Fifth Victim

I thought Orlando was going to fly at him, all claws and fury, and was glad it wasn’t my job to intervene. Fortunately, it was Hunt who gently took hold of her arms, turned her so he was between the two of them with his back to Benedict, as if preventing them seeing each other would dispel the anger. If the way Orlando wilted in his grasp was anything to go by, he was right.

He spent a moment simply holding her. When he seemed to be sure she wasn’t going to let rip again, he put her away from him and nudged her chin up with his curled forefinger, smiling into her eyes.

‘This isn’t just “people”, is it, Benedict?’ Hunt said quietly then, over his shoulder. ‘Torquil may not have been someone you liked, but he was someone you knew, and he’s died going through an experience that you’ve been through personally. That alone should have given you both some kind of connection, so show a little humanity for once. There but for the grace of God, eh?’

I silently applauded, keeping my face neutral. I knew if I’d said half that, Manda would have jumped straight down my throat, but she just looked grateful – if not a little admiring – that Hunt had headed off a possible slanging match.

Fed up with the lot of them, I started to turn away. ‘Look, it’s been a hell of a day. I’m tired and dirty and I’m going to bed. If you want to ask anything else, you’ll have to come back in the morning.’ I paused, turned back. ‘Speaking of which, how come you’re all here in the first place?’

They glanced at each other, not quite furtive but not far off it.

Eventually, it was Manda who admitted, ‘Ben-Ben ran into Mrs Eisenberg at the tennis club and asked if there was any news.’ She shrugged. ‘Sorry, but she kinda mentioned you were … helping them, so we thought Dina might know something.’

So much for security.

Dina gave me a defiant stare, but I was too weary to get into it with her right now. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t. Go home.’

It was only ten minutes later, standing with my hands braced against the tiles in the shower, letting the spray pound onto my back, that I realised all the things I should have asked.

Like why had Benedict bothered to ask Nicola Eisenberg for news of her kidnapped son, when he claimed to hold Torquil in such contempt? And, for that matter, why had Manda bothered to explain his actions, when she’d never given a damn in the past what I might think of her, let alone apologised to me?

I shook the water out of my eyes and, with marked reluctance, shut off the water, grabbing a towel off the rack as I stepped out of the cubicle. If there was one upside to looking after wealthy people, at least they always had nice bathrooms with constant hot water and plenty of fluffy towels.

I quickly blotted the water away from my body, wrapped one towel around me and was roughly drying my hair with another as I moved through into the bedroom that had been allocated to me.

Dina was sitting on the corner of the queen-sized double bed, facing the bathroom door and waiting for me to emerge. She was nervously plaiting her fingers in her lap. My heart sank.

‘Where are the others?’

A minor shrug. ‘They’ve gone home, like you said.’

‘And McGregor?’

She nodded to the doorway leading out into the corridor. ‘I’m sorry, Charlie, I know you just want to go to bed and I promise I won’t stay long, but I just won’t be able to sleep unless I know what really happened to Tor,’ she said all in a rush, eyes suddenly jittery with a fear she had almost managed to hide while she was upstairs. ‘Please. I … really need to know.’

I leant against the door-frame, aware that being wrapped in a bath towel that only covers you from armpit to mid thigh is not the best way to retain any authority over a situation. Ah well, at least I wasn’t naked.

‘Why?’ I demanded.

She blinked at the staccato question, looking small and lost as she fumbled her way into speech.

‘Because, it’s all my fault,’ she said mournfully, tears gathering in her eyes.

Give me strength!

I sighed, dragged a hand across my gritty eyes and tried for a gentler tone. ‘How is any of this your fault, Dina?’

It seemed that sympathy was her undoing. The tears fell freely then. ‘Because I know who arranged for Tor to be kidnapped.’

That woke me up better than a pint of espresso. I moved forward and crouched in front of her, trying not to lose the towel in the process.

‘Dina, listen to me. If you know who these people are, you’ve got to tell the police. You can’t let them get away with murder.’

‘I kn-know,’ she sobbed. ‘Don’t you think I don’t know that?’

‘Then what’s stopping you—?’

‘It was us!’ The words burst out of her, a wailing cry full of rage and pain and utter remorse. ‘Don’t you understand? We did it!’

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

‘You better start at the beginning, Dina,’ I said heavily. ‘Tell me everything, and don’t skimp on the details.’

I was dressed again, and we were sitting in the silent kitchen, drinking coffee. It was very much a staff environment rather than a family room. The kitchen was set on the side of the house that didn’t get any direct sun, and was clean and uncluttered rather than stylish, its appliances picked for utility and not just because they bore the right badge.

Dina hadn’t really seemed to know where to find the ingredients for coffee, and had dithered a little over putting them together in the right order. Considering the state she was in, I suppose I couldn’t hold that against her.

‘You must think I’m a really horrible person,’ she said now, flicking her eyes sideways at me, as if hoping for an instant knee-jerk denial. As if hoping for my approval even.

I had just been hit by a car, shot in the chest, had my bike trashed, dug up a corpse, and come as close to having my fingernails pulled out under interrogation as the Feds thought they could get away with. I had nothing approving to say to her.

As if realising that fact, Dina flushed, cradling her coffee mug with both hands and staring miserably into the creamy liquid. After a moment, she lifted her head briefly to mutter the age-old excuse so often trotted out by those who find themselves sucked into violence and suddenly way out of their depth.

‘Nobody was supposed to get hurt!’

I managed to suppress a snort of outright disbelief at her naivety, and shook my head wearily instead. Not hard under the circumstances.

We sat in a pool of subdued light from the fitting that hung low over the kitchen table. The rest of the room was in shadow. I thought it might encourage Dina to spill her secrets if the atmosphere was less bright and harsh, and I had positioned myself across the corner of the table from her rather than directly opposite, keeping it less adversarial. All friendly – for now.

‘Dina, even before what happened to Torquil today, Benedict lost a finger. Was that part of the plan?’ I asked, trying for coaxing rather than exasperated. ‘And what about Raleigh? Your poor old riding instructor will be left with an arm he can use to predict changes in the weather. If it knits well enough for him ever to work again to full capacity. Did he sign on for that?’

I’d once had my arm broken in a similar way, I reflected, and could now use it as my own personal barometer.

‘Of course not,’ she said, her voice genuinely wretched. ‘It’s just that I never —’

‘—thought anyone would get hurt. Yeah. You said.’

She glanced at me, dropped her eyes again. ‘They told me it was like … a game,’ she said eventually, choosing her words with care now. ‘That’s all. Just a game.’

‘Yeah,’ I said again. ‘So is Russian roulette.’