A few moments later de Jersey came into the bedroom. “I wasn’t expecting you home for a while,” he said.
Christina watched him. He frightened her.
“How much did you overhear?” he asked.
“Well, I heard them ask you about being in New York.”
“And I was not likely to admit I was there, and you know why,” he said, sitting beside her on the bed.
“But they’ll find out, surely.” She avoided his eyes.
“Why should they? I’ll destroy those passports if you like.”
“I would if I were you, but I don’t understand why all this subterfuge is necessary.”
“I explained it to you.”
“I know you did, but why did Sylvia Hewitt have notes in her diary about this man you went to see?”
“Because, sweetheart, she was trying to trace him to get her own money back. I’ve told you this. In fact, it was David who suggested I use a pseudonym when traveling to buy racehorses. He even got the passports for me. As soon as sellers know my name, they put up the price. I would say the reason she kept on calling here was that she might have found out and wanted to squeeze money out of me. She really was a very unpleasant woman.”
“She’s dead, for God’s sake.”
“I know, and by her own hand. She was not a nice woman at all, carrying on with David behind Helen’s back. Her own sister!”
“Suddenly you’re coming over all moralistic,” she said in disbelief.
“Not really, but she was only concerned about getting her money back. She had probably discovered that she didn’t have a hope in hell of seeing any of it again, and it must have been too much for her.”
“How did she do it?”
“I have no idea. We didn’t get into those kind of details.”
“Did you go and see her, then?”
“What?”
“I said, Did you go and see her after she kept calling?”
“No, I put it off. I had enough to think about-and considering that that son of a bitch David has virtually bankrupted me, I would think you could understand my reasons for not wanting anything to do with her.”
“Did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Have anything to do with her?”
“Why on earth are you asking me that? I just told you I didn’t go to see her. I don’t want to discuss this any further. It’s finished.” He walked out, slamming the door.
De Jersey was treading on dangerous ground, and now the person he cared most deeply for might also be the most dangerous to him. He was angry with himself for having left the passports to be found, angry that the one area he had felt was secure was now vulnerable. He had to find a way to sort it out quickly and efficiently.
Raymond Marsh, unaware that he was under investigation, had arrived in Rio de Janeiro without a hitch. Almost immediately he had a reaction to something in the climate that gave him blinding headaches and a rash all over his body. His wife and daughter booked into a hotel with him, but he decided he wanted to move on. South America was not to his liking. He called his friend Robbie with instructions on where to send his packing cases. When he was told that cops were swarming around his old house and his face was plastered all over the newspapers and on television, he slammed the phone down. It was imperative to get out of Brazil. The police might have discovered from Robbie where he was. He paced up and down the hotel room, itching and sweating, trying to think where they should go, when his wife walked in with their screaming child.
“She’s got a rash too. It’s the heat.”
Marsh looked at her and grinned. “Let’s get out of here then. Tell you what, why don’t we visit your place?”
“What are you talking about?” she asked, sticking a pacifier into the baby’s mouth.
“New Zealand,” he said.
Anything can be bought in Rio, and within one afternoon Raymond Marsh had new passports. At ten in the evening, he, his wife, and his daughter flew out on tickets booked through their illegal credit cards. During the flight he began to feel worse, and by the time they landed he had a high temperature. They moved into the best hotel in Auckland, and a doctor was called. Marsh’s allergy subsided, but the fever and aches persisted. He was diagnosed with a virulent form of shingles. He remained in a darkened room under sedation for two days. He felt so ill that he didn’t even watch TV.
His quick exodus from Rio meant there was no clue as to his present whereabouts. When the detectives traced the poste restante address on his boxes to Rio, they set off with a warrant for his arrest but returned empty-handed.
In London, the headlines now blasted on about the police’s failure to capture Marsh or to trace Philip Simmons. The articles made their way to the hotel where Marsh was staying. By the time he saw the papers, the story was a week old.
Marsh read the coverage with relief. It was believed that he was still at large in Rio. He was amazed at the photographs they had used of him, which had been taken from his packing boxes. Some were in Elvis mode, others showed him in school uniform. He knew he must not use any of the credit-card numbers from the United Kingdom.
Marsh studied himself in the mirror. Since he had been ill he’d not had time to fix his hair, and it was stuck together in unattractive clumps. He went into the bathroom, put his head under the shower, and shampooed it three times to get the grease and old mousse out. It had taken years of practice to style his hair into a teddy boy quiff, but now it was receding badly and hung limply to his chin. He picked up a pair of nail scissors and chopped it short. He was near tears. It wasn’t just his hair he had lost but all his memorabilia. The crates containing his hero’s guitars and his autographed pictures were now in the hands of the Metropolitan Police.
His wife barged in with a dirty nappy and had to sit on the edge of the bath, she was laughing so hard. When she stopped giggling, she wiped her eyes with a tissue. “Christ, Raymond, you don’t half look different!”
“I’ll get a transplant,” he snapped.
Marsh calculated they would have real financial problems soon, but he knew that to contact Philip Simmons was tantamount to suicide. He would have to monitor the papers and lie low. He moved his family into a small apartment in Wellington and applied for a job with a local computer company. It was a far cry from the life he had hoped for, but at least he was free.
Sylvia Hewitt’s funeral took place within days of Lord Westbrook’s. The latter was a more public occasion, with press and photographers lining the streets outside the family estate. His ex-wife, his son and heir, and his two daughters had returned to England for the occasion. The ice-cream company now running the house and grounds allowed them to use the chapel and crypt, and the mourners were old family friends and various distant relatives. Displays of lilies sat on either side of his photograph. The police officers seated at the rear of the tiny chapel looked on with disgust: this man had been a petty criminal and then part of a robbery that still stunned the nation.
Lord Westbrook had dreamed of his son returning to the ancestral seat. The boy stood beside his mother in a gray suit. Neither he nor his mother knew of Westbrook’s dream. More distant relations told the press they were appalled by his actions.
De Jersey was relieved to see the funeral on the news. It meant one major risk was gone, but he would honor his promise. When payday came, Westbrook’s son would receive his father’s cut. Whatever else de Jersey was, he was an honorable man. He had still not seen anything in the papers about Sylvia Hewitt’s “suicide” and hoped to God they had closed the inquiry.
Pamela saw the televised snippet of Westbrook’s funeral and sobbed. She wished she could have been there. She had sent flowers with a card that simply said, “From your lady-in-waiting, with love and fond memories.” She paid for the bouquet in cash.