.) "She made no mention of seeing you yesterday. Just said she needed to speak to you. Urgently."

"Hello?" It was a woman's voice, but not Echo's.

"Is Echo there?"

"Who's calling?"

I had to take a deep breath before answering that one. "Lance Bradley."

"Ah. She said you might call. I'm Karen. She's been lodging with me."

"Right. Can I speak to her?"

"No. You see ... Well, when I got back and found the state she was in,

I '

"What state?

"I gather you know the bastard who did this to her."

A sickening guess sprang into my mind. "Carl Madron."

"So she said."

"What did he do?"

"It could have been worse, I suppose, but '

"What did he do?"

The A and E Unit at St. Thomas's Hospital was the usual sc rum of walking wounded. After a certain amount of wrangling with the receptionist, I got a message passed to Echo and a message came promptly back that I could go through.

She was in a curtained cubicle in an assessment ward, fully dressed but lying on a bed, propped up by several pillows, her face distorted by a black eye and a swollen bruise to the jaw. Whether she could have smiled at me if she'd wanted to I don't know, because she didn't try, although she did look relieved to see me.

"Are you all right, Lance?" she lisped.

"Am I all right? What about you?"

"It's just what you can see, plus a loose tooth and some blurred vision. That's what they're most concerned about, actually. Concussion's been mentioned, though I don't remember blacking out. They're keeping me in for observation. I'm just waiting to be admitted."

"What happened?" I sat down on the chair next to the bed. "This was Carl, right?"

"Oh yeh. It was Carl. But keep your voice down. I'm saying I was mugged by a total stranger. A very nice policeman was here half an hour ago."

"For God's sake, Echo. Why didn't you tell them who did it?" (Not to mention whose fault it really was, of course -mine.)

"Because if they took Carl in, he'd blow your cover, wouldn't he? He'd be bound to."

"Let me worry about that."

"You don't understand, Lance. I've made things worse for you."

"No. It's the other way round. I had a run-in with Carl yesterday and I should have realized he might take it out on you. All this is down to yours truly and I'm sorrier than I can possibly say." (But sorrow was only half the story. Looking at her bruised face, what I also felt was very, very angry.)

"You still don't understand. There were two of them. They're after you. And I've made it easier for them to find you."

"Two of them?"

They must have been waiting for Karen to go out. She jogs every morning. When I answered the door, they burst straight in. Carl .. . and this other guy."

"What did the other guy look like?"

"American. Thinning fair hair and a 'tache. Middle-aged but muscular." She must have seen my jaw drop. "You know him?"

"Yeh. I know him. But ... he was with Carl?"

"He was. And pulling the strings, as far as I could tell."

"This doesn't make any sense." (Ledgister, in London, and in cahoots with Carl. What it did make, failing sense, was my flesh creep with fear and disbelief.)

"I thought they were going to kill me, Lance. Seriously, I did. Carl hitting me was one thing. But the American had a knife. And he was deadly serious. He threatened to slit my throat if I didn't tell them where you were. The blade was this far from my neck." She raised her hand, thumb and forefinger an inch apart.

I noticed for the first time then that her hand was shaking. I reached out and closed mine around it. Maybe it was the tenderness of the gesture or the memory of Ledgister's threat that brought tears suddenly to her eyes.

"Sorry. God, this keeps happening. Could you..." She pointed to a box of tissues on the foot of the bed. I passed the box to her and she dried her eyes. "Delayed shock. To be expected, apparently." She blew her nose. "Sorry."

"Please stop saying that. I'm the one who should be apologizing for landing you in this."

"Yeh, well, maybe. And maybe we should both be apologizing to Mr. Yamazawa."

"Why?"

"I didn't know where you were. If I had known, I'd have told them. That's the truth. But I had to tell them something.

Otherwise .. ." She sniffed and took a deep breath. "I had no choice, Lance. I've never been so frightened in my life."

"You told them about Yamazawa?"

"Yeh. I said he knew where you were." She took another deep breath. "And they went looking for him."

