Sidney Sheldon's Angel of the Dark (10 page)

The phone rang. They both stared at it, thinking the same thing.
Raquel.

“Keep your cool,” cautioned Claire. “Don't yell at her. And don't cry.”

Matt picked up the handset, shaking. “Hello?”

Danny McGuire's voice sounded distant and tinny, but the excitement and adrenaline were both clear as a bell. “There's been another murder. Last night, in Hong Kong.”

“Is it our guy?”

“Same MO,” said Danny. “Rape, bodies bound together, rich elderly victim. Miles Baring.”

Matt was silent for a moment. It took a few seconds for the full import of what McGuire was telling him to sink in. The killer was not only still out there. He was becoming bolder and more active. It had barely been a year since his last hit, and yet here he was, striking again on the opposite side of the world. Almost as if he knew that someone was watching him, knew that someone had finally found the scattered puzzle pieces and cared enough to try to arrange them into a coherent picture.
After ten long years, he's playing to an audience,
Matt found himself thinking.
He's playing to me.

“Where's the widow?”

The elation in Danny McGuire's voice was unmistakable. “That's the best part. The Hong Kong police have her in protective custody. I called the guy in charge and told him what happened with the other wives. Lisa Baring's not going anywhere.”

Matt hung up in a daze.

“Who was that?” asked Claire. “Not Raquel, I take it?”

“Hmm? No,” said Matt. “I need to go pack.”

“Pack?”
Claire looked at him despairingly. “Matthew! Have you listened to a word of what I just said?”

Matt walked over to his sister and kissed her on the cheek. “I have. And I agree with it all. You're absolutely right, and I promise to look for a job the moment I get back from Asia. In the meantime, how are you fixed for time? I don't suppose you could give me a lift to the airport, could you?”

H
ONG
K
ONG WAS LIKE NOTHING
M
ATT
Daley had ever seen before.

He considered himself a man of the world. Not in the James Bond sense, obviously. No one could call Matt Daley sophisticated; still less, suave. Most days he considered it an achievement if he remembered to go out wearing matching socks. But neither was he some Midwestern farm boy who'd never been exposed to other cultures. Matt might have grown up in a small town, but he'd lived in New York and traveled extensively in Europe and South America when he was in his early twenties. Even so, Hong Kong filled Matt Daley with genuine awe.

Central, the island's main commercial district, was packed with towers so impossibly tall they made Manhattan look like Lilliput. Lan Kwai Fong, the nightlife quarter and red-light district, glittered and screamed and stank, its narrow streets packed with some of the weirdest specimens humankind had to offer: juggling midgets, armless dancers, blind transvestite hookers and the ubiquitous, wide-eyed U.S. servicemen on shore leave, drinking it all in. It reminded Matt a little of Venice Beach, multiplied to the power of a thousand. Come to think of it, the whole of Hong Kong was like that.
Intensified.
The grass out in the New Territories was so green it glowed like a cartoon. In New York and London, shopping streets were crowded. Here they were overrun, infested, alive with humanity like a rotting corpse riddled with maggots. Matt's overriding
impression was of a place where everything happened in excess. Noises were louder, scents were stronger, lights were brighter and days were longer, apparently endless. Forget New York. Hong Kong was the real “city that never sleeps.” After a week Matt still couldn't decide whether he loved it or hated it.

Not that it really mattered. He wasn't here on vacation. He was here on a mission.

It had seemed such a simple proposition on the phone to Danny McGuire. Danny's division at Interpol was now “actively assisting” the Hong Kong Chinese police. In practice, this meant little more than that the two organizations were exchanging information. There was no talk of a response team on the ground or anything like that. But McGuire at least now had the legitimate Interpol-endorsed go-ahead to devote time to the case, including delving deeper into the prior murders “where relevant.” Matt's job was to fly out to Hong Kong, meet with Lisa Baring, the widow of the latest victim, and find out whatever he could. He would then feed that information back to Danny—strictly off-the-record, of course.

