Trust No One (22 page)

‘So how come your prints were on it? Jonesie asked you to fondle his weapon, did he?'

It didn't matter whether he really didn't believe her, or was simply protecting his own backside. Quite probably, there were others listening in. Either way, she was getting nowhere.

‘He made a half-arsed attempt to threaten me. I grabbed the gun off him and threw it across the room. Maybe he did it to get my prints on there.'

‘Frame you for his own murder? Even Jones wasn't that much of a fuckwit.'

‘They misled Jones. He thought he was helping set me up. He just didn't know what he was setting me up for.'

‘You need to work on your story, girl. When we catch up with you, you'll be telling it to more cynical buggers than me.' Another hesitation. ‘Something else you ought to know. You asked why you'd have killed Jones. You might have had a motive.'

‘What motive? I hardly knew him.'

‘What I hear, looks like Jones was involved in Jake Morton's death.'

‘Jones wouldn't have had the bottle,' she said. ‘He wasn't a killer.'

‘Maybe there to hold their coats. But looks like the gun that killed Jones was the one that killed Morton. They found some traces of blood on Jones' clothing – the used clothes in his wardrobe, I mean. The ones he was wearing were liberally covered with his own. This stuff's different. We're getting it checked but it could be Morton's.'

‘So what?' she said. ‘I wasn't happy about Morton's death, but it's not turned me into a screaming vigilante.'

‘That right? One more thing you should know, girl.'

‘What's that?'

‘Word is,' Welsby said, ‘that you and Morton were close. Any truth in that rumour?'

‘For Christ's sake, Keith. He was one of our major contacts, one of our best potential routes into Kerridge and Boyle. Of course I kept close to him. It was what I agreed with Hugh.'

‘Maybe too close?'

‘I'm a professional, Keith.' She could feel the lies dragging her further into the mire. How the hell did they know all this, anyway? Was it something else the phantom tipster had thrown into the pot? ‘What are you trying to say?'

‘I'm trying to say nothing, girl. Just letting you know what's being said. Ugly things, rumours.'

‘Keith, it's all bollocks. I've not done anything.'

‘Then get in here, lass, and let's sort it out.'

‘I can't, Keith. I don't know who to trust.'

‘You can trust me. Get yourself in here. You're only making things worse.'

She was almost tempted. Everything would become straightforward, one way or another. She simply had to keep telling her side of the story. Answer their questions. Point out the things that didn't make sense. Get forensics to prove she couldn't have fired Jones' handgun. Nice and simple.

Except that she didn't believe it would be. They'd got their claws into her now. The case was open and shut. Why would the local police complicate things by ignoring what appeared to be the obvious? Could forensics even prove a negative? After returning from her meeting with Jones she'd showered, changed her clothes, and put most of the old set into the wash. After all that, there'd probably be no evidence of her firing the gun in any case.

‘I can't come in, Keith. Not yet.'

‘You don't trust me?'

‘It's not like that, Keith. I wouldn't be able to deal with just you, would I? Somebody's set me up, and it's somebody pretty close to home.'

Before Welsby could reply, she cut the call. She turned off the phone, swallowed the dregs of her coffee, and made her way out of the coffee shop. In the street, she paused for a moment, took out the secure phone, opened the back and removed the SIM card. She dropped it to the pavement and ground it slowly under her heel. She repeated the process with the card from her own phone. Over the top, but she felt more comfortable with all links cut off.

She was conscious that, even in the limited time she'd been talking to Welsby, they might have got some sort of fix on her location. She hurried away from the Gardens up towards Piccadilly Station. She considered just jumping on the next train to anywhere that wasn't there. But they might have the station under surveillance. She was better off staying put.

Looking more confident than she felt, she made her way up the station approach, and then crossed through the glossy concourse, keeping her eyes peeled for any signs of police. There was a British Transport police officer hovering by the entrance to the platforms, but for the moment he was distracted by an elderly man asking for directions. She hurried out of his sight, down past the entrance to WH Smith, across to where the escalators led down to the taxi rank at the rear of the station. At that time of the morning, there were plenty of taxis, bored drivers chatting in the brightening sunshine. She approached the front of the rank and gave the driver the name of one of the large city centre hotels.

