Times of Trouble (26 page)

Jared sounded
frustrated, but was carefully keeping his tone in check, not
wanting to come across as angry or out of control. He obviously
knew his boss needed information, not emotion.

‘
So what do we know
about this lad she is with? Grant Morley wasn’t it?’

Jared let out a loud
breath, preparing Vince for something else he wouldn’t want to
hear.

‘
That’s the other
thing. We’ve looked into Grant Morley. My contact at immigration
told me he isn’t in the country. He’s been gone a couple of weeks.
I think he has some house sitters.’

‘
So we don’t know who
Molly is even with?’ He didn’t want to lose his temper at Jared,
but he was close to it.

‘
We’re working on
that, boss.’

So they were back to
square one. Molly was on the run again, helped by a mystery male.
Someone else who would have to be dealt with before this whole
business was complete.

‘
The offer I made of
100,000 quid hasn't got me anywhere either. If that little tosser
knew something, he would have coughed it up by now.’

‘
It was always a bit
of an off chance. He can’t know any more than we do at the moment.
Maybe we should go back to plan A, and just get rid of
him?’

Vince didn't respond
to this. He still hoped there might be a lead there. They really
were back to square one.

‘
Do you need more
staff? I might have some people working on other projects that can
be pulled off.’ The last thing Vince wanted was to compromise his
profitable business with this side problem, but he also knew this
side problem could destroy any chance of future profit.

‘
Not for now. Jim and
Keith aren’t exactly qualified for this, but they’ve got as much to
lose as we have now. I know they’ve let you down with the latest
sighting. But they did find her in the first place, so we have to
hope they find her again.’

‘
Ok, keep me
updated.’

His blood was boiling
by the time he got off the phone. He was sick of bad news heaped
upon bad news. He hoped his evening swim would calm him down for
the time being, and that some good news would come soon.

Chapter 23

I was at the laptop,
scanning the references for Allen Berkley, when my phone rang. It
was Liam, and in the intervening hours, he’d calmed down, and he’d
come up with a new plan to find Sophie. He was at the
hospital.

‘
We know she has run
from us, but she still needs to care for Charlie, doesn’t she?’ he
asked, hoping to bring me on board with his excitement.

‘
I
guess...’

‘
She’s going to have
to go come here. The nurse who’s supposed to check up on Charlie
won’t be able to find them. Sophie won’t risk Charlie’s health, I’m
sure of it. She doesn’t even have his pills.’

‘
If she’s really
scared, she will have gone a long way from the Royal North Shore. I
don’t see why, if she’s so worried about Charlie, she wouldn’t just
go to any hospital.’

Liam was silent, too
frustrated to respond. After a few seconds he retorted: ‘It’s worth
a try isn’t it?’

I felt a lingering
uncertainty about how Liam was talking about Sophie, as if his own
happiness depended on finding her. But he had a point. It was the
only lead we had.

‘
I guess you may as
well check it out, but it’s going to take a lot of effort to sit
and watch the hospital all day.’

‘
I’ve already been
here for a couple of hours. I’ll stay until 7:30.’

‘
Ok, I’m working on
some other bits and pieces. I’ll tell you about them
later.’

‘
Like what?’ Liam’s
tone was both questioning and accusatory.

‘
I’ll speak to you
later, bye.’ I hung up, tired of trying to justify myself to
him.

He hadn’t wanted me
to go to the police, but it had been a fount of information. Not so
helpful in finding Sophie, which was the only thing he seemed
interested in. But extremely useful in decoding Sophie’s notebook
(which he still didn’t know about). I was still convinced Sophie
would never be safe until we knew who was after her. How else would
we know what we were all up against? These people were serious.
They had found where I was staying, and I didn’t even think they
knew I existed.

The more I looked
through the references to Allen Berkley, which profiled his stage
career and his new movie screen success, the more it seemed
unlikely he would be killing people to hide a visit to a
prostitute. From the events he had been attending recently, movie
premiers and awards nights, there was no way he had been in Sydney
or London for any length of time over the last couple of months. He
seemed to be spotted at an LA event every couple of days. It was
possible he had hired people to do his dirty work for him, but hit
men couldn’t be cheap. His career must have made him quite well
off, but I wouldn’t have thought he was rich yet, with only one
movie to his name, and that only just starting to get
noticed.

