No Peace For The Wicked

Chapter 22

“I thought you said you’d buy me a cream tea, you cheapskate.”

Riley stared at the battered decor in the cafe off the North Circular, and at the heavy tan liquid that passed for tea. Outside, evening rush hour traffic crawled past in a welter of exhaust fumes.

Apart from the owner, the place was deserted. Palmer set two plates down on the table, each bearing a solid looking currant bun of indeterminate vintage.

“Sorry,” he said. “No cream, no jam, strawberries are off. Champagne isn’t quite chilled enough for the wine waiter’s liking.”

Riley stabbed her bun with a battered knife. It was solid and unyielding. She sighed, pushing the plate away. “Okay, so what have we got?”

Palmer picked up his bun and bit into the crust. He chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then put it down and drank some tea.

“We have a house of some size, owned by an elderly woman, possibly the widow of an old, bad man who never got caught. Whatever — there’s money in there somewhere. We have at least one very fit man — possibly ex-army — who lives in, who may or may not be strange.”

“A toy boy?” Riley ventured. But even as she said it, she couldn’t summon up much enthusiasm for the notion. Something about the austere atmosphere of the house ruled out any idea of physical passion.

Palmer also looked sceptical. “If there was any hanky-panky going on I think Marion would have known. She seemed the observant sort. There are no obvious signs of children, so that does away with the heirs inheriting the club empire bit. But other than that, we have nothing else that makes any sense.” He sighed and prodded the bun as though it might stir into life. “All in all, I’ve never seen a house with fewer clues in it. Almost as if it’s been swept clean by experts.”

“You think?”

“Definitely. I know the signs.”

“If it’s the right place,” Riley observed. “The only link we have is your friend knowing the address of Ray Grossman — who’s probably dead, anyway. This Mrs Grossman could be a sweet old cousin with the same name.”

“I bet she isn’t,” Palmer muttered cynically. He chewed another piece of bun.

After leaving the Grossman house, they had driven to the nearby town centre and found the travel agents. It was a small family firm and the young girl behind the desk looked bored with the lack of business.

Riley had plunged straight in. “I don’t suppose you handled the Grossman party tickets, did you?” she’d asked. She wanted to present the picture of someone in a jam, but not about to forget other wage slaves with too much to do.

“We handle all Mrs Grossman’s travel arrangements,” the girl replied formally, as though she’d been reading from a prepared script. “How can I help you?”

Riley explained about the house being about to go on the market with her agency, and that an urgent buyer had popped up. “Problem is,” Riley continued, “Mrs G didn’t leave us her number in Spain. We didn’t expect to have anything until she got back, you see.”

The girl continued to look bored and Riley had seized on a sudden flash of inspiration. “Gary was supposed to give it to us before he left, but I think he had other things on his mind.” She raised an eyebrow and gave the girl a knowing look. “I wonder what that could have been.”

The girl blushed. Evidently tickets were not the only things Gary got at this travel agency. “I’m not sure,” she said, glancing towards the back office. She pulled a note-pad towards her and copied a number from a file, then passed the piece of paper to Riley. “I don’t have the address,” she said softly. “Only Gary said he was driving from Malaga up the coast towards Almeria. If you see him, will you get him to call me?”

Riley smiled. “Of course. But I bet you’ll be seeing him soon.”

The girl shook her head. “I don't think so. We probably won’t be handling their account anymore.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because Mrs Grossman’s got herself a private plane. Gary said these tickets would be the last ones.”

Riley took one last chance and nudged the girl a bit further. “You couldn’t tell us who they were for, could you?”

The girl stared up at her, before shrugging and tapping at her keyboard. “They were for a Mr Duggan, a Mr Howard and- ” She paused as if teetering on the edge of changing her mind, then added, “ — and a Mr Mitcheson.”

Riley turned and walked out, leaving Palmer to thank the girl for her help. When he joined her on the pavement, her face was pale and tight. She spoke briefly before listening, then switched off.

“Riley-” Palmer began, but she cut him off with a raised hand.

“Don’t, Frank.” She glanced at him, her face softening a little, but the muscles in her jaw were bunched with tension. “Please don’t say a word. That was the International Operator. She couldn’t put the number any closer than Malaga — which doesn’t help us. Come on. I need some tea.”

