Under Orders (34 page)

‘I don’t know,’ I said. I was worried about what reaction the next day’s edition of
The Pump
might produce.

‘I’d love to,’ said Marina. ‘I’ll be fine. Don’t fuss.’

‘OK,’ I said, ‘but I am going to organise a security guard to go with you, and no arguments. He will sit quietly in the corner of the restaurant and not disturb you, but I would be happier.’

‘Fine,’ said Marina. ‘Charles, tell Jenny that would be lovely and I will see her tomorrow at twelve thirty.’

‘Right,’ he said, and disappeared again.

I went out to see him off and make my peace with his wounded pride.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to sound so cross when I found you asleep.’

‘No, it’s all right,’ he said. ‘It is me who should be sorry. During the First World War soldiers in the British Army could be executed for falling asleep on guard duty.’

‘That’s a bit extreme, isn’t it?’ I said.

‘Not at all. One dozing sentry could have allowed a surprise attack that might have killed hundreds.’

‘Thankfully, nothing like that happened here.’

We shook hands warmly and I walked him to the lift.

‘I’ll pop round tomorrow,’ said Charles, ‘to see the girls when they get back from lunch.’

‘That would be great,’ I said. ‘But take care. Mount Vesuvius has nothing on the eruption that’s going to occur tomorrow morning when
The Pump
comes out. Don’t get in the way of the molten lava. It might be dangerous.’

‘I’ll be careful,’ he said. ‘I’ve dodged more than my share of molten metal in my life.’ He had been a junior officer on HMS
Amethyst
during the Yangtze incident.

I decided that, much as I loved him, I should no longer place Marina’s security in the hands of a septuagenarian retired naval admiral with a penchant for single malt whisky, so I called a
fellow private sleuth who worked for a firm that had a bodyguard department and asked for their help.

Certainly, Mr Halley, they said, they would happily provide a bodyguard for Miss Marina van der Meer, starting at eight o’clock the next morning until further notice. Great, I said, and gave them the address.

As I put the phone down, I began to wish I had asked for their help immediately. I could imagine the presses at
The Pump
busy churning out tomorrow’s copy with its banner headlines. Poking a stick into a hornets’ nest had nothing on this. I shivered. Too late now.

And tomorrow’s newspaper would be available at about eleven this evening, round the corner at Victoria Station. I looked at my watch. Five hours to go.

I spent much of the evening making duplicates of the videotape from my little chat with Juliet. I had made one copy at Kate’s using her video recorder in the sitting room. Chris had taken it with him as he was pretty certain that, without the actual tape,
The Pump
’s lawyers weren’t going to let him write anything about the Enstones.

‘All your bloody fault,’ he’d said.

‘How come?’

‘You remember that last time when the paper went after you?’ he’d said. ‘You know, all that stuff a few years ago.’

I’d nodded. How could I forget.

‘Well, nothing gets in now unless it’s passed by the libel lawyers and they’re pretty tight after you took us to the cleaners.’

I hadn’t. They had got off lightly.

Now I made six further copies on to VHS tapes between performing my nursing and domestic duties around the flat. I
steamed some salmon fillets in the microwave for dinner and Marina and I ate them in front of the television with trays on our laps.

Marina’s salmon remained only half eaten as she watched the tape with growing fascination.

‘I really don’t think I want to meet this Peter,’ she said.

‘You already have,’ I said. ‘He was wearing motorcycle leathers.’

‘Oh, yes. So he was.’ She rubbed her knee.

My phone rang. It was Chris Beecher.

‘It’s all in,’ he said. ‘Front page! They allowed me to do the lot.’ He was very excited.

‘Good,’ I said, ‘you’ve done well.’ It was under seven hours since we had left Lambourn.

‘Where’s Juliet?’ I asked him.

‘Bricking herself in the Donnington Valley Hotel,’ he said. ‘She has tried to call me on my mobile at least fifteen times but I won’t answer. She leaves messages saying she doesn’t want to be named. Bit late now!’ He laughed. ‘If she wanted it off the record, she should have said so at the beginning, not after the event.’

‘Will she stay there?’ I asked.

