Pursued by Shadows (15 page)

Harriet looked over at John, but he seemed to have gone to sleep. She shook her head helplessly.

“Okay. My turn.” Ed rose to his feet, wandered restlessly over to look into the garden, turned and leaned on the railing. “I'll give you a motive for killing someone.”

“What's that?”

“Well—we've been looking around too, you know. And further to inquiries, as we say, made in Lindsay, Ontario, concerning the family of one Jane Sinclair, disappeared, you'll never guess what we found out.”

“They're broke,” said John, opening an eye once again.

“True. They are—or were—broke. How did you figure that out?”

“We ate in their restaurant. It looked like an operation that had been going broke for a while. Slowly.”

“It had been. They owed a lot of money—the bank, their suppliers, and they were being pushed hard to start paying people. Then six thousand dollars appeared in their bank account on May 21, thus rescuing them—at least temporarily—from a bad situation.”

“Jane?”

“Who else? And in the last year, since they've been looking after Agnes, Jane has been sending money to the Sinclairs.”

“How much?”

“About four thousand.”

“I don't see what you're getting at. Unless you're trying to tell me that they were offended that she sent them money and killed her to soothe their wounded pride.” John swung his feet off the table and sat up.

“Wait. We asked the Sinclairs about the legal guardianship of the child, just in case something has happened to their daughter. And they admitted that before Jane left them with the baby, she made out a brief will in which she left all her money in trust for Agnes, naming them as guardians and trustees.”

“Big deal. That sounds like being left the lifetime profits from Moose Pasture Petroleum and Development Corp.”

“Yeah, it would have been. Except that Beaumont's dead too.”

“And?”

“He made a will and left everything split between Jane Sinclair and his daughter, Agnes Beaumont. And if Jane died before he did, then Agnes got it all. That's a nice little nest egg for the kid.”

“It still sounds like Moose Pasture Development Corp. How much are we talking about?”

“Nobody's sure, not until the paintings are all catalogued and sold, they tell me. But it will be at least a hundred or a hundred and fifty. Maybe more.”

“Dollars?” asked Harriet skeptically.

“Thousands,” said Dubinsky.

“My God. I had no idea the stingy bastard had that much cash,” said Harriet.

“But they can't get their hands on the capital. It belongs to the kid. So that's still only ten or twelve thousand a year,” objected John. “Hardly enough to retire on.”

“Maybe that's all they need between themselves and going under,” said Harriet. “No wonder they looked edgy when we started to ask questions.”

“They did?”

“Well—I thought they did, anyway. They looked at us as if we'd come from the Children's Aid to take the baby away.”

“We've got them out beating the bushes up there, looking for a body,” Ed went on, ignoring the valuable observations flying around him. “And we've been in contact with the state of New York. They said that they already had an inquiry about her, and that they still haven't found her. They sounded just a little pissed off, I thought. I assumed that was you people, trampling around.”

“There wasn't a murder investigation to trample on at that point, if you'll remember,” said Harriet. “I was just looking for my friend.”

John put what was left of his beer on the deck beside him and extracted himself from the deck chair. “You ready?” he asked.

“For what?” asked Harriet.

“To go over to his apartment and visit your poor friend, Peter, who must be suffering terrible agonies and feeling very lonely by now.”

“John,” said Dubinsky, raising an exasperated hand to stop him, “what in hell are you trying to do to yourself?”

“Just visiting a friend,” said Sanders. “Or am I under house arrest?”

The preliminaries were over in record time: the presentation of the fruit, the tut-tutting over his bandaged arm, the comments about the city not being as safe as it used to be. At that point the other visitors—two young men and a woman of a vaguely artistic appearance, introduced as having been fellow students at the art college—departed, leaving the comfortable chairs to Harriet and John.

Harriet smiled brightly at Peter. “So,” she said abruptly, “tell us about the map.”

Peter Bellingham's boyishly sweet face turned white. “What map are you talking about?” he said, rather feebly. “Could you get me some water?” he asked, in an even weaker voice. “There's some Evian in the refrigerator. I find visitors rather exhausting.”

