One Dead Witness (51 page)

He stood up, drained emotionally and physically, walked out of
his office and found his way to the cloakroom, where he filled a
wash-basin and ducked his face into the cold water until his lungs
almost burst. He pulled up, spluttering, looking scornfully at his
image in the mirror.

‘
You bastard,’ he breathed. ‘You absolute bastard.’

Chapter Twenty-two

Henry leaned across, flicked the handle and pushed the door
open for Danny who walked down her short drive and dropped into the
passenger seat. She was dead-beat and looked it. Her bleary eyes
could hardly stay open even though she had slept well that
night.

But five in the morning is no time for anyone to get up. It
reminded her of days gone by when she worked shifts. On reflection
she was amazed she handled them so well.

It was now 5.45 a.m., Wednesday morning, and Henry, as
promised, was bang on time to pick her up. He estimated a good hour
to get to Manchester Airport because even at that time of day,
traffic around the city’s motorways could be horrendous.

He was wide awake and pretty buzzy. ‘Morning!’

‘
Urumph,’ Danny responded, smacking the recliner button and
jerking backwards into a nearly prone position. She tossed a
holdall into the back seat, then settled as comfortably as possible
after turning up the heating a few notches. She was a very
warm-blooded animal and needed heat, especially at this time of
day, and particularly in her extremities, which were like blocks of
ice.

Henry, perceptive as ever, picked up the body language: DO NOT
DISTURB. He drove in silence and within minutes they were on the
motorway. The radio was tuned into Jazz FM, so Danny closed her
eyes, mentally rolled to the beat ... and fell asleep.

‘
Here we are.’

‘
What?’ Danny shook her head and rubbed her eyes, unable to
believe they had arrived at the airport already. ‘Is this a Tardis,
or what?’

‘
No, just sounds like one.’

Henry handed her a package which contained a visa for Danny
and an emergency passport for Tracey Greenwood. Both had been sent
by courier, arriving at midnight at Henry’s house. He also handed
her a wad of dollar traveller cheques. She stuffed the whole lot
into her holdall.

‘
Got your own passport?’

She shot him a withering glance.

They walked to International Departures where Danny checked in
without having to wait. She was told to go directly to passport
control.

‘
Okay, Danny, try to get some sleep on the flight because
you’ll need it if you’re going to do a quick turnaround. Grab the
girl and get her back here for tomorrow. I’ll be
waiting.’

She took hold of Henry’s lapels and dragged his face down to
her. They kissed briefly.

‘
Look after yourself. See you tomorrow.’

Danny gave a quick wave and trotted away towards passport
control. She didn’t glance back.

Thirty minutes later she was settled in the most luxurious
airplane seat she had ever been in and was back asleep before the
plane left the ground.

Following her rash decision to employ Steve Kruger to tail her
husband, Felicity Bussola had learned some hard lessons.

The first was that no one messes with Mario Bussola without
getting hurt ... and that included his wife.

Bussola had beaten upon her remorselessly, enjoying every
minute of it. He had smashed her face in, initially with his big
fat fists and by pounding her on the edge of the grand piano,
breaking her cheekbones. The instrument had subsequently to be
cleaned to remove all the blood and snot and two teeth Felicity had
dribbled into its workings.

Bussola had not been content with the face. Next he pummelled
her body, but not with his hands or feet. He carefully selected a
lamp-stand, and wielding it like a baseball bat, whacked her
repeatedly with it, following her round the house as she cowered in
terror behind any cover she could find. After this he dragged her
back to the piano, forced her fingers onto the ivories and slammed
the lid down at least a dozen times. But he only actually broke two
of her fingers on her left hand.

Then, loving husband that he was, he arranged private medical
treatment for her at a clinic he owned.

Very much linked to the first lesson was that it was in her
interests not to take any more interest in her husband’s
whereabouts. He ran businesses which operated twenty-four hours a
day and he had to be in a position to supervise them appropriately.
So of course he would be away nights. It didn’t mean he was being
unfaithful to her.

Yeah, right.

The final lesson was that she should be grateful to be married
to him. She should be grateful he came home at all and even more
grateful if he deigned to fuck her. She learned this lesson,
because he told her.

Those, at least, were the direct learning points from hiring
Steve Kruger.

She learned a few indirect ones too. One was to never -
ever
- trust the staff.
Whatever they said, she would never again take anyone of them into
her confidence, like she had done with the two bastards who had
kidnapped Steve Kruger for her. In the end, Mario employed them,
and their first loyalty was to him, not her.

She had also become aware that the house was riddled with
listening devices and miniature cameras, monitored from a control
room at the gate-house, into which she had never been allowed. She
had been under the impression the gate-house was simply a place
where Bussola’s heavyweights just crashed out. Now she knew it was
far more sinister.

Her personal objective now was to find all the surveillance
devices and then never to say or do anything further to incriminate
herself or any other person in any way. It might get someone
killed.

She believed she had located all the bugs. The only rooms
which appeared to be free of them were the bedrooms, Mario and Ira
Begin’s offices and most corridors and landings. She had no idea
why the bugs existed and did not dare ask.

The main lesson she had learned from recent events, though,
was that she was a stupid, naive bitch who had been blinded by
money and lifestyle and was now more unhappy than she had ever been
in the whole of her life. She felt trapped, with no way out ... and
she still didn’t know if Bussola was cheating on her.

Not that it seemed to matter any more.

‘
It took a little time,’ Ira Begin said apologetically, ‘but he
came through in the end.’

