Perfect Strangers Page 13

  She wished he would be compassionate, but then what did she expect from a man like Josh McCormack?

  ‘What was he going to do to me, Josh?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘At a guess, the Spanish Prisoner,’ he said finally.

  ‘The Spanish what?’

  ‘It’s one of the oldest cons in the book. Basically, he would convice you he was rich, pay for everything, shower you with presents, until you completely trusted him. Then he would suddenly need money: some investment gone bad, a bridging loan on a building development – it doesn’t really matter. In the old days, the con would need a ransom for a wealthy nobleman captured by the Spanish, hence the name. Anyway, you would offer the money, he would reluctantly accept – and then he’d disappear.’

  ‘So everything he said to me was a lie?’ she croaked.

  Josh gave her that sympathetic look again, and Sophie began to hate him for it.

  ‘Sophie, you’re a beautiful woman.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe what you two had together wasn’t just work, I can’t say. But that was what Nick did; he used rich women, conned them, lived off them. You asked me what his business was. That’s what he did.’

  For a few moments Sophie couldn’t speak.

  ‘But how come . . .’ she began, but Josh held up a hand.

  ‘Later, Sophie. If you don’t get some clothes on soon, you’re going to do that hit man’s job for him.’

  He pulled something out of a box.

  ‘Here, try these. I can’t see much, so forgive me if it’s not exactly colour co-ordinated.’

  He handed Sophie an armful of clothes, all seemingly brand new and covered with crinkly cellophane. Sophie held up a dress on a hanger. It had an elaborate blue and gold print she recognised.

  ‘Versace?’ she said. ‘It’s this season, too. How did you . . .?’

  ‘Don’t ask,’ said Josh, handing her a pair of black patent pumps. ‘I’ve guessed the size, but there are most sizes back there. Just shout if the coat’s too much as well.’

  Sophie looked at her new wardrobe with disbelief. Either Josh’s friend spent his weekends ram-raiding Bond Street, or he was very connected in Milan, though Sophie seriously doubted whether the top fashion houses would be happy to store their valuable stock in some run-down garage clinging to the side of the Thames.

  ‘Josh, are these fakes?’

  ‘At this moment in time, I thought you’d be grateful to wear anything. Fake or authentic.’

  ‘I am, but . . .’ The thing was, her knickers were still soaking, but she didn’t want to point that out.

  He threw her a pair of Calvin Klein men’s trunks.

  ‘Best I can do. Sorry,’ he said with a half-smile.

  He gave her privacy as she dried off properly and got into the clothes. He was right, she didn’t care what sort they were, especially when she pulled on the heavy wool coat and wrapped her arms about herself. Finally the chill was starting to leave her bones, at least. Still, she was far from comfortable being here, stranded in some Fagin’s hideout, with unknown assailants – possibly killers – on her trail. She didn’t know where she was going to go next, she just knew she wanted to get out of there.

  ‘We need to get to a phone and call Inspector Fox,’ she said.

  ‘No, Sophie,’ he said. ‘It’s not safe to talk to the police.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Number one,’ he said, ‘you said it yourself, you’re the prime suspect in Nick’s murder. After you called me, I went straight on the net – and Nick’s death is the top news story. Number two, you say a Met inspector is going to your flat? That saves him getting a warrant. Now maybe this guy is as straight as a die, but what if he’s not? He could be planting any sort of evidence in your knicker drawer. My bet is that they’ll arrest you within twenty-four hours even if it’s just to be seen to be doing something. And then it’s in their interest to find something to make it stick. No one wants to look stupid, especially with the media watching.’

  ‘But they’re the police, they can’t do that.’

  He turned round and peeled off his wet boxer shorts. She tried to look away, but she couldn’t resist sneaking a peek before he pulled on his own Calvins.

  ‘Number three,’ he added, oblivious. ‘Even if they’re not planning on pinning this on you, we really don’t want the police to know where we are in any case.’

  He put on a suit which Sophie noticed had a Gucci tag hanging from it.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she frowned.

