Dead Heat Part 28

As instructed, I kept my right arm raised on a pillow throughout the night to reduce swelling under the cast. It wasn't great for romance, but it did keep the pain to a minimum.

Sat.u.r.day came and went with me spending most of the time horizontal on the bed in Caroline's hotel room. I watched some televised baseball, which was not very exciting, and then some motor racing that was more so.

I ordered some room service Caesar salad for a midafternoon left-handed lunch and then called Carl using the hotel phone.

'Where are you?' he said. 'I've had three phone calls from people saying they need to contact you urgently.'

'Who are they?' I asked.

'One was your mother,' he said. 'One said they were from the Inland Revenue, and the third wouldn't say.'

'Did you get their numbers?' I asked.

'You must know your mother's number, surely,' he said. 'The others didn't leave one. They said they would call back. Where shall I tell them you are?'

I wondered again if I could trust Carl.

'Just tell them that I'm away,' I said. 'And I will be for at least another week.'

'And will you?' he asked.

'Will I what?' I said.

'Will you be away for at least another week?'

'I don't know,' I said. 'Could you cope if I was?'

'I could cope even if you stayed away for ever,' he said, and I wasn't quite sure if he was expressing confidence in his own ability or contempt for mine.

'I'll take that to mean that everything's all right at the restaurant then,' I said.

'Absolutely.'

'Then I'll call you again on Monday,' I said.

'OK,' he said. 'But where are you exactly? You told me you were going to your mother, so how come she called for you?'

'Better if you don't know,' I said rather theatrically, which must have added to his suspicion.

'If you say so,' he said, sounding somewhat miffed. 'But don't forget to go and see your mother, she seemed very insistent that you should.'

'OK, I will,' I said, and hung up.

My mother wasn't at home. I knew that because the night before I left for Chicago I had told her to go and stay with another cousin in Devon, and she never needed telling twice to go down there because she loved it. I also told her not to call me as I would be away. But she almost never phoned me anyway; it was always me who phoned her.

I called my mother's cousin's house in Torquay, again using the hotel phone. She answered at the second ring.

'h.e.l.lo, Max,' she said in her usual deep voice. 'I expect you want to talk to Diane.' Diane was my mother.

'Yes, please,' I said.

'Hold on a minute.' She put the phone down and I could hear her calling for my mother.

'h.e.l.lo, darling,' my mother said. 'I'm having a wonderful time. It's so beautiful down here.' She had always wanted to move to Torquay but had never actually got round to it. My mother didn't actually get round to much really.

'h.e.l.lo, Mum,' I said. 'Have you been trying to call me at the restaurant?'

'No,' she said. I knew she wouldn't have. 'Should I have been?'

'No, of course not,' I said. 'I'm just calling to make sure you're fine.'

'Oh yes, darling,' she said. 'Everything is fine here. Janet has asked me to stay for another week.' Good old Janet, I thought. Janet was my mother's cousin.

'Fine, Mum,' I said. 'Have a nice time. I'll call you in a few days.'

'Bye, darling,' she trilled, and hung up.

I lay back on the bed and wondered who it was who had told Carl she was my mother?

I used my mobile to call my brother. Toby and I hardly ever spoke, but it was not due to any animosity, just a result of us never having been close as children and less so as adults.

'h.e.l.lo,' he said. 'Long time no see.'

'Yes,' I said. 'How are Sally and the children?'

'Fine, thanks,' he said. 'The kids are growing up fast.' I don't think he said it as a criticism of me for neglecting my two nephews and a niece. We both knew that for some unknown reason his wife, Sally, and I didn't really get on very well. He and I were both content with the fact that we saw each other only very occasionally and usually at Newmarket when he was there alone for the bloodstock sales.

'Mum's in Torquay,' I told him.

'So I've heard,' he said.

'She'll be there for another week, at least,' I said.

'Thanks for letting me know,' he said. I knew that he popped in to see her fairly often. He lived in my father's old house, next to the training stables, while our mother now lived in a cottage down the road.

'Toby,' I said, 'can I see you sometime this coming week?'

'Sure,' he said. 'When?'

'I'm not certain,' I said. 'Monday probably. Maybe Tuesday.'

'Fine,' he said.

'Can I stay the night?' I asked him.

There was a pause before he answered. 'Is everything all right?'

'My house burned down,' I said.

'Oh my G.o.d, Max,' he said. 'I'm so sorry.'

'I don't think it was an accident,' I said.

There was another pause, longer this time. 'Are you asking for my help?' he said.

'Yes, I am, but it's not financial help I need.'

'Good.' He sounded relieved. 'Come when you like,' he said. 'And stay as long as you want. I'll fix it with Sally.'

'Thanks,' I said. 'Can I bring someone with me?'

'A girl?' he asked. He knew me better than I imagined.

'Yes.'

'One room or two?'

'One,' I said.

'OK,' he said, amused. 'Give me a call when you know when you're coming.'

'Thanks,' I said again, and I meant it. 'I will.'

Caroline and I both flew back to London on Sunday night but, annoyingly, on different aeroplanes. I couldn't get a seat on the same flight as the orchestra in spite of being number one on the stand-by list, so I followed them into the Illinois evening blue sky some fifty minutes later. The airline had shown pity on my injured wrist and had provided me with an empty seat on my right so that I could rest the cast on a pile of aircraft pillows and blankets. Even so, I slept only in fits and starts, and was thankful when we touched down gently at Heathrow on time at seven o'clock on Monday morning.

