Long Time Coming (23 page)

‘Antwerp’s nicer, trust me.’

‘I never doubted it would be. You weren’t with me in Rotterdam.’

She pointed her finger at me and narrowed her gaze. ‘Don’t try to smooth-talk me.’

I smiled. ‘Why not?’

She smiled too. ‘Because you’re too good at it.’

We went out to Hampstead and walked on the Heath. Time vanished as we strolled together, arm in arm. I felt absurdly contented, sitting with her on Parliament Hill, gazing down at the city, or into her eyes, always waiting, as they seemed to be, to meet mine.

‘Is this going to work, Rachel?’ I asked at some point.

‘You don’t mean whatever we fix up with Ardal Quilligan, do you?’

‘No.’

‘The answer’s the same anyway. I hope so. I truly hope so.’

I kissed her. ‘So do I.’

‘Did I mention Marilyn’s going away this weekend?’

‘No.’ I smiled. ‘You didn’t.’

‘So don’t try anything, OK?’

‘As if I would.’

‘That from a man who fits seduction and cat burglary all into one night.’

‘I’ve given up cat burglary.’

‘To concentrate on your other specialty?’

‘If you think I should.’

Now she kissed me. ‘I’ll let you know.’

Eldritch, it turned out, agreed with Rachel: we’d have to go to Antwerp if we were to find out who was manipulating us. He showed us the temporary passport it had taken him most of the day to obtain when we met him back at the Ritz that afternoon. I sensed he knew, or at least suspected, that Rachel and I had become lovers. But nothing was said, not least because we had urgent business to attend to. We walked round together to Ryder Street, reaching the gallery, as agreed, at four o’clock.

There were no customers for Cardale to hurry on their way. He flipped the sign in the window round to CLOSED, locked the door and ushered us into a poky office at the rear.

‘Ardal phoned about half an hour ago,’ he reported. ‘He wants you to call him back.’

‘OK,’ said Rachel. ‘Give me the number.’

‘Not you, Miss Banner. It’s Fordham he wants to speak to.’

‘Why?’ asked Eldritch.

‘He gave no reason. But he was emphatic on the point.’

‘It’s no problem,’ I said, though I was as puzzled as Eldritch. ‘I’ll make the call.’

Cardale dialled the number and handed me the phone. ‘Be careful,’ said Eldritch as I took it.

It was several seconds before the ring tone cut in, enough time for Rachel to give me an encouraging smile, which I was sure didn’t escape Eldritch’s attention. Then Ardal Quilligan answered, so
quickly he must have been sitting by the phone. His voice was hoarse, his Irish accent no more than a weak inflection. And he wasted no time on preliminaries. ‘Is that Peter Fordham?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re sure about that, are you? You’re sure your name’s Fordham? Not … Swan?’

I didn’t know what to say. And my failure to say anything was probably the answer he was looking for.

‘As soon as Simon described your uncle to me, I guessed who he was. I suppose they were bound to let him out eventually. He once mentioned to me he had a brother. So, you’ll be the brother’s son, helping out old Uncle Eldritch. Maybe you find enquiring into his tangled past exciting. I must warn you, though: excitement can very soon turn to deadly danger. I’m sure Eldritch would agree with me on that. Is he there now?’

‘Yes,’ I replied cautiously.

‘Good. Listen to me very carefully, Mr Swan. And don’t interrupt. I have the proof Miss Banner needs to win her case and I’m willing to give it to her. But I’m not coming to England. That would be foolhardy.’

‘Why?’

‘
Didn’t I tell you not to interrupt?
’ His tone had suddenly sharpened. There was a brief silence. Then he continued, reverting to his gentle half-whisper. ‘I don’t trust my brother-in-law and I’m sure Eldritch doesn’t either. So, we’ll do this very carefully and outside Sir Miles Linley’s bailiwick. I’ll leave here tomorrow. We’ll meet in Ostend on Sunday. You, Simon and Miss Banner will travel on the noon ferry from Dover. Don’t bring Eldritch with you. I don’t want this complicated by our … personal differences. When you arrive, go to the Hotel Hesperis.’ He spelt out the name before continuing. ‘It’s on the Albert Promenade. I’ve reserved rooms for you. I’ll contact you there. Is all that clear?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. Until Sunday, then.’ And, with that, he hung up.

*

Cardale gave no impression that his uncle had told him who
my
uncle really was. Perhaps Ardal was worried the knowledge might throw him into a panic, when what we all needed was for him at least to remain calm until this was settled. He certainly seemed calm, unfazed by the need to travel to Ostend and unshifting in his conviction that he was doing the right thing. He volunteered to drive us to Dover and we agreed to meet at the gallery on Sunday morning.

