Hot Ice (12 page)

Chris is feeling pleased as the taxi draws up outside the Bronstein’s home. Her trip has been successful. She can shop around tomorrow without feeling guilty. As she steps out and pays, she notices Jon jump up from his garden seat and hurry towards her. He’s clearly angry.

‘Sharon suspects that you saw Moses Freeman this afternoon. Did you?’ Clutching her elbow he hurries her into the house.

Chris is expecting trouble, but not this fast. She takes off her coat and hangs it on a peg in the porch before answering.

‘Actually, yes. That’s what I came for.’

Sharon joins them looking worried.

‘You’re mad. Well, that settles it. You’re getting out of New York tonight. Don’t take this the wrong way, Chris, you’re always welcome here, but right now I won’t relax until you’re safely back in
London.’ Jon’s words sound friendly, but his eyes tell a different story and throw her into a state of anxiety.

‘But I’ve only just arrived, Jon. I have other appointments here.’

The most pressing of which are with Manhattan’s department stores. She’s promised herself a few hours of shopping. After all, it’s Saturday tomorrow.

Jon shrugs. ‘Next time! I took the liberty of checking the flights back and I’ve booked you tentatively on British Airways at eight p.m. You must be there two hours beforehand, so maybe you’d better pack your gear.’

Annoyed by his imperious tone, Chris glances at her watch. ‘I can move into a hotel…really, Jon, that would be better.’

‘I feel responsible for you. I’ll only relax when you’re back in London.’

‘You’re not hearing me.’ She turns to Sharon for moral support. ‘I have work to do.’

‘Of course you’re staying. Don’t listen to Jon. He’s over-reacting.’ Sharon’s voice has a reproachful tinge. ‘Besides, I’ve prepared a special dinner, a traditional Jewish meal.’

‘It’s not as if it’s forever,’ Jon argues, trying to placate Sharon. ‘Chris can come back in a few weeks time, but only when Freeman is safely locked up.’

Chris longs to tell Jon to mind his own business,
but she knows he means well. Freeman is innocent of Ben’s murder, she feels that intuitively, but Jon needs facts, not intuition. At the same time she’s unwilling to increase the family tensions.

‘Listen, Chris!’ Jon makes an obvious effort to control his irritation. ‘Freeman knows where Ben was staying. Did you give him the impression that you worked with Ben?’

‘Absolutely not.’ Unless Freeman gets through to Husam, which he will, and probably has. Her twinge of fear is quickly quelled. ‘He could find out,’ she adds humbly. The reason for Jon’s panic hits home hard. ‘Oh my God! I didn’t think along those lines at all. But listen…Freeman didn’t know that he was implicated in Ben’s death…he didn’t even know that Ben had died.’ Suddenly she chokes on the word and blinks hard while she struggles to recover.

‘Freeman turned pale when I told him about the note the cab driver brought. It was weird. He was terribly shaken…he couldn’t get rid of me quickly enough. He insisted that I leave New York at once.’

Jon’s eyes burn with anger. ‘If it wasn’t Freeman, then who else knew about Ben’s investigation? Or where Ben was staying? Or the fact that Ben had seen Freeman and asked a whole lot of questions about diamond laundering? In other words, who or what are we up against? We’ve only seen the driver.’

Now Sharon looks scared, too. ‘Ben was a fighter. He was in the Israeli army, just like Jon. He
wouldn’t be overcome by that skinny old man.’

‘You stuck your neck out by going there, Chris. That’s your right, but this is our home and the kids’ safety is uppermost in our minds.’

Jon is trying to be reasonable, which makes Chris feel even worse. Suddenly she’s overcome with remorse. ‘I’ll leave right away…and I’ll take a taxi…give me twenty minutes.’

‘Nonsense.’ Jon calls after her. ‘We’ll take you to the airport. It’ll be a treat for the kids.’

The decision is taken out of their hands when Barry has a nosebleed and throws up. Jon is reluctant to leave Sharon alone, so finally he calls a taxi.

While Sharon is putting Barry to bed, Chris takes Jon aside.

‘Listen, Jon. I’m sorry, but someone has to tell the FBI about the note the taxi driver brought to Ben, and exactly how Ben found out where Freeman lives. It’s vital. You or I must…’

‘Leave it to me,’ he says distractedly. ‘I didn’t want to get this diamond business publicised. Later, when they told us Ben was murdered…well…having left it so late, I didn’t know how to tell them the truth.’