It was time to stop
wondering and start acting. I was getting used to having a lot on
my plate. I wanted to find a way to speak to Allen so I could
figure out what was going on. It might be dangerous to speak to
him, but what could he do to me over the phone? If he did have
hired hit men in Sydney, searching for Sophie and anyone connected
to her, he could tell them I had called, but how would they ever
track me down from that?

One of the sites
profiling Berkley’s career mentioned a public relations company,
the Lily Cohen Agency, which had become his agent in LA. They were
credited with managing his ‘successful launch into Hollywood’.
Liam’s laptop had a world clock on it, which automatically told me
the time in any city in the world. Selecting Los Angeles, I was
relieved to see it was 5:00 pm; they were a day behind us, but not
too late to call someone. A quick online search for the Lily Cohen
Agency brought up a simple website. It looked as if they were
trying to make a small agency appear like a market leader, but
didn’t have the budget or the clientele to pull it off. The home
page listed a few actors I had never heard of. Allen Berkley wasn’t
mentioned, but maybe they hadn’t updated the site for a while.
There was a black and white image showing Lily; she looked exactly
as I imagined Carla, the Madam, would look. Like a woman who wanted
to appear 20 years younger but in a tacky, try-hard,
unsophisticated way. I guess Lily’s and Carla’s professions did
have some similarities.

Now I just needed to
work out where I could phone her from. I didn’t want my phone
traced, yet I needed a number they could call me back on. There was
a landline in the apartment, but I couldn’t endanger my uncle in
any way. I also didn’t like the idea of going outside. I felt
exhausted by venturing to the city in the morning, and I hated to
give them another chance to find me. I stared at the laptop,
fingers poised over the keyboard, willing myself to come up with
something that could give me an answer.

I had to act fast as
the business day was drawing to a close in LA. But my mind was
blank, and so was the search field. In frustration, I minimised the
internet screen and suddenly something caught my eye on the
desktop. Skype. I opened Liam’s account and was relieved to see it
automatically logged him in. There was an account balance of
$15.80, which I assumed would be enough to make an international
phone call. I typed the Lily Cohen phone number in, and I heard the
squeaky blips of the call connecting. I had acted so quickly, I’d
forgotten to come up with a plan of what I was going to say. Too
late now, because someone had just answered the phone.

‘
The Lily Cohen
Agency, how can I help you?’ The nasal American accent sounded
upbeat and helpful.

‘
Uh… Hello... I’m
looking for Lily Cohen....my name is... Margaret Porter... I’m
calling from... Coast FM in Sydney, Australia.’

I was impressed with
my ability to ad lib. It must have worked, because the friendly
receptionist asked me to hold on, presumably to find Lily for me.
But then she came back on the line, and I thought she was going to
say Lily was unavailable.

‘
Sorry about that,
just had to get rid of another call. This is Lily
speaking.’

Oh. Lily’s agency was
smaller than I had expected. Lily answered her own
phone.

‘
I’m calling about
one of your clients, Allen Berkley. We would like to interview him
on air about his upcoming movie ‘I Will Be Golden’.’

‘
Oh, you
do?’

Lily sounded
surprised. I thought this was the sort of call agents would receive
all the time. Maybe Lily spent her time setting up these
interviews, not fielding requests for them.

‘
Yes, we’re really
excited about the release of the movie in Australia, and we’d like
to talk to Allen about his experience in making it’. Did that sound
plausible?

‘
Australia? I don’t
think they are releasing there for a few months. Do you really want
to talk to him now? It might be better to hold off until it
launches in your region’.

Oh dear. ‘Yeah, we
know it’s not going to be here for a while, but our audience loves
to hear from actors who are making it big in Hollywood.’

‘
Well, if you’d
really like to talk to him, I’m happy to set up an interview. When
do you want to do it?’

‘
We’re on air this
afternoon at 1:00. That is an hour from now. Would Allen be
available to talk then?’

This was asking a
lot, but Lily was rustling papers in the background; hopefully she
was checking to see if Berkley was free.

‘
So you are doing the
interview live? That isn’t usually how this is done is
it?’

Damn. She was right.
Radio stations probably do pre-record interviews with celebrities
so they can take out mistakes and boring bits.

