Private Lives Part 58

She scurried outside, inhaling deeply as if she had just come up for air.

The drive was empty. s.h.i.t, where are you, taxi? she thought, stepping from one foot to the other.

'You all right, miss?' asked one of the security guards, stepping forward, his hand on a heavy walkie-talkie strapped to his hip like a Western gunslinger.

She fumbled in her clutch bag for a cigarette and lit it.

'f.a.g break,' she said as casually as she could.

Come on, she pleaded silently, willing the taxi to arrive. She glanced back at the house, realising how stupid she'd been to come. It was one thing to infiltrate the society swingers' ball posing as a bohemian good-time girl; it was quite another to reveal to Peter Rees that she knew something about his past.

But then, like the cavalry coming over the hill, Anna heard hope driving towards her. The grumble of a taxi's diesel engine. She tossed her cigarette away and ran towards it.

'Taxi for Natasha?' she whispered.

'Hop in, love. Where to?'

'London. Richmond.'

The cabby glanced in the mirror, then pulled the car away. As it built up speed, Anna felt her fast-beating pulse slow.

She took her mobile out of her bag and tapped in a message to Amir Khan, Andy's investigator. Amir had asked her to tell him the moment she knew anything new. 'Amy's Peter is Peter Rees, COO of Dallincourt. Any use?'

She pressed 'Send' and sat back in the seat. The car was surrounded by blackness, only the occasional farm or house revealed by a gap in the trees. She tried to relax, but her body was still tense, her heart thumping with adrenalin. At the same time she felt strangely dejected, wrung out. In truth, she'd been lucky to get out of there in one piece and for what? She had Peter's name, she knew he had been with Amy, knew that the mention of her name had made him frightened and angry, but where did that really get her? She had to admit to herself that she hadn't thought any of this through properly; she'd just been stumbling from clue to clue, hoping that the next one would reveal how Amy had really died. The reality was that she might well never know.

'Look at this w.a.n.ker behind us,' said the cabby, shaking her from her thoughts. 'p.i.s.sed, I bet you.'

She turned in her seat, but she could only see the too-bright full-beam headlights of a car coming up fast behind, dangerously close.

The cabby sounded his horn, but the car only seemed to get closer, the lights filling the taxi's interior. Then Anna grabbed the door handle as she felt a b.u.mp behind her.

'Christ!' shouted the cabby. 'What's he doing?'

The car had pulled out and had drawn up against the side of them. It was a black SUV, but Anna couldn't make out any driver or pa.s.senger, as the windows were tinted. She heard metal sc.r.a.pe against metal as it slammed against them.

's.h.i.t!' cried the cabby as the SUV banged into them again, forcing them up on to an embankment, skidding to a halt. They both watched in disbelief as the red lights of the other car disappeared into the distance.

'You all right, miss?' said the driver, turning in his seat. 'Did you get his plates?'

Anna shook her head.

'Me neither,' said the cabby bitterly. 'There goes my b.l.o.o.d.y no-claims. What the h.e.l.l was he playing at?'

But Anna knew exactly what the driver had been playing at, and she had no doubt what that little road race had meant. She had been well and truly warned.

60

'You sure this is where you want to go, love? I thought you said Richmond.' The cabby pulled up outside an anonymous-looking block of flats behind the Tate Modern.

'This is just fine,' said Anna, handing him a fistful of tenners.

'Ride is on me, love.'

'You sure?'

He nodded. She could tell he was relieved that she hadn't taken his insurance details and done him for whiplash.

She looked down at Amir Khan's address, which he had sent by text message. She had called him on the taxi ride home, partly because she was so shaken, and partly because she had become even more determined to nail Peter Rees for what he had done. If the car had slammed into her taxi intentionally, then Rees had sent it. Perhaps it had been because he was angry that she had run away from their bedroom tryst. Or perhaps it was because the mention of Amy Hart had rattled him. Why? Anna asked herself. Because he had something to do with Amy's death?

She felt a shiver of worry for her own safety. Thankfully the South Bank was still busy, despite the late hour. Wanting to get off the street, she pressed the intercom of the building in front of her and was buzzed inside.

Inside, it was just as blank-looking as outside. Long cream corridors lit up by fluoro strip lights.

A door at the end of the corridor creaked open and made her jump.

'You looking for me?' Amir asked, smiling.

Relieved, she almost ran into his apartment.

'Don't creep up on me, I'm jumpy enough as it is.'

'I hope you don't mind coming to my flat after dark,' he said politely. 'But this is where I work most of the time.'