The hotel itself was less than half a mile away, but she felt disinclined to spend any more time out on the street. She was also conscious that she was about to arrive at a relatively upmarket hotel with no reservation, credit card or much in the way of luggage. Maybe the taxi would make her appear more credible.

The taxi driver was, fortunately, one of the taciturn types, and said nothing till they'd arrived outside the hotel. ‘Up on business?' he said, as he counted out her change. She'd asked for a receipt for appearances' sake, though she couldn't imagine that Welsby would be too keen to reimburse this trip.

‘Just for a day or two,' she said.

‘Hope the weather improves for you.'

‘Won't see much of it, anyway,' she said. ‘Stuck inside most of the time.' That was true enough, anyway.

She made her way into the expansive lobby of the hotel. It was a new construction, another offshoot of the city centre regeneration, with a well-reviewed first-floor restaurant with views over the city. She'd met clients here a couple of times.

She'd selected it partly on the grounds that it was more upmarket than Welsby or Salter would expect her to use. More upmarket, that was, than the soulless urban hotels where she typically met Salter. Those were the places the Agency budget stretched to. Functional, comfortable enough, but not luxurious.

It was likely that, once they realized she'd stayed in the city, they'd do a trawl of all the hotels. But she hoped that this place wouldn't be high on their initial shortlist, and it was large and discreet enough for her not to be exposed too easily. It was a counter-intuitive decision. Her first thought had been to seek out an anonymous back-street bed and breakfast, but she'd felt that would leave her too exposed. A suspicious landlord might ask questions about a woman travelling on her own, and, if her disappearance had been reported in the media, put two and two together. In this place, she'd be just one of many.

She took a deep breath to steady her nerves and approached the reception. A young man in a neat suit looked up and smiled. ‘How can I help you, madam?'

She glanced at her watch. ‘I'm a little early, but I've got a reservation for tonight. Wondered if there was a chance of checking in so I could freshen up? Penny Walker.'

The man nodded. ‘I'll just check for you, Ms Walker.' He had a trace of an Eastern European accept, though his English seemed flawless. He tapped away rapidly on his keyboard, then frowned. ‘You did say Walker?'

‘Yes. Penny. Penelope.'

The man tapped again. ‘I'm sorry, I can't seem to find it. It wouldn't be under any other name?'

‘I booked it through the office. Suppose it could be in the company name.' She gave him the name of a fictitious IT company.

He entered some more data, his frown growing more pronounced. ‘Doesn't seem to be there,' he said. ‘When did you make the booking?'

‘As I said, I didn't.' She allowed a touch of impatience to enter her voice. ‘It was done by my secretary, through the agency we use. Must have been a week or so back. You're sure it's not there?'

He was still tapping frantically. ‘No, I've tried variations on your name in case someone entered it wrongly. But there's nothing similar. You're sure it was for tonight?'

‘Well, I'm sure I asked for it for tonight,' she said. ‘Wouldn't be the first time somebody's cocked up, though.' She fumbled in her handbag for one of the inoperative mobile phones. ‘Let me check.'

She thumbed the phone's buttons as though accessing an address book and pressed the silent handset to her ear. She allowed a few seconds to pass, then said, ‘Gill, hi. It's me, Penny. Yeah, fine. Just arrived at the hotel, though, and they can't seem to find the reservation.' She paused, as though listening. ‘Well, that's what I thought. Have you got the confirmation?' Another pause. ‘And it definitely says for tonight. Have you got the reservation code?' She gestured silently to the hotel receptionist, who slid a pen and a notepad across to her. She scribbled out a set of numbers in the format used by the booking agency that she'd usually dealt with. ‘OK, I'll try them with that. I'll get back to you if I find myself out on the street.' She laughed with an undertone that indicated she wasn't entirely joking. She paused again, as though her imaginary interlocutor had continued the conversation. ‘No, no joy, I'm afraid. It's turning into a perfect day so far. Reported it to the police, but I'm not holding my breath. Thanks, Gill. Call you later.'

