Hider/Seeker (18 page)

‘Don't you want to see Bethany again?'

‘Let me speak to her.'

‘You're wasting my time. Don't call me until you have the money.'

The phone went dead.

Sat on the floor, his back against his bed, he started another bottle. Vodka soaked his chin as Bethany entered his head again. She was putting all her hope in him, he couldn't let her down. Could he live with himself if something happened to her now? Maybe he should call Gemmell to search for her; warn him that there was a mole in his department who would get word to the Marottas. If Gemmell did it right, she might stand a chance – which was a damn sight more than what he could offer.

With a bottle in one hand, he went to the other side of the room to pick up the hotel phone to dial Gemmell's number. He took a swig and thought it was better to bring it to an end this way while there was still time. Just two digits short of completing the call his laptop bleeped. He put the phone down and stepped across to check his message. He had voicemail. When he played it back he heard Martha's voice giving details of the delivery due that evening – at the Waldorf-Astoria, New York City. He couldn't believe his ears. Angela Linehan was in town, less than twenty minutes away from where he was standing. He replayed the crucial part of the voicemail message: ‘Due six-thirty. Room 506.'

Harry had five hours to sober up. He made himself a pint of black coffee and poured salt into it. Five minutes later, he was puking up his guts in the lavatory pan. He repeated the exercise until he felt he had completely emptied his stomach. A hot shower followed by a cold bath came next. Harry alternated between the two extreme temperatures until he was steady on his feet again. He dried his body and set his alarm to go off at five, sleeping solidly for three hours.

When he awoke, his head was sore and his mouth felt like a woollen sock. He drank a shot of Vodka to get him through the next hour, and then poured away the remains of the bottle into the sink.

Harry took a cab over to the Waldorf and planted himself on a seat in the foyer with a perfect view of the reception desk. There were three couples checking in and a businessman paying his bill. A group of guests returning from a hard day's shopping settled between him and the reception desk. They were clutching their bags like trophies and didn't look in any hurry to move elsewhere as they chatted. He lost his line of sight, and his head bobbed up and down like a nodding donkey.

Twenty-five minutes past six, a delivery man emerged from the crowded foyer holding two large orange boxes with Vezier's big golden “V” logo. A blonde receptionist signed for the boxes and waved to a porter to take them up to the guest.

Harry stepped into the elevator with the porter and followed him out onto the fifth floor. He walked past him as the porter knocked politely on the door of room 506. Harry kept on going down the long corridor until he heard the sound of the door opening. Pretending to have reached his own room, he glanced back as the porter stepped inside and disappeared from his view. A minute later, the porter left, closing the door behind him.

Harry retraced his steps to room 506. He knocked on the door, keeping out of view of the spy hole.

His hand went over her mouth as soon the door opened and the two of them tumbled to the floor. He knew straight away it wasn't Angela Linehan under him, but her friend, Jean. She struggled under his weight and he kicked the door shut before anyone came along. Her dark eyes were popping out of her head. She aimed her nails at his face and kicked violently, but he was too powerful for her. Keeping his hand firmly over her mouth, he pulled her up from the floor and dragged her across the carpet. Her bathrobe came away from her body as he tossed her onto the bed.

He stuffed tights in her mouth and tied her hands behind her back with the bathrobe's belt. Harry went to the bathroom and snapped away the belt of another bathrobe behind the door. When he returned, she was running for the door, her hands still bound. He grabbed hold of her shoulders and swung her back onto the bed. A second later, he'd tied her ankles together with the belt in his hand, her heart palpitating with fear.

He stood up and gently covered her naked body with the two bathrobes. She calmed down.

‘Jean,' he said, staring into her eyes.

At first she was surprised he knew her name, then panic set in when she realised who he was.

‘I won't hurt you, unless I have to. Do you understand?'

She nodded.

‘I'm going to take away the gag and ask you some questions. If you scream, I'll break your jaw. You understand?'

She nodded again.

He leant across and pulled the tights out of her mouth, causing her to retch.

‘Angela gave you her bank card as a present to spend up the credit on it?'

‘Please don't hurt me.'

‘I'll be out of here in seconds if you tell me what I want to know.'

‘You killed Nick.'

‘No. Your friend organised that.'

‘Angela?'

‘Yes.'

Jean shook her head. ‘I don't believe you. She wouldn't have the guts.'

‘Really? She got the same guy to try and kill me.'

‘Angela only wanted to get away from Nick.'

