‘Not here, I’m afraid. He’s gone to his home in Wales and will be working from there for a few days. Would you like me to give him a message?’
‘Yeah, tell him I’m coming to see him.’ Mitzi starts to head to the exit.
‘That’s not a good idea.’ Melissa follows her. ‘He has a strict policy on not mixing his personal and professional lives. I’ll call him and ask him to get back to you with a time that you can meet in his office. That will be more convenient for everyone.’
‘Listen, lady; your boss and his boy George are up to their very British stiff upper lips in a homicide. Now, I guess if that was made public, it wouldn’t do either of their reputations any damned good.’ She opens her arms and turns slowly in a circle. ‘To say nothing of what it would do to the value of this fine company.’
‘Lieutenant, I suggest—’
‘Don’t! Suggesting is a really bad thing for you to do.’ She glares at her. ‘Call your boss and tell him I’m mad as hell. So mad I’m gonna trek to the middle of freakin’ nowhere to see him, and when I arrive I expect decent black coffee and honest answers.’
Mitzi doesn’t wait for a reply.
Outside, the noise of London hits her like a slap. She’s had enough of this case now. She wants to go home and nurse her sick daughter, wants to make peace with Jade, wants to hold her sister’s hand, pour a glass of wine and help her sort her marriage out.
What she does not want is to be going to some country named after a mammal to get jerked around by Sir Lah-De-dah.
‘Taxi!’ She walks in the road with her hand held high.
A cab pulls over and a window slides down revealing a bald-headed old Londoner in a Chelsea shirt. ‘Where do you want to go to, Mrs?’
‘San Francisco.’ Mitzi pulls open the door. ‘But take me to Dean Street, and hey, buddy, just ’cause you hear an American accent, don’t think you can go the long way round and make a mug outta me.’
98
Tess and Chris Wilkins appear to be your typical childless couple. Married for twelve of their fifteen years together, they’ve put on a little too much weight and grown lazy with age. Their money comes from a modest business that involves collecting, refilling and reselling ink-jet cartridges and it’s successful enough to afford a semi-decent four-bed in a semi-decent LA suburb.
San Francisco is a place they know and love. In the past, they’ve done all the touristy things from driving the Bay Bridge to sailing out to Alcatraz and watching the sun go down while eating the world’s best shrimp gumbo on a deck at Fisherman’s Wharf.
Chris has dark, hippy biker hair and a big curly beard. He’s thirty-nine years old, stands six-two and crushes the scales by three hundred pounds. Tess is three years younger, five inches smaller and a hundred pounds lighter. She was once a cheerleading blonde who could do the splits, but those days have long gone. Her hair is now a frumpy charcoal colour, needs layering and a good four inches cutting off. She tells friends she’d do it but Chris is a bit of a caveman and likes her to keep it ‘long ’n’ natural.’
Taylor Swift plays on the radio of the six-berth RV they rented at the airport. They’ve brought a lot of stuff with them: snacks, drinks, a whole closet of clothes. The twenty-seven-footer is just about right for their many needs.
Chris pops another couple of pieces of gum as the six-litre V10 roars up a long San Franciscan hill. ‘We anywhere near, yet?’
His wife screws the cap back on the bottle of Coke she’s been swigging and checks the sat-nav stuck to the windshield. ‘Another mile or two before you turn off, then about the same again.’ She pulls at the top of her pink T-shirt and fans air down into her cleavage. ‘You think the air-con is working in this thing?’
‘I put it on hot, so you’d have to take your top off.’
She laughs at him and rolls it up just below her breasts. ‘I take this off while you’re drivin’ we’re gonna end up in a ditch.’
‘Sounds good to me.’ He wobbles the wheel playfully.
‘Dead I mean.’
‘Now that don’t sound so good.’
‘Seriously, can you get any more chill out of those vents?’
Chris thumbs the fan button but it’s as high as it’ll go. ‘There’s somethin’ wrong with it. May as well wind down the window and let the wind blow back that fine hair of yours.’
She gives him her sexiest smile, lowers the passenger door glass and leans back against the headrest.
Chris enjoys a glance at her long locks being wind whipped off her pretty little cheeks. He wants to pull over and jump her right here, right now, with the big RV blocking the highway and everyone honking their horns in a ten-mile tailback.
‘Eyes on the road, darlin’,’ she says from behind big black shades. ‘Drive nicely and as soon as we get parked up, I’ll sort out that little pecker problem you have there.’
99
Mitzi tips the doorman. She worked hotels in her teens and remembers all too well how much she depended upon the generosity of guests to beat the minimum wage.
She enters the coolness of the hotel and walks past the front desk to the lifts. Her mind is on making arrangements to get over to Wales as quickly as possible. As soon as that’s done, she’s going to wrap things up and head home.
‘Excuse me, Mrs Fallon,’ says a fat-faced man in a smart suit. ‘I am the hotel manager, Jonathan Dunbar.’ He hands her a business card as the elevator announces its arrival with a ding. ‘Please, after you.’ He gestures for her to enter the box of polished steel and mirrors. ‘Let me accompany you to your room.’
She steps in and studies him suspiciously. ‘I’ve been here over twenty-four hours, I know where my room is.’
‘Of course you do.’ He presses the button. ‘I would just like a discreet word with you, if possible.’
The elevator jerks its way up. ‘I don’t do discreet,’ says Mitzi. ‘Discreet can be translated in all languages to mean cover up, fuck up or shut up. It’s my least favourite word in the whole world. Except maybe “overdue”, that’s probably a full shade shittier than discreet.’
Dunbar sees his own face in the mirrored walls and it’s full of apprehension. This woman is going to be trouble when he tells her what he has to tell her.
The lift pings. Doors slide open. He puts a hand through the gap and smiles. ‘Here we are.’
‘Is that an affliction that you’ve got?’ She steps past him.
‘Pardon?’
‘Your habit of stating the freakin’ obvious. Is it some kind of disease you’ve picked up?’ She jams a keycard into her door slot and pushes it open. ‘Look, here we are, again.’
‘May I come in for a moment?’
She sees he’s genuinely worried about something. ‘Sure. But don’t even think about giving me some crap about charging a higher room rate, or say my credit card’s been declined.’
‘It isn’t that. Not at all.’ He shuts the door behind him. ‘I’m afraid the mistake is entirely ours. Mine, to be more precise.’
‘Really?’
‘Earlier today we were visited by two police officers who asked to search your room and Mr Bronty’s. They were from the terrorist unit — I mean the counter-terrorist unit — the police obviously don’t have a unit of terrorists. Only they weren’t.’
Mitzi looks confused. ‘They weren’t what? They weren’t cops, or they weren’t anti-terror cops?’
‘They weren’t cops. Police, I mean.’