Fifth Victim (36 page)

‘What if he doesn’t?’

‘He may not,’ I agreed. He may have been working for her at the beginning, but clearly he was taking his orders elsewhere now, and
that
was who I wanted. ‘Torquil’s dead because of things
you
set in motion, Orlando. Dina is missing, injured, and they’re asking ten million dollars for her release. Right now, I’d make you parade up and down Union Square naked if I thought it might help.’

A hopeful thought struck her. ‘But I don’t have my cell. He won’t be able to call me.’

‘So get it,’ I said bluntly. ‘I’m sure if you explain to your father what’s at stake, he’ll give it back, don’t you?’

She nodded, gave a pathetic smile. ‘I never should have told my parents. Hunt told me not to, but after Tor … I felt so
guilty
. If I’d known they already
knew
…’

Confessing all, I realised, had simply meant they couldn’t pretend ignorance any longer, nothing more. I ignored the plea for a sympathetic response, reached for the door handle. ‘You’ll call me if and when you hear from Lennon?’

It was Vincent who nodded. ‘It’s my cell,’ he said. ‘I’ll call, don’t sweat it.’

He was the one who had obtained my cellphone number, I realised. Being in the industry, it wouldn’t have been hard.

As I cracked the door and waited for a brief lull in the rain, I said over my shoulder to Orlando, ‘Hunt sends his love, by the way. Says he misses you.’

‘Huh,’ she scoffed. ‘Yeah, I bet.’

But there was more than just ordinary sulkiness in her voice. I pulled the door to and looked back at her. ‘What does that mean?’

She flushed. ‘We’ve been going out together for ages, and we’ve never … well, you know. Made love,’ she said, wriggling with embarrassment in her seat.

Vincent, I saw, had quickly reverted to his stone-faced demeanour in the face of these girlie confidences. One of those macho guys who would happily discuss any amount of blood, unless it was menstrual.

‘Perhaps he’s just straight-laced,’ I suggested. ‘Doesn’t believe in sex before marriage.’

Yeah, and perhaps I’m in the running for Homecoming Queen
…

She hunched a mournful shoulder. ‘At first I thought maybe he was, y’know, gay, and in denial or something,’ she said, with the assurance of someone who’s been through therapy and picked up all the right words. ‘I thought he was maybe trying to hide it, but then when we were at the party on the yacht, Tor played me a tape – of Hunt and Manda, in the cabin together, and—’ She broke off, choked back a sob. ‘He was all over her.’

‘Ah, I’m sorry, Orlando,’ I said, and meant it. ‘Sometimes it happens, when a group of you spend time together—’

‘But it wasn’t like that,’ she burst out, face crumpling. ‘He and Manda knew each other long before. She was the one who introduced us. Manda’s my friend. So, why would they
do
that?’

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

As soon as I got back into the Navigator, I called Parker, watching Orlando’s chauffeured BMW roll out of the parking area and back onto the main road as I did so.

He listened to my explanation of Hunt’s prior relationship with Manda without interruption. On its own, it meant little, but Manda had deliberately misled me when I’d seen her at the apartment.
Besotted
was how she’d described Orlando and Hunt’s relationship. If she was supposed to be Orlando’s friend, then surely she would know all was not well in paradise. So why had she lied? I couldn’t ignore my gut instinct.

‘I’ll get straight onto Bill, get him to check this guy out more thoroughly,’ he said when I was done. No arguments, no doubts.

‘He’ll still be awake?’ I glanced at my watch. It was 1.15 a.m. Dina had entered her fortieth hour of captivity. Was she even still alive? I felt the tension in my shoulders, my hands, and tried to relax.

‘Until we get Dina back, everyone’s on call twenty-four/seven,’ Parker said grimly. ‘Get back here soon as you can, Charlie. And you were right to go – good work.’

The return journey took only a minute longer than the outward one. There was almost no traffic on the rain-lashed streets, but it was no night to be out. The water had started to pile up in the gutters, sweeping debris down the enormous storm drains that characterise the sides of American roads. They buried coffins deep enough over here not to rise in a flood, I remembered, and couldn’t suppress a shiver that had nothing to do with cold.

When I reached the house, I found Parker had roused both Landers and Caroline Willner. A sleepy-looking Silvana was handing round fresh hot drinks, and I accepted a steaming cup of coffee gratefully.