‘Her plan was a bit more complicated than that and you run the risk of being an accessory to murder and attempted murder.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘You are in a lot of trouble, Jean.'

‘You're just making this all up.'

‘Am I? Let me guess what happened in Mexico. She flew out with her son, met you in Cancun, and then after a few days, I bet, she wanted to leave the hotel all of a sudden.'

Her eyes told him he was right.

‘And then I bet, she stopped using her passport and got you to rent out a villa there until she sorted things out in her head. Am I right?' There was no reply, so he continued. ‘She started to take an interest in chartering a plane?'

‘A yacht.'

‘Okay, a yacht to sail the Caribbean but you weren't invited, were you? She paid you off by giving away her credit card.'

‘All right, all right. We had a row as she was becoming crazy. She never let on what was wrong, only that the holiday was over, and she wanted me to go. She gave me some cash and the credit card to spend as I pleased. So what do you want from me?'

‘Where was she heading to in the Caribbean?'

‘Angela was in no mood to discuss her plans.'

‘She took a lot of money from her husband.'

‘Only what was owed to her.'

‘No. She did more than that. She took millions from some really bad guys her husband dealt with. They want it all back. I've nine days to return their money – a pregnant woman's life depends on it. Now do you understand me?'

Jean heaved a sigh. ‘I really don't know where she is, I swear.'

‘Did she ever mention any of the islands, maybe in passing?'

‘I overheard Peter arguing with her one night. I couldn't make out much what they were rowing about as I was in the other room. But I thought I heard him say something about St Lucia.'

The 757 touched down at Hewanorra on the south side of St Lucia, just after two-thirty in the afternoon. Harry stood in a long line at passport control and felt sticky in Jairo's old suit. It was thirty degrees outside, and all he wanted to do at that precise moment was to run naked into the sea. But that wasn't going to happen.

When it came to his turn, the customs officer in short sleeves didn't give him a second glance and stamped his passport like an automaton. Harry followed his nose and pushed his way through the tired crowds towards the blinding sunlight outside.

Black taxi drivers holding cardboard with misspelt names jostled for his attention as he looked for his ride. Then he spotted him; a white man in his late forties, wearing a wrinkled cotton suit, and moccasins with no socks. Around one ankle was a gold filigree chain. He appeared relaxed, leaning against the front wing of an old silver Ferrari, smoking a cheroot.

The man stood away from the sixties-built roadster and dropped the cheroot, grinding it under his foot. He pulled off his hat, revealing brown wavy hair, turquoise eyes as clear as the surrounding sea, and a heart-shaped face that was perfectly tanned.

‘Mr Bridger, I presume,' he said in a cut-glass English accent. ‘Oscar Underwood, at your service.'

Harry shook his hand firmly and gave his small suitcase to him.

Oscar Underwood was a close friend of Nelson and owned the Debeaumont resort, an eight hundred acre tropical estate for pleasure seekers, near the twin Pitons on the south-west of the island. He looked terribly familiar to Harry, but he just couldn't place him. Nelson hadn't said much about his background, other than he was rich, owned the best beachfront resort in the Caribbean on what used to be a sugar cane plantation and knew everyone's business. If Angela Linehan was on the island, he was the man to help find her.

Oscar drove Harry away from the chaos of the airport and told him he was going to put him up in a chalet away from the other guests so that he wouldn't be disturbed or more importantly recognised by any of them.

Harry sat back and enjoyed the open-top ride, a welcome distraction from his troubles. Oscar showed no mercy on the Ferrari's engine as he drove into the hills.

‘You like cars?' asked Oscar.

‘I love this one. The 275 GTS – a real classic.'

‘Three litre engine, two hundred and sixty BHP at seven thousand RPM. She sounds great for her age, doesn't she?'

‘Should you be driving her so hard?'

‘Nonsense, she loves it and so do I. Runs like a top – fourteen feet of steel passion.'

Harry smiled and turned back to gaze out of the window again. The surrounding verdant hills were like the bare beauty of a reclining muse; on every bend of the road there was the tease to see more.

‘God's own secret garden,' shouted Oscar over the engine's roar.

Harry nodded and watched the velvet hills slowly giving way to mountains, thick with tropical vegetation of differing shades of emerald green. It didn't seem to matter that the sun was overhead, the hot aromatic breeze felt good as it dried the sweat from his shirt.

‘Have we met before?' asked Harry.

‘You know, I get that question a lot from Brits.'

