Fifth Victim (26 page)

He spent a moment simply holding her. When he seemed to be sure she wasn’t going to let rip again, he put her away from him and nudged her chin up with his curled forefinger, smiling into her eyes.

‘This isn’t just “people”, is it, Benedict?’ Hunt said quietly then, over his shoulder. ‘Torquil may not have been someone you liked, but he was someone you knew, and he’s died going through an experience that
you’ve
been through personally. That alone should have given you both some kind of connection, so show a little humanity for once. There but for the grace of God, eh?’

I silently applauded, keeping my face neutral. I knew if I’d said half that, Manda would have jumped straight down my throat, but she just looked grateful – if not a little admiring – that Hunt had headed off a possible slanging match.

Fed up with the lot of them, I started to turn away. ‘Look, it’s been a hell of a day. I’m tired and dirty and I’m going to bed. If you want to ask anything else, you’ll have to come back in the morning.’ I paused, turned back. ‘Speaking of which, how come you’re all here in the first place?’

They glanced at each other, not quite furtive but not far off it.

Eventually, it was Manda who admitted, ‘Ben-Ben ran into Mrs Eisenberg at the tennis club and asked if there was any news.’ She shrugged. ‘Sorry, but she kinda mentioned you were … helping them, so we thought Dina might know something.’

So much for security
.

Dina gave me a defiant stare, but I was too weary to get into it with her right now. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t. Go home.’

It was only ten minutes later, standing with my hands braced against the tiles in the shower, letting the spray pound onto my back, that I realised all the things I should have asked.

Like why had Benedict bothered to ask Nicola Eisenberg for news of her kidnapped son, when he claimed to hold Torquil in such contempt? And, for that matter, why had Manda bothered to explain his actions, when she’d never given a damn in the past what I might think of her, let alone apologised to me?

I shook the water out of my eyes and, with marked reluctance, shut off the water, grabbing a towel off the rack as I stepped out of the cubicle. If there was one upside to looking after wealthy people, at least they always had nice bathrooms with constant hot water and plenty of fluffy towels.

I quickly blotted the water away from my body, wrapped one towel around me and was roughly drying my hair with another as I moved through into the bedroom that had been allocated to me.

Dina was sitting on the corner of the queen-sized double bed, facing the bathroom door and waiting for me to emerge. She was nervously plaiting her fingers in her lap. My heart sank.

‘Where are the others?’

A minor shrug. ‘They’ve gone home, like you said.’

‘And McGregor?’

She nodded to the doorway leading out into the corridor. ‘I’m sorry, Charlie, I know you just want to go to bed and I promise I won’t stay long, but I just won’t be able to sleep unless I know what really happened to Tor,’ she said all in a rush, eyes suddenly jittery with a fear she had almost managed to hide while she was upstairs. ‘Please. I … really need to know.’

I leant against the door-frame, aware that being wrapped in a bath towel that only covers you from armpit to mid thigh is not the best way to retain any authority over a situation. Ah well, at least I wasn’t naked.

‘Why?’ I demanded.

She blinked at the staccato question, looking small and lost as she fumbled her way into speech.

‘Because, it’s all my fault,’ she said mournfully, tears gathering in her eyes.

Give me strength!

I sighed, dragged a hand across my gritty eyes and tried for a gentler tone. ‘How is any of this your fault, Dina?’

It seemed that sympathy was her undoing. The tears fell freely then. ‘Because I know who arranged for Tor to be kidnapped.’

That woke me up better than a pint of espresso. I moved forward and crouched in front of her, trying not to lose the towel in the process.

‘Dina, listen to me. If you know who these people are, you’ve got to tell the police. You can’t let them get away with murder.’

‘I kn-know,’ she sobbed. ‘Don’t you think I don’t
know
that?’

‘Then what’s stopping you—?’

‘It was us!’ The words burst out of her, a wailing cry full of rage and pain and utter remorse. ‘Don’t you understand?
We
did it!’

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

‘You better start at the beginning, Dina,’ I said heavily. ‘Tell me everything, and don’t skimp on the details.’