  ‘Okay. You read the papers, right? You know how they’re always going on about institutionalised racism in the police force?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, it’s crap. “Racism” is actually just a euphemism for “corruption”. There’s corruption right through the force, but no one will admit it, because frankly, there’s nothing anyone can do about it. In fact, if you ask me, it’s the only way they can do a decent job.’

  Sophie shook her head.

  ‘I don’t understand. You’re saying that all policemen are corrupt?’

  ‘Not all, no. But some are. Tip-offs, bribes, kick-backs, it all goes on. Somebody gets killed, it’s on the news within minutes. I bet there were reporters at Nick’s hotel when they took you out, yeah?’

  She had to nod; it had been horrible – shoving cameras up against the glass of the car, shouting out questions; she had felt like a criminal.

  ‘Sophie, right now, you have thugs on your trail who have killed and will kill again. At a push, I’d say they are gangsters. Albanian, Kosovan. Russian. People like that have power, connections, even inside the police. All it will take is a call to the right person, the appropriate amount of cash – and bingo, they’ve found you.’

  ‘You’re beginning to make jail sound like an appealing option.’

  ‘You’re not safe there either; in fact you could be a sitting target.’

  She wondered briefly if Josh was saying this from personal experience; whether he had ever seen the inside of a prison cell.

  ‘So what are we going to do?’

  ‘We?’ replied Josh quickly.

  ‘Sorry,’ stuttered Sophie. ‘I just assumed . . .’

  ‘I’ve saved you from armed thugs and given you the best counterfeit Versace on the market already,’ he said. ‘What more to do you expect from me?’

  It was true; he’d already done so much for her, but she couldn’t go home, she couldn’t go to the police. She had nowhere else to go.

  ‘Please, Josh,’ she said softly. ‘I need . . . I need a friend right now.’

  ‘Spare me the emotional blackmail.’

  ‘Josh, I need you.’

  He paused, rubbing the stubble on his chin.

  ‘You didn’t even bring me those beers,’ he muttered under his breath.

  ‘So you’ll help me?’ she said, feeling a dart of hope.

  ‘I can’t exactly go back to my houseboat, can I?’ he said, looking at her. ‘Thanks to you, whoever those shooters are now know where I live.’

  ‘Exactly, so we need to find out who they are and what they want.’

  He frowned, his dark brows knitting together.

  ‘Now listen to me, this isn’t a game. If I’m going to help you, you’ve got to tell me everything – leave nothing out, however small or embarrassing, okay?’

  ‘Thank you, thank you,’ she said, her shoulders slumping in relief.

  Josh grunted.

  ‘And you do exactly what I say, when I say, we clear on that?’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  Josh pulled a face. ‘If only I could believe that were true.’ He exhaled loudly. ‘All right, first things first. Did Nick give you anything? A file, a computer disk, anything?’

  Sophie looked down at the floor. She had been over and over this in her head.

  ‘Nothing. I almost wish he had,’ she said. ‘Then it would make some sort of sense.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t really matter. It’s enough that they think you
have something.’

  ‘But what is it?’ said Sophie, her voice rising. ‘What was Nick mixed up in?’

  ‘I told you we weren’t good friends, not lately anyway,’ said Josh carefully. ‘But we go way back; once or twice we’ve even worked together. So when we did meet, we’d talk about stuff. The last time I saw him, I was in Paris, at a watch expo, he was in the city on business and we bumped into each other at a fashion party. He told me he’d been working in Paris and the South of France on a job, a big job. Lucrative.’

  ‘He said he’d spent the last few months in Paris but wasn’t specific about what he was doing there.’

  Josh shrugged. ‘Nick was never specific.’

  ‘So you don’t know what the job was either?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Do you think it might have something to do with his death?’

  ‘Who knows. But money is always a strong motive for murder. Money and women,’ he added, looking straight at her.

  She ignored the jibe.

  ‘Well, he did tell me he was going back to Houston, which suggests maybe the job was finished,’ she said hopefully.

  ‘He said he was going back to Houston,’ said Josh, raising his eyebrows. ‘He was a con man, remember.’

