NO KISS FOR THE DEVIL (Gavin & Palmer 5) (7 page)

‘Not really.
She comes down three or four times a year, just for a short visit. I keep a
room ready for her, just in case. The last time was a fortnight ago. I think
she needs some quiet time down here every now and then when life in London gets
too much for her.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s always lovely to see her, though, to
hear about what she’s doing. She’s forever on the go, looking for the next
story. But that’s the thing with young people, isn’t it? You have to keep on top
of things, otherwise they find someone else to take your place.’

‘They?’

‘Well, your
employers. It’s all so cut-throat, these days.’ She sighed regretfully. ‘Still,
Helen seems to manage. Although…’ She paused and gave him an uncertain look.

‘Although?’ Palmer
waited.

‘Well, when she
was here before, about a month ago, she was really excited. She’d picked up an
assignment to do a story – an exclusive, she said. Nobody else had got a sniff
of it. I asked her what it was about, but she wouldn’t say. It was all
hush-hush, apparently, and she wasn’t allowed to divulge anything. I thought it
was silly – I mean, it’s not as if I’d know anything about it, living down
here. I don’t exactly trot off down the pub every evening and gossip, do I?’

Palmer forced
himself to be patient. Was this something important she was about to reveal, or
had it been one of Helen’s other normal jobs she was excited about? ‘But that
sounds good, doesn’t it? Exclusives are hard to come by.’ Even as he spoke, he
began to feel a trickle of unease. Knowing the nature of Riley’s work, he was
aware that one of the big problems about so-called exclusives was that by their
nature, they often entailed risk. Had Helen taken on too big a risk for the
chance of a headline story?

‘Well, if you
say so, dear. But the next time I spoke to her, she sounded a bit down. She’d
been away for a brief holiday, but it didn’t seem to have done her much good. I
asked what was the matter, but she just said it was pressure of work. It was so
unlike her. The last time I’d seen her down like that was almost a year ago, I
think it was, when she broke up with her boyfriend.’ She smiled at the memory.
‘I was hoping it would go the distance, that one. But Helen… well, she’s not
the sort to settle down. Not yet, anyway. A bit like her mother, I suppose:
footloose and fancy free.’

Palmer shifted
uneasily, disturbed by a flush of sadness. It was a mere flicker, but Mrs
Demelzer caught it and eyed him in surprise, as if a switch had been thrown.

‘It was you,
wasn’t it?’ she exclaimed, then nodded without waiting for his reply.
Reassured, she rattled on. ‘God, I must be having a senior moment. Frank. Of
course. She lost her old briefcase…it got damaged. That’s right - and the new
one you bought her had a shoulder strap and nice gold buckles. It was very
smart.’ She squeezed her shoulders upwards in a gesture of enjoyment, eyes
shining. ‘She was so pleased with that briefcase, you’ve no idea. She uses it
all the time, cramming it with all sorts of stuff. Well, she loves being busy,
doesn’t she – although I’ve no idea what she’s doing at the moment.’

Palmer waited,
desperate to push the questions and get away from here. This suddenly didn’t
look as if it would lead anywhere useful. Whatever Helen did when she was down
here was unconnected with her work. And if she had sent money to her friend, so
what?

Then the old
lady gave him a lead in. ‘Still, I suppose you’d know more about that than me,
wouldn’t you?’

Palmer thought
his hold on the cup would snap the handle. ‘Why do you say that?’ he asked
casually.

‘You mean you
haven’t seen your post?’

Palmer shook
his head. ‘I’ve been abroad.’

‘Oh. Well, that
explains it. She rang me a few days ago. Said I’d be getting some money, and
not to bank it but spend it on something nice. It was so kind of her.’ She
frowned. ‘I didn’t want to take it, to be honest, but Helen can be very
obstinate when she wants to – just like her mother used to be. I’ll probably
use it to decorate her room, which will be honours even, don’t you think?’

Palmer nodded.
‘You weren’t a diplomat by profession, were you?’

