Honeytrap: Part 3 (2 page)

‘Maybe,’ Harry said. ‘Or maybe he figured the truth was bound to come out anyway. People talk, they gossip. You can’t stop it. I doubt if Caroline’s cheating was a secret. He could have hired us as a smokescreen, a double bluff, so he could then turn round and ask that very same question: why would I be so stupid as to have my wife murdered on the very same night as I hired Mackenzie, Lind to set a honeytrap?’ Harry took another mouthful of coffee, swallowed and shrugged. ‘Might give the jury something to think about.’

‘It’s a risky ploy.’

‘Not if you’re going to be in the frame anyway.’

Mac scratched his forehead while he pondered on it. ‘Well, it’s early days. Let’s hope Forensics come up with something useful.’

‘To get me off the hook?’

‘If you were on the hook they wouldn’t have let you go.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure.’

‘There must be CCTV in the hotel. Did you notice while you were there?’

‘There is, but not everywhere – and not on the landings. The guests, apparently, value privacy above personal safety. They don’t want some poorly paid security guard clocking who goes in and out of their rooms.’

‘Helpful.’ Mac hauled himself up from the edge of the table. ‘Look, I’m going to make a move. You want to come over for something to eat? Lorna’s doing a roast.’

‘Thanks, but I’m not much in the mood for company. I’ll take a rain check if that’s okay.’

‘If you change your mind, you know where we are.’

‘I appreciate it. Say thanks to Lorna. I’m just going to go upstairs and chill out for a while. You get off; I’ll lock up here.’

‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

As Mac left the office, Harry went over to the window and looked down. He was relieved that his partner hadn’t probed about Ellen Shaw; he’d fielded enough awkward questions for one day. And he knew what advice would have come his way:
Stay away from her.

Except he couldn’t.

Harry waited until Mac had driven off before quickly locking up and heading down the stairs. He started the Vauxhall and set off along the street with one eye on the rear-view mirror. Could the police have put a tail on him? It wasn’t likely, but he wasn’t taking anything for granted.

There was CCTV in the foyer of the Lumière. How long would it be before the police identified Danny Street as one of the people going into the hotel? And had Ellen been with him or did they meet up in the bar? If she was unlucky, she could end up in the middle of a murder investigation. That’s if the law knew where to find her. But if they did track her down, if they turned up on her doorstep, how would she react? She had, after all, tried to buy a gun off Danny Street.

When Harry reached Stoke Newington, he drove around the block three times until he was absolutely certain he wasn’t being followed. He parked the car, went over to the house and rang the bell. No one answered. He tried again, this time pressing the button for longer.

After five minutes, she still hadn’t come to the door. It was possible, he thought, that she had seen him walking up the drive and was ignoring him, hoping he’d go away. He attempted to peer through the window but there were net curtains and it was impossible to tell if anyone was inside or not.

Deciding to try a different tack, he rang the next bell up instead. Almost immediately he heard the clatter of footsteps coming down the stairs. The door was opened by a plump young woman with a towel wrapped around her head.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ Harry said. ‘I’m here to see Ellen.’

‘Who?’

‘Ground-floor flat,’ he said. ‘I’ve been trying the bell but I’m not sure if it’s working.’

The girl glanced over her shoulder before looking back at Harry. ‘Oh, Ellen – is that her name? I didn’t know. Sorry, she’s not here.’

‘Do you know when she’ll be back?’

‘Actually, I think she’s gone away.’

Harry felt his stomach drop. ‘Away? Are you sure?’

‘Yeah, she left last night. She had a couple of suitcases with her so … I guess she’s gone on holiday or something.’

It was the ‘something’ that Harry was worried about. Had Ellen gone for good or was she just lying low for a while? She must have taken off after he’d been to see her. As a result of his visit or had she already planned to leave? Perhaps he had missed his one and only opportunity to find out what was really going on. ‘And you’ve no idea where she’s gone?’

The girl shook her head. ‘Sorry. She’s only been here a few months. I don’t really know her.’

‘Okay, thanks. I guess I’ll have to come back another time.’

The girl gave him a nod and closed the door.

Harry remained on the doorstep for a moment. He was back to square one with no idea of where to look. His only consolation was that if he didn’t know where Ellen was then the police wouldn’t either. But that didn’t change the fact that she was out there somewhere, looking for a gun.

Jess was at Farnborough College by nine o’clock on Monday morning. It was a three-storey modern glass and steel building situated close to Old Street roundabout, and ran courses in business, accountancy, finance and the like. She was wearing her most student-like clothes – faded blue jeans, denim jacket and T-shirt – in the hope that she’d merge with the crowd.

Unsure of the security procedures, she waited until a group of girls was climbing the steps before casually tagging along behind them. As it turned out no one was checking ID and she got in without a problem. Quickly she made her way to a row of noticeboards, found the one for Business Studies and checked out the timetable. There was a lecture in Room 14 on the second floor.

Jess went up the stairs, located the room and peered in through the small reinforced oblong of glass in the door. There were about thirty people inside but no sign of Sylvie. She knew that didn’t prove anything – lots of students skipped Monday morning lectures – but she’d got the impression that Sylvie wasn’t the type to miss classes.

With another fifty minutes to go before the lecture finished, Jess decided to grab a coffee. The student café was quiet and she easily found an empty table, got out her iPad and reviewed the data she’d gathered so far. She’d been doing research yesterday and had managed to dig up some information on Joshua Keynes. He was an estate agent by trade, a partner in a company based in Hampstead. She had managed to get access to his Facebook page by sending a friend request from a fake profile of a girl called Olivia Reid, a pretty blonde with a come-hither smile. Keynes had over three hundred so-called ‘friends’ and she’d suspected – rightly as it turned out – that he wasn’t too fussy about whom he accepted.

From the site, she’d discovered that he was forty-two, ‘in a relationship’ (that would be Sarah Thorne) and that he was a fan of golf, film and holidays abroad: there were numerous photos of him lounging in exotic Caribbean resorts or skiing in Aspen. His posts frequently had an arrogant or sarcastic edge with a nice dose of misogyny thrown in. None of which did anything to dispel her original impression