Sailing to Capri (16 page)

Bob had installed me at the opposite end of the apartment from his own. “For propriety’s sake,” he’d said with that mischievous grin that lit his big face and sparkled his eyes like a candle on a dark night. “Wouldn’t want anybody to get the wrong impression now, would we?”

As I had at Sneadley Hall, I’d made my rooms at the apartment my home, and it wasn’t easy preparing to leave, packing the mementos and the gifts.

Rats lumbered slowly around after me as I worked. I could tell he was upset by the changes and I took him for frequent walks in the park, trying to make life feel normal for him. I didn’t know yet where I was going, but wherever it was, he was coming with me.

Three days crawled by. I wondered what had happened to Montana, but I didn’t call him with the news about Rosalia. After all, there was no way she would be suspected of killing Bob; in fact, she might not even be alive. I couldn’t stand waiting for the phone to ring and since I was doomed to go on this cruise, I decided I might as well take his advice and do some shopping, so I walked through Hyde Park to Knightsbridge and Harvey Nichols.

Two hours later I slumped in a chair at the store’s upstairs restaurant surrounded by bags containing the kind of clothes I’d never worn before: gauzy things in pretty colors, chiffon dresses, jeweled sandals, soft fringed shawls, and an armload of clanking gold bracelets with huge hoop earrings to match.

I told myself that, of course, I wasn’t thinking at all of the
way the new me might look to Montana. I just wanted to look good when I came face-to-face with the glamorous Diane and Filomena. Famished, I devoured my lunch and about a gallon of coffee, then took a taxi back to the apartment. Perked by all that caffeine, I took Rats out for another walk in the park. It surely beat sitting around waiting for Montana to call.

The shrill of the phone met me as I walked back into the apartment. Somehow I knew it was Montana. My legs turned to jelly at the sound of his voice, but I told myself it was only because I was so relieved finally to hear from him.

“Daisy,” he said.

“Montana,” I replied and heard him sigh. “I thought you’d forgotten about me,” I added.

I knew he had a grin on his face as he said, “Missed me, did you?”

“And what do you expect me to answer to that?”

“Yes
would be nice.”

“Then I’m not nice.”

“Of course you are, I knew that the minute I met you. Too nice, I thought, to be involved in murder and mayhem.”

“Murder and mayhem?” I was a worried, half-afraid echo, wondering what he was going to tell me now.

“I’m in New York,” he said. “I’ll be in London tomorrow. Can we meet?”

“Yes, oh yes.” I was unable to keep the relief from my voice this time. “And I hope you’re going to tell me this is all a joke and I don’t need to go on a cruise with you.”

His laughter came over the phone. “Then why did you buy all that glamorous cruise wear today?”

Dumbfounded, I said, “You’re spying on me.”

“Just keeping an eye on you, long distance, you might say. After all, Bob left you in my safekeeping.”

I thought about that for second, then, my voice small and grateful, I said “Thank you,” though I still didn’t believe there was someone out there looking to kill me.

“All part of my job,” Montana said briskly. “So, what d’you say we have dinner tomorrow night? I’ll pick you up about eight. Okay?”

“Where shall we go?” Why did I say these things? A man asked me out to dinner and all I thought about was where we were going.

“McDonald’s,” he said. “See you at eight.” He was laughing as he hung up.

The phone shrilled again almost immediately. Of course he’d called me back, how could he leave on a note like that? “I’d like a Big Mac with large fries,” I said.

A strange voice said, “Really?”

“Oh, oh … I’m sorry … I was expecting someone else …”

“Nothing wrong with a Big Mac,” the stranger said. “Am I speaking to Daisy Keane?”

“You are.”

“Well, hello there, Daisy. My name is Davis Farrell.”

“Oh! Yes. Of course …” I was caught off guard, not knowing what to say.

“I want to thank you for your kind invitation. I read Bob’s obituary in
The New York Times.
Tragic, absolutely tragic. Bob and I go back a lot of years, you know … a lot of water under both our bridges, you might say. Bob was always there with a helping hand when a guy needed it—if he thought it justified, of course. And Lord knows, Miss Keane, his generous offer of a hundred thousand to go on this cruise is not the only reason I’ll be going, but it certainly helps. I’m admitting that to you now so you won’t think I’m coming under false pretenses.”

My heart warmed to Davis Farrell; he was speaking so glowingly of Bob. At least he was coming on the cruise for the right reasons. The money was just a sweetener. “I’ll look forward to meeting you then, Mr. Farrell,” I said.

“Davis, please. And I’ll look forward to meeting you too, Daisy. I may call you that, may I not?”

I could just imagine him, preppy personified: dark blue blazer, khakis, loafers, blue shirt, striped tie, good manners. The perfect gentleman. It made a change, I told myself as I agreed that he might call me Daisy, and that I too was looking forward to meeting him. We said good-bye, or
“hasta la vista”
as he put it.

I sat gazing out of the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the traffic zooming down Park Lane and at the park beyond, misty in the gathering dusk, thinking about Bob and the times we’d had here. The parties, the intimate dinners, the discussions over my future—always a matter of concern for Bob.