‘What would you do?’ he said. ‘I don’t reckon she’ll go back to her place. I think we can safely say that young Mr Peter is not going to be best pleased with her in the morning. If I were in her shoes I’d stay put in the hotel and keep my head down.’

In her Jimmy Choo shoes, I thought. Young Mr George is not going to be too pleased with her, either.

‘Right then,’ I said. ‘Now that I know that the story will definitely be in the paper tomorrow, I’ll get these other tapes off to their new homes.’

‘Yes,’ Chris said, ‘and… thanks, Sid. Guess I owe you one.’

‘More than one, you bugger.’

He laughed and hung up. He wasn’t a bad soul, but I still wouldn’t be sharing any of my secrets with him in the future. Not unless I wanted to read them in the paper.

I spent some time packing the six videotapes into large white padded envelopes and then went round to Victoria Station to await the papers. I made sure that the door was properly locked and told Marina not to open it under any circumstances, even if someone shouted that the building was burning down.

At ten minutes past eleven, I watched a bale of
Pump
s being thrown out of a delivery van. It was tied up with string but the paper’s headline was clearly visible.

‘MURDERER’ it read across the whole width, above a large smiling photograph of Peter Enstone. The picture editor obviously had a sense of humour. He had chosen to show an old shot of Peter in bow-tie and dinner jacket receiving the prize for Best Young Amateur Rider at an annual racing awards dinner.

I waited impatiently while the news-stand staff cut the strings and stacked the papers on a shelf. I suddenly felt very vulnerable as I picked up seven copies and stood there, in the open, paying for them. I could clearly feel the hairs rising on the back of my neck.

I turned round and looked behind me but, of course, there was no one there. Just some late-night revellers making their unsteady way to their trains home.

With the papers safely tucked under my arm, I went swiftly back to the flat to find that all was well, and not a fire to be seen. I let myself in and locked the door behind me. Marina and I sat at either end of the sofa and each read a copy of
The Pump
.

Chris Beecher had done a great job. Everything was there. Juliet’s story was largely quoted word for word and there were pictures of Huw Walker and Bill Burton, and one each of Jonny Enstone and George Lochs. I was pleased to note that my usual
Pump
mug shot was not included. Indeed, there was hardly a mention of me by name at all, except as the partner of the girl who had been shot in London.

It was a true hatchet job with the comment section of the paper getting in on the act to criticise Enstone senior for having produced such a monster.

I was still packing the relevant pages of
The Pump
into the padded envelopes at a quarter to midnight when the buzzer of the internal phone sounded outside the kitchen door. The porter/security downstairs informed me that my pre-ordered late-night courier service had arrived.

I took five of the envelopes downstairs with me in the lift. I was slightly taken aback to find a motorcyclist in reception dressed in black leathers and wearing a full-face helmet, but he turned out to be the real thing, a courier and not a gunman. He took the packages and assured me they would be delivered during the night.

‘The first three can arrive any time you like,’ I said. ‘The fourth must arrive after five o’clock when you’ll probably find him feeding his cattle. And the fifth should be delivered last, on your way back.’

‘Right.’ His voice was muffled by the helmet that he seemed determined not to remove. He stuffed the packages in a bag and swung it onto his back.

‘Don’t go to sleep and fall off your bike,’ I said.

‘I won’t,’ he mumbled, and left.

What would be his route, I wondered. New Scotland Yard
first, I expected, for Detective Superintendent Aldridge, then on to Thames Valley Police headquarters in Oxfordshire to drop the one for Inspector Johnson. Then down to Cheltenham to deliver the one for my friend Chief Inspector Carlisle. Next to South Wales, to Brecon, to find Evan Walker’s farm for package four.

Finally, on his way back, the motorcyclist’s last stop was to be at the House of Lords. Package five was for his lordship. The videotape was in case he didn’t believe what he read in the newspapers.

The bodyguard I had arranged for Marina arrived promptly at eight and turned out to be a six-foot-two ex-Marine with biceps bigger than my thighs. The biceps, along with an impressive pair of pecs and assorted other bulging muscles that I didn’t even know existed, were squeezed into a bottle-green T-shirt that looked to be at least two sizes too small.

