13
11.45, 16 January 2014
Wilton Place, London, SW1
Three is never an easy number around a table, especially when one of them was Ryder Forsyth. They’d had the awkward introduction, the commiseration and an initial chat, and Emma Railton, while revealing her frantic worry, had also shown herself to be intelligent, strong, focused and not given to sentimentality. She was a very attractive woman in her mid to late forties with blonde hair cut gamine style, minimal make-up around her grey eyes, a small red rosebud mouth and an hourglass figure that seemed both old-fashioned and yet incredibly sexy. Mercy was now trying to conduct the initial interview and neither of them was relaxed with the oppressive presence of Forsyth’s personality.
‘Ryder,’ said Emma, finally, ‘would you mind leaving us to have our talk by ourselves?’
‘I don’t think that would be advisable, ma’am.’
‘I know you have your instructions from Kinderman, but first of all don’t call me ma’am when I know you’re English. My name is Emma. Secondly, just leave us alone. We’re women, we know how to talk this out.’
Forsyth got up and left without a word.
‘Thank God,’ said Emma. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I think Ryder is tremendous, but you don’t know what it’s like. As soon as Kinderman is involved in anything, a colossal weight comes down on all the proceedings. Nobody can say a word without referring to some higher authority.’
‘Was that one of the reasons why you left your husband?’
‘I loved my husband …’
‘Past tense?’ said Mercy.
‘Yes. We did love each other, but huge demands were made on Ken’s time and our lives together. In the beginning he tried to leave the corporation but every time they made a big fuss. The vice-president … of the United States, I mean, would make personal phone calls to him, urging him to reconsider. The remuneration packages went through the roof. And Ken found it very difficult to resist. There were other things too and he accepted that I couldn’t carry on. I mean, there are some people who would kill to live in a four-bedroom apartment on the hundred and eighth floor of the Burj Khalifa with all the amenities of a luxury health spa, but it ain’t me.’
‘Was that it?’ asked Mercy. ‘You left him because you didn’t like the lifestyle?’
Emma cast about the room looking for inspiration and gave up.
‘No.’
‘Nothing goes out of this room, but I do have to know everything. All the detail. The smallest things matter.’
‘This wasn’t a small detail,’ said Emma. ‘I found it increasingly difficult to live with the decisions that Ken was making on behalf of the Kinderman Corporation. I didn’t like a lot of the things they were doing. I hated the subterfuge, the politics and the bare-faced lying that went on. Ken had worked all his life to be the CEO of a major American corporation, and at forty-nine years old he wasn’t going to walk away from the top job in his world because I was miserable about some of his business ethics. He made his choice. Now he’s got one of those trophy wives that come free when you buy a Lamborghini Veneno.’
They looked at each other, registered the seriousness of the revelation, and then laughed. On the back of that release of emotion tears suddenly came and Emma reached for the tissues.
‘Sorry, I can’t control it.’
‘Don’t worry. I know what it’s like. Always there, trembling just below the surface.’
‘You mean you’re a kidnap investigator with a daughter who’s been kidnapped?’
‘A couple of years ago,’ said Mercy, ‘but she was older, more able to look after herself.’
‘Oh, Sophie can look after herself all right. She’s eight going on eighteen. She’s an extraordinary girl. I wish I’d had her confidence at that age. She’s almost more at home with the Kinderman board members than with her class at Francis Holland.’
‘So she wouldn’t have had dolls or teddies or anything like that?’
‘Not exactly. Her only toy is a rag-doll frog called Zach. It’s like an alter ego. Sometimes she has dialogues with Zach and other times she becomes Zach. It can be quite unnerving. I’d be driving with a friend sitting in the front and suddenly Zach would appear between us and look slyly from one to the other and say in a deep voice: “Hu-llo, la-a-adies.” As if he was some gigolo or pimp. My friend would have to check behind just to make sure it was Sophie holding up the frog. It was that freaky.’