Anna nodded. Andy had filled her in on how Amir worked. Apparently he was the master of the long-range sting, which meant adopting new personas for weeks, sometimes months at a time. He couldn't be seen coming in and out of the Media Incorporated offices too often, as it would mean blowing his cover.

He made her a cup of coffee and a piece of toast and she was grateful for the hospitality. She told him what had gone on at James Swann's mansion. Clutching their mugs, they went from the living s.p.a.ce into a large office.

'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, Amir, it's like MI5 HQ in here,' she said, looking at a large whiteboard covered in words and photographs.

He grinned, his coffee-coloured eyes dancing.

'This is the whole story of Amy Hart,' he said, walking over and tapping a large picture of the dead girl. 'The flow chart takes us from Amy leaving Doncaster to go to uni, then all the way ...' his finger traced the direction of the arrows, 'to here.' At the far right was a picture of Amy's riverside flat.

Anna walked up to the chart, examining the material. She was impressed with the level of detail Amir had gone into. He had worked out a range of possible scenarios labelled 'Murder', 'Accident', 'Suicide' and so on.

'So where does all this get us?'

'Okay,' said Amir. 'First let's start with what we know, putting aside the most likely explanation.'

She frowned.

'Which is?'

'A tragic accident. Amy was on her own, she got drunk and slipped down the stairs.'

'But given that we know she was blackmailing Peter, I'd say that's looking less and less likely,' said Anna, disappointed that Amir thought a fall was still the most likely option. 'There's also the fact that Rees was so rattled tonight. If he's innocent, we have to ask ourselves why.'

'The other problem is that we have no way of knowing if she was pushed or if she just fell,' said Amir. 'I've had a medical expert look at the findings of the inquest, and the injuries sustained are consistent with a fall down the stairs: broken bones, fractures, bruising and, in this case, a broken neck. But push or fall, who knows. No coroner will ever be able to tell the difference.'

He walked over to the board and studied the photos.

'Have you looked into Peter Rees since I texted you?'

Amir nodded.

'What made you sure that Rees was Amy's Peter?'

'Well he confirmed that he knew her. And he just looked guilty.'

Amir laughed.

'You of all people should know that a guilty look isn't going to hold up as evidence in court.'

Anna wanted to scream in frustration. All that work, all those leads she'd followed; finally she'd found Amy's lover, the person that Amy was blackmailing, and still she could do nothing about it. And at the same time, she had alerted Peter Rees to the fact that she was on his trail, and might have put herself in danger.

'I think Rees is Amy's Peter too,' Amir said more quietly.

'Why?' she asked excitedly.

'When you texted me his name, I checked him out, although he was already on my radar anyway. All of Swann's friends are. I found this ...'

He went over to the printer, pulled out a news article and stuck it on the whiteboard. Anna speed-read the item. It was headlined 'Oil Chief Found Dead', and detailed how Douglas Faulks, the chief executive of Pogex Oil had been discovered hanging at his Gloucestershire country home, along with the background to the story: how there had been a huge oil spill off the coast of Newfoundland six months earlier and how the executive had taken tremendous flak from the Canadian government. A series of terrible PR gaffes, where Faulks had denied responsibility, then tried to blame the rig's management, had led to him becoming the company fall guy. Anna remembered reading about it and thinking that it seemed unfair that one man should be singled out for all these attacks. She also remembered that Peter Rees worked in oil and gas.

'Did Peter know Douglas?' she asked, piecing things together.

Amir nodded. 'I've found dozens of pictures of them together at society and trade events.'

'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, Amir. You don't hang about, do you?'

'There's more,' he added. 'Pogex Oil and Dallincourt work closely together. Dallincourt basically build and repair most of Pogex's rigs and refineries.'

'Remember what Louise Allerton told me about Amy? That she'd found Peter sobbing about a friend's death. He told her he thought it was his fault.' Anna looked up at Amir, desperate for answers. 'How can that be?'

Amir shrugged. 'I don't know yet.'

'So what else do we know about Douglas Faulks?'

'We know it was a tragic death. Lots of people in the City thought that Faulks had been set up. You know, let one man take the blame instead of the entire company.'

'He should have got himself a better publicist,' she said sombrely.

'Pogex have a good PR company. Auckland PR. They are usually experts at keeping bad news out of the media, although they had a job on their hands stopping the Pogex Oil share price going into freefall. They act for Dallincourt Engineering Services as well. They are the bigger client actually, as Pogex are a relatively small oil company.'

