Royal Heist

19

Sylvia had taken a taxi straight from JFK Airport to the InterContinental Hotel because of its proximity to Central Park and easy walking distance to Moreno’s apartment block. She had decided that since she had time to kill before her appointment with Matheson, she would do some research of her own. She’d taken Matheson off the case before he had had a chance to check out Moreno’s apartment. Maybe she could discover something there that would help them. She had slept badly on the plane, so she decided to have a nap until midday, but she was still sound asleep when the chambermaid woke her at three. She showered and changed, and left the hotel at four.

The doorman at Moreno’s apartment was none too friendly until Sylvia slipped him twenty dollars. Then he told her he remembered Moreno well, a pleasant enough man, but he’d kept to himself.

“Did he warn you that he was leaving?”

“No. One minute he lived here, the next he didn’t.”

“But did you see him leave?”

“No. He might have gone when I wasn’t on duty. All I know is, the apartment changed hands. You need to talk to the agents. They handle the leases. The guy living there now is German, but I don’t see much of him either.”

“Is he at home?”

“No. Leaves early, comes back late. Days can go by and I don’t see him, but he uses a limo company.” He passed her a card. “They’re good. I know one of the drivers. Mr. Goldberg is a regular customer, like I said.”

“You’ve been most helpful, but I really did need to speak to Mr. Moreno. It looks like I’m out of luck, though.”

“Afraid so.”

“Thank you.”

“Have a nice evening.” He hovered for another twenty dollars, but she pulled her collar up around her face and walked off.

She had gone no more than twenty yards when she saw a limousine draw up. An immaculate gentleman climbed out of the backseat. He was wearing dark glasses and carried a slim briefcase. She heard the doorman address him. As he headed into the apartments, she hurried after him. “Mr. Goldberg! Excuse me.” He turned and stared at her. “I wonder if I could possibly have a few moments of your time?”

“Do I know you?”

“I’m trying to trace Mr. Moreno. He lived in your apartment before you.”

“I’m sorry I cannot help. I did not know him. He has nothing to do with me. Excuse me.”

“Please-if I could just ask you a few things?” she persisted.

“I did not know Mr. Moreno. If you want any details about him, I suggest you contact the agents for the property. Excuse me.”

She stood helplessly as the door swung closed after him and the doorman took up his position outside again. “If you want the agents, they’ve got an office in the next block up across Eighty-sixth Street. Dugdale and Martin. Mr. Dugdale handles this place.” Sylvia handed him another twenty-dollar bill and headed for the Gothic-style block he had indicated.

Dugdale and Martin had a small office on the ground floor of the plush apartment block. The thickset doorman said he thought she might be too late; their office closed at four thirty. He hovered at her side as she tapped on the door and waited. She was about to walk away when it opened.

“Good evening, my name is Sylvia Hewitt. I wondered if I could speak to someone concerning Mr. Moreno’s apartment?”

“He’s no longer a tenant there,” said a stern, white-haired man.

“Yes, I know, but perhaps I could tell you my reasons for contacting you. I’ve come all the way from England.”

“Come in.” He opened the door wider. He was already wearing his overcoat. “I’m off home, Jacob. Can I leave this with you?” he said to another man, then walked out and closed the door.

Sylvia took out one of her business cards as the man at the window turned. “Sylvia Hewitt. I’m an accountant. I’m inquiring about a Mr. Moreno, who lived in-”

“Come in and sit down. I’m Jacob Martin. So, you are Mr. Moreno’s accountant?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “He had various interests in London but I’ve not been able to contact him since before Christmas.”

“Well, he just disappeared, and we have no forwarding address.”

“But you must have arranged the changeover of his apartment. There’s a new owner, a German gentleman.”

“Yes, he purchased the lease.”

“From you?”

“Yes, we handle the property, but we did the transaction with a lawyer acting on behalf of Mr. Moreno. All the documents were in order, so we had no reason to query the sale.”

“So Mr. Moreno never discussed leaving the apartment with you?”

“No. He left without notice, but that’s not unusual. The only thing unusual was…” He hesitated. Sylvia waited. “He left a lot of personal items, which we removed before the next tenant moved in. He seemed to have departed in quite a hurry.”