The nearest phones were outside the A and E waiting room. They were all in use, but one of the callers was just signing off when I arrived. I grabbed the handset while it was still rocking in its cradle.

"Arundel Hotel. Miranda speaking. How may I help you?"

"I need to speak to one of your guests urgently. Mr. Yamazawa."

"Hold on." There was a pause of several seconds, then she was back. "I'm afraid Mr. Yamazawa's out. Who's calling?"

"My name's Bradley."

"Mr. Lance Bradley?"

"Yes."

"Ah. Mr. Yamazawa phoned earlier, saying you might call. He left a number where you can contact him."

"That you, Lance?" The voice was Carl's, somehow sounding even more sarcastic on the telephone than he did in the flesh.

"Where's Yamazawa?"

"Right here. Why don't I put him on?"

"Hello, Lance." It was Yamazawa. "I never got to Hampton Court."

"Are you OK?"

"They have not harmed me."

"Yet," put in Carl, coming back on the line. "That's the operative word."

"You bastard."

"Shut the fuck up, Lance, and listen. I reckon you know who else is here. He wants the letter. Meet him on Hunger ford Bridge one hour from now. Have the letter with you. If you don't hand it over, your chum Yamazawa commits involuntary harry-karry. Get it?"

I got it.

An hour later I was walking north over Hunger ford Bridge beneath a gunmetal sky from which the light was already fading. The Thames was a brown, rain-swollen surge, the cityscape grey and dank. To my left, trains rumbled sluggishly into and out of Charing Cross. Ahead, a figure was leaning against the railings where the footpath widened into a semicircle, smoking a cigarette and gazing downstream as if genuinely interested in the view.

"Hi, Lance," Ledgister said as I approached, though as far as I could tell he couldn't have seen me coming. (Metaphorically, of course, he undoubtedly had.)

"You must be desperate to go into partnership with someone like Carl," I said, resting my elbow on the railings a foot or so away from him.

"I'd surely have to be. But I doubt even he thinks of it as a partnership." Ledgister turned to face me. "Now, much as I'd like to stand here all afternoon swapping travellers' tales, I suggest we get straight down to business. Toshishige Yamazawa's the brother of that Yakuza asshole who got in my way last time we met. It'd be no hardship for me to even the score by despatching him into the Shinto afterlife, so I advise you not to strain my legendary tolerance. To wrap it up for you, Lance, where's the fucking letter?"

"Here." I took the envelope out of my coat and handed it to him.

"You've read it?"

"Yeh."

"Unwise, my friend, very unwise. That means you know what my trigger-happy father-in-law was mixed up in."

"Something a lot bigger than a train robbery." (I couldn't stop myself pushing the subject as far as it would go, now that Ledgister thought I knew all about it.)

"The biggest, I reckon you could say, don't you?"

"Guess so."

"It's every man for himself when you stray into this particular serpent-pit. I aim to be one of the few to come out alive." He slid the letter out of the envelope. "I'm sure you can appreciate I won't get to do that without '

Ledgister stopped as his gaze ran down the sheet of paper in front of him. Then, gritting his teeth, he smiled. But the smile hadn't got anywhere near his eyes when he looked at me.

"You'll be the death of me, Lance, you know that? Such a funny guy, aren't you? Such a fucking funny guy."

"It's not what I expected either."

"I don't know why not. You and Rupe obviously shared an acute sense of humour."

"What do you want to do?"

"You mean aside from chucking you off this bridge?"

"I wouldn't recommend it. I'm your open sesame."

"So you are." He peered into the envelope. "I see we have a key as well. Rupe thought of everything, didn't he?"

"Nothing's really changed except the time scale I can empty the safe-deposit box as soon as the bank opens tomorrow morning and deliver the contents to you in exchange for Yamazawa."

That's how you see it working, is it?"

"A straight swap. Yeh." (Actually, how I saw it working wasn't so much obscure to me as invisible, but there seemed nothing else for it but to string Ledgister along in the faint hope that I'd think of some way to play him and Townley off against each other.)

