For The Death Of Me

34

With the time difference, I made it home to Monaco for a late breakfast on Wednesday. Dylan and I had parted in Frankfurt, since I had done a complicated ticket transfer to see him back home to New York, through Paris.

If I said that the kids were pleased to see me again, I would be guilty of the sort of understatement that I abhor. They were ecstatic, at least the two older ones were, and wouldn’t let go of me not even after I’d given them the toys I’d bought for them in the Raffles shop and in a place in the Citylink Mall that had just about everything for kids.

Even with the melatonin I was running on empty, but we spent a couple of hours on the pool, and then I took them to the Cousteau Institute aquarium. . again. . and to the motor museum, of course. I had to tell them about Singapore too; as much as I could, at any rate. By the time I’d finished I’d promised to take them there as soon as their mum said they were old enough to go, although to be honest, after what I’d seen, I was glad that would be a right few years away.

Susie was pleased to see me too, you understand, although she kept her ecstasy under control better than they did. The fact that I was twenty-four hours late might have helped her in that. In fact, she kept it to herself until they had gone off with Ethel to start the getting-ready-for-bed process.

Afterwards, as we lay side by side looking out at the blue sea and at the red ball of the sun as it began to dip towards the horizon, she nudged my shoulder with her head. ‘That was pretty good, considering the trip you’ve had, and the time it took you to get back, and the fact that you haven’t been in touch since Sunday. Are you going to tell me now? Did you get Harvey’s pictures? Did you pay the woman off?’

‘No.’

‘What did you get?’

‘I got my Siegfried and Roy T-shirt ruined and I nearly got arrested twice.’

She propped herself on an elbow, eyes wide, ‘What for?’

‘Murder.’

‘Murder!’

‘Don’t shout, for Christ’s sake, the kids will hear you. I didn’t do it, either of them, honest.’

‘Who did?’

‘A wee Scots guy called Sammy did the first one: he knifed Maddy’s boyfriend just before I was due to meet him in that bar on Sunday night. Then Maddy killed him. That was self-defence, though: he was going to cut her head off and take it to the Triad chieftain because she’d upset him.’

She put a hand on my forehead. ‘Oz, are you feeling all right? You haven’t got malaria, have you?’

‘It doesn’t take effect that quickly.’

‘Has Mike Dylan been trying out his next book on you?’

‘No, he hasn’t, and you must be very careful never to call him that again, not where anyone can hear you. There are people out there who would kill him with a blowlamp if they thought he was alive.’

‘Are you trying to tell me you’re serious?’

I pointed across the bedroom. ‘See that knapsack on your dressing-table stool?’ She nodded. ‘Go and get it, there’s a girl.’

‘Why don’t you get it yourself?’

‘Because I like watching you in the buff.’

‘Oh. That’s fair enough, then.’ She got up from the bed, skipped across the room, fetched the bag, then sat back down beside me.

‘Open it.’

She did, and looked inside. ‘Oz! What’s this?’

‘Fifty thousand of Uncle Sam’s dollars,’ I told her, ‘drawn from Amex to give to Maddy, only she sent Tony Lee, her renegade Triad boyfriend instead. They must have been watching him, for his account got closed off before we got there.’

‘We? You mean Mike went with you to that bar, and him in danger there?’

‘He insisted, but it wasn’t a risk for him. Only one guy in Singapore knows about his Interpol work, and he’s on our side. Thank Christ, I might add, because he cleaned up the mess.’

She sat for a while, frowning as she took it all in. ‘So Harvey’s ex is on the run from these diehards. .’

‘Triads.’

‘Why?’

‘She took a photograph of their top man, and they found out. His identity’s the biggest secret in South East Asia, apparently.’

‘Why did she do that?’

‘She thought Tony was shagging him. As it turned out, he worked for him.’

‘So she’s out there, with these desperadoes after her, and you’re back here? You’re her only hope and you’ve abandoned her.’

‘That’s how it looks, but we’d nowhere else to go.’

‘Bollocks! There’s always somewhere else to go; you’re always telling me that. Get out there and find her.’

I smiled at her. There is no greater motivator than my lovely wife. ‘I was hoping you’d say that,’ I told her.