Chris packs and goes to find Sharon, who is in the nursery looking upset. ‘I brought some London presents for the children…’

‘Thank you, Chris. I’m sorry. Jon’s paranoid about the kids.’

‘Who can blame him? Look…’

‘Here’s the taxi, Chris,’ Jon calls.

‘Say goodbye to them for me.’ She hugs Sharon, promises to return soon, and hurries to the taxi.

‘Change of plan,’ Chris tells the driver, as they leave the house. ‘Find me a hotel in Manhattan.’ She leans back, exhales with a whoosh, and consciously tries to relax.

Manhattan is jam-packed and finally she has to settle for a costly suite in the tower block of the New York Palace Hotel, where she dines alone in splendour and yawns all the way back to her suite on the thirty-fifth floor. She’s been up for
twenty-four
hours. She places the ‘do not disturb’ sign on her door handle and goes to bed.

Chris wakes with a sense of excitement. From her corner suite she has two marvellous views stretching to far horizons shrouded in purple mists. From this height, the streets, the cars and the people, resemble figures in an animated toy town, while the cathedral far below looks like a child’s flat building block. She’s loving it all and she can’t wait to get out there. She’ll skip breakfast, she decides, as she dresses hurriedly.

By late afternoon, Chris and her spare cash have parted company; she’s used all her available credit and she’s had to buy another suitcase. She returns to the hotel to shower and change in time for her reservation at The Four Seasons, where she’s
booked a table for one. She’s running late, but she lingers at the window to watch the sun, a hazy crimson globe, sink over the misty Hudson river. She’s crazy about New York and sad to leave.

Chris is dreamily listening to trickling water, admiring the decor and enjoying her Parma ham and melon with ice-cold, dry Californian wine when she looks up, startled by a sense of being watched. She’s right. Jim Stark, remittance man,
ex-Bostonian
, ex-con, currently broke, or at any rate beached on Husam’s shores, is staring at her from across the room. He waves and weaves his way through the tables. She feels trapped. How has he found her? And why should he want to find her? And how did he know she is here in New York? Even the Bronsteins think she is back in London. She feels like a hunted fox, but there are no convenient bolt holes to hand, so she pretends not to notice him.

He pauses by her table. ‘What a coincidence! If it isn’t a certain lady of the night and self-proclaimed spook, sitting here looking so demure…no glitter eye-shadow, no split skirt, no deep
décolleté
. Clearly you’re not on the game this evening. Taking a break, Miss Winters? Or may I call you Chris?’

‘You’re being offensive. I don’t believe in coincidences. How and why did you find me?’

‘May I join you?’

‘Only if you answer my questions…truthfully.’

He sits down and beckons to the waiter. ‘I
followed your flagrant paper chase. You were willing me to find you.’ He’s smiling, but his eyes are derisive and remote.

‘I was not. What a cheek! What paper chase?’

‘Showering your credit cards all over Manhattan. Fortunately I have a friend working at the bank.’

‘How did you know I was here?’

‘Your hotel porter was persuaded to tell me.’

‘But no one knows I’m staying at that hotel.’

‘No one?’ He’s mocking her. ‘You must have told someone, since I know. Besides, you’ve picked up more tails than a Chinese kite. Even for a zany, untrained investigator you seem curiously unaware of your surroundings.’

He’s talking nonsense, of course. She longs to pummel his grinning face into dust.

‘You copied my keys and sent a man around to search my office.’

‘You must think your files are very valuable for me to go to such extraordinary efforts. What could you possibly know that I don’t know?’

The waiter arrives to take Jim’s order. For a while they discuss the menu. For an ex-security guard he seems to have extravagant tastes. Does Jim know she lost him his job? she wonders.

‘Why are you following me? What do you want from me?’

‘I’m merely doing my job. Prince Husam needs to know why FI Inc. are so interested in his bank and his business. Perhaps you’d like to tell me.’

Jim’s not as smart as he thinks he is, Chris decides, leaning back and smiling softly. Husam knows very well what she’s investigating because she told him, which means that Jim’s lying. Besides, he’s been sacked.

‘I’ll trade off,’ she replies. ‘Tell me who’s following me.’

Jim’s supercilious smile fades. ‘Two men. So far I’ve only managed to check out one of them.’ Suddenly he’s serious. ‘He’s dark-skinned and bearded. Notice anyone like that? When he’s not tailing you he teaches Pashto part-time, mainly freelancing, and he translates from Pashto to English and vice-versa for publishers when he gets the chance.’