‘I don’t know anything about the young man,’ Caroline Willner was saying. ‘He’s been here a couple of times, with Orlando, and he’s always seemed polite, attentive. I got no – how would you say it? – bad vibes from him.’

‘Neither did I,’ I said. ‘He had an answer for everything. Although, when I mentioned that Trevanion was a Cornish name, he didn’t seem to know.’
Should
I
have known?
I shook my head in disgust. ‘He took me in completely. He seemed so plausible, so bloody
nice
, compared to the rest of them. I—’

I broke off suddenly, drenched with cold. Hunt had been so approachable, so friendly, so without an axe to grind, that I’d chatted openly to him about the current situation.

Parker had moved to my side to ask quietly, ‘What is it?’

I jerked my head towards the hallway and when we were alone I told him, in detail, about my apparently chance meeting with Hunt outside Orlando’s family estate, and about our oh-so-civilised pot of Fortnum & Mason tea at the tennis club.

‘I told him Caroline Willner doesn’t have the money to pay,’ I finished in a horrified voice, eyes flying to Parker’s. ‘He could already have decided this is a dead end.’

In which case, he could have decided Dina is a dead end, too. And if she is, it’s my fault
…

‘It’s not over yet, Charlie,’ Parker said, tense. ‘Bill’s looking into him right now. Someone using the name Hunter Trevanion is renting a house in Sag Harbor for the summer, but so far we can’t find a previous address for him. He doesn’t have a US driver’s licence, but if he’s a Brit, he might never have gotten around to it.’

‘He told me he’d been out here five years,’ I said, focusing inward to recall our earlier conversation at Torquil’s party. ‘Said he’d been at Oxford and implied the university, but for all I know he could have been living rough in doorways. Oh, he also said his family were in the music business, if that helps?’

‘I’ll let Bill know.’

I frowned. ‘Ross said Lennon’s mystery pal was American.’

‘He could have used a go-between,’ Parker said.

I moved over to a small sofa that lined one wall of the hallway. It was uncomfortable, intended more for decoration than for use, but I sank onto it anyway. I was desperately tired but too buzzed to sleep. ‘Still nothing from the kidnappers?’

Parker shook his head. ‘We’re taking no news as good news until we reach the deadline they set – we still have thirty hours,’ he said carefully. ‘Brandon Eisenberg called to say he’s making progress securing the ransom. And the hospital called to say McGregor’s conscious. His family flew in from Toronto this afternoon.’

‘Well, that’s good, anyway,’ I murmured. I leant my head back and let my eyes close briefly as I took a sip of coffee.
One less thing to worry about
.

‘How you feeling, Charlie?’ Parker asked. I opened my eyes again and realised he was watching me closely. I made an effort to sit up.

‘Fine,’ I lied. ‘Why?’

‘You up to a quick trip back to Manhattan? I think we need to have another talk to Amanda Dempsey, see what she knows.’

I put my half-drunk coffee down regretfully on the side table and pushed to my feet. ‘OK,’ I said, giving him a weary smile, ‘providing you don’t mind driving? I think I’m likely to fall asleep at the wheel.’

We didn’t talk much on the way over, mainly because I reclined my seat slightly, bunched up my jacket between the Navigator’s headrest and the side window, and catnapped for most of the way.

I jerked awake at the touch of a hand on my arm, reaching for it almost before I had a chance to counter the automatic reaction.

‘Easy, Charlie,’ Parker said. ‘We’re nearly there.’

‘What time is it?’

‘A quarter of four,’ Parker said briefly, without needing to check.

Dina had been held for nearly forty-two hours.

By the time he’d braked to a halt outside Manda’s apartment block, I was sitting up again and with it, if a little groggy. It was still raining, the streets of the city washed clean and glistening in the lights.

‘You OK?’ Parker asked again as we entered the lobby area.

‘You don’t need to keep asking,’ I told him gently. ‘If I’m not, I’ll let you know.’

It was a pleasure to watch my boss intimidate the night security guy into
not
calling up to warn Manda we were on our way. He did it with a soft lethality that reduced the man to fluster in less than a minute.

‘Bully,’ I murmured as we rode up to Manda’s floor.

