not available. She’s in shock about the death of the Eisenberg boy, of course she is. Orlando’s a sensitive girl. I will not have her disturbed.’
There was going to be no moving him. Even the prospect of FBI involvement had not shifted him. But he was rattled, and it showed.
My turn to sigh, but quietly, under my breath. Always best to leave of your own volition before you were thrown out. I got to my feet, dug in my jacket pocket for a business card.
‘If you won’t put me in touch with your daughter direct, then at least please tell her I’d like to talk to her – urgently,’ I said, handing him the card. He took it by the edges, as if it were dirty. ‘The office number is on there. It’s manned twenty-four hours a day.’
‘Of course,’ he said, his relief plain. He put the card down on the side table and rose to shake my hand, going for the elbow clasp with his left, to show what a sincere kind of guy he was. ‘I hope Dina is returned safely, I really do.’
He showed me out into the tiled hallway, where Jasna reappeared instantly to shepherd me to the door. I wondered how much stick she was going to take for letting me through it in the first place.
The business card I’d given him remained on the side table, and I would have taken bets that’s where it would stay until the cleaning staff swept it away.
I still wasn’t quite sure who’d come out of the encounter ahead as I reached the end of the long straight driveway, and the gates drew slowly open. It was only as I reached them and pulled through that I found another car waiting, pulled up on the other side of the road.
I stopped to catch the number on the front plate, and as I did so the driver climbed out and waved in greeting. I dropped the Navigator’s window and watched him stride across the road towards me.
‘Hey, Charlie,’ he called when he was halfway there. ‘You’re looking good.’
‘Hi, Hunt. If you’re here to see Orlando, you’re out of luck. According to her folks, she’s gone away.’
To my disappointment, Hunt did not fall into my cunning plan and reveal Orlando’s present whereabouts. Instead, he pulled a wry face.
‘I’ve been getting the runaround from her folks, too,’ he said. ‘I was hoping that by hanging around here I might spot her coming back.’ He looked a little shamefaced as he said it, like he was embarrassed to be caught mooning over a girl. ‘I don’t suppose they told you where she is?’
I shook my head.
Hunt was in jeans and a sports jacket, and looked a lot younger, dressed like that, than Orlando’s father had managed. ‘I’m worried about her,’ he admitted. ‘She took Tor’s death rather hard. I’m not surprised her parents are trying to protect her from the press and stuff like that.’
I looked at him, then said dryly. ‘Yeah, I suppose they might have a bit of a field day when they find out she fixed her own kidnapping.’
Hunt stared at me for a moment, then gave a crooked grin. ‘Ah, so you know about that, do you?’ he said. ‘I thought you’d figure it out eventually.’
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
‘I didn’t meet Orlando until after her kidnap,’ Hunt admitted. ‘I was at some party last autumn and she arrived. I found out later it was the first time she’d been out since it happened, and everyone was making a big fuss of her.’ He gave a small rueful smile. ‘I thought she’d been ill or something.’
We were sitting in a pair of matched leather armchairs in the bar of the tennis club, which happened to be a short hop down the road from Orlando’s home. Hunt was a regular, it seemed, and was greeted with deferential respect by the staff, which they temporarily extended to me.
Hunt had ordered a pot of Queen Anne blend tea rather than the usual coffee, explaining that they brought it in from Fortnum & Mason in London, and the kitchen here actually knew what to do with it once it arrived. The tea was presented on a silver tray, in translucent china and a strainer provided, just to show it was none of your bagged rubbish.
The atmosphere was calm and exclusive, and the only similarity with the grubby little bar in Bushwick, where I’d had my chat with Ross, was that – apart from the two of us – the place was deserted.
I kept my face and hands steady, even though I was only too aware that time was ticking on. It was now 9.40 a.m. and Dina had been missing for just shy of twenty-four hours.
‘How did you find out?’ I asked, as Hunt sat forwards in his chair and poured milk into the cups before giving the teapot a gentle swirl. ‘That it wasn’t a genuine kidnap, I mean.’
‘She told me – eventually,’ he said. ‘I was pretty dumbstruck, to be honest.’ His voice hushed, even though the staff were too far away to overhear. ‘I mean, who arranges to have themselves kidnapped, for God’s sake?’
‘Bored rich kids,’ I said, accepting the cup he offered. ‘How else can they get their kicks?’ I took a sip and discovered he was right about the tea-making abilities here, raised my cup to him in salute.
He nodded in a distracted way, still frowning. ‘She said she was going to confess everything to her parents. I’m afraid I tried to talk her out of it on the basis that what was done was done. No point in making trouble for yourself if you don’t have to, eh? But I’d guess she went ahead anyway, and that’s why they’ve whisked her away somewhere out of reach, until all this dies down.’
‘Torquil Eisenberg is dead,’ I said. ‘I don’t think it will simply die down. The Feds will catch up with her eventually.’
His handsome face stayed grave, hands fiddling with his teacup. Eventually, he looked up. ‘And now Dina’s been kidnapped … I mean, for real, do you think?’
‘They shot her bodyguard,’ I said. ‘I’d say that makes it pretty bloody real.’
‘I thought you were her bodyguard?’
My turn to drop my gaze. ‘Yeah, so did I.’
He was silent for a moment. ‘I suppose … Mrs Willner will have to pay them, won’t she? I mean, what choice does she have – after what happened to Tor?’
I took a breath, put down my cup and rubbed a tired hand across my eyes. ‘It may be a case of willing but not able,’ I said. ‘Her ex-husband’s been bleeding her dry over the past few years.’
‘So, what are you saying?’ He gave a half-hearted smile. ‘That she’s all fur coat and no knickers?’
‘There’s a phrase you don’t hear much on this side of the Atlantic. But yeah, that’s the gist of it.’
‘Dina must
‘Mrs Willner had kidnap insurance, but Dina’s activities make it void. She realises she can’t claim on it.’ I checked my watch, but only a few minutes seemed to have inched by. ‘Look, I’m sorry but I need to go—’
‘Of course,’ he said, signalling for the bill. One of the hovering staff hurried over to comply. When the waiter had gone, Hunt said, ‘Hell, Charlie, I’m sorry for the kid. But, if anyone can get her back, I’m sure you can.’
Grateful for his apparent confidence, I closed my mind to any other possibilities. ‘We’ll do our best.’
‘Yeah, you don’t give up easily, do you? Even after they wrecked your bike and shot you, you’re still determined.’
I stood. ‘Well, maybe I just hate to lose.’
We shook hands. He had a firm dry grip without the fake sincerity antics of Orlando’s father.
‘If you find Orlando, tell her I’m thinking of her,’ he said, giving me a lopsided smile. ‘Tell her I miss her like hell.’
After the reaction of Orlando’s father, I wasn’t expecting much in the way of cooperation from the other families, but Benedict Benelli’s parents had no such qualms about keeping me away from their son.
I gathered shortly after being shown into the art-cluttered living room of the family’s palatial home that the cops had already spent most of the morning interviewing Benedict, and if his parents didn’t know about the kidnapping scam beforehand, they certainly did now.
The two of them sat one on either side of their son on an oversize sofa, as though to prevent him making a break for it. If the sulkier-than-usual look on Benedict’s face was anything to go by, that was a distinct possibility.
He sprawled between them with his arms folded and his fists tightly clenched, staring resolutely at a huge art