“Bullshit,” said John. “The map that everyone's been searching for. That map. The one that Jane Sinclair offered to the Ellis Gallery, only they don't deal in stolen and otherwise fraudulently acquired merchandise.”

“She offered it to a gallery? Jane?” asked Peter incredulously.

Sanders nodded. “Your Jane. Remember? The love of your life?”

“That stupid bitch. That stupid thieving bitch. She had the damn thing all along.” He shook his head. “We should have known.”

“Who's we?” asked Sanders.

“Me,” said Bellingham. “And Guy, of course.”

“Whose map is it?” asked Harriet.

“It's none of your goddamn business whose map it is. I don't have it. I've never had it. I don't know where it came from. I've never even seen the fucking map. Besides, even if I knew, why the hell should I tell you?”

“Because John here might be able to look after you a bit—arrange for you to live a little longer, and maybe even to do it out of prison,” said Harriet. “I would say it's time to throw in the towel and jump over to the good guys.”

“Why? Do you want me to end up like Guy?” he muttered. “Listen—I'm lying low until whoever it is out there disappears. I'm sorry, but I'm not a hero. And all I know is that there is a map, somewhere. And some people think it's worth a bundle. There. You have it.”

“Tell us about Malcolm Whiteside.”

“I don't know—”

“The hell you don't. There are people willing to swear that you and he were drinking buddies.”

“Shit,” muttered Peter, nibbling on the side of his thumb with a worried look on his face. “I guess I'd better explain, but I have a feeling I'm going to be awful sorry about this.”

“Sergeant Dubinsky will be up in a moment to take a statement,” said John, walking over to the window and waving. “He can arrange for security for you as long as you appear to be threatened.” He walked over to the door and leaned heavily on the buzzer.

“Appear to whom?” asked Peter, suspiciously.

“To us, of course,” said John. “Who else?”

Peter shook his head and waited glumly for Dubinsky to come in and get settled. “Okay,” he said briskly, like someone determined to get it over with, “it started in London, about two or three months ago, while I was staying with Guy at his flat. We ran into this man named Malcolm at a pub where a lot of artists hang out. Well—he and Guy really hit it off. Which was funny because as far as Guy was concerned, Malcolm was a real faggot—that was what Guy called him behind his back,” he added hastily, “not me—and Guy wasn't very—well—broadminded—about gays, you know. He could be pretty crude when he wanted to be.”

“Is that it?” asked Dubinsky.

“Oh, God, no,” said Peter. “That was just that first night. Then Guy began hanging around the pub on a regular basis—almost every day—and one night, Malcolm started talking about this project that he was involved in, that was supposed to make him a fortune, except that it was going to make the bastards who thought it up a lot more money than he was getting. This really bothered him. Anyway, it turned out later—I'll just kind of lump all these conversations together—”

“Thank God,” muttered John.

Peter glared at him. “It turned out to be a map, and that they had given him twenty thousand pounds to acquire it and they were going to pay him another twenty on delivery. Only he had more expenses than he thought, and they just laughed when he asked them for extra money to cover them.”

“Tell us about the map.”

“He didn't tell us a lot. He said it was the map that Columbus used to get to the West Indies, and it had been hidden away in a library in Spain for five hundred years. I guess it cost a lot to get it—in bribes, and paying for it. He was pretty vague about the details, and I didn't like to ask. He was really pissed off with these guys. I asked him why he didn't just sell it himself, and he said you needed good contacts to sell something like that.”

“So this was a real map we're talking about?” asked Harriet.

“Oh yes. It's real, all right. Anyway, we figured that if we got the map, Nina would be able—”

“Mrs. Smithson?” asked Dubinsky.

“Yeah, Nina. So he worked out something with Malcolm that he would pick up the map before the others did, and pay him extra.”

“Where did he get the money?” asked Sanders.

“I don't know. Maybe from Nina, maybe he had it squirreled away. You never knew with Guy. He always talked poor, but there was plenty in his bank account. So Guy went over—”

“Alone.”