“Can you tell me what he left?”

“Clothing, stuff like that. We kept it weeks in storage. The new owner bought all the furniture and fittings.”

“He just bought everything?”

“Well, not everything. There were items like videos, books. He didn’t want those.”

“Who took all that?”

Martin gave an embarrassed shrug. There had actually been a hell of a lot that Mr. Goldberg had not purchased: the paintings, mirrors, ornaments, and so on. But after keeping them in storage for a short while, Martin and Dugdale had done a little filching for themselves. In fact, they had stripped the place of anything remotely valuable. Sylvia suspected this, but it was not why she was there. “Do you have the name of the lawyer who handled the transactions?” she asked.

Martin walked to a cabinet, flicked through a row of files, and withdrew the one with Moreno’s apartment number written on the front. “Mr. Philip Simmons. We have a phone number and”-he turned a page-“just a box number, which is unusual, and a further contact number for an address in the Hamptons.”

“Could you give me the number? I really would like to speak to him.”

Martin took one of his cards, copied down the number, and passed it to Sylvia. Then he walked back to the cabinet, still reading the file. He paused, frowning and turning pages. “I doubt you’ll have much luck. Seems we’ve attempted to contact him as various maintenance charges were left unpaid and we wanted to get the accounts settled. It was not a large amount, but our letters went unanswered.” He rested his elbow on top of the filing cabinet.

“Did you meet the lawyer?”

“No, I didn’t. This was all handled by the boss, Mr. Dugdale. You saw him as you left… Ah, forgive me, I did meet him just once, when he came to sign over the lease to Mr. Goldberg. He went into Mr. Dugdale’s office.”

“Could you describe him?”

“He was well dressed, elegant, I’d say, and tall. A big man, much taller than me and I’m almost six feet. He had reddish hair, and a mustache.”

Sylvia stood up and shook his hand. “Thank you so much for your time. I really do appreciate it.”

Sylvia returned to her hotel and called the number for Simmons. As she expected, it was no longer in use. Later she called Matheson, who agreed to meet her in the hotel bar at nine. She asked what he looked like.

“I’m small, nothing special. I’ll have a big red and black scarf round my neck, glasses and thinning hair.”

“I’m dark-haired, and I’m wearing a tweed suit with a white blouse and pearls,” she said primly.

Sylvia entered the reasonably full bar and peered around until she spotted the investigator. Then she threaded her way through the low tables to join him. “How do you do?”

“Miss Hewitt, it’s nice to put a face to the voice. Can I get you a drink?”

“White wine, please.”

He signaled to a waiter as she sat down on one of the low seats opposite him. The man came over, and Matheson ordered a beer for himself and a chilled Chablis for her.

“It’s so noisy here,” Sylvia said. “They even have music in the lifts.”

“You get used to it,” he said and drew his chair closer to her. “Can I just get something straight? I mean, I don’t wanna sound pushy, but this is my livelihood and I’ll charge my hourly rate for tonight’s meeting. How’s that suit you?”

She nodded. “Fine.”

He sat back as the waiter put down a bowl of nuts and their drinks. She raised her glass and sipped. “Well, I’m here, Mr. Matheson. You did say you had some developments, and I’ve come a long way to hear them in person, as you suggested.”

“Like I said on the phone, I met up with an old friend. I want you to know straight up, I wasn’t being unethical in discussing your business with him. It just came up in conversation. I never mentioned your name.”

“Who is he?”

“An ex-cop, like me, from way back. He’s about the same age, works mostly on security now. Been on tour with this rock group. In fact, he’s with them now.”

“What’s his name?”

“Donny Baron. Nice guy. He says to me that he’s fed up with schlepping all over the country. I ask him if he’s doing any private work, and he says he had an interesting gig a few months ago. He ran an ad in The New York Times and this guy made contact, wanted him to do a bit of ducking and diving around town, checking out a guy that had done a little Internet fraud. And I said to him, ‘That’s a coincidence. Guy’s not called Moreno, is he?’ So he looks at me and he laughs and says he is. Said he’d been checking out Moreno’s apartment for his client.”

“When was this?”

