His mind awhirl, he crashed through into the bedroom. He stopped. Looked down and saw the blood pooling around his shoes. Looked across and saw the bloodied corpse of the beautiful young woman spread out on the floor. Looked up and saw Penrose Lucas standing there, eyes and hair wild, his face spattered red.
‘You…’ O’Neill began. ‘Oh, no. No.’ Words failed him. He backed away a step, feeling the slick blood under his feet.
‘It’s very simple,’ Penrose said, waving the gun in the air. ‘I told her to take it off and she refused. What else was I… Hey! O’Neill! Where are you going?’
Rex O’Neill stumbled out of the bedroom and across the office, fighting the urge to vomit. He slammed the door behind him and ran off down the corridor, leaving a trail of bloody shoeprints behind him. When he got back to his room, he leaned against the wall and breathed hard for a few moments. Then he locked the door. Took out his phone.
And this time he did dial that number.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Back at Zion Square, Hillel insisted on dragging Ben and Jude into the coffee shop to instruct his staff that these honoured visitors were to have anything they liked, any time they wanted it, and without charge. ‘It is the least I can do,’ he said.
Ben thanked him for his time and his help, warned him once again to be careful, and promised to call the moment he had news about Wesley Holland.
They watched Hillel roar off in his Land Cruiser, then headed back across the square to the hotel. Jude said something about taking a shower, and disappeared through the connecting door from Ben’s room into his own.
Ben threw open the windows and gazed out across the square. None of this made any sense to him, but maybe it was because he wasn’t thinking straight. He felt as if his brain was misfiring on one cylinder — or maybe a couple of cylinders, unable to focus properly. And he knew the reason why. He marched over to his bag, tore it open and took out the letter.
He slumped in an armchair to read it once more, as if somehow after a dozen readings it might now suddenly mean something completely different and he’d be released from the perturbing responsibility that weighed so heavily on him. But no, Michaela’s words told him the same incredible things as they had before. If it was all a dream, it was taking a hell of a long time to finish.
Ben felt quite lost.
He didn’t hear the connecting door open and Jude walk into the room.
‘What’s that?’ Jude asked.
With a jolt like an electric shock, Ben stuffed the letter away into the bag. ‘Just looking back at some of the stuff I found in Lalique’s place,’ he said as casually as he could, glancing at Jude out of the corner of his eye.
‘Right,’ Jude said uninterestedly. He flopped on the bed. ‘So what do we do now?’
Good question, Ben thought. He didn’t like to admit it even to himself, but he was running out of road. They’d just exhausted their last lead. Except for one. ‘If we knew who this Martha was, we’d be able to trace Holland. Trace Holland, and we’d get to the bottom of this thing. The problem is, we don’t.’
‘Maybe she’s his wife. Have you done a search on Martha Holland?’
‘Holland doesn’t have a wife,’ Ben said impatiently. ‘I spent an hour looking him up online last night. He quit after the fourth marriage went south. In any case, I assume he wouldn’t be travelling across America to visit Martha if he was married to her, would he? They’d be living together.’
‘You’re just old fashioned.’
‘Maybe I am,’ Ben said, ‘but not as old fashioned as Wesley Holland. I’m pretty sure of that much.’
‘Fine. Ex-wife, then.’
‘I’ve checked them all out. In order of appearance, they were Tabitha, Raine, Micheline, and the last one was called Giselle Rush.’
‘Hey. Not Giselle Rush the actress?’
Ben shrugged. ‘Perhaps, I don’t know. Never heard of her.’
Jude looked at him in astonishment that a living inhabitant of planet Earth could have failed to have heard of Giselle Rush. ‘Anyway, Martha could still be a girlfriend. It’s feasible they don’t live together, or even close.’
‘Then he’s managing to keep it quiet from all the obsessives online who spend their lives prying into the private affairs of the rich and famous. Not much escapes them.’
‘No girlfriend, then. Daughter? Sister?’
‘Never had kids. And his parents just had the one.’
Jude raised an eyebrow. ‘Must be a lonely kind of guy, rattling around all alone in some big old seaside house with nothing to do except stare at the waves. I mean, even I don’t love the ocean that much.’
Ben reflected for a moment. ‘That was strange, what Hillel said.’
‘Why strange?’
‘From what I read, Holland’s home is a place called the Whitworth Mansion, up near Lake Ontario, a few miles from Rochester. A long way from the coast.’
‘So maybe Hillel got it wrong, and he lives by a lake, not the sea.’
Ben shook his head. ‘I’ve seen pictures of the house. It’s not that close to the lake. Certainly not within sight of the water, and it’s surrounded by acres of woodlands. Meaning that he must have a seaside home somewhere else.’
‘The guy can certainly afford it,’ Jude said. ‘You think that’s where he’s gone? It would narrow things down a little.’
Ben grunted. ‘Down to any one of a million locations up and down the east coast of North America. That’s assuming he’s even headed there. Why would he refer to his own place as “Martha’s”?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe she spends more time there than he does.’
‘We’re rambling,’ Ben said. ‘This isn’t getting us anywhere.’ He went on wearily racking his brains. Nothing was coming to him.
Jude leaned back on the bed, then suddenly sprang up again. ‘Hang on a minute. I think I might’ve just figured this out. You said Holland was reported as heading towards Boston? Well, that tells us all we need to know, doesn’t it?’
Ben was about to ask him scathingly whether he’d even seen a map of the United States Eastern Seaboard and had any notion of the scale of the place, when he saw the look on his face. ‘What are you thinking?’
‘All right. Here’s my idea. What if Martha isn’t a person?’
‘Come on, Jude. I’m too tired to fuck about. What is she, an Old English Sheepdog?’
‘She could be a place.’
‘How could Martha be a place?’
‘Not Martha. Martha’s. You said he said he was heading for “Martha’s”. His exact word. Correct?’
Ben looked at him.
‘Now, you know I’m a shark fan, don’t you?’ Jude went on. ‘Diving with the great whites in New Zealand was something I’ve always wanted to do, since I was a kid. My favourite movie of all time is Jaws.’
‘Now you’re losing me completely. What’s that got to do with-’
‘Jawsfest, 2005,’ Jude said. ‘Robbie’s stockbroker uncle was a fan too, and he took us there. It was the thirtieth anniversary celebration, this great big festival that was held at the location where part of the movie was shot.’
‘And-?’
‘You’re slow, old man. All right, Spielberg filmed Jaws on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. Get it? Martha’s Vineyard. It’s off Cape Cod. We flew to Boston and took a bus to the ferry. It’s not far away. I was only fourteen, but I remember it really well.’
Ben felt his mouth hanging open.
‘Does that narrow it down enough for you?’ Jude asked with a grin.