Bussola looked up from his desk at Begin who was leaning
against the door jamb of his boss’s study. It was 9 a.m., on the
day after Begin had been given instructions to start making
enquiries into the current state of play and whereabouts of Tracey
Greenwood.

‘
Sit down,’ Bussola nodded. Begin came into the office and took
a seat on the couch, pushing the door to behind him, though it did
not close properly.

‘
I had to pull in some goodwill on this one, Mario. It’ll
cost.’

‘
Pay.’

Begin nodded. ‘Apparently Tracey Greenwood presented herself
to Myrna Rosza at Kruger Investigations and stated she wanted to
testify against Gilbert in some old murder case in
England.’

‘
Why Kruger Investigations?’

Begin shrugged. ‘Maybe she doesn’t trust the authorities.
Anyway, she’s now with that black bitch Rosza, who’s babysitting
her until the English cops get here. There’s a detective due to
land at MIA later today to escort the girl back to Britain - a guy
called Danny Furness.’

‘
Where’s the girl now, as we speak?’

Begin heaved a sigh. ‘With Rosza, place unknown.’

Bussola gave his assistant a withering look. ‘Make it a place
known.’

‘
Working on it as we speak.’

Bussola ran a hand through his hair. ‘I want her dead, Ira. If
you can negotiate a hand-over with Rosza, then all well and
good.’

‘
I have an idea, a leverage tool we might use.’

Bussola waved a hand dismissively. ‘I believe in empowerment,
Ira. Do it your way, but if it doesn’t work, kill the girl and then
kill anyone else who causes any obstruction, cops
included.’

At the study door there was the faintest whisper of a sigh, a
movement. . . Begin leapt to his feet and jumped to the
door.

No one there.

He gave a short laugh and closed it.

Felicity had been watching and waiting for Begin to go in and
see her husband, and had then sneaked up to the door and listened
to every word spoken between the two men. She had remained still,
completely rigid, during the conversation, her ear literally at the
crack in the door. Then her ribs twisted slightly and she could not
prevent the squeak of pain escaping from her lips.

She spun out of sight in the dog-leg of the hallway just a
moment before Begin poked his head out of the door, amazing herself
how quickly she could move when she needed to, despite the present
condition of her body.

Now she needed to get to a phone which wasn’t wired up.
Something easier said than done.

Felicity’s activities had been very much curtailed since her
recent blunder, and getting out of the house alone was now a major
operation. Bussola was deeply suspicious of her, wanted to know
where she was going, what she was doing, who she was seeing; he
also made sure she was accompanied all the time.

Had she not been almost crippled by his beating, slipping away
from a chaperone would have been relatively easy. Now she had to
think up some other strategy, and double-quick too, for if she
could not get away from the house, she’d be unable to warn Myrna of
Bussola’s plans for the witness and possibly Myrna
herself.

Ten minutes after his conversation with Begin, Bussola was
again working by the poolside, his laptop connected up to the
Internet where he was surfing the pornography pages. Felicity
hovered with a complete lack of assertiveness, just in his
view.

‘
Yeah?’ he said at length, not raising his head from the
screen.

‘
Sweetheart, I need to get out,’ she said humbly.

Bussola stopped tapping at the keys. He regarded her sternly
and she prepared herself for the ‘why’ question.

It came. ‘Why?’

‘
I just wanna drift around a few clothes shops, cheer myself up
a little, maybe try on a few things. I won’t buy anything.’ Not
that she could. As part of her punishment, Bussola had chopped off
all her credit. ‘Honey, please can I?’ she pined.

He then shocked her. ‘Yeah, you can. In
fact, go and buy yourself something.’ He delved into his
briefcase and extracted a wad of cash. He did not count it, just
handed it over.

‘
Gee ... thanks honey,’ she said genuinely, seduced by the
sight of greenbacks. There must have been about fifteen hundred
dollars.

‘
Pleasure, babe.’

Then she remembered who he was, what he had done to her and
others, but nevertheless maintained her gratefulness. ‘You are
really good to me.’

‘
Hey!’ he clicked his forefinger at her. ‘And don’t you forget
it. Now get lost.’

His attention returned to the computer. Felicity limped
painfully away, hearing Bussola’s voice call behind her. ‘Gus, you
take my wife shopping, y’hear?’

Gus stood up. ‘Okay, boss.’ Felicity saw it was the bodyguard
with the rather substantial appendages. It was horrendous to be
horny and unable to do anything about it.

Ira Begin had not reached his exalted position in life without
proper planning, taking into account all the imponderables of a
situation, always making back-up plans for any contingency and
ensuring they were in place should his initial course of action not
succeed.

As was the case with the situation concerning Tracey Greenwood
and Myrna Rosza.

He had quickly established how he was going to approach the
problem. It would, as Bussola had suggested, be through a process
of negotiation. If that failed, other tactics would drop into
place. But what he needed to know before anything happened at all
was the exact holding position of the girl.

Once he had that, he would swing into action. ‘Captain
Crenshaw, Homicide, please,’ Begin said into the phone.

‘
May I ask who is calling?’

‘
I’m his chiropractor.’

‘
Thank you. Please hold the line.’

A series of clicks, a slight pause, then, ‘Crenshaw,
Homicide.’

‘
Ahh, Captain, this is your chiropractor. I was just wondering
if you’d made that appointment yet.’

‘
Hey, I haven’t forgotten.’

‘
It is urgent. You know how tight your spine is.’

‘
Yeah, I’ll get back to you soon with details.’

‘
And, of course, you will feel great benefit.’ Begin hung up,
slightly frustrated. He desperately needed to know where Tracey was
being held, otherwise he might start to look stupid.