“Just after Christmas. So I ask him about his client and he tells me he was a Canadian, flew from Los Angeles on the red-eye. Paid him a nice whack and that was it.”

“Did he say what this man’s name was?”

“Well, he was a bit edgy about that, but in the end he said it was Philip Simmons. Same guy we discovered. Donny’s met him.”

“So he was an investor?”

“Could have been. He’s obviously more than just Moreno’s financial adviser. I mean, if he was Moreno’s financial adviser, why did he need to hire Donny to find him?”

Sylvia sipped her wine again, then placed it carefully on the table. “He’s been posing as his solicitor too.”

“Really? Well, Donny told me that this guy’s accent was strange, said he sounded more like a Brit, so that was why I contacted you. The contractor in the Hamptons, he said he thought he was Canadian. There’s obviously something funny going on with this guy.”

Sylvia sighed. “I was a small investor in Moreno’s company. I was told not to interfere by someone who had lost a considerable amount more than myself. In fact, three people I know of lost millions, and they all said they were handling it. They also refused to help me pay your wages. I thought that when I told them about your investigation they would have been eager for you to continue, but they weren’t.”

“Maybe they’re getting a cut from Simmons. Who knows what’s going on? I just reckoned you’d want to know about him cropping up again.” He toyed with his empty beer glass. “I reckon you should go out to the Hamptons and check it out.”

“How far is it?”

“Train would be about two hours. If you drive it’s around the same; out of season there won’t be much traffic. I can go out there with you if you want me to.” Matheson was pushing to be rehired, but Sylvia was not prepared to pay out any more than she had to. He wrote down the address and passed it to her, then suggested she stay at the Maidstone Arms Hotel.

“I’ll go alone tomorrow.” She looked at the address and slipped it into her purse.

Matheson went on. “You mind if I say something? This Philip Simmons is, by my reckoning, somebody you should tread carefully with. If, as you say, that property in the Hamptons is worth millions, he might just have…” He took a deep breath.

“What?”

“Murdered for it.”

She was not taken aback. Quite the contrary, she was very calm. She leaned forward and conspiratorially lowered her voice. “I thought about that, even more so if he lost his savings. It’s a strong motive.” The wine was making her giddy. “I feel like throttling him myself,” she said.

“Yeah, well, feeling like doing something and actually doing it are two different things. This guy, whoever he is, seems like a real pro to me. He’s covered his tracks too well not to be.”

She beamed and gripped his shoulder. “But he has made mistakes. We can report this to the police and they can look for him. Or perhaps we can find this man, put pressure on him, and then I’m sure he’ll pay us off. That’s all I am interested in now, Mr. Matheson. I want my money back.”

“You lost a lot, huh?”

“Yes, I lost my lover because Moreno used him. Moreno lost my life savings, and I intend on getting them or part of them back. And after what you have told me, I think there’s a possibility of doing so.” She hesitated. “I’ve not been able to discover if Philip Simmons was an investor. His name isn’t on any of the documents I have, but he may have been investing in Moreno’s company through someone else. There’s something else I need to ask you, Mr. Matheson. During your inquiries, did you ever come across a David Lyons?”

“I don’t think so. Was he in on this Internet deal? Did he lose out too?”

“He lost out completely. He committed suicide. He was very dear to me.”

“He couldn’t take the loss, huh?”

“No, he couldn’t, but he was also responsible for encouraging people to invest with Moreno. He lost a lot of other people’s savings as well.”

“I see,” Matheson said.

“He was my sister’s husband.” She had tears in her eyes.

“Oh dear. Tragic all around,” he said.

“It was implied that he might have been involved in some kind of fraud with Moreno, but I know he wasn’t.” She took out a tissue and blew her nose. “I’m sorry.” She picked up her handbag, took out a wad of cash, and paid what she owed him.

“I’ve got one final invoice for you covering some miscellaneous expenses, but I forgot to bring it with me,” he said.

“Send it to me in London.”

“Good luck, Ms. Hewitt. I hope you find him.”

“I will,” she said softly and left the bar.