  She cupped her hands in front of her face in frustration. ‘This is useless, Josh. We don’t know anything, we can’t tell anyone where we are and we can’t trust anyone! What the hell are we going to do?’

  She looked up and saw the beginnings of a smile on his face.

  ‘I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,’ said Josh in a low, conspiratorial voice. ‘We’re going to go to Paris.’

  16

  Ruth had been curled up in the footwell behind the driver’s seat of her Fiesta for nearly half an hour. She had cramp in both legs, and as she’d had a coat over her head the entire time, she was finding it hard to breathe. This wasn’t how she had planned to spend her evening. She’d pictured herself unpacking her suitcase at David’s, maybe ordering Chinese in and celebrating having taken their relationship to the next level. But no, she was cowering like a wild animal in a parked car somewhere in a Chelsea wasteland.

  She tensed as she heard a sharp rap on the car’s window. Don’t move, don’t move, she thought, imagining an armed assassin looming over the car.

  Tap-tap-tap! The knocking was more insistent now, and she could hear a muffled voice through the window.

  ‘Ruth Boden, are you in there? It’s Detective Inspector Fox.’

  Fox? Inspector Fox?

  ‘Hallelujah,’ she muttered, and uncurled her body, throwing off the coat. Everything ached, one leg had pins and needles, yet somehow she managed to reach out to unlock the door.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ said a gruff voice.

  ‘Hiding, what does it look like?’ she said grumpily as she clambered out of the car. ‘What took you? I’ve been in there hours.’

  She looked up to see amused eyes – and her heart sank. She recognised the face, the sharp suit instantly. It was one of the detectives who had been at the Riverton. Standing on the pavement, she kicked out her legs, one at a time, trying to get the feeling back.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ she said finally.

  ‘Dan Davis called me as soon as you rang him. I was on my way to Battersea and came straight here.’

  He paused.

  ‘So do you want to tell me how you’ve come to be hiding in the footwell of your car?’

  She looked up at him.

  ‘How about I tell you over a beer?’ she said. ‘I’ve been under that coat for almost an hour, and if I don’t get some liquid down my throat, I think I might just melt here on the sidewalk.’

  ‘Okay. Give me one minute,’ he said, before walking to a squad car that had pulled up behind Ruth’s Fiesta. He had a word with a uniformed officer before beckoning Ruth into the passenger seat of his own vehicle.

  Ruth suggested the Cross Keys, a popular pub just behind Cheyne Walk, and on the way filled him in on her evening: her visit to Sophie Ellis’s Battersea apartment and how she had followed her to this lonely stretch of the Thames.

  ‘I was just doing my job,’ she said, glancing across at Fox’s face, unsmiling in the driver’s seat.

  ‘How do you know this Sophie Ellis is connected to the Riverton murder?’ he said, indicating left off the main road.

  ‘I’m a reporter,’ she said with a small smile. ‘Anyway, I’m right, aren’t I? That’s why you were going over to Battersea. To see her – she told me she’d had her flat broken into.’

  Fox said nothing as he pulled into a parking space.

  ‘Let’s just get a drink.’

  The pub was busy, full of loud Chelsea twenty-somethings. DI Ian Fox didn’t look at all comfortable, so she sent him to the bar while she found a chesterfield sofa in the corner.

  She watched him weave back through the crowds, holding aloft two overflowing pint pots. He was scrupulous in not letting the amber liquid spill on to his suit.

  ‘So are you going to tell me what you told Dan?’ Fox handed her a glass of lager, then rubbed his wet fingers with a tissue. ‘You can start with why you were actually following Miss Ellis to the wharf. I assume that’s what happened. You were tailing her, right?’

  He had a gruffness that made Ruth feel reprimanded.

  ‘I bumped into her outside her house,’ she replied with mock haughtiness. She watched Fox nod cynically. ‘She said she was going to meet someone, so as a reporter, interested in the same thing as you are – who killed Nick Beddingfield – I followed her.’