‘
Many stations do,’ I
made up... ‘But not ours. We like to make our interviews sound as
genuine as possible. Everything on this station goes live to
air.’

‘
Oh, well that’s a
challenge isn’t it? I’ll warn Allen to be on his best behaviour.
Now you are obviously aware this number is to be kept confidential.
Are you ready with a pen?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
Ok, his number is
07838241856. Got that? Now I’ll call him and make sure he is ready.
Do you have a number I can call you back on, if I can’t get hold of
him?’

I gave her the Skype
account number, and thanked her for her help. I felt bad for
judging her photograph so harshly. She was actually a lovely woman,
and had just done me a massive favour.

I was tense and
exhausted when I got off the phone. It was great to have this guy’s
number but now I had to decide what I would say to him. I felt good
that I had managed to go from finding a code in a notebook to
actually having a suspect’s mobile number. I was starting to get
used to this whole ‘investigating’ thing, and each phone call I
made seemed to lessen my fear of using my phone. I could talk to
people, even people I didn’t know! I couldn’t wait to tell Liam
what I had managed to do on my own.

It wasn’t often that
I did things completely by myself. Back when I was performing in
concerts and spending hours practising, I might have looked like I
was alone. But I wasn’t. Mum was always there with me. In the
audience. Listening from another room. Commenting when I finished.
It felt strange not to be sharing what I was doing with her today,
but she wasn’t coping well with hearing anything about our search
for Sophie. She sounded really anxious when I spoke to her last
night. She had kept her head and managed to think of somewhere we
could stay, though I knew she just wanted me to come home. But
since she also wanted Sophie home, and I wasn’t going home without
her, I had no choice but to keep looking until I found
her.

Ever since I got to
Sydney, I had been so preoccupied with worry for Sophie, I had
hardly thought about Picasso, mum’s money problems, and my crappy
career on hold. I also noticed, with a small amount of pride, that
I hadn’t taken an HP in two days. I felt like I hadn’t properly
exhaled since I opened the letter from the bank. But I wasn’t
depressed. Just scared. Everything kept rolling forward in a storm
of anxiety, and all I had time to worry about now was the faceless
people who were chasing Sophie, and now me. I had to believe I was
on the right track to making everything ok.

My thoughts drifted
back to Sophie again. She was always good at believing everything
was ok. She never seemed to stress about anything, to the point
where mum and I would worry on her behalf. Was she studying enough
to pass her exams? Was she going out too late with too many
different boys? The only thing I remember her ever getting upset
about was dad leaving. She seemed to think if he came home,
everything else in her life would be ok.

Once when I was about
11, I was panicking about a piano exam. I had practised for hours
and hours, but still hadn’t played the exam piece without making a
mistake. I was sitting at the table, staring at my dinner, too
stressed to speak or eat. Sophie breezed in, and asked how my exam
practice was going. I just burst into tears. She quietly waited for
me to pull myself together and then told me she had a great way of
getting rid of stress. She handed me a piece of paper and a pen and
told me to write down what I was worried about. I wrote ‘Piano
Exam’. Then I dutifully followed her out onto the street, where our
wheelie bin was ready to be collected. She screwed up the piece of
paper and threw it in the bin. I said I didn’t feel any better. She
just laughed, and told me not to worry because the trick wouldn’t
work until the next morning. And sure enough, early the next day,
as I lay awake fretting about my exam, I heard the garbage truck
come down our street. As our bin was lifted from the curb, I
pictured the screwed up piece of paper falling out into all the
other rubbish, and being driven off down the road. Then I pictured
the truck dumping it at the tip, buried amongst piles of things
people didn’t want. And suddenly I felt calm. I got out of bed, sat
down at my piano and played the piece perfectly. Mum hugged me, and
told me how well I would do in the exam. Sophie smiled, as if to
say, 'see I told you so’. I never asked whether she wrote down her
own worries and put them in the rubbish. Had her silent worry about
dad leaving made her leave us? Did she see the plane that took her
to London as the huge garbage truck in the sky? And if she had been
in my life when I gave up on my dreams, would she have found a way
to pull me out of my funk? I probably needed a bit more than a
piece of screwed up paper to fix that.