I was dressed again, and we were sitting in the silent kitchen, drinking coffee. It was very much a staff environment rather than a family room. The kitchen was set on the side of the house that didn’t get any direct sun, and was clean and uncluttered rather than stylish, its appliances picked for utility and not just because they bore the right badge.

Dina hadn’t really seemed to know where to find the ingredients for coffee, and had dithered a little over putting them together in the right order. Considering the state she was in, I suppose I couldn’t hold that against her.

‘You must think I’m a really horrible person,’ she said now, flicking her eyes sideways at me, as if hoping for an instant knee-jerk denial. As if hoping for my approval even.

I had just been hit by a car, shot in the chest, had my bike trashed, dug up a corpse, and come as close to having my fingernails pulled out under interrogation as the Feds thought they could get away with. I had nothing approving to say to her.

As if realising that fact, Dina flushed, cradling her coffee mug with both hands and staring miserably into the creamy liquid. After a moment, she lifted her head briefly to mutter the age-old excuse so often trotted out by those who find themselves sucked into violence and suddenly way out of their depth.

‘Nobody was supposed to get hurt!’

I managed to suppress a snort of outright disbelief at her naivety, and shook my head wearily instead. Not hard under the circumstances.

We sat in a pool of subdued light from the fitting that hung low over the kitchen table. The rest of the room was in shadow. I thought it might encourage Dina to spill her secrets if the atmosphere was less bright and harsh, and I had positioned myself across the corner of the table from her rather than directly opposite, keeping it less adversarial. All friendly – for now.

‘Dina, even before what happened to Torquil today, Benedict lost a finger. Was that part of the plan?’ I asked, trying for coaxing rather than exasperated. ‘And what about Raleigh? Your poor old riding instructor will be left with an arm he can use to predict changes in the weather.
If
it knits well enough for him ever to work again to full capacity. Did he sign on for that?’

I’d once had my arm broken in a similar way, I reflected, and could now use it as my own personal barometer.

‘Of
course
not,’ she said, her voice genuinely wretched. ‘It’s just that I never—’

‘—thought anyone would get hurt. Yeah. You said.’

She glanced at me, dropped her eyes again. ‘They told me it was like … a game,’ she said eventually, choosing her words with care now. ‘That’s all. Just a game.’

‘Yeah,’ I said again. ‘So is Russian roulette.’

If Dina’s head hung any further, she was going to have her nose actually resting in her drink.

I sighed. ‘Tell me.’

She looked straight at me then, her face fierce and focused. ‘You have to promise me, Charlie, that you won’t say anything to anyone about this. Promise me!’

‘Torquil’s dead,’ I said quietly. ‘This is not a game anymore, if it ever really was. You know I can’t make that promise.
But
,’ I added quickly, seeing her suddenly stricken expression, ‘if I can help you, I will. You’ll just have to trust me to make that decision. Take it or leave it.’

If she noticed the word ‘help’ rather than ‘protect’, she didn’t comment on the distinction.

I rubbed a tired hand across my face and said, ‘When you said it was “us” who was behind the kidnappings, who were you talking about, exactly?’ just to try and get her started before I fell asleep in my chair.

I saw her face twitch, identified a brief flicker of shame and guilt.

‘We are,’ she muttered, almost too low to hear.

‘“We” being …?’

She bit her lip, stubborn. ‘The group of us,’ she insisted.

‘O … K.’ I let that one pass for the moment. ‘Why?’

‘What do you mean?’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘Why did you decide to do it? I mean, were you just all sitting around one day, bored, and someone came up with …’ My voice trailed off. ‘Oh, no.
Please
don’t tell me I’ve got that bit right.’

‘The way they all talked, it was glamorous and exciting,’ she cried. ‘Being snatched and held to ransom. It was like something out of a movie. None of it was real.’ She realised what she’d said, dropped her gaze again. ‘None of it was
supposed
to be real.’

‘So, the pair who tried for you at the riding club, they were actors or something?’ I demanded. ‘Because they certainly weren’t professional crooks.’

‘I don’t know who they were. I don’t! I don’t know how they knew where to find me, even. That’s how the whole thing was explained – that I would never know the details.’

‘Wait a minute. If you were arranging to have yourself kidnapped, why go to the trouble of hiring a bodyguard? Was I just window dressing?’