'Auckland PR?' Anna repeated. She'd heard that name in the last few days. She took a minute to think where. 'Auckland's chairman. What's he called?' she said, remembering.

'Paul Morgan.'

'No, not him.'

'Simon Cooper? He's the CEO.'

'That's him,' she said. 'Apparently he's having an affair with our senior partner Helen Pierce.'

Anna felt her whole body tingle as she connected all the evidence. She began to think out loud while Amir started furiously writing her thought processes down on his whiteboard.

'Simon Cooper acts for Dallincourt. Peter Rees, who works for Dallincourt, thinks he is responsible for Douglas Faulks's death. Amy Hart is blackmailing Rees, possibly about Douglas's death. Amy is found dead but the story goes largely unnoticed because of the Sam Charles affair.'

For a second she hardly dared think where this was all leading, but one glance at Amir told her that he had made the connection too.

'I think we know who leaked your Sam Charles story,' he said quietly.

She closed her eyes and nodded, knowing that she had come here to solve one mystery, and had somehow solved two.

61

Despite the bucolic surroundings of his country estate, Sam Charles was feeling thoroughly miserable. He walked down from the house, kicking listlessly at stones on the winding path through the gardens. It was a perfect summer's day, with a cloudless pebble-blue sky and the smell of cut gra.s.s coming from the striped lawns. The gardener had also made a fine job of tidying up the flower beds, and in the soft sunshine, the bright sunflowers and nodding delphiniums looked like a display from the Chelsea Flower Show. Yet Sam couldn't find pleasure in any of it; he was determined to wallow in self-pity, however cheerful the world looked. The source of his dark mood as ever as ever, he thought bitterly was women. Specifically, one woman: Anna Kennedy. He had a.s.sumed that a down-to-earth lawyer might be easier to work out than his previous actress girlfriends. But clearly not. She was neurotic, paranoid and completely baffling. As least you knew where you stood with actresses like Jessica; you just needed to shower them with constant attention, gifts and compliments and agree with everything they said. But Anna was at the opposite end of the spectrum: fiercely independent and apparently impervious to flattery and Sam's not inconsiderable charm.

I mean, what right-minded woman wouldn't want to come and spend the weekend at a luxurious Wiltshire manor with me? thought Sam, pulling the head off a flower as he walked past. After all, he'd thought his fledgling romance with Anna was going so well. He'd certainly been pulling the stops out calling when he said he would, inviting her to Provence after she had won that libel trial. So when he'd asked her to come to Wiltshire for the weekend after their trip to Mougins, he had a.s.sumed that she would jump at the chance of spending the bank holiday in his bed. Instead she had made some vague excuses about having to work.

Of course, Sam did suspect she was still miffed from their argument in the restaurant and yes, perhaps his suggestion that the only reason he had helped her with the Amy Hart case was because he fancied her hadn't helped much but he knew the real reason she'd turned him down was to attend James Swann's party.

A cabbage white b.u.t.terfly flitted across the path and Sam threw the flower head at it. Amy b.l.o.o.d.y Hart. He just couldn't understand why Anna cared so much about some dead party girl. No, correction: he couldn't understand why she cared more about Amy Hart than about him him.

He walked over to the gra.s.s tennis court, hidden in the shade of a large spreading copper beech. Setting up the ball machine, he took a spot on the opposite baseline and practised his forehand, slamming each ball angrily yet accurately across court. Then, feeling a little better, he sat down on a wooden bench, wiping his face with a cold towel he pulled from the little ice box next to his seat.

Why am I even bothering with a woman at this point in my life? he thought, leaning his head back to look up through the branches and leaves of the tree. Yes, Anna Kennedy was a great girl, smart, very s.e.xy, but she was definitely too uptight for him. And yet ... and yet he couldn't stop thinking about how lovely she'd looked in that blue dress in Provence. How great she smelled, how enthusiastic she was when he'd told her about his script ideas. He'd never met a woman who was so supportive on the one hand, but so single-minded about what she wanted to do. Sam just couldn't work her out one bit, and that possibly added to her appeal.

Sighing, he reached back into the little fridge and cracked open a bottle of cold lemonade. Just then, his mobile phone began vibrating in his pocket. Tutting, he pulled it out.

'Yes?'

'Hey, Mr Sunshine, how's things in England?'

Sam recognised Jim Parker's voice immediately and softened his tone.

'Sorry, Jim,' he said, taking a long drink. 'Just a bit distracted. Been concentrating on the script since I've been back here.'

'Is that why I haven't been able to get hold of you since last Friday?'

'Yeah, you know how it is when you're in the zone,' he lied.