Now, in the quiet of the café, she pulled out the other two bits of information she’d found in the kitchen drawer. One was the leaflet about the airfield at Rickmansworth, the other was the motorised wheelchair brochure. “All we’ve got is these.”

“Interesting,” Palmer commented, studying the wheelchair details. “I wouldn’t have thought this would be very practical around all those terraced bits of garden, would you? I didn’t see any ramps.” He reached for her mobile and dialled a number. While he was doing that, Riley stood up and went to the washroom. When she came back he was sitting with two fresh cups of tea looking very pleased with himself. On the brochure he had written an address. Villa Almedina, Moharras. In brackets he had written the word Nerja.

“Are you going to tell me how you did that?” Riley asked coolly. “Or are you just going to sit there all day looking smug?”

“I told them I’d been asked to fit ramps for a wheelchair at the Grossman house, and could they give me some measurements. They told me it was being delivered anytime now — but by special instructions to this place in Spain.” He grinned. “Easy when you know how.”

“Don’t be a smart-arse. What about the airfield?”

He handed her the phone. “That’s more an insurance thing, I reckon.”

“I see.” Riley gave him a flinty look. “And playing the insurance role is a girlie kind of thing.” She snatched the phone and dialled the number on the leaflet, asking to be put through to the airfield manager.

“Hi, General Accident here,” she announced smoothly. “We’re just checking details of a group of policies on behalf of a client. Could you confirm the location of a private plane? ” Riley fought for the name of a likely model. “ It’s a Beechcraft, I believe, with secure facilities at the airfield. Mrs Grossman is the owner. Thanks, I’ll wait.”

The manager came back moments later. “Yes, we have a plane owned by Mrs Grossman, but it’s a Cessna Titan.”

“That’s great,” Riley intoned. “If we need to inspect the aircraft, would that be possible? It’s only a formality.”

“It would, normally,” the manager told her. “But the plane’s not here. The pilot filed a flight plan for Spain, I think, coming back in a day or two.” He hesitated. “Why are General Accident involved? The plane’s already insured. We checked all that out.”

Riley clicked the off button and turned to Palmer. “Well, we know they — whoever they are — are in Spain, and they’ve got a Cessna Titan. The question is, who is the wheelchair user?”

Palmer shrugged. “Whoever they are, they’ve got plenty of money. Motorised wheelchair delivered to Spain, a Cessna, a tasty house, a live-in odd-job man and a team of former military gophers. You don’t get all that on a company pension.”

Riley chewed her lip and tapped the address on the wheelchair brochure. “Spain. That’s where I first saw Mitcheson, before we met at Gibraltar airport. If this villa is near Malaga, it makes it only a couple of hours from Gibraltar — three at most.”

A shadow loomed over the table and the proprietor cleared the cups and plates. “This ain’t the boardroom of Microsoft, you know,” he muttered bluntly. “You two gonna sit here all day, or what?”

Riley smiled sweetly and stood up. “Thanks, but no. I’m not sure all my jabs are up to date.”

They went outside where Palmer looked up at the grey sky, and stretched. He turned to Riley: “How important is this assignment to you?”

“Important? I don’t follow.”

“Well, the investigation. Would it matter if you dropped it here and now?”

Riley looked at him, her eyes narrowing. “I took this assignment on,” she said with quiet resolve, “and that means I have to see it through. And time is getting short. Are you suggesting I quit?”

“No.” Palmer was unfazed by her reaction. “I just want to know if you’re sure about it, that’s all.” He held up a hand to forestall her objections. “Frankly, I reckon the only way of getting more information is to follow the band.”

“You mean to Spain?”

“Can you afford it?”

Riley nodded with certainty. “If this story is worth anything, it’ll lead onto other things. I’m prepared to take a punt on it. How about you?”

“If you’re paying, why not? I could do with a spot of sun.”

Riley nodded. “I was thinking the same. I hope your passport’s up to date.”

Palmer patted his breast pocket. “Never travel without it. Shall I book tickets and rooms in the name of Mr and Mrs Palmer?”

Riley gave him a withering look. “In your dreams.”