He dismissed my suggestion that he should sit in reception and wait for Marina to come down when she went out to lunch. No good, he said. He wanted to have ‘the target’ in sight at all times.

I said I would rather he did not refer to Marina as ‘the target’ and he couldn’t have her in sight at all times as she was still in her dressing gown and was about to have a shower. He covered his disappointment well.

In the end, he settled for a chair outside the flat door, opposite the lift.

‘But how about the windows?’ he asked. ‘Someone could come through one.’

‘We’ll take our chances,’ I said. After all, as I pointed out
to him, we were on the fourth floor. But he still wasn’t happy.

However, it was a great relief to see him there when I left for Archie Kirk’s office at nine to deliver the last of the videotape packages. And, in the interests of my own security, I telephoned for a taxi that was waiting for me at the front entrance of the building with its engine running for a quick getaway.

‘Well, you have caused a bit of a stir,’ Archie said as I arrived.

I needn’t have bothered to bring the pages of
The Pump
as he already had a copy open on his desk.

‘Is it all true?’ he said.

‘Perfectly,’ I said. ‘And the full interview with the girl is on this tape.’

I handed the sixth package to him.

‘Thank you.’ He took it. ‘Good job that truth is now a defence against libel.’

‘Hasn’t it always been?’ I asked.

‘Good God, no,’ he said. ‘In the past, one could be guilty of criminal libel even if you were telling the truth. Just to ruin someone’s reputation was enough despite the fact that they may have deserved to have it ruined. The European Convention on Human Rights has stopped all that. No one can now be convicted for telling the truth.’

Tell that, I thought, to the mothers of the cot death babies sent to prison for murder due to the erroneous evidence of a so-called medical expert.

‘I will leave it to you to decide who gets the information on the internet gambling and gaming,’ I said. ‘I realise it was not really what you wanted but it’s a start and I will do a bit more digging before you get my final report.’

‘What do you think will happen?’ he asked.

‘About the murders,’ I said, ‘or the gambling?’

‘Both.’

‘I hope the police pick up Peter Enstone pretty quickly. I don’t think Marina, that’s my girlfriend, is very safe with him on the loose. Then, with luck, there will be enough evidence to remand him in custody, and then to convict. I think there should be.’

‘And make-a-wager.com?’ said Archie.

‘I think it will be far more difficult to prove anything against George Lochs. He’s a very sharp cookie indeed and he will have covered his tracks very carefully. However, punters like to have confidence when they gamble and all this is going to severely shake their trust in his website.’

‘And I’m sure you could help to further undermine that trust,’ he said, spreading his hands wide.

‘Indeed, I could,’ I said with a smile. ‘And I think I just might. Especially the trust required for on-line gaming. If I can show that he has been involved with some dodgy dealings with race fixing, it is only a small step for people to believe that he has also been fixing the games on his website. I think the earnings and value of Make A Wager Ltd are about to take a major dip in the market.’

‘George made a wager, and lost,’ he said.

I left Archie still chuckling at his little joke and took another taxi back to Ebury Street. My Charles Atlas look-alike was still on guard outside the door. I wondered if he ever went to the lavatory.

Jenny arrived on the dot of twelve thirty as promised. In spite of being announced from downstairs and being met by me at the lift, she was still keenly scrutinised by the bodyguard who
insisted on looking in her handbag before he would allow her into the flat.

‘But I know this person,’ I said. All too well.

‘Sir,’ he said, sounding a little patronising, ‘most people are murdered by someone they know.’

I decided against mentioning that Indira Gandhi, the former Indian prime minister, had been murdered by her bodyguards.

After an inspection of the bag had revealed nothing more lethal than half a packet of menthol cigarettes, Jenny was allowed to proceed. At least he hadn’t performed a full body search.

‘What’s that all about?’ she said.

‘The man who shot Marina is still on the loose,’ I said. ‘And I don’t want him having another go.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Was going out to lunch such a good idea after all?’

‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘We can’t hide away for ever. And I’ve arranged for Muscles out there to go with you.’ She opened her mouth. ‘It’s all right. He won’t sit at the same table. You can tie his lead to a lamppost.’

Marina was ready and itching to get out of our cramped home if only for a couple of hours.