She laughed
outright. ‘Good gracious, no. I’m far too blunt. Anyway, the cheque came – from
a place in London. She also asked me to bundle up any bits of paper she’d left
in her room from her last visit. Doodles, they looked like to me – the sort
people do when they’re on the phone a lot, like Helen always is, even when she
comes down here. So I did what she asked: I went through her room and put
everything in an envelope. Even the scraps in her wastebasket. Well, they were
no good to the dustman and I didn’t want to throw out anything important by
mistake.’

Palmer went
still. ‘Did she say why she wanted them?’

‘Not really. I
assumed she’d mislaid a jotting or something, and needed to find it. She was
always making notes of one thing or another.’

‘What did you
do with them?’

The old lady
gave him a wary look, as if he was simple. ‘Well, I did what Helen asked: I put
them in an envelope and sent them to you.’

‘Me?’ Palmer
was stunned.

‘Yes. You
should have received it by now.’ She picked up the teapot. ‘Would you like more
tea?’

By the time Palmer
drove away from the cottage, his mind was in a spin. He felt guilty at not
having told Mrs Demelzer about Helen’s death. But to have done so would have
set off a train of action and reaction he would not have been able to explain.
It was best to leave it to the police family liaison people. They were trained
for it.

He thought
about the briefcase, which the old lady said Helen had been so pleased with.
Helen was the complete journalist and writer, virtually living by what she
could carry: notepad, digital recorder, mobile phone – actually, ditch that, he
remembered; she’d had a new Blackberry which did all of those things. She’d
shown it to him one evening, when they’d been out for dinner. Later, as they
were saying goodnight – Palmer had a late-night surveillance job on - Helen had
placed her briefcase on the ground by his car. He’d forgotten about it and
driven off, mashing one corner with a rear tyre. Fortunately, nothing else had
been damaged, and buying her a replacement was the least he could do. He knew
she liked black, but all he could find of a similar make was burgundy. It was
lightweight leather with gold fittings, and she’d been thrilled with it. He
could still recall her comment afterwards.

‘Frank,’ she’d
teased him with a gentle hint of sarcasm. ‘Where on God’s earth did a man like
you find a leather briefcase light enough not to pull a woman’s arm out of its
socket?’ She had followed it with a comment about his idea of luggage being an
army issue kitbag made of canvas with a rope handle.

‘Actually,’
he’d replied, feigning wounded pride, ‘I got it in a little place off Bond
Street. I’m not a complete Philistine.’

By the time he
was back on the M3 heading towards London, Palmer was wrestling with two major
questions. The answer to one could be in the large brown envelope sitting among
the junk mail on his desk. The envelope Helen had asked Mrs Demelzer to send
him, even though it was months since they’d seen each other. Exactly why she’d
done that was a mystery.

The other
question was less likely to be answered so quickly. It concerned Helen’s
burgundy briefcase with the gold fittings; the portable office that held every
detail of her day-to-day work. If it had been in the car with her, the police
would have known everything about her within minutes. There would have been no
need to call Riley out in the hopes of an early identification.

So if it wasn’t
in the car, where was it?

***********

‘Miss Gavin? This
way, please.’ The speaker was a slim, balding man with the colourless air of an
academic. He was of medium height and build, and wore a plain grey suit with a
maroon tie and black shoes. He was holding a clipboard and had appeared from
nowhere within seconds of Riley approaching the frosted-glass reception desk of
the modern hotel in Bloomsbury. It was a few minutes before two o’clock.

‘You will be
meeting with our Mr Richard Varley,’ the man informed her. Varley was the name
on the email Riley had received. Without introducing himself or giving Riley an
opportunity to ask questions, the man turned and set off down a corridor
towards the rear of the hotel.

He stopped in
the entrance to an open lounge area and indicated a figure sitting in one
corner. There was nobody else in the room. ‘Please.’ He smiled briefly, then
turned and walked away.

Riley crossed
the room and watched as the man in front of her rose to his feet. He was well
over six feet tall, with impressively broad shoulders and large hands, and she
wondered if he was a former sports professional turned businessman. He was
striking rather than good looking, with high cheekbones and tanned skin. He was
dressed in a beautifully-cut suit, with a colourful silk tie and white shirt.
The clothes hung well from his large frame, and Riley guessed he was in his
early forties.