‘That’s crazy. Are you sure?’

‘Sure I’m sure.’

‘And the other one?’

‘I don’t know yet. Stick around and I’ll sort it out for you.’

‘But why should I, and why should you want to? Why did you follow me here? Try to tell the truth this time. Husam knows about my investigation. Besides, you don’t work there anymore.’

‘Thanks to you. It’s obvious, isn’t it? You’re lovely, clever, resourceful and I long to get to know you better…much better. I’d hate you to get hurt.’

‘That sounds like a threat. I have no desire to engage in silly games with you,’ she says primly as she beckons to the waiter and stands up.

‘It wasn’t a threat. Please don’t go. I meant what I said. Look, let’s get one thing straight,’ he says, leaning towards her across the table. ‘I knew you were on an investigation when I watched you hit on Prince Husam. It was clumsily done and I guessed it was a first attempt. I followed you, and found you’d just joined FI. With your qualifications you could only be a financial investigator.

‘It didn’t take long to find out that you’d been appointed PA to Ben Searle, but he has been showing unusual interest in al-Qaeda…going to lectures, buying books, visiting the mosques and talking to Islamic fundamentalists, followed by a visit to Afghanistan three months ago. It seems to me that you’re continuing with Searle’s investigation.’

So Jim was investigating Ben Searle even before she joined the company. His interest in her makes sense now. If he’s not lying this time.

Is Jim waiting for an answer? Chris isn’t sure. She isn’t concentrating, for Jim, with his brooding dark eyes and his pensive expression, is throwing her off balance. He turns her on and for Chris this is a major disaster. She steers clear of any situation where she’s not in control. She’s not a power freak…nothing like that. It’s just that she trusts herself and no one else. Mum’s the trusting kind and look what happened to her. She can’t think why Jim should have this disastrous effect on her.
Perhaps it’s his eyes. There’s a reckless glint there, a hint of smug assurance, as if he’s always one step ahead. He’s ruthless and he’s crooked.

‘This is no job for a young woman, however smart a lawyer she may be,’ Jim is saying. ‘With Searle dead, you’re in the front line. Any normal, full-blooded American male would worry about you.’

‘What on earth do you use for a pretext when you’re tailing a man?’

‘Much the same, darling,’ he murmurs in a falsetto voice.

She laughs. She can’t help it, and she can’t stop either. He’s stopped pretending and it’s a relief to be off her guard momentarily. ‘You’re an idiot.’

‘How about letting this idiot show you a little of Manhattan’s night-life…a night on the tiles? Come on…how about it?’

Of course Jim doesn’t fancy her. A new angle occurs to Chris: what if his security job is merely a cover. What if he and Husam are running a criminal gang? What if he had Ben killed? She must play along, she decides, and sooner or later he’ll slip up and she’ll learn just how he fits into her enquiry.

‘Maybe.’ She sits down slowly and tries out a sexy smile which doesn’t seem to work too well. Jim raises one eyebrow and gives her an amused look that zooms straight into her psyche.

He knows exactly what he’s doing to me. Perhaps it’s his ruthlessness that turns me on.
Danger always entices me. It’s like taking a leap from the top trapeze…or a bungee jump…that split second as you fall…like a death wish…I feel it now…I’m on a high because he’s irresistible…and deadly. She decides to ignore his crass pretensions to find her irresistible.

‘I’m beginning to have more faith in you, Chris. You always leave yourself an escape route. What do we have to do to get rid of the
maybe
?’

‘Tell me more about yourself before I decide,’ she prevaricates.

‘Where would you like me to start?’

‘At the beginning. Why not?’

‘OK. As a kid, there were few things I hated more than fish pie and rice pudding. At school we got both every Friday.’

‘What school was that?’

He shrugs. ‘A special school for gifted children in Washington. They’re not short of gifted children around those parts. Later, I specialised in East European languages. My mother was Russian, so I had a head start. My father owned a Chicago-based tyre factory. He met my mother when he took part in a marketing campaign in Moscow. When my parents split, my mother returned to Russia, but my father wouldn’t let me leave the States. Not even for holidays. I blamed him for the split, so we didn’t get along too well.’

‘And was it his fault?’

‘I don’t have your legal mind… You lawyers
seem to be able to pinpoint the truth, depending upon your stance, but I can’t answer your question.