The Trinity Six

Chapter 36

It was a half-truth, at best, but Gaddis reasoned that he owed Tanya Acocella a lie or two. Barcelona was just his way of getting even.

He had spent the morning out at Colindale, on the outskirts of north-west London, going through back issues of The Times. He could have searched for what he was looking for online, but what was the point of risking the Internet when there were hard copies going back as far as the eye could see? The issue he found was dated 6 January. Gaddis laid a private bet with himself that Catherine Wilkinson had accepted her fiance’s proposal on New Year’s Eve, shortly before the corks had flown on the midnight champagne. MR M.T.M. DRECHSEL AND MISS C.L. WILKINSON The engagement is announced between Matthias, elder son of Mr Rudolph Drechsel and Mrs Elfriede Drechsel, of Vienna, Austria, and Catherine, younger daughter of Mr Robert Wilkinson and of Mrs Mary Edwards, of Edinburgh, Scotland.

That gave him the surname for the wedding party, which was the first step of his plan.

The second step was to ascertain the date of the wedding and to find the hotel in Vienna where the bulk of the guests would be staying. To that end, Gaddis printed out a list of all of the four- and five-star hotels in Vienna and called them, one by one, from two phone boxes at Colindale station, making the same request.

‘Hello. I’d like to book a room for the weekend of the Drechsel-Wilkinson wedding. I’ve been advised that you are offering a special rate for guests of the couple.’

The first fourteen hotels had ‘no record at all of a wedding booked under that name’, but the fifteenth — the SAS Radisson on Schubertring — knew all about it and asked Gaddis for his surname.

‘It’s Peters,’ he said. ‘P-E-T-E-R-S. Peters.’

‘Yes, Mr Peters. And when would you like to arrive?’

Gaddis now moved to the next phase of his strategy. He needed a precise date for the wedding, so he said: ‘Could you tell me if any of the other guests are arriving on the Thursday evening? Would that be too early, do you think?’

‘Thursday the twenty-third, sir? Let me see.’

Then it was just a question of whether the ceremony would take place on the afternoon of Friday twenty-fourth or Saturday twenty-fifth.

‘Mr Peters?’

‘Yes.’

‘It is difficult to say, sir. We have a number of guests arriving on Thursday evening, but the majority appear to be checking in on Friday.’

So, the reception would be on Saturday twenty-fifth. ‘I see,’ he said.

Gaddis had played along for a few moments more, requesting a double room for the Friday and Saturday nights, but when it came to divulging his full name and address, he had pretended that he had ‘an important call coming through on another line’ and promised the receptionist that he would complete the booking online.

‘Of course, Mr Peters. Of course. We very much look forward to seeing you in Vienna.’