Caroline was waiting for me just beyond pa.s.sport control, sitting on a bench alongside Viola, who was safely stashed away out of sight in her made-to-measure black case. While she was not quite a Stradivarius, Viola was still much too valuable to have travelled across the Atlantic in the aircraft hold.

'Where do we go from here?' she asked, as I sat down next to her.

'What do you mean?' I said.

'Do you think it's safe to go back to my place?' she said.

'When do you have to be back with the orchestra?' I asked her.

'Wednesday lunchtime,' she said. 'We have a couple of days off now before rehearsals for the concerts on Thursday and Friday at Cadogan Hall. But I've got to do some personal preparation before then.'

'We are going to stay with my brother for a couple of days,' I said.

'Are we, indeed? And where does he live?'

'East Hendred,' I said. 'It's near Didcot in Oxfordshire.'

I had no intention of using my mobile for a while, so I called Toby on an airport pay phone in the baggage hall to tell him we were coming today.

'Will it be safe?' Caroline said.

'I don't know.' It worried me that it might not be totally safe for my brother's family either. But it was a chance I had to take. 'I don't know if anywhere could be totally safe,' I said to her. 'But I can't hide for ever. I need to find out why Komarov is trying to kill me.'

'If you're sure it's him,' she said, 'don't you think it's time you talked to the police?'

'I will,' I said. 'After I've spoken to my brother and showed him the metal ball. Then I'll call the police.'

So it wasn't the boys in blue I called next from the pay phone. It was Bernard Sims, my irrepressible lawyer.

We collected first our luggage and then the rented Ford Mondeo from the airport hotel car park where I had left it the previous Wednesday. Fortunately it had an automatic gearbox and driving mostly one handed was relatively simple, so we joined the crawl-crawl, non-rush rush-hour traffic along the M4 into London. Caroline insisted on going to her flat to get some fresh clothes even though I wasn't very keen on the idea, if only because East Hendred was in the opposite direction. I, personally, didn't have any fresh clothes. Other than a couple of items I had abandoned at Carl's house, all the clothes I owned were here in my suitcase.

'I absolutely have to go home,' said Caroline. 'I also need some fresh strings for my viola, I have only two left.'

'Can't we just buy some?' I asked her.

She just looked at me for an answer, her head on its side, her mouth pursed.

'OK, OK,' I said. 'I'll take you home.'

So we went to Fulham, but I insisted on driving up and down Tamworth Street at least three times to see if anyone was sitting in any of the parked cars watching her flat. Neither of us could spot anyone, so I stopped the car on the corner and Caroline went into her flat while I sat outside keeping watch with the engine running. No one came and there were no shouts, but I felt uneasy nevertheless.

I was beginning to think that Caroline had been rather a long time when she reappeared and came sprinting back to the car. She threw a holdall on to the back seat as she jumped in. There was something urgent about her movements.

'Go,' she said, slamming the door. I didn't need telling twice and we sped away. 'Someone's been in my flat,' she said.

'How do you know?' I asked.

'I thought it was a bit odd when I went in,' she said, turning her head to see if we were being followed. 'There was a dirty footprint on one of my letters on the mat under the letter box. 1 told myself that I was being paranoid. That footprint could have been on the letter before it was pushed through the door. But I am also certain someone's been in my bathroom, in my medicine cabinet.'

'How?' I asked again.

'My bathroom cabinet is so full of stuff that it tends to all fall out when you open the door. It takes a knack to stop it happening, and someone didn't have it. Everything in there is now in a slightly different place.'

'Are you sure?'

'Absolutely,' she said. 'Trust me. I know exactly what's in my bathroom cabinet and where. I went to get some aspirin and everything had definitely been moved. Only slightly, mind, but I'm sure.' She looked around again. 'Max, I'm scared.'

So was I. 'It's fine,' I said, trying to sound calm. 'There's no one in there now and no one's following us.' I was repeatedly looking in the rear-view mirror to make sure I was right. We pulled down another quiet residential street and I stopped the car. We both looked back. Nothing moved. We waited but no one came round the corner after us.

'Why would someone have been in my flat?' she asked. 'And how did they get in?'

'Maybe they wanted to find out when you were getting back.'

'How would they do that?' she said.

'I don't know,' I said. 'Perhaps they planted something to tell them.' It all sounded so James Bondish. It was all so unlikely, but why else would anyone go into the flat?

We drove westward out of London and back on to the M4 motorway. I stopped at the services at Heston, and Caroline called her upstairs neighbour using a pay phone outside while I sat nearby in the car.

'They said they were sent by the landlords,' Caroline said, getting back in. 'Checking for water leaks or something. Mrs Stack, that's her upstairs, says she let them in all right, but at least she did wait there while they checked the kitchen and bathroom. There were two of them. Well-dressed men and not very old, she said, but she's half blind and anyone to her is not old if they are under seventy-five. She seems to think that I'm still at primary school. She keeps asking me about my mummy and daddy.' She rolled her eyes.

'I wonder how they knew she had a key,' I said.