When she got back to her room, Sylvia was exhausted, but she sat down at the desk and added up how much she had paid Matheson. At least she had made progress. It was looking more and more as if Simmons, whether acting for Moreno or representing one of the investors, was collecting a lot of money, and she felt that at least some of it should be hers. Could it be that Simmons had killed Moreno for the money invested in his properties? Certainly Simmons was not all he seemed. He had asked Donny Baron to check out Moreno’s apartment. Why would a financial adviser use a PI to keep tabs on his own client?

Sylvia sighed and gathered her papers together. She opened her briefcase to put them away and saw a photo of herself and David at a Christmas party. She pulled it out. “It was you who got me into this mess,” she said to David’s smiling face. It was a group shot, but it was the only one she had of her lover now; Helen had destroyed all the others. As she looked at it, something caught her eye. One man in the shot stood head and shoulders above the rest. Edward de Jersey. The estate agent’s and Matheson’s words suddenly flooded back to her. “A big man… sounded more like a Brit…” Now if one man had lost out in the fall of leadingleisurewear, thought Sylvia, it was Edward de Jersey. Could he and Philip Simmons be the same person? The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became. She felt like a cat with the cream. She had to think carefully about how to handle Mr. Big Cheese de Jersey. She could either expose him or push him for a payoff, a lot more than she had lost. But first she needed proof.

Early the following morning Sylvia checked out and caught the jitney bus to East Hampton, where she checked in to the elegant Maidstone Arms. This was where Moreno had stayed, and she could see why: it was a charming, elegant hotel with blazing log fires in the stylish public rooms.

After unpacking she went down to the desk and asked to speak to the manager. He was charming too but not very helpful. Moreno had been there numerous times, he said, but he had no idea of his present whereabouts. Sylvia had coffee in a long room overlooking the street and located Moreno’s property on the hotel’s street map. Later she hired a taxi and asked to be driven around Georgica. To her annoyance she’d lost the piece of paper with the address on it that Matheson had given her the night before. All she knew was that it was a large piece of land not far from the ponds and under construction. The taxi driver was chatty, but Sylvia lost interest in what he was saying when they passed a large fenced property with construction in progress. “Could we drive in there?” she asked.

He reversed, and they passed the open drive, still not paved and muddy with tracks from the construction vehicles. They splashed and jolted along until the path widened and she could see the substantial house. It was almost as large as the Maidstone Arms, with a porch, gables, and massive pillars positioned at intervals along what would become a wide south-facing veranda. It was on the crest of a hill, overlooking a pond with willow trees trailing on the banks. There was an Olympic-size swimming pool covered with a dark green tarpaulin to protect it from the debris that littered the site, and a newly constructed pool house with a white stone patio. Then she saw the large Portakabin with the construction company’s name written across it. “I won’t be a moment,” she said and got out.

“Excuse me. Could I see the person in charge?” she called as she approached the open door.

A burly man carrying a hard hat filled the small doorway. “Who do you want?”

“Whoever’s in charge,” she said sweetly.

“Can I ask what it’s about? He’s busy.”

“I’m a friend of the owner, and I just wondered, as I’m here, if I could be shown the house. I’m from England,” she added.

He disappeared, then returned and beckoned her inside.

“I’m the foreman,” said a ruddy-faced man, who was sitting behind a desk.

“I’m Sylvia Hewitt, and I wondered if I could speak to whoever is in charge.”

Sylvia waited in the cramped office as the men cleared up plans and went outside. The foreman said he would see if Mr. Donnelly was around. Ten minutes later Donnelly came in. “You wanted to see me?”

“I would really appreciate it if you could answer some questions for me.”

“What about?”

Sylvia took a deep breath. “I believe a Mr. Moreno owns this property, and I’m eager to speak to him.”

“Well, I can’t help you. We never see him now. Our only dealings with him are through his financial adviser.”

“Oh. I’ll be honest with you,” she said, “Mr. Moreno owes me a substantial amount of money. I was told he might be here. I’ve been trying to make contact with him.”

“Aha,” he said slowly, eyeing her up and down.

“I even hired a private detective. I think he might have spoken to you, a Mr. Matheson.”

“Yeah, but I told him what I’m telling you. I don’t know where Moreno is. He almost left me in a real hole too. He couldn’t make the payments, but it was settled in the end by his financial adviser.”