  ‘I get the feeling you’re the sort of writer who’s prepared to go above and beyond in the name of a story. Like sneaking into hotel rooms that happen to be a crime scene, for example?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Ruth, feeling her cheeks flush a little. ‘So you recognised me.’

  Fox waved a hand as if it was nothing, but it was hard to read his expression. He had dark, brooding features that easily looked cross or impatient. She shifted position to look at him more directly.

  ‘Sophie got a taxi from her apartment to the wharf. I parked about fifty metres from the jetty because I didn’t want her to see me,’ said Ruth, taking a sip of her beer. ‘I was still close enough to see her disappear into one of those houseboats, and I was debating whether to go follow her when a black SUV came and parked opposite the wharf.’

  ‘Was Sophie still in the houseboat?’

  Ruth nodded. ‘She was in there maybe ten minutes. When she came out, she seemed angry about something. The next thing I know, two knuckleheads had got out of the car and were blocking her way.’

  ‘Could you hear what they were saying?’

  She felt foam on her lip and wiped it off.

  ‘No, I was too far away. And I was glad of it too. When the black SUV arrived, I thought it was creepy. I locked my car doors and was ready to speed off at any second.’

  ‘But you stayed?’

  ‘As you said, Detective, I go above and beyond in the name of a story.’ She popped another piece of nicotine gum. ‘So tell me, is Sophie Ellis your prime suspect? Do you have any other leads? And what else do you know about the victim other than the “Nick Beddingfield, businessman” statement crap you gave out earlier today?’

  Fox’s expression remained neutral.

  ‘That’s a lot of questions.’

  She wasn’t sure if he was suppressing a smile or was actually patronising her.

  ‘I’m a journalist.’

  ‘And you know all the press need to know for the time being. Surely you’ve got enough information to file your story.’

  ‘I don’t want a story. I want the story,’ she said quietly. ‘So come on, quid pro quo. I’m telling you what happened at the wharf; you need to tell me something.’

  For a moment he didn’t react.

  ‘Okay, get back to the wharf and I’ll tell you what you want to know. Within reason.’

  She clasped her hands together and leant
forward. ‘So this guy comes out of the houseboat and joins Sophie. Thirty-something, good-looking. He might have held her hand.’

  ‘You think it was another boyfriend?’ asked Fox.

  ‘Hard to say.’ She shrugged. ‘Anyway, when one of the meatheads swings for the boat guy, he kicks him, grabs Sophie and they run.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know, somewhere off to my right. I didn’t exactly have stalls seats. It was dark by then and I was watching most of it in the rear-view mirror.

  Now she had his full attention.

  ‘So why did you phone Dan Davis?’

  ‘Because I heard a gunshot. You may think I’m some hardhearted hack, but I was worried about the girl. You’d rather I hadn’t called you?’

  Fox rubbed his chin.

  ‘Sorry, I’ve been on shift since six thirty this morning and I’ve had to deal with a body somewhere in the middle. I’d rather be at home right now – no offence.’

  Ruth smiled.

  ‘None taken, Inspector Charmer.’

  Fox sat forward, a serious look on his face.

  ‘Look, Ruth, this is my case, and tired or not, I want to find out who killed Nick Beddingfield. So to answer your question, yes, right now Sophie Ellis is our main lead, and when you called Davis and said you’d seen her at the wharf and someone was shooting at her, I considered it useful.’

  ‘Fair enough, but the clock’s ticking, Detective. I need to go and write my story. Quid pro quo, remember?’

  Fox looked irritated.

  ‘We are not partners, Miss Boden. I am a police officer and you are a journalist. I need information from you, which you are legally obliged to give me. There is no reciprocal arrangement.’

  Ruth bristled, but she could tell Fox was not the sort of man who would respond well to a shouting match in a public place. Come on, Ruth, she thought to herself, use your feminine wiles.

  ‘You’re the boss.’ She had very little cleavage to thrust at him, but she gave him a slow, practised smile – one meant to flatter the male ego.

  ‘You must have a theory about it all. There was dark green glass on the floor which looked like it came from a champagne bottle. The wound on the head. On paper, it looks like a crime of passion.’