"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but straight isn't how I operate. I'll keep this." He slid the letter back into the envelope. "We'll reunite you and the authorization at the bank tomorrow morning. But I'll be there to relieve you of the contents of the box just as soon as you open it."

"What about Yamazawa?"

"When I'm satisfied Rupe has no more posthumous tricks to pull, I'll call Carl and have him set Tokyo Joe loose."

"How can I be sure you'll do that?"

"You can't. But you can be sure what I'll do to him if you don't turn up at the bank. What time do they open up?"

"Nine-thirty."

"Nine-thirty it is, then. I'll meet you there."

"One thing, though."

"What?"

"About Carl. He told me yesterday he has a journalist interested in buying the back-story to all this. I can't imagine you'd want that to hit the front pages."

"And warning me about it is just a goodwill gesture on your part, right? Nothing to do with sowing distrust between me and my new buddy." Ledgister chuckled. "You can't take away what isn't there to start with, Lance. I don't trust the little sonofabitch in any way, shape or form. But then I don't need to. Whereas you do need to trust me. And you can. I'll give Yamazawa the same sort of burial Rupe got if you fail to keep our date tomorrow morning. That's a promise."

"I'll be there."

"Yuh. I reckon you will." With that he moved away from the railing and started walking, tossing back a "See you then' over his shoulder as he went.

I stayed where I was, watching as he strode on along the bridge towards Charing Cross. This was bad. This was very bad. In point of simple fact, it couldn't be worse. Ledgister thought he had me where he wanted me. So did Townley. And they were both right. But they couldn't both win. Tomorrow morning, they were going to find that out. And, whatever happened, I was going to lose.

Which would have been bad enough, but for the fact that several other people stood to lose with me.

I walked up to the Arundel through the leaden afternoon, a ramshackle sort of idea forming in my head. If I could glean some clue to where they were holding Yamazawa, it might give me a slender advantage. It had struck me that Gus just might know something.

The receptionist identified him from my description as Gus Parminter. But Mr. Parminter, apparently, had signed up for an all-day coach trip to Salisbury and Stonehenge. He'd left early and would be returning late. He clearly hadn't been planning to accompany Yamazawa to Hampton Court. He wasn't going to be able to tell me anything.

When I got back to St. Thomas's, I found Echo installed in a general ward, looking slightly better and seeing better, apparently.

"There's only one of you now, Lance. Although you're still a bit blurred."

"I feel blurred."

"How's Mr. Yamazawa?"

"Don't ask. I'm in a bit of a tight spot. And he's in it with me."

"I take it that's a huge understatement?"

"Yeh."

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. But I know what I'd like you to do. When do you reckon you'll get out of here?"

"Tomorrow. I'd probably be out now if it wasn't Sunday."

"OK. Could you do me a favour when you've been discharged?"

"What is it?"

I leaned towards her and lowered my voice. "Go to the police and change your story. Tell them about Carl. In fact.. ."

"What?"

"Tell them everything."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I left the Polaris at first light and walked all the way to St. Paul's through the damp beginnings of the day. Commuters were out in force, heading for their computer screens and office intrigues. Ordinarily, I'd have pitied them. (Although ordinarily, of course, I wouldn't have been up and about early enough to do any such thing.) Today was different, though. Today, I'd have happily swapped places with any one of them.

It had taken me most of a sleepless night to decide what I was going to do. In the end, the decision had reduced itself to a bleak simplicity. I couldn't do the bidding of Townley and Ledgister. I couldn't protect Mayumi and Haruko as well as Yamazawa. All I could do was serve the lesser evil and hope I was correct about which that was.

"You're on time," said Townley as I reached the top of the steps in front of St. Paul's. "I like that." He turned up the collar of his raincoat and pulled down the brim of his hat. "The weather I don't like, though. I'd forgotten how lousy it can be here in the fall."

"You'll like something else even less. Your son-in-law's meeting me at the bank. He has the letter of authorization and the key to the safe-deposit box."

Townley didn't so much as bat an eyelid in surprise. He looked at me expressionlessly for a moment, then said, "You shouldn't have allowed Gordon to involve himself in this, Lance. It was supposed to be between you and me."