“If my bosses found out I was using civilian contacts in the field, or meddling in a member country's domestic investigation, I'd be canned faster than a dolphin in a tuna net.”

Ignoring Claire's handwringing injunctions to be careful, Matt had hopped on the Qantas flight to Hong Kong with high hopes. So far those hopes had shown no sign of realization. Making contact with Lisa Baring was proving to be mission impossible. Miles Baring, her husband, had been Hong Kong's Donald Trump, and his murder and the sexual attack on his stunning young wife were front-page news on the island. Media interest in the case was heightened by an almost total lack of available information. The Hong Kong police ran a tight ship and were not prone to giving press conferences merely to satisfy the curiosity of a salacious public. Miles and Lisa Baring had always fiercely guarded their privacy, and Mrs. Baring clearly saw no need to break this habit simply because her husband had been slaughtered in cold blood. Ensconced in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital on Gascoigne Road, she had made no public statement and apparently had no intention of doing so. Thanks in part to Interpol's warnings, the hospital building was surrounded by armed police. Other patients' visitors were strictly monitored, and not even delivery
men or medical staff came and went without a daily grilling. As for Mrs. Baring herself, the only people allowed access to her were her doctors and Chief Superintendent Liu, the Chinese detective in charge of the local investigation.

Unable to use Danny McGuire's name, or claim any connection with Interpol, Matt had fallen back on tried and tested telephone ruses.

He was a reporter with
60 Minutes,
putting together a piece on the wonderful efficiency of Liu and his team.

He was an attaché from the U.S. embassy, paying a courtesy visit to a fellow citizen in distress. (Lisa Baring was American by birth, a New Yorker, if the papers were to be believed.)

He was a lawyer bearing vital documents that only Mrs. Baring was permitted to sign off on.

The answer was always the same: “No visitors.”

Initially Matt stayed at a little guesthouse on the Peak. But the proprietress asked him to leave after a sinister-looking unmarked car with smoked windows took to parking outside the building day and night, leaving only when Matt did. Matt told Danny McGuire about the car.

“Do you think the Chinese might be watching me?”

Danny sounded worried. “I don't know. It's possible, although I can't think why. Be careful, Matt. Remember, the killer may still be local. While Lisa Baring's in Hong Kong, there's a good chance he's sticking around, biding his time till he can spirit her away like he did the others.”

“You think he tricked the other widows into leaving?”

“I think it's possible, yes. Maybe he had an accomplice, someone who lured the women away from the safety of their own homes and police protection so he could finish them off too.”

Matt wasn't convinced. “If he wanted the wives dead, why not just kill them at the scene? Why go to all the trouble of two separate murders?”

“I don't know,” said Danny. “Maybe as far as he's concerned, it's no trouble. Maybe he enjoys it.”

Matt shivered.

“All we know for sure about this guy is that he's dangerous as hell and he doesn't mess around. If he suspects you're on to him, you could be in real danger.”

Matt moved to the Marriott, a large, faceless hotel downtown, and the dark car disappeared. Occasionally he still had the eerie sensation that he was being followed, on the DLR, Hong Kong's subway, or on his way to the Starbucks next to the hospital, where Lisa Baring remained under armed guard. But he never saw anyone, or had anything concrete to report back to Danny.

With his funds running low and still no nearer to talking to the elusive Mrs. Baring, Matt was seriously contemplating flying back home empty-handed when an e-mail arrived from Danny McGuire's personal Gmail address.

“Delete this as soon as you've read it,” Danny wrote. “Liu sent it through today. I thought it might give you some leads.”

The next word of the e-mail sent Matt's heart rate racing.