‘Miss Gavin.
How nice of you to come. Richard Varley.’ He spoke with an American accent. He
stepped forward to meet her, his hand engulfing hers completely. His touch was
warm and dry, like his smile, and he had very white teeth and dark, friendly
eyes. She noticed with approval a faint lemony tang in the air around him.
‘Would you like some tea?’ he asked, and gestured to a tray on the table behind
him.

‘Yes, please.’

Even as he poured,
Varley studied Riley openly. He seemed unabashed at her noticing. When he’d
finished pouring, he gestured at the milk and she nodded assent. He slid the
cup towards her and sat back to continue his study.

Riley began to
bristle under this scrutiny. ‘Do I pass muster?’ she said. With the events of
the past twenty-four hours, the last thing she needed was some crummy business
type on the trawl for an easy pick-up.

He looked
surprised and shook himself. ‘My apologies – I’m so sorry for staring, Miss Gavin.
It’s just that I get to meet with so many people in the course of my work – and
most of them are guys.’ He shrugged and gave a sheepish grin. ‘I’m just
enjoying the change, that’s all. Please don’t be offended.’

Riley picked up
her cup and sipped the tea, uncertain if he was toying with her or not. She’d
met plenty of men who had made similar if not more blatant approaches, most of
them with less charm and a less ready display of embarrassment. She chose to
give Varley a chance before deciding that a predatory eye was sufficient reason
to throw away the assignment. ‘What did you want to talk about?’ she asked.

He reached into
a briefcase by his side and produced a magazine. It was glossy, colourful and
high quality, and carried the title East European Trade in bold type across the
top. He passed it across to her.

‘The people I
represent are committed to providing high-quality, fully-verifiable ethical
material for this journal. It’s monthly, on subscription only, and aimed at
decision-makers in government, finance and international business. It has a
high cover price, but that’s reflected by the level of information they
specialise in.’ He smiled openly. ‘Actually, it’s pretty boring stuff – about
east-west trade, mostly – but they have a target audience that deals in
billions – trillions, even – so the quality and nature of what goes between the
covers is very, very influenced by the readership.’ He shrugged. ‘And that
works the other way round, of course.’

‘Sounds heavy,’
Riley commented. She flicked to the inside cover page and read through the
information about the publishers. Ercovoy News Press was new to her, but this
wasn’t her usual area of operations. They listed editorial offices in London,
Madrid and Brussels – all P.O. Boxes, she noticed - and a production office at
Atcheveli 3-24, Sokhumi, Republic of Georgia. ‘Is this where you come from?’
She was surprised; he sounded so all-American.

‘Hell, no.’ He
chuckled good-naturedly. ‘I’m an army brat, originally from the deep south. My
dad was a career officer, so I guess you could say I’m from all over. I’ve
always loved Europe, though, so I’m pleased to be based here now. I’m the
editor-at-large. The production office is purely a base for collating the
material.’

‘I see.’

‘We like to
think,’ Varley continued, steering her back on-track, ‘that what we publish has
high-impact potential. Our coverage is often of subject material most people
won’t have heard about on the usual wires.’

Riley nodded,
ignoring Varley’s excited sales patter. He talked like an MBA marketing clone,
although he seemed genuinely less over-the-top zealous than some. She scanned
the pages. There was an article on mineral exploration in Kazakhstan; the
results of a study into reducing pollution in the Caspian and Black Seas; a
profile piece about a member of the Turkish parliament who was also one of the
country’s biggest shipping magnates; a debate on the threat of aggressive
cross-border trade from the bullish emerging Chinese markets, and the need for
manufacturing investment and infrastructure across the states of the former
Soviet Union. Boring and worthy, she thought. But presumably, someone,
somewhere, read it, and if Varley was right, some would set their political or
commercial agenda accordingly.

‘Is this for
European content only?’

‘Not at all.
The content is slanted towards Eastern Europe purely because that’s where the
bulk of international investment is heading right now. But it’s read by
government departments everywhere, so we try to reflect that, too. By
everywhere, I mean the US, Europe, China, India, the Middle East – and
Westminster, of course.’ He raised open palms. ‘Like I said, this gets seen by
some very key people. And the content is also about some very key people.’