‘Of course not, it’s just—’ She broke off suddenly, swallowed. ‘You were great that day at the riding club. Honestly, Charlie. Just terrific.’

‘I hear a “but” …’

‘You were
too
good. That was what they told me. They said they didn’t think they could get past you easily. Too many risks.’

‘They were amateurs,’ I murmured, remembering all too easily. ‘And who told you that?’

She flushed again, one shoulder lifting. ‘The others,’ she said, evasive again. There was something else there, too. It took me a moment to put my finger on it.

‘You’re angry,’ I realised. ‘What did you expect me to do, Dina? You can’t get a guard dog and then be upset when it bites people.’

‘I know, but getting a guard dog, as you put it, wasn’t exactly my idea.’

That
made sense, at least. ‘Ah – your mother.’ I paused. ‘You didn’t have to accept me. But when we met, that first day on the beach, you seemed … pleased.’

‘You were a girl.’ She had the grace to blush. ‘I didn’t think—’

If I’d had more energy, I would have laughed. I shook my head sadly instead. ‘So, you
did
think I was window dressing.’

‘Sort of.’ Another flush, embarrassment and shame. ‘But then when we went to Tor’s party on the yacht, and Manda recognised you, she told me you were … good.’

I did laugh then, short and bitter. ‘Yeah, I’ll bet that’s how she put it.’

‘“One scary, hard-faced bitch” I believe were her exact words,’ Dina admitted.

So, Manda Dempsey was involved. No surprises there
.

‘But not scary enough to put them off having a go?’

‘You don’t understand, Charlie. They were talking about maybe a million! I … talked them into going through with it.’

‘A million?’ I repeated flatly. ‘That’s probably a fraction of what this house is worth. So, it’s all about squeezing cash out of your mother, is that it?’

Dina was silent for a long time after that, playing with her empty mug, turning it round and round so the unglazed rim of the base grated against the tabletop.

‘You must think I’m so lucky, living someplace like this,’ she said at last, jerking her head to indicate the house, the town, or maybe Long Island itself.

‘And you think you’re not?’

‘Oh, I
know
I’m lucky, but once you’ve had it, it makes losing it all so much harder to bear.’

That surprised me. Parker would have checked out Caroline Willner very carefully, as he did with all potential clients. If he’d found anything untoward in her finances, he hadn’t mentioned it.

‘And you believe you might be in danger of losing it?’

She shrugged, an unhappy bunch of one shoulder. ‘Mother came from money, and she’s forged a successful career, but my father spends it as fast as she can make it.’

‘I thought they divorced years ago.’ I took a sip of my coffee. It was weak and tepid. Dina needed practice at the domestic arts if she was facing a life without staff. ‘The financial side of it should have been settled then.’

‘It was,’ Dina said. Her lips twisted. ‘But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t talked her into investing in a half-dozen crazy schemes. His family have some kind of castle, I guess you’d call it. A few years ago he wanted to renovate the place and open it as an upmarket health spa. Like
that
was ever going to work. Then he wanted to buy into some stupid old vineyard. And just because he had fancy ideas about seeing his precious family crest on some stupid bottle of wine, Mother had to foot the bill.’ She flushed again. ‘It’s like her business sense goes straight out the window every time he comes begging.’

‘Is that why you didn’t want to go to stay with him?’

Dina nodded. ‘Mother was desperate to get me away from Long Island, and I guess she thought I might be able to talk him out of some of his more hare-brained schemes …’ Her voice faded away as she saw my expression freeze. ‘What? What did I say?’

‘
Mother was desperate to get me away from Long Island
…’

‘She knows, doesn’t she?’ I said. ‘What you’ve been up to, I mean.’

‘No! Of course not. I—’

‘Of course I know,’ said Caroline Willner from the gloomy doorway. ‘A mother always knows.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Caroline Willner took the high-backed chair at the head of the kitchen table. She was in her nightgown with a matching robe over the top, belted tightly at the waist. Her face, devoid of its usual subtle make-up, looked almost as tired as I felt. She settled herself with the air of a presiding judge about to pass sentence. If the pale horror on her daughter’s face was anything to go by, she probably was.