Switching off the fictitious call, she turned back to the receptionist. ‘Well, it was definitely booked. My secretary has the confirmation.' She pushed the scribbled code across the desk.

He drummed on the keyboard for a few more seconds, then said, ‘Ah.'

She caught her breath, wondering what he might have found, but realized that his frown had melted to a faint smile. His world was beginning to make sense again. ‘Can't find that code exactly. But we've a Mr Welford booked through the same agency,' he said. ‘Same initial. I bet the agency mixed up the two records. Happens all the time, I'm afraid.' And it's not our fault, was the unspoken subtext. He straightened, the smile fully operational again. ‘Luckily, we're not full. We can fit you in and still find room for Mr Welford, assuming he's actually expecting to stay here.' He made it sound as if he'd taken control of a situation that would otherwise have spiralled dramatically out of control. ‘We don't have any standard rooms available. But we can offer you an upgrade to one of our executive rooms. At no extra charge, of course, in the circumstances.'

She managed not to look too overwhelmed at this beneficence. ‘That's very kind.'

He completed the various administrative niceties and then said, ‘If you could just let me have a swipe of your credit card?'

‘That's my other problem,' she said. ‘That's what I was talking about to my secretary. My purse was snatched on the way up here. Some little bugger in the coffee bar at Euston. I put it down on the table for a minute, and he grabbed it and legged it before I could get near him.'

‘I'm sorry,' he said. His regret sounded genuine enough, but it wasn't clear whether it was directed towards her or himself.

‘It's a pain in the backside, that's all. Fortunately, there wasn't much cash in there. But I've had to cancel all my cards, and then there was all the stuff like driving licence, membership cards. You name it. There must be some special circle of hell reserved for little toerags like him.' She paused, warming to her theme. ‘And why does the bank need five working days to send you a replacement, that's what I want to know.'

The receptionist was looking baleful again, the expression of one who'd successfully deflected one major calamity only to find another coming along immediately behind it.

‘I'm going to have this problem all week,' she said. ‘So I went and got cash from the bank. Luckily I didn't lose my passport so I could still prove who I was. Is it OK if I just pay upfront?'

‘Well, I know it seems a little untrusting—'

‘Don't worry. I spend my professional life chasing up bad debt. It's just business.' She lifted up her handbag and pulled out a small selection of the cash. ‘Three nights,' she said. ‘So that totals . . .?'

She allowed him to make the simple calculation, giving him the sense that he was taking control again. When she'd paid out the money, he said, ‘I'm afraid you'll just have to pay for any extras as you go.'

‘Story of my life,' she said. They were both smiling again now.

Upstairs, the door locked behind her, she ran a hot bath, feeling an intense relief as she lowered himself into the scalding water. It was hardly the point to relax, she knew. This was no more than a temporary respite.

Jesus, there was no point in worrying. She'd done what she could. However she'd played it, she'd be fretting about the consequences. She was in a mess and all she could do was try to find the best way out of it.

She was becoming conscious, for the first time, of how difficult it was to stay hidden, even in a large city. She'd spent much of her career working in surveillance, but hadn't truly registered how all-pervasive it was. If she used her credit card, made a call, even just walked down the street, she was giving out clues about her location. They'd soon know, if they didn't already, that she'd withdrawn cash from a bank in the city centre. With time, they might even trace CCTV footage of her walking the surrounding streets, maybe even to the hair salon or the taxi. For the moment, though, they wouldn't know for sure whether she was still in the city, or whether she'd withdrawn the money to fund a move out of town.

Her biggest hope was that the local police wouldn't be giving this the highest priority. Even if he'd managed to keep his record clean, the police would know that Jones was a small-time crook, a legman for the bigger boys. He wouldn't be much missed, and certainly not by the police. They'd most likely assume that his murder was some bit of underworld business that wouldn't merit much more than token resources.