Parker flashed me a quick smile in reply. ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet …’

It took a lot of loud banging on Manda’s front door, and leaning on the bell, before she answered, wearing a thin peach satin nightgown and matching wrap. As someone who slept in an old T-shirt – if I slept in anything at all – the cynical half of me wondered if the delay had been partly caused by her searching for something alluring to put on.

‘Charlie!’ she exclaimed, covering the frightened note in her voice with a gloss of annoyance. ‘Do you have
any
idea what time it is?’

‘Yes,’ I said pleasantly. ‘May we come in? Or do you want to wait for the FBI?’

She hesitated, by which time I had moved forwards, smiling, and before she knew it we were inside with the door closed behind us. Manda realised she wasn’t going to get rid of us easily and shrugged. She led us into the living area with its fabulous view of the skyline, which was lightening towards dawn but still dominated by the beautifully lit, iconic buildings.

Once there, she tugged the flimsy garment closer around her body and glared at us with a certain amount of scared truculence.

‘What do you want?’ Her eyes flicked to Parker as if she thought he might be easier to manipulate. He stared back, radiating menace because of the total lack of emotion he projected.

‘You know what this is all about, Manda,’ I said quietly, snapping her attention back to me. ‘Tell us about Hunt.’

‘Hunt?’ She made a show of surprise at the question, stalling furiously. ‘I hardly know—’

‘You want us to dig out the tape Torquil made of the pair of you screwing on the yacht?’ I demanded. ‘Orlando’s already admitted that you introduced them. So – who is he, where did he come from, and why have you lied about him?’

She gave a mirthless laugh. ‘I might have known that little bitch would try and stir things. Why on earth should you believe anything she has to say?’

I sighed, half turned away, and whipped back to punch her in the mouth.

I led from my shoulders rather than my hips, so it was little more than a tap, but Manda let out a shriek and fell backwards across one of the armchairs in a tangle of arms and legs. Parker shot me a disapproving glance. I shrugged and waited until Manda had gathered herself, dabbing at her split lip with experimental fingers.

‘You
bitch
,’ she muttered, in a dazed voice.

‘I’ve been called worse – by you, as I recall,’ I said blandly. ‘And I don’t have time to play nice, Manda. I tried that last time, and you sat there and smiled at me as you lied your arse off. Stop LYING to me!’ I let my voice snap into loudness, watched her jerk of automated response. ‘Dina’s got less than a day. They already sliced off her ear. These are the same people who beat Torquil to death. We believe Hunt’s involved. Where do we find him?’

‘How the hell would I know?’ she demanded, pushing back to her feet, defiant. ‘And even if I did, you think I’d tell
you
?’

Parker sighed. He reached into the pocket of his immaculate overcoat and brought out a folding lock knife, which he opened up carefully. As it reached full extension it made a sharp click that made Manda flinch. I think it was the contrast between his totally urbane appearance and the threat implicit in the blade. He glanced at me, nothing in his face.

‘Left ear, wasn’t it?’

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Manda, I realised quickly, had no doubts that Parker might be bluffing.

The combination of that and the shock of a smack in the mouth brought the words tumbling out of her. I wasn’t especially proud of what we’d just done, but it was certainly effective in the time we had available.

She told us how she’d met Hunt the previous spring and been both frustrated and intrigued by the fact that he seemed so unimpressed by her wealth.

Listening to her, it was painfully obvious that Hunt had played her like a cheap violin. He was a charmer, as all good conmen are, and he’d used Manda to carefully insinuate himself into the social circle in which she moved.

The fact that he’d specifically asked her to introduce him to Orlando, rather than presenting himself as being involved with Manda, had been a masterly touch. It allowed him to influence the other girl, while Manda got her claws into Benedict. And the hands-off approach had kept Manda well and truly hooked in a way he couldn’t have done if they’d been having an open relationship.

‘After Benedict’s kidnapping didn’t go according to plan – when his parents nearly refused to pay – Hunt said it would be better if he was the one who made contact with Lennon and Ross,’ she explained, her voice a mumble, staring at her clenched hands. ‘He said it would keep us one step removed from any of it.’

‘But?’ I said, hearing the hesitation in her voice.

‘He wanted to take things a lot further. Actively look for other people – people with money – who wanted to be kidnapped for the thrill of it, too. Make a business out of it, almost.’