Oscar throttled some more gas, double-declutching down a gear before tearing the Ferrari off the tarmac road and up a mud baked track with more breathtaking views. The road was rutted and had potholes as big as open graves that required careful navigation. Oscar pulled up in front of a palm tree that was blocking the road. It had probably been blown down during the previous night's storm. Harry jumped out to pull back the branches with feather-shaped leaves, so that Oscar could squeeze around without damaging the paintwork.

Then it dawned on Harry why Oscar looked so familiar. It was his profile that gave him away as it suddenly took him back to the early eighties when he used to spend every day in front of the TV. Oscar was an Artful Dodger type character in a long running BBC series inspired by Oliver Twist. It was a big hit in the US and gave Oscar a ticket to Hollywood. That was until his voice broke. He remembered once reading that the former child star moved back into TV in later years, producing game shows where he made a mint selling the formats overseas.

Harry jumped back into the car, waving a finger at Oscar's face. ‘I remember who you are –'

‘If you don't want to walk the rest of the way, I suggest you don't tell me who I used to be.'

‘How do you know Nelson?' asked Harry.

‘Italia Conti. We both started on the same day and became mates. We've always kept in touch. He never wanted a leg up in the business from me; wanted to do it his way. I could have gotten him a decent job, you know. Would have changed his life forever. But wouldn't hear of it. Seemed resigned to becoming a techie.'

‘So why are you helping me?'

‘Nelson told me what happened to you and your friend, Bethany. I just want to help in some way.'

‘Did he warn you it might be dangerous?'

‘I'll enjoy the thrill of it. You'd be surprised how bloody boring being rich on a tropical island can be.'

‘If you say so.'

‘Have you heard any more on Bethany?'

‘I'm not expecting to until they get their money back.'

‘You trust them?'

‘No, but do I have a choice?'

Oscar drove the car through the narrow streets of Soufriere where people stopped to stare. Above the corrugated roofs loomed the jagged rock face of one of the Pitons, like a giant about to stamp on them.

The Debeaumont resort had a long row of gingerbread cottages that stretched from the beach, right up to the edge of the tropical forest that climbed the hillside and beyond. Harry's chalet was well away from the other cottages and was used by the head of security for the estate, Mordecai Baptiste. Oscar had him moved to shared-accommodation with the other guards.

A mosquito net hung over a large double bed, next to which were two cardboard boxes that belonged to Baptiste.

‘He'll come back for those later,' said Oscar nodding to the boxes.

‘What does he know about me?'

‘Nothing and I plan to keep it that way. The less he knows the better. He can get a little nosy, so watch what you say. I've told him you're an old friend of mine who's recovering from a divorce and who wants to be left alone. He knows no one is to disturb you.'

Oscar concertinaed the fretted wooden shutters so that the chalet's fourth wall disappeared, leaving Harry with a view of the tropical trees and the crystal blue sea beyond. The hammock on the veranda looked tempting after an eight hour flight but there was no time as Oscar was already demonstrating the open air shower.

Back inside, he was shown the kitchen where he was to eat all his meals as Oscar did not want him mingling with the guests. The beach was out of bounds too, although a midnight swim was permissible.

The room was hot despite the whirling paddles of the fan above their heads. But Harry was assured that it would be less sticky after dusk when the winds would pick up.

Oscar tossed Harry a cold can of Heineken from the mini-bar and opened one for himself. Between sips of beer, Harry brought Oscar up to speed on Angela Linehan. He told him that Ernesto had been working for weeks on finding a home for her and her son before they escaped from London. But he still had his doubts that she was really on the island. Firstly, if she wanted a life in the Caribbean, Ernesto would have recommended the Dominican Republic, which has no extradition treaty with Britain. Secondly, Ernesto had to fly for more than eighteen hours to reach the location he'd chosen for her, and St Lucia was a much shorter flight from Guatemala.

‘Why would he recommend the Dominican Republic when the drug cartels operate there with such impunity,' said Oscar. ‘Isn't she supposed to be running away from them? It would be the last place where she would feel safe, surely?'

Harry thought about it and nodded.

‘St Lucia may be close to Guatemala as the crow flies,' went on Oscar, ‘but airlines don't think like crows,' he said while finishing his can of beer. ‘There are no direct flights from Guatemala. You have to go up to the States before doubling back on yourself to the Caribbean. I can assure you, it's an eighteen hour journey because I've done it myself.'

Harry couldn't believe how stupid he'd been for not bothering to check flight schedules. Ernesto could also have cut his travelling time to a quarter if he hired a private jet. But he hated small planes and booking them attracted too much attention in a place like Guatemala.