“Philip Simmons?” she asked.

“That’s right. He’s running the show. I get his orders from his architect and designers. They come down and check everything’s to their specifications.”

“Do you have a contact number for Mr. Simmons?”

The number he passed over was for a law firm in East Hampton. When she asked to be shown around, he said it was not possible.

“Did you ever meet someone called David Lyons?”

“Who?”

“David Lyons was a business associate of Alex Moreno’s, and I wondered if you had ever met him here. Small, dark-haired, balding.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Would you mind if I showed you a photograph? It will only take a minute.”

She took it out and passed it to Donnelly. She pointed to David. “That’s him.”

He stared at the photograph, shook his head, and was about to pass it back when Sylvia stopped him. “Is that Philip Simmons with him? Just to the right.” She pointed to de Jersey.

Donnelly stared at the picture. “It sort of looks like him. I dunno. Could be him.”

“But you’re not certain? Please, look at it closely. Is that Philip Simmons?” Her heart was pounding.

Donnelly stared at the photograph, then handed it back. “Like I said, it could be, but it’s hard to tell. Mr. Simmons has a mustache and red hair.”

“But you do think it looks like him?”

“Yes, sort of. What is all this about? Why are you here?”

She stood up, rather flustered. “I’m trying to trace Mr. Simmons.”

“Then I suggest you talk to his lawyers. I gave you their number.” He was obviously impatient for her to leave.

Sylvia walked out of the Portakabin, then decided to take matters into her own hands. She wanted to check out the property, and if anyone asked she would say she was just another English tourist. She inched back over the wooden planks, then onto the path to the house. She made her way to the pool house and peered inside. A white marble floor had already been laid, and ornate light fittings were being hung. A boy with paint-stained dungarees passed her. “Hi there,” he said affably.

“This is going to be very nice.”

“Yeah, it sure is. That marble was shipped in from Italy, and one of those lights cost more than my year’s salary.” He grinned.

“It’s a very large swimming pool,” she said.

“Yeah, it’s one of the first things that was done out here. One end’s more than ten feet. Diving board’s gonna go at that end, and over there they’re gonna lay a tennis court.”

Sylvia thanked him and headed for the guesthouse. She peered inside. It looked fit for Royalty. Then she returned to the cab.

She had lunch in the hotel dining room. Her waiter was a young, rather handsome boy with dark, slanting eyes. He suggested the eggs Benedict, which were a specialty and served with home-cured ham. After she had finished he asked if she’d enjoyed it. “Delicious, thank you.”

She decided to take a chance. “I wonder if you can help me. I’m trying to find someone who used to stay at this hotel, a friend. I’m desperate to get in touch with him. His name is Alex Moreno.” She looked at him directly. “Did you ever meet him?”

“I met him,” he said softly.

Sylvia flushed. Could she have struck lucky? “Oh, great! I can see you’re working now, but could we talk later?”

“I’m off duty at two thirty, unless we get busy.” He stepped back.

“I’m in room-”

He shook his head. “Staff are not allowed to go into guests’ rooms, invited or not. House rules. I’ll be in the hotel parking lot at two thirty.”

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Ricky.” He walked away but turned back briefly and gave her a dazzling smile.

Sylvia went to the coffee area, where she ordered a cappuccino, disappointed that Donnelly had not clearly identified Simmons and de Jersey as the same man. She wondered if she was being foolish. Then, at two fifteen she saw Ricky leave the hotel and meet a blond man on the pavement. They talked for a few moments, then walked out of sight. Promptly at two thirty she went into the hotel car park. It was almost empty, with no more than seven parked vehicles. A black, soft-topped Jeep headed toward her. The blond she had seen talking to Ricky was driving, and Ricky was sitting in the small backseat.

“Hi, you want to hop in?” he said. “We can drive to the beach.” He was tanned with white teeth, bluer than blue eyes, and a whiter than white cap-sleeved T-shirt.

Sylvia climbed into the passenger seat.

“I’m Clint,” said the driver. “What’s your name?”

“Sylvia,” she said. “Where are we going?” she asked nervously.

