The Stone Wife
- Автор: Ловси Питер
- Серия: Peter Diamond #14
- Год: 2014
- Язык: английский
- Год: Sphere
- ISBN: 978-0-7515-5405-2
- Жанр: Полицейские детективы
Электронная книга - «The Stone Wife». Краткое содержание книги:
Unsure how to deal with this soul-baring, she watched him top up his cup. An insight into Nathan’s private life might be of use, but it wouldn’t be smart to put herself into a position where he felt he’d said too much and was getting nothing in return. She said, ‘I haven’t the faintest idea what’s on Lee’s mind.’
‘Don’t give me that crap,’ he said, dropping the civility straight away. ‘You’re close, you two. You must be.’
‘I only met her yesterday.’
He brushed that aside. ‘Who supplied the rope ladder?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘She didn’t bring it with her. I drove her to the ship for the shoot. I know a woman can stuff a lot in her bag, but I’m bloody sure there wasn’t a ladder in there.’
‘I can’t help you with this,’ Ingeborg said, doing her best to sound cool.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Ingeborg Smith.’
His lip curled.
She had a response she’d used a hundred times before. ‘I can’t help being called Smith, if that’s what bothers you. There are seven hundred thousand Smiths in Britain and I happen to be one of them.’
‘You’re a writer. Get a pen-name.’
She took this as humour and smiled. ‘It’s what I’m known as. Why change it now?’ On an inspiration, she added, ‘Wilbur Smith is one of the most famous writers in the world and he doesn’t find it a handicap.’
Nathan was unimpressed. He didn’t look like a book-lover. ‘If you didn’t know about the rope-ladder,’ he doggedly returned to his main line of enquiry, ‘how come you used it to get off the ship?’
‘It was hanging over the side when I ran along the deck. I was being chased. Your men were shining flashlights at me. What would you have done?’
Nathan wasn’t interested in replying.
‘They could have been armed,’ she added, becoming more confident. ‘Someone comes after me in the dark, I don’t hang about.’
Another temporary halt was called for the arrival of Nathan’s lunch, a plate piled high that made her think fleetingly of Peter Diamond. In this situation Diamond, like Nathan, wouldn’t have ordered the crêpes. But he might have approved of the way she was coping with the interrogation.
‘What was that about my men being armed?’ Nathan asked when the waitress was gone.
‘You’re a major player,’ she said. ‘I expect you need to defend yourself.’
He didn’t deny it. ‘Tell me what you know. Is Lily playing silly games or has she really jumped ship?’
‘I can’t answer that. I keep telling you we aren’t friends. My dealings with her are professional. She’s someone I arranged to interview, that’s all.’
He used his knife on the fried liver, served so rare that blood oozed from it. ‘I don’t like being pissed about. I invested a fortune in that girl. I treated her well.’ He looked up from his plate. ‘Did she say something was bugging her?’
‘Not to me. We hardly talked at all.’
‘After the shoot finished, did you speak?’
Ingeborg shook her head. ‘I went to the dressing room and they told me she’d already left.’
‘How soon was that?’
‘Not long after the wrap.’
‘Was she with anyone?’
‘They didn’t say so.’
Nathan used his blood-stained knife to stress what he said next. ‘She wasn’t acting alone. Some toe-rag supplied the ladder and fixed it to the side of the ship. She knew where to go, and she had wheels to get away. It was all arranged.’
Ingeborg had worked this out for herself. It didn’t require great deductive powers. She sipped her coffee and said nothing.
‘Am I reading it right?’ Nathan asked.
Difficult. Neutrality was her preferred stance. ‘I’m not in a position to say.’
‘Come on, I’ve checked your phone. You took pictures of her. You were with her.’
‘On and off.’
‘Was she nervous? Excitable? Angry?’
‘How would I know? We’d only just met.’
He pointed the knife at her. ‘You’re not helping.’
‘I’m being honest.’ And she added something which was not honest at all. ‘If you want to know who’s angry, I am. I’m angry with Lee. She played me for a sucker, letting me think I could get a magazine piece out of this.’
The mean eyes widened a fraction. Maybe she’d made a telling point. ‘Where was this going to appear?’
‘In one of the Sundays, probably.’
‘A national?’
She nodded.
Nathan was clearly interested. He pressed his fingers to his lips and tapped them thoughtfully. ‘It’s not like Lily to turn down the chance of publicity.’
She was content to let him think the matter through in his own time. If he came to the right conclusion this could be helpful.
‘The silly little bitch is bound to come to her senses soon,’ Nathan spoke his thoughts aloud. ‘She’ll find she can’t hack it as a pop star without me backing her every inch of the way. She’d never have got this far without me. She’s not answering my calls. All I get is some recorded message.’ He put down the knife and fork and leaned back in the chair. ‘But I know what to do.’
Ingeborg waited.
‘You can talk some sense into her.’
She shook her head, acting dim. ‘I don’t know how.’
‘Like I just said, she needs to be in the papers all the time, or she’ll find herself at the bottom of the heap. Tell her you still want to write about her, even though she let you down.’
‘But we don’t know where she is.’
‘She’ll have her phone with her. Call her on your mobile.’
‘You took it off me.’
‘Play along and you can have it back. I don’t know why you’re bothered about the phone. There’s fuck all on it.’
‘It’s brand new,’ she said, which was true. ‘I got it especially for this project. It’s supposed to take better pictures than my old one.’ In reality she would have been idiotic to have brought her own phone with all its data. ‘Can I have it back now?’
‘All in good time. You and I are going to strike a deal. She’s not answering my calls, but you can bet your little cotton socks she’ll talk to you. What did Mrs. Thatcher call it? The oxygen of publicity?’
‘Something like that.’ In her wildest dreams she hadn’t expected to hear Margaret Thatcher being quoted by Nathan Hazael.
‘It’s neat,’ he said, leaning back and rubbing his hands. ‘I’ll tell you what to say. We’ll soon find out who she’s shacking up with.’
‘And what do I get out of the deal?’
‘Your ticket of leave. You’ll be free to go after I get her back.’
‘I can’t guarantee she’ll come back.’
‘Don’t you worry about that,’ Nathan said. ‘When I know where she is, I’ll fetch her.’ A simple statement of intent with a grim subtext. He dipped his hand into a pocket of the robe and produced Ingeborg’s phone and held it out. ‘Call her now.’
She took the phone and let it rest in her palm as if she’d never seen it before.
Put on the spot like this, she felt her veins ice up. She hated the idea that Lee would be tricked into revealing where she was and brought back by force. But if Nathan didn’t get his way, the ferocity would swing in another direction. He was in charge here.
Crunch time.
The bigger picture was that she couldn’t allow herself to fall out with Nathan. Her reason for being here was to get the truth about the hold-up at the auction and the fatal shooting. She needed to stay on speaking terms with the man. She felt a strong empathy with Lee, but it wasn’t a case of Lee being totally ignorant about Nathan’s intentions. The singer would be expecting him to come after her. She’d lived with him and she knew he wouldn’t be dumped without a fight.