Matt read the statement again and again, his mind crowded with questions. So much of what Lisa Baring said didn't make sense. Why had the servants not heard anything, or seen the man once he entered the house? There must have been scores of them there that night. How was a sophisticated security system disabled without anybody realizing?
Why would Miles Baring, an intelligent man in his late seventies, decide to physically challenge an armed assailant rather than press a panic button? He must have had opportunities to reach for the button while his wife was being tied up. Why, as Lisa Baring herself pointed out, did the attacker use a knife when he had a gun with a silencer?

Matt Daley didn't sleep that night. Instead he lay staring at the ceiling of his hotel room, his mind refusing to shut down. He realized he was starting to think of this killer as a shadow, unreal, like a character in some kind of potboiler mystery. But of course, he wasn't a shadow. He was human, flesh and blood, and he was out there tonight, sleeping and eating and thinking and living his life, despite the series of horrific crimes he had committed. Lisa Baring knew that man, not by name, but in a far more intimate, more real way. Lisa Baring had touched him, just like Angela Jakes, Tracey Henley and Irina Anjou had all touched him before her. She had heard his voice, smelled his breath and his sweat, felt the weight of him on top of her, inside her. To Matt he might seem like an enigma, a ghost. But to Lisa Baring he was very, very real.

I have to do it. Somehow I have to meet Lisa Baring.

I have to get to her before he does.

 

I
NSPECTOR
L
IU CLOSED HIS EYES AND
counted to ten. He had never much liked Western women. They were too opinionated, too stubborn, too arrogant. He couldn't imagine why Miles Baring hadn't chosen a more docile, pliable, Chinese woman as a wife. It would certainly have made his—Liu's—job a lot easier.

“I've told you why, Mrs. Baring,” he repeated patiently. “Your life may be in danger.”

Lisa Baring continued packing her things into a Louis Vuitton overnight case, ignoring him. Her doctors had discharged her from hospital that morning and she was up and dressed for the first time in weeks, wearing clothes her Hong Kong housekeeper, Joyce, had brought from home: Hudson jeans that accentuated her long legs, a white muslin blouse from Chloé and her favorite Lanvin ballet pumps. Her dark hair was tied back in a loose ponytail, and simple Tiffany diamond studs gleamed at her ears and neck, illuminating a face so naturally lovely that no makeup
could have improved it. Inspector Liu knew her to be in her midthirties, but as he watched her now, it was hard to believe. Her skin glowed like a teenager's. Unfortunately, she was as headstrong as a teenager too.

“I appreciate your concern, Mr. Liu,” she said breezily, “but I have no intention of living the rest of my life like a prisoner, looking over my shoulder. I don't want police protection.”

“You need it, Mrs. Baring.”

“Be that as it may, I refuse it. I decline it. I'm grateful for the offer, but my answer is no.”

Famed though he was for his equanimity, Inspector Liu felt a rare flash of real anger. “This isn't simply about your own safety, Mrs. Baring. As you know, we understand from Interpol that whoever raped you and killed your husband has raped and killed before. He will almost certainly try to do so again. We have a duty to prevent that from happening, to protect possible future victims. Surely you can see that.”

Lisa's perfect face looked pained. “Of course I can see that. No one is more eager to bring this bastard to justice than I am, Inspector, or to stop him from striking again. As I told you before, if he tries to make any sort of contact with me, or anything remotely suspicious happens, I will let you know immediately. But in the meantime, I must be allowed to live my life as I see fit. Miles and I have a holiday villa in Bali. It's secluded and safe. I'll be staying there until the media frenzy here dies down.”

Inspector Liu drew himself up to his full five feet four inches and said authoritatively, “I'm sorry, Mrs. Baring, but I'm afraid that's absolutely out of the question.”

Fifteen minutes later, in a blacked-out limousine on her way to Chek Lap Kok Airport, Lisa Baring spared a thought for the hapless Chinese policeman. He seemed like a sweet man, and he obviously meant well. But Lisa had seen enough cops in the past three weeks to last her a lifetime. Hong Kong was full of memories of Miles and what had happened, not to mention the media attempting to beat down her door. She had to get away.