“Just to the beach. You want to talk, right?” All the way there, Clint chatted like a tour guide while Ricky remained silent.

When they arrived, Clint helped her out and suggested they take a walk. Sylvia looked at Ricky, who remained in the backseat. “Aren’t you coming?” she asked.

“It’s not me you need to talk to.” He nodded to Clint, who was putting on a leather jacket.

Sylvia walked beside him. The wind was bitingly cold, so she pushed her hands into her coat pockets.

“So, is there some cash in this for me?” he asked, staring ahead.

“Well, I hadn’t anticipated paying anyone, but I can go a couple of hundred. I don’t know what you know that might help me.”

“Maybe something, maybe nothing.” He hunched his shoulders against the wind.

“You met Moreno?”

He nodded, and they walked in silence. After a moment she said she needed to know what he could tell her before she agreed to pay him.

He stopped. “Say five hundred?”

Sylvia sighed. She was really cold now. “Okay, but it’s got to be worth it.”

“Cash?”

“Yes,” she said sharply.

They walked on, and he turned toward some sand dunes. She followed him, and as they reached the dunes he jumped into a hollow. “Out of the wind here,” he said and sat down.

Sylvia joined him. “So, what do you know about Alex Moreno?”

Clint held out his hand. She opened her purse and counted out five hundred dollars. He pocketed them. “He was a real sharp dresser, designer labels, down to his socks. Never wore anything but the purest cashmere sweaters.” She had not paid out five hundred bucks for a clothing catalog, but she said nothing. “I used to meet him when he came down looking for property over the summer. He always ended up at a place called the Swamp, real late, always alone. Sometimes he’d have way too much to drink. He liked the odd joint too, always asking around if anyone had any grass. I guess he was down there maybe four or five times over a few months, and then one night, it would be about the sixth time I’d seen him, he said he was celebrating and did I want to have a drink with him. I said yeah. We both worked there, you see, me and Ricky. That’s how we met. Anyway, Moreno was sitting up at the bar, and he’d had a few already. He said he wanted to get blown, so after we closed he was waiting with his flash new Lexus. We went back to his hotel. He was drunk, and he told me he’d done this great deal, bought some property and got all the building permits agreed. He said it had taken months.”

“When was this?”

“Oh, around July, maybe mid-August. Next time I met up with him would have been around mid-November. Ricky tipped me off that he was in town. He was staying at the Maidstone. I got a call from him. He wanted to see me, so I met up with him at the Blue Parrot-it’s a bar on Main Street. We had a few drinks and went back to his hotel room. We were on the bed when he starts crying. He tells me he’s got into real trouble financially. He rambled on and on, blubbering like a kid about how it was all falling apart. Then he passed out. I took my money and left. I could have taken a lot more, but I reckoned he was the type to cause trouble.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Okay, this would be just after Christmas and he came in real late. We met up again in the bar. He looked beat, needed a shave, but was all cashmered up as usual.”

“December?”

“Yeah, said he’d come to sort out his property. He was having a hard time meeting payments. I thought he was just trying it on again, you know, not wanting to pay me, but then he says he’s real serious about me, wants me to come to New York. He was drinking heavily, said he was staying at the Maidstone as usual but he was meeting someone real early the following morning. Said he was gonna check out of the hotel before breakfast. He said he’d take me to New York and told me to get a taxi to his place for eight. I live way out in Montauk, right? So, anyway, this time he was real edgy, like nervous all the time. Kept on about how much trouble he was in and that he was having a lot of pressure from some guy.”

“Did he tell you his name?”

“Just that it was some builder.”

“Donnelly?” she asked.

“I can’t remember. I was real buzzy about him offering to take me to New York and to travel with him. He was making me big promises and, you know, come winter out here, it’s hard to make a living. Summer’s when I make the dough.”

“You get paid for sex?”

Clint’s face tightened. “Moreno offered me a trip, lady. Whatever I get paid for is my own goddamned business.”

“I’m sorry. Please go on. You agreed to accompany him to New York and then what?”

“That I’d see him after this meeting he had was over.”

“Did he say who he was meeting?”