It was all coming together, even the fact that Ernesto was a couple of hours ahead when he spoke to Gabriela on the phone. He felt a real buzz. For the first time since leaving London he was sure he was closing in on her.

Oscar had done some homework ahead of Harry's arrival. Angela Linehan was more likely to be living somewhere near The Debeaumont than on the island's busier north-west. There'd been plenty of billionaire villas springing up all along the coast on the south-west, he told Harry. They rent out at around five thousand dollars-a-day normally, but there'd been an influx of permanent residents of late, mostly Russians. He'd already taken the trouble to go through the online land registry that morning, ignoring rental accommodation, leaving about fifty freehold luxury villas belonging to local residents.

‘I doubt that will help much,' said Harry. ‘The property would have been bought by her through an offshore company, and then she would rent it back through one of her many shell companies that Ernesto would have set up for her. That means you'd have to check all the rental accommodation as well.'

‘That can't be done in ten days. Public records aren't one of St Lucia's strong points.'

‘Eight,' corrected Harry. ‘I've got just eight days left to get them their money.'

‘She could be anywhere on the island, but I put anything on it that she's here in the south-west.'

‘The boy needs schooling,' said Harry.

‘There's only one international school on the island worth going to. It's run by French Jesuits in Castries. They graduate with some sort of international baccalaureate. But it's in the north; the boy would have to become a boarder – I know someone there I can talk to.'

‘I got him a passport under the name of Simon Jennings, but she's not stupid enough to let him use that now. My guess is she'll keep him at home until she feels safe.' Harry got up from the wicker chair and looked at himself in the mirror, still in Jairo's crumpled trousers and shirt. ‘I'm going to stick out like a sore thumb in this. I bought winter clothes in New York.'

‘I'll pick out something for you from the hotel store, we're about the same size.'

Harry was left to nap for a couple of hours but he couldn't sleep, thinking only of Bethany, hating himself for putting her and the baby into so much danger. She'd been right all along about him; he'd always been nothing but trouble to her. It was the only thing he was consistent at – creating trouble.

A knock on the door got him off his bed. He opened it to a tall hulking black man who blocked out the sunlight. A glance at the name tag on his khaki uniform told him it was Mordecai Baptiste, head of security.

‘Just dropped by to pick up my things,' said Baptiste with an island drawl and a bone crushing handshake. He dipped his head under the lintel as he entered and Harry wondered who'd be mad enough to ever pick a scrap with such a man. The floorboards creaked under Baptiste's weight as he strode across the room to pick up his boxes.

‘I'll get these out of your way,' he said, picking them up.

‘I'm sorry you're having to give up your room for me.'

‘Don't worry, Mr Underwood explained everything,' said Baptiste, stooping through the front door again. ‘You hear anything in the middle of the night, just call reception. My boys will be with you in minutes.'

Oscar returned later that evening holding a hamper in one hand and shopping bags in the other. Printed on the side of the bags was the name of his resort. Oscar took the Debeaumont name from the owners of the sugar cane plantation that was now part of his estate. Guests were taken on escorted tours to the derelict sugar mills and buildings that once housed slaves. The old sugar cane fields were now dense brush and protected by razor fencing to prevent desecration by vandals or souvenir hunters.

While Harry looked through the clothes in the bags, Oscar opened a bottle of Bounty Rum to go with the curried goat he'd brought in the hamper. Oscar apologised for the garish Hawaiian shirts with large floral patterns, but he had to cater for the American tourists, his bread and butter punters. Harry got changed into a pair of light olive chinos and tennis shoes. He closed his eyes and grabbed one of the aloha shirts; bright orange with silver palm leaves. He wasn't sure whether the light zipper jacket that Oscar had thrown in was for the odd tropical downpour or to help cover up the shirts.

They sat down and ate. Oscar had good news and not so good news. He'd made a call to a teacher he knew at St Ignatius School and there was a new boy called David Shanks that fitted Peter's description. Harry remained silent, expecting Oscar to offer a home address on the island, bringing the nightmare to an end. But that was the not so good news. Oscar's friend at the school had told him that all correspondence dealing with the boy's application was via a private bank in Panama, the name of which he didn't know. The school had received a large mysterious donation for a new sports hall around the same time as the boy's arrival. The head had only a number to call if the boy ever felt unwell or had an accident.

‘He's not a boarder?' asked Harry.

‘That's it. The little chappy gets picked up by a local taxi after school.'

‘So that means they're living in Castries?'