Alarm Call

Chapter 32

Eventually a lieutenant and a sergeant from the Metro Police Department domestic crimes unit turned up, both of them women. By that time we were in the corridor, waiting as a police medical examiner took blood and other samples from the girl.

Her name was Lola, and she was a dancer in one of the shows in La Cage, another Riviera theatre. She was still too stunned to give any detailed account of what had happened, but by the time we’d told the detectives what we’d found when we burst into the room, they were in no more doubt than we were. It didn’t occur to either of them to ask us why we’d kicked our way in, but none of us was about to jog their elbow on that.

Within ten minutes of their arrival there was an all-state alert out for John Nichols, on suspicion of date rape.

I took the lieutenant aside; her name was Oakley, and I wondered if she’d ever been a cowgirl. ‘If you catch this guy,’ I said to her, ‘he’ll have something on him that’s important to me. It’ll be a digital camera, and I expect you’ll also find a laptop computer in his possession. There will be material stored on them that relates to me, and that was obtained without my knowledge or consent. However, it does not relate to this crime, so I want it to be seen only by officers who need to see it, and then destroyed immediately they have.’

She looked at me shrewdly. ‘Mr Blackstone, do you want to make a complaint against this man?’

‘Lieutenant Oakley, I want you to lock this man up for this crime alone. I just want to make sure that what I ask you to do is done.’

She was sharp, this woman. ‘Sir, would I be correct if I guessed that Nichols is trying to extort money from you with this material?’

‘At this stage, I’m not prepared to make such a complaint. Is that a good enough answer for you?’

‘It’ll do.’

‘In that case, you should know that if necessary I’m prepared to take legal action to protect myself.’

She smiled at me and made a decision. ‘That won’t be necessary. When Nichols is apprehended he’ll be brought to me. I and I alone will view any material he may have. Unless you’re wrong and I decide that it does relate to this case, or unless it shows you committing a crime, I’ll erase it.’

‘Thanks, Lieutenant Oakley,’ I told her, sincerely. ‘This is not a financial inducement, you understand, but I’d be grateful if you’d let me know the address of your department’s benevolent fund.’

She grinned. ‘The Sheriff’s Office will do just fine, Mr Blackstone.’

They didn’t find Johnson, of course. . I still couldn’t get used to calling him Nichols. . not that night or next morning. Eventually the police worked out that he’d had an hour and a half start on them, time enough to get well clear of Vegas, across the state border and west into California, or east into either Arizona or Utah. But they’d tried, so I made a note in my pocket PC to send them a cheque as soon as I could.

I had Prim brought back to my suite for breakfast, and told her what he’d done, but she didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘You don’t surprise me,’ she replied. ‘Nicky sourced the GHB. It’s just like him to keep some for himself and use it. He can be such a sleaze-bag.’

‘You didn’t think that when you were screwing him.’

She gave me the most withering look I’ve ever experienced, even worse than the one I got from an English teacher when I asked if I could use a comic-book version of Treasure Island for exam revision.

‘You are such a self-obsessed idiot, Oz,’ she said. ‘I never was screwing Nicky Johnson. I went to Mexico with him to provoke you into coming after me. I brought him to Scotland for exactly the same reason. Obviously it didn’t work either time. You were so obsessed by Susie and your kid that you jumped at the chance to get rid of me.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘What would you have done if I’d come back to you?’

‘Good question. I’d probably still have left.’

‘But only probably. So you agree that the times weren’t all bad then?’

I looked at her. Most of the anger had left me now; what was left was focused on Johnson. ‘That’s why you took me to San Francisco and Westwood, isn’t it?’ I asked.

‘Of course it is. And,’ she added, heavily, ‘I didn’t even have to suggest the Campton Place. You did that all by yourself, which told me a hell of a lot.’

When I thought about it, I had to admit that it told me the same. I’d been lying to myself back then: it had been good at times.

‘Prim,’ I asked her. ‘Please tell me where I can find this guy. I’m not giving you any money; you have to know that by now.’

‘I know,’ she conceded. ‘But that’s not important any more. Fucking your career and your marriage good and proper will be more than enough for me.’

‘You can forget wrecking my marriage. That’s secure.’

‘What makes you so sure?’

I grinned and played her my pocket PC recording. ‘Susie’s heard that. She’s on her way here, right now.’

She glared at me, in the purest frustration. ‘And what about your career?’ she shot back.

‘If I have to defend it by having you thrown in jail and obtaining world-wide court injunctions to suppress those shots I’ll do it.’

‘Well, you’re going to have to,’ she hissed, ‘for Nicky’s out of my control.’

‘And what about Tom?’ I asked her. ‘Who’s controlling him?’

She took me completely by surprise, as she’d done a week and more before, by flushing and starting to cry. ‘You leave Tom out of this,’ she said. ‘He’s being well looked after, and he’s safe.’

‘Until when? Until he becomes a bargaining chip?’

‘That won’t happen!’

‘Are you so sure? Your sleaze-ball friend Nicky’s on the run from the police now. All he’s got to look forward to is spending the next thirty years having his arsehole cored in some maximum-security jail. You think he won’t use your kid as a free ride out of the country? Are you really sure of that, in what passes for your heart of hearts?’ Suddenly I was angry with her again, even angrier than I’d been before, and I couldn’t quite work out why.

‘Are you sure?’ I yelled at her. I grabbed her by the arms, picked her off the couch and shook her like a doll. ‘Are you sure?’

Her face twisted, contorted into something that looked like real pain. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No, I’m not.’

‘Right, to hell with Nicky. I’ll deal with him when I’ve got the time. Tell me where I can find Tom.’

She fought for composure, then looked up at me, fearfully. ‘I can’t,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know.’ I thought she was lying to me until she said, ‘You’ll have to ask John Wallinger.’

In my surprise, I loosened my grip. She twisted free of me and ran sobbing into the bedroom.