“Somebody’s got to marry you and take you off my hands,” he’d grumbled after a particularly stormy fight. I forget the reason for it now, something to do with him not getting to an appointment on time then blaming me, and me telling him he was a lazy bastard and he should bloody well look after himself. “You’re becoming too English,” he’d complained. “I thought I’d got myself one of those nice compliant women, the kind that’ll do anything for a man with money, not a feisty lass who doesn’t know how to treat a rich man and expects equal rights or something.”

I believe I told him that my rights were more than equal and I could find any number of men to take me off his hands, if I so wanted. Which, of course, I did not, because by then I was independent, and my occasional on-off relationships were more about sex than about love and marriage.

“Sex? Are you sure you know what that is?” Bob had laughed at me, making me even madder. “In the end, it’ll be up to me to fix you up with somebody, I suppose,” he added, ignoring my angry tears and gazing thoughtfully into midair. “And dammit, I do believe I’ve got just the man.”

I told him I did not want or need any man, I was fine just the way I was, thank you very much. I smiled, remembering his answer.

“Daisy, my love, you’re the kind of woman who’ll never be complete without a man. Right now, you’ve got me. After that, what yer gonna do? As usual, I expect I’ll have to be the one who looks out for you.”

The daily housekeeper had gone and I was alone in the big apartment. It was dark now. Headlights glittered down Park
Lane and the lamp globes gleamed golden amongst the trees in Hyde Park. A sudden, strong breeze rustled through the unlit room, and from his perch on the bench under the window, Rats lifted his head, bright eyes looking hopefully past me.

Heart in my throat, I swung around, staring into the dark room, but of course no one was there. “Just you and me, Rats,” I said loudly, hurrying to switch on the lamps. But I glanced nervously around because I wouldn’t have put it past Bob to come back, just so he could have the last laugh. But of course, even he couldn’t do that.

With Rats slumped in my lap snoring heavily, my mind drifted to Bordelaise. I’d still not told her about Montana or the cruise. I speed-dialed her number. She answered immediately, though rather sleepily.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi to you,” she replied, yawning. “What’s up?”

“Did I wake you?”

“No … Well, not exactly …”

I could just see her, sitting up in bed, pushing back her short blond hair with her fingers and reaching for her glasses. She was blind as a bat, and she always put on the glasses when she was on the phone as though doing so also helped her hear better. “Am I interrupting anything?” I asked, smiling, wondering who the man in her bed was.

“Nothing important,” she assured me with a sigh. “I wish it
was,” she added mournfully, making me laugh because, despite three marriages, Bordelaise was still “seriously” looking for love.

“So, how’s it going?” she asked. I knew she was lighting a cigarette and heard her coughing, holding the phone away from her face hoping I wouldn’t hear and tell her off. It was my turn to sigh. I’d told her so often about not smoking, but her impish answer was always “But what on earth do you do
after
if you don’t light up?”

“You want to go on a cruise?” I threw it out to her as a surprise.

“Are you kidding me? You have to be sixty-five or older for cruising—that’s the rule.”

She yawned loudly again but fell silent as I explained what was going on and that it would be a private cruise on a very grand yacht. Then I read Bob’s letter to her.

“He must have gone mad,” she said bluntly when I’d finished. “What was he thinking of, sending you off on a cruise with these nutcases?”

“Montana will be there to protect me.”

“Montana?”

“Harry Montana—he showed up at Bob’s funeral. He’s the P.I. Bob had looking into all the suspects’ backgrounds to see what they were up to, and if any of them might have wanted to kill him.”

“He sure didn’t look too hard if one of them really killed Bob. Are you sure this Montana is on the up-and-up?”

I suddenly wondered. After all, I didn’t know who Montana
really
was, only who he
said
he was. Yet he was on Bob’s payroll
and working with Bob’s lawyer and seemed to know everyone and everything that was going on. “I guess he is,” I said, a bit doubtfully. “Anyhow, he certainly looks the part.”

“Maybe I’d better come on this cruise after all,” she said, sounding worried and coughing some more. “E-mail me the dates and I’ll meet you in London. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said, relieved. “And Bordelaise … thanks.”

“For what?” she said, still coughing. “I’m your friend, aren’t I?”

When Montana was in London on business, he ate breakfast at Patisserie Valerie in Soho, where he kept an apartment. It was always the same, a croissant and strong coffee. He ate lunch wherever he happened to be when he felt hungry and had dinner most nights somewhere local, preferably Indian or Chinese. Tonight he decided to take Daisy to the Red Fort on Dean Street.

There were no taxis, and he decided to walk up Piccadilly, cutting through the side streets to Park Lane. He was ten minutes late when he gave his name to the doorman, waiting while the concierge called Daisy on the house phone. Given the go-ahead, the concierge escorted him to the elevator and pushed the call button.

The elevator doors opened directly into the penthouse. Daisy was standing there, arms folded over her chest. She wore a long-sleeved narrow black dress with a deep V neckline that fastened with a row of tiny buttons. The knee-length skirt
showed off her slender legs and a string of emerald beads was wrapped around her long neck. The green brought out the color of her eyes and her long dark red hair swung luxuriantly over her shoulders. She looked, Montana thought appreciatively, better than a million bucks. Or even a hundred thousand. Rats sat next to her, his head cocked inquiringly to one side.