“No, but it was at his property. It’s a huge place over in Georgica Ponds. I was to get there and we’d drive to New York together.” Clint yawned and ruffled his hair. “So I’m packed and ready at seven. This guy was always going on about the place he had in New York just across from Central Park. He sort of made out that he was getting out of his problems, said something about his company crashing but that he might be doing some big deal and his finances would be in better shape and if I wanted we could go to Bermuda.” He was staring at the ocean. “So one of my mates gives me a ride in to the gas station on the corner. I just had to walk across to Georgica Road and over to where Moreno’s house was.”

“Did you meet up with him?”

Clint shook his head. “No. There were trucks and stuff around, big diggers, so I reckoned it had to be the right place. It was still quite dark and there were lights on, but I couldn’t see him or his car, so I took a walk around, and a few streets away I saw his Lexus parked, which I thought was odd. I hung around it for a while, maybe ten, fifteen minutes, then started walking back along the lane. I could hear machines turning over, so I reckoned the builders were starting work. I headed into the drive, and the noise was really loud. Then it stopped, so I kept walking, and what had been making all the noise was a machine to flatten down the earth in the bottom of the swimming pool.”

“So work had started?”

“I dunno. There was just this one guy working the big compressor machine. There was no one else around. I wondered if maybe I’d got the wrong place. Like I said, Alex’s car was some distance from the site.”

“Did you go in?”

“No. I stood watching for a while, then I left to go back to the Lexus.”

“Could you describe the man you say was using this machine?”

“Er, not really, he was a good distance away from me. But it wasn’t Moreno. Too big for him.”

Sylvia licked her lips. She opened her bag to look for the photograph. “What did you do next?”

“I hung around at the car, maybe another ten minutes or so, then I went back to the garage cos I had Moreno’s cell phone number. There’s a pay phone there, so I reckoned I’d better call him and find out what was going on.”

“Did you get hold of him?” she asked impatiently.

“No, I tried, but it just rang then clicked into his message service. I wasn’t sure what to do and I was hungry now, so I grabbed some breakfast. I was thinking of giving up, then decided I’d check one last time to see if Moreno’s car was still there. Then, just as I was heading back across the road, I saw it turning left onto the highway. He had to drive right past me almost. I waved and yelled, but it just drove on.”

“With Moreno driving?”

“No, it was the guy I’d seen by the pool. I never got a good look at him. All I could see were wide shoulders-he was hunched over the wheel and in profile to me.”

“Then what?”

“So now I go back again to the building site. Figured maybe this guy was getting coffee or somethin’ for Moreno. It was quite a walk, and I had a big bag to carry. All the guys were starting work. They were concreting over the bottom of the swimming pool for the lining.”

“Did you see Moreno?”

“I asked if anyone knew where he was, but nobody had seen him. I finally gave up and went home.”

“Did he contact you again?”

“No. I called his cell phone a few times, but it was dead.” He shrugged. “That’s it.”

Sylvia was chilled to the bone, but she wasn’t through, not after paying out five hundred dollars. She brought out the photograph of herself and David at the Christmas party. Her hand shook, partly from the cold and partly because she knew this might be the confirmation she had been looking for.

“Was this the man you saw at the building site?”

Clint looked at the photograph intently. There was a short pause and Sylvia held her breath.

“I think so. Can’t be sure, though. Now I think of it, the guy I saw had reddish hair and this guy’s blond, right?” He tapped Edward de Jersey’s image.

She sat tensely. “Is this the man who was at the building site?”

Clint took a deep breath. “I’m pretty sure it is. But, like I said, it was dark, and when he drove past me I only got a profile. But it could be him.”

“Could be isn’t good enough,” she said. “Please, really look at the photograph. It’s very, very important.”

Clint sighed. “It was a while back now, three months.” He stared hard at the photograph. “Yes, it’s him.”

Sylvia replaced the photograph in her handbag and smiled. Her lips were almost blue it was so cold. No wonder de Jersey hadn’t wanted to help her trace Philip Simmons. He’d threatened her, and now she was pretty sure that those threats had been designed to throw her off the scent, but she’d show him! Edward de Jersey, alias Philip Simmons, was going to pay her handsomely for what she had discovered.