“Yeah, alone. The whole thing wasn't exactly legal or whatever, and he didn't want witnesses. He paid him twenty-five thousand in cash and picked up the map. Then I guess when the others got to Malcolm's and there wasn't a map they killed him. At least, he was killed. It was in the paper and it sounds to me as though that was probably why. Then Jane walked out on Guy and the map disappeared. So she must have taken it.”

“And who's after you?” asked Dubinsky. “The map fairy?”

Peter frowned, annoyed. “Whoever originally hired Malcolm, I guess. I mean, I think those guys were big-time professionals, and they must have been pretty pissed off that they didn't get the map.”

“So they flew all the way over here to get it back. Well—I've heard weirder stories.”

The first thing Lesley saw as she got off the elevator the next morning was the chambermaid's trolley. She picked up her pace along the hall, hoping to head the maid off. Breakfast had been greasy and sickening, the sun had been pounding on her aching head, and she was slimy with perspiration. Her stomach knotted painfully; her heart fluttered and pounded; no matter how she gasped, she could not force enough air into her lungs. She needed a shower to restore her balance. With a smile and a flash of long legs she beat the maid to the room, inserted her key, and opened the door.

She looked at her room and sighed. Her shoulders relaxed and a half-smile played at the edges of her mouth. By some odd and contradictory operation of her mental processes, the state it was in unjangled her nerve ends and dried up her profuse sweating. The waiting was over. It had happened. She was right. Those footsteps were not imaginary.

Anyone would think from looking at it that the room had contained the formula for turning lead into gold hidden away in it somewhere. She glanced around her, rapidly assessing the damage, and settled down to the task of restoring order as calmly as if she were tidying up the living room after a family visit. She replaced the mattress on its base, slid the drawers back in their slots, picked up her clothes and put them back in her suitcase. She was pleased to note that all the hiding places that she had thought of had been checked: the tissue container was wrenched out, the toilet tank lid sat upside down on the seat, the light fixture in the bathroom had been dismantled. It made her feel rather professional. She twisted in the last screw in the overhead light, pushed the cover of the heating and air conditioning system back where it belonged, stripped off her clothes, and composedly took a shower.

After a certain amount of consideration, she decided to start out in her running shoes that day, and she walked out of the hotel with a long, easy stride, looking comfortable and competent. She turned south on Broadway and headed for the bus station.

The morning was already hot. As she moved farther downtown, a few sleepy whores on the early shift trickled out to join her on the pavement. They chatted amiably with each other, in English and in Spanish, leaning in shafts of sunlight against the graffiti-decked brick of the walls, observing her lazily as she went by. Markets opened up, and red, yellow, green exotic fruit and vegetables were piled up in scented profusion on the crowded sidewalks to lure her into pausing. Next to them the smells of ancient sweat, urine, and feces coiled up from the narrow spaces and basement stairways to claw at her as she hurried past. The sun drenched the buildings with magical light, restoring the grace and harmony of their original designs, only slightly marred by accidents of time and place. Lesley saw, heard, smelled none of it in her single-minded rush.

She took a key from her shoulder bag and opened a locker in the station; from it she extracted the attaché case. It held no terrors for her now. Protected by the certainty that the danger pursuing her was real and physical and therefore trivial in the cosmic scale of things, she turned and walked, moving at a quick and yet somehow unhurried pace, out of the station, looking only straight ahead of her.

She had no idea how long it took her to walk back to the dealer's shop. She moved in a bubble of her own making that shielded her like an armored vehicle from the shocks and hazards of the city. Cabs honked and came squealing to a halt as she stepped in front of them; she became invisible behind her insulating screen to those who live by preying on the weak.

She laid the attaché case on the counter and smiled at the bookish-looking man who stood behind it. “Good morning,” she said, in an educated, gentle, but somewhat inhuman voice. “A very pleasant morning, is it not?” Each word hung in the air, until, heavy with hypnotic calm, it fell. “Mr. Southfield? Or are you Mr. Pitt?”