I saved a full account of what Ardal had said until the three of us had left the gallery and settled round a table at the espresso bar in the Piccadilly Arcade.

‘So, Ardal’s rumbled us, has he?’ was Eldritch’s straight-faced reaction. ‘I wondered if he might.’

‘Looks like you’ll have to leave this to us,’ said Rachel, sounding as happy about the prospect as I secretly was myself.

‘Hardly,’ said Eldritch. ‘I’ll be in Ostend on Sunday. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

‘You can’t be. If Ardal sees you, he might call the whole thing off. We can’t risk that.’

‘Rachel’s right, Eldritch,’ I said.

‘I’m going to have to become accustomed to you two joining forces against me, am I?’ He looked at us with his narrow, inscrutable gaze.

‘You know she’s right,’ I insisted.

He sighed. ‘I won’t be travelling with you, obviously. I’ll go tomorrow, alone. I’ll phone and let you know where I’m staying. Then, when you’ve laid hands on whatever it is Quilligan has and packed Cardale off back here, we’ll meet and proceed to Antwerp. Don’t worry. Quilligan won’t spot me. I’m no keener to renew our acquaintance than he is.’

‘What’s the big problem between you and him?’ asked Rachel.

Another sigh. ‘When we’ve wrapped this up, Rachel, I’ll tell you everything you want to know. Meanwhile, ask yourself this: why, out of all the Channel ports he could have chosen, did Quilligan opt for the one closest to Antwerp?’

‘I don’t know. Do you?’

‘No. But it makes you think, doesn’t it? At any rate, it makes me think. You’ll be spending most of Sunday with Cardale. Pump him for information about his uncle. See if you can find out whether Quilligan’s spent any time in Belgium recently.’

It was clear to me now what Eldritch suspected. But it was a suspicion that made no sense. ‘Ardal Quilligan can’t be our mystery man,’ I said. ‘Why would he hire us to search for proof he already has?’

‘Because he wants someone to do his dirty work for him. If I’m right, he’ll make it a condition of surrendering the proof that you deny you got it from him.’

‘Well, I’ll be happy to oblige him,’ said Rachel. ‘If that’s all it takes to get it.’

‘Of course. But remember: when your eyes are fixed on the prize, you don’t see the ground crumbling beneath your feet. Who is Quilligan afraid of ?’

‘Linley,’ I replied.

‘Exactly. And we should be afraid of him too.’

‘There’s nothing he can do to stop us,’ said Rachel.

Eldritch looked across at her as he took a thoughtful drag on his cigarette. ‘Let’s hope you’re right,’ he said softly.

Rachel was having none of Eldritch’s caution. ‘An old man who thinks a lot but not as sharply as he used to’ was her summing-up over a champagne cocktail in the Ritz bar. Eldritch had gone up to his room, claiming he was tired and needed a rest. This seemed to confirm Rachel’s view of him, which I half suspected was his intention. But my half-suspicions counted for very little compared with the intoxicating pleasure of Rachel’s company.

We dined by candlelight at a French restaurant in Soho, then headed out to Islington. I didn’t expect to be returning to the Ritz that night and Rachel clearly didn’t want me to, even though neither of us came out and said as much. We were still, to some degree, feeling our way.

The flat was in darkness. Marilyn had gone. We’d have the place
to ourselves until we left for Ostend and the prospect was a delicious one. Then, as we descended the basement steps, Rachel noticed something: a neat circular hole cut in one of the window-panes close to the latch. I knew at once what it meant.

The flat had been given the same treatment as Brenda Duthie’s house. Every drawer had been turned out, their contents scattered across the floor. Rachel began to cry as she stared at the chaos in her room, her confidence drained in an instant. ‘Linley’s on to us,’ she mumbled miserably. I did my best to comfort her, but the truth was undeniable. He
was
on to us. As Eldritch had foreseen.

I made some coffee. We drank it in the kitchen, where there were the fewest signs of disturbance. The caffeine, and several cigarettes, along with a large shot of Southern Comfort, restored Rachel’s equilibrium. She dried her eyes. More accurately, I dried them. Her stubbornness began to win out. ‘Whatever they were looking for, they won’t have found it. There’s nothing here they can use against me. All Linley’s accomplished by resorting to this is to piss me off, which I’ll make sure he regrets when my lawyers drag him into court.’

‘That’s the spirit,’ I said, kissing her softly.

‘Will you help me put everything back where it belongs?’

‘Of course.’

‘How are you on window repairs?’

‘Fair to middling.’

‘I want it so that Marilyn doesn’t notice anything’s happened when she comes back Sunday night.’

‘Aren’t you going to phone the police?’

‘What for? We know who did this. But they won’t be able to touch him, will they? No. This was designed to intimidate me. And it isn’t going to work.’

The clear-up didn’t take too long. Rachel was more or less certain by the end of it that nothing had been taken, which meant they really had found nothing to use against her – whoever
they
were. Eldritch’s suggestion that the Secret Service were staging break-ins
on Linley’s orders still struck me as far-fetched, but the fact remained that the break-ins had happened. Was there a dimension to this Eldritch wasn’t telling us about? In my own mind, I was convinced there was, but I was no closer to finding out what it might be.

I covered the hole in the window with cardboard, pending a proper repair in the morning, and took a turn round the square in case anyone was keeping watch on the flat. I saw no one except a man walking his dog who was clearly a local resident. His cheery ‘Good evening’ served somehow to propel the Secret Service theory further into the realms of improbability. A shady private investigator acting solo was nearer the mark. He was long gone, I reckoned. And he wouldn’t be coming back.

‘Once I’ve got the proof, I’ll phone my mom and have her come to Antwerp,’ Rachel said as we lay together in bed. ‘I want the family to be united when we reopen the case. I want us to win together. All we have to do now is get from now to then. Thank God I’ve got you to help me, Stephen. A pointless break-in isn’t going to stop us, is it? Nothing is. We’re going to nail this. We really are.’

Eldritch was in Ostend by the time we returned to the Ritz the following afternoon. He phoned at six, as promised, to report he’d booked into the Hotel du Parc. He gave me the address and telephone number and a final, predictable piece of advice. ‘Be careful tomorrow, Stephen. Be very careful. There’s a great deal riding on this.’

I needed no reminding of that, which was probably why I decided in the end not to tell him about the break-in. I took Rachel off to a West End musical for much the same reason. We needed distraction. We needed a reminder that a real if superficial world was whirling on its way while we prepared for our rendezvous in Belgium. It worked. We left the theatre light-hearted and unworried, as lovers should be, happy to let tomorrow take care of itself.

Only to be brought up short by the placard at the nearest newsstand: 85 INJURED IN OLYMPIA BLAST. The front page of the
Evening Standard
was devoted to a report that a bomb hidden in a bin had exploded at the Ideal Home Exhibition earlier in the day. It was undoubtedly the work of the IRA. Irish history, it seemed, was determined to dog all our footsteps.

‘Mom worries about me getting caught up in something like that,’ said Rachel as we stared bleakly at the headlines. ‘I guess she’d be pleased to know I’m leaving London tomorrow.’

‘You’ll soon be able to leave for good.’

She looked at me, her eyes in shadow. ‘If I want to.’

We walked on then in silence. I prayed that what she wanted and what I wanted would turn out to be the same; and that our journey to Belgium would free us to discover that it was.

Simon Cardale’s bullishness was undented when we met him at the gallery on a chill, grey morning, surrounded by the silence of a St James’s Sunday. Linley had phoned him, asking if we’d been in touch again, but he’d stonewalled successfully, at least to hear him tell it. He didn’t turn a hair at Eldritch’s absence and news of the break-in didn’t worry him, because, naturally, we didn’t mention it. His mood was still that of a man enjoying the sensation of having a long-carried burden lifted from his shoulders – a mood we wanted to last.

The drive down to Kent in his big Volvo estate was a rerun in reverse of the journey Eldritch had taken from Dover with Cardale’s grandfather thirty-six years earlier. I said nothing of that, of course, instead probing gently for information about Ardal Quilligan. Cardale couldn’t tell me much. He had no reason to think his uncle had spent any time in Antwerp, but he couldn’t rule it out either. ‘I don’t see or speak to him from one year’s end to another. He generally keeps himself to himself.’

It was only as the ferry was easing away from the dock at Dover that Rachel admitted she usually suffered from seasickness on such crossings. The swell that was running didn’t suggest this trip was going to be any different and the only antidote was to stay on deck in the fresh air, which became numbingly cold as soon as we left the harbour. Brief trips below to warm up were essential, during which I checked that all was well with Cardale. And so it was. Quietly installed in one of the lounges with his pipe and an Anthony Trollope novel, he looked preposterously contented.