‘Interesting,’ said Mercy. ‘You wonder where it comes from?’
‘She’s a very inventive little girl,’ said Emma. ‘We’d go on holiday and she’d take a girlfriend with her and they’d sit on rubber rings in the pool and play out these dialogues as if they were old women in a tea shop, or two old guys playing bowls, or the worst was a couple of teenagers sunbathing and going through their night on the town together, the boys they ended up with. Ken would tell me I had to do something about it. And I’d say in my best American: “Like what?” I mean, am I about to crush all creativity out of my child just because she’s a bit weird? She might be a budding screenwriter and I’d have hammered it out of her. Forget it.’
‘How did she get on with the chauffeur?’
‘Yes, the chauffeur. I got rid of the Kinderman driver around about day two. He was one of those ex-marines, shorn back and sides with a crew cut on top, eighteen stone of pure muscle. He could run through doors, but only because he’d never remember it was easier to open them. Cars would bounce off him, but only because he would go and play in the rush hour traffic. He’d shake your hand with one finger because he’d put you in hospital if he did it properly. No conversation. Pre-programmed for total efficiency. Impossible.
‘Now Pat Gould. He was my choice. A wonderful man. Irish. Loved a bit of banter and play-acting. Sophie adored him. They’d sit together up front, she never went in the back, and have these rip-roaring conversations with Pat pretending to be her music producer while Sophie was some idiotic child pop star. When he dropped her off at school she’d run through the gates as if she was being mobbed by paparazzi. After school one day I saw her waving at the window and looked out to find no one in the street. When I asked her what she was doing, she said, “Just waving at my adoring fans. You’ve got to, haven’t you, Mum?”’
They laughed again and the tears came straight after.
‘So you see,’ said Emma,’ she really is the light of my life. She makes me laugh like a drain.’
‘Is she physically resilient?’ asked Mercy. ‘Does she have any illnesses, take any medication?’
‘Since my separation from Ken she’s developed what I call anxiety asthma. She has one of those pumps if she gets into trouble. It’s never been an issue but I don’t know how she’ll react to the stress of being kidnapped. She appears to be self-reliant but she misses her father and relies a lot on me for emotional sustenance. She’ll always call me during the day to … to …’
The tears came once more. Mercy reached over and squeezed her shoulder. Emma held on to her hand. Mercy asked her to describe the clothes Sophie was wearing (school uniform), any jewellery (pearl studs in her ears), lucky charms (a fossil of a bug embedded in a piece of rock), bracelets (two strings, orange and green, around her wrist), a watch (not one that she wore), and the mobile phone number. Emma handed over some photographs. They talked about teeth, hair and skin. It made Emma feel calm.
‘I want to talk a bit more about your husband now,’ said Mercy. ‘I understand he was very generous to you in the divorce settlement and despite that he is still a very wealthy man. Has all that wealth been accumulated through his work for Kinderman?’
‘His father was a very successful businessman. They were good Republican boys and always competed against each other until the day his father died suddenly of a stroke nearly ten years ago,’ said Emma. ‘He’d always said that Ken had to make his way in the world and that he wasn’t going to inherit, that he didn’t believe in handing wealth down because it spoilt the next generation
. But Ken was already very well set up by the time his father died, leaving him a New York property portfolio and stocks and shares worth around four hundred million dollars.’
Mercy couldn’t stop a reaction from her eyebrows.
‘I know,’ said Emma. ‘The sums are fantastic. His father died in 2005 and Ken divested himself of that property portfolio over the following two years and reinvested in gold. He then bought into the banks after the credit crunch and reinvested in property in London, Shanghai and Sydney and made that four hundred million worth eight hundred million in seven years. At the same time his Kinderman shares were doubling and tripling and he was being awarded more and more so that he was very close to becoming a double billionaire by the end of last year. I know because he told me recently that Forbes had got it all wrong. They were nearly eight hundred million bucks out. Whatever … it’s completely obscene.’
‘Has Ryder told you about the other kidnaps that took place yesterday?’
‘Yes. He mentioned that in each case there was a political connection,’ said Emma. ‘You must know that Ken was at Princeton with about half the political class of the USA. And the VP of the US was a big pal of his father’s and they’ve known each other for years.’
‘Did he also tell you that in each case the parents are billionaires?’
‘Ryder thinks that’s relevant only from the point of view of motivation for the kidnappers.’
‘How does he view this demand for expenses?’
‘He thinks it’s a joke. I mean he thinks it’s just something to show that all the kidnaps are connected and how clever the gang has been to pull them off. In the end he reckons it will come down to negotiation. He’s determined to bring Sophie back safely, but I can detect some pride in there. He wants to do it for less than anybody else. And I’ve told him not to put her at risk for anything as silly as money.’
‘Can I ask whether you’re in a relationship at the moment?’
‘Of course. Yes, I do have a boyfriend … seems ridiculous to call him that. He’s … er … somewhat older than me. We met in Dubai. He has business out there. Then when I split from Ken we re-met here in London.’
‘Can you give me his name?’ asked Mercy. ‘We’re going to have to check him out, as I’m sure you’ll understand.’
‘You’re going to check him out?’ said Emma, astonished. ‘He used to work for Kinderman. He’s already been fully vetted by the US military, Kinderman human resources and probably the CIA, but … by all means. His name is Conrad Jensen.’
Isabel was upstairs lying on the bed, exhausted. She’d put Alyshia off for lunch, said she was going to have to sleep, told her to come round in the late afternoon. She was wrapped in the duvet still fully clothed, no energy to get undressed. She held on to her belly, felt its swelling, imagined the small life doubling and redoubling inside her. She was so happy, even happier than she’d been when she’d had Alyshia because she’d already begun to feel the quality of Frank’s particular darkness by then. She’d seen him mixing not only with all the right people but also with undesirable types, the sort you looked at and they strangled something inside you, made your goodness feel laughable.
She thrust it out of her mind. Couldn’t understand why she was allowing such doom-laden thoughts to enter her consciousness on a day such as this. She drifted back in time to a party she’d been to with Charlie. It had been a formal affair until after the dinner, when there’d been some dancing. Charlie had cut in and soon they were dancing in an aura of empty space as everybody around them could see from their unswerving gaze into each other’s eyes that here were two people madly in love.
It was at this point that she started to find air in the bedroom difficult to come by. She thought it might have been the memory, which had induced excitement and slightly impaired her breathing, but the feeling of breathlessness intensified. She threw open the duvet in the hope that this would help her breathe, but it got worse. She rolled over and fumbled on the bedside table for her mobile phone, trying to suck air into lungs that didn’t seem capable of inflating. Her throat protested as her hand lashed out, dashing everything to the floor, and her brain told her that she’d left the phone in the kitchen. She coughed and was alarmed to see a spattering of blood on the white sheet. Where had that come from?
She staggered to her feet, the room reeling so that she clutched at invisible handrails trying to stay vertical. She tripped forward, swerving towards the door, whose jamb seemed to shift so that her shoulder careened into it and she ricocheted into the corridor and somehow managed to grab the wooden sphere on the top of the banister post. She hung on, trying to focus on the stairs, aware now that whatever the cause this was serious and she would have to get help.
The stairs seemed immensely steep and high as she pointed her foot towards the first step. Another cough; blood speckled her hand as her foot stretched out and connected with nothing while her supporting leg collapsed and she dived head first, hands grasping at air. Her vision filled with incomprehensible, disordered images: chest, carpet, feet, light, banister, wall. Her body made jarring contact on the shoulder, coccyx and knee, finishing with a sickening cranial thud against the wall, which relieved her of consciousness and left her face down on the granite tiles of the hallway to the front door.
14
13.05, 16 January 2014
in transit, Belgravia, London SW1
On the way to Lyall Mews, Mercy called Conrad Jensen’s mobile but got no response. Papadopoulos was driving and listening to a preliminary report from the forensic team who had done most of the work on the front doors and seating area of the Mercedes. They had just been sent Pat Gould’s and Sophie Railton-Bass’s prints and so far had found nothing unusual.
‘Once we’ve checked this out, I might leave you and pursue this Conrad Jensen lead at the Savoy,’ said Mercy.
‘You think that smells of something?’
‘Don’t know why,’ said Mercy. ‘Maybe it’s because he’s a guy moving in on a vulnerable woman with a huge amount of money.’
‘You didn’t make Emma Railton sound very vulnerable,’ said Papadopoulos. ‘And Jensen practically works for the CIA.’
‘That’s never been a recommendation in my book,’ said Mercy. ‘The CIA were cagey with me this morning. My friend in MI6 reckons they’re worried that some of their personnel or contractors might be involved and they want to keep cards tight to their chests. And even intelligent, capable women are emotionally vulnerable when their marriage busts up.’
Mercy left Papadopoulos to investigate the mews and do a door-to-door in Lyall Street, and drove to the Savoy to investigate Conrad Jensen. She quickly discovered that he’d been staying there with his daughter, a woman in her twenties, whose name they did not have as her passport had not been required for the booking. Emma had made no mention of the daughter. Jensen had left the hotel suddenly with no luggage and had been followed by his daughter some days later. Mercy asked to look at the room, a two-bedroom suite, but it was occupied and had already been completely cleaned twice. She asked to speak to the cleaners and to anybody who had interacted with Conrad Jensen or his daughter.
The Portuguese cleaners had never been in the room with Jensen and his daughter present. They had not noticed anything unusual in the rubbish nor in the things littered about the rooms. Mercy moved on to the waiters in the various dining rooms that Jensen and his daughter had frequented. The only interesting thing to emerge from these interviews was that no waiter had ever picked up even a snippet of conversation. Whenever a waiter approached their table dialogue ceased and would only resume once they were out of earshot.
‘Was that intentional?’
‘We thought it was weird,’ said one of the girls. ‘He always used to say: “My daughter will have the steak tartare.” As if he was trying to establish something. We began to think, even with the forty-odd years’ age difference, that maybe they weren’t father and daughter, but lovers. We played a game one night taking it in turns to
pass by their table pouring wine, cleaning crumbs, trying to catch them out, and we noticed they used sign language. Eventually they just shut up and we left them alone. But there was something about them, you know, not right.’
A call came through to tell her that they had found the receptionist and doorman who were on duty at the time Conrad Jensen left the hotel.
They sat in an office behind reception.
‘So Mr Jensen didn’t check out?’ asked Mercy.
‘No, his daughter checked out about three days after we last saw him and put the bill on her father’s credit card,’ said the receptionist.
‘Did you get her name?’
‘No.’
‘Is that odd,’ asked Mercy, ‘for people in an expensive two-bedroom suite to check out separately?’
‘Not so unusual for the very rich.’
‘Anything you can tell us about his stay here? Visitors? Unusual requests?’
‘According to his computer file he asked us to admit one Walden Garfinkle to his room on the eleventh of January at six p.m.’
‘Did you see Jensen on the night he left?’
‘He nodded at me on his way out. That’s all.’
‘Did you see the daughter during the following three days?’
‘Occasionally.’
‘How would you describe her demeanour?’
‘She was almost constantly on her phone, and when she wasn’t, she would sit in the lobby staring into it intensely, her face only inches from the screen, as if she was expecting news from a lover. As far as I know, she only went to her room to sleep.’
‘That’s very observant,’ said Mercy.
‘She was a striking woman … even for the Savoy.’
‘What about you?’ asked Mercy, turning to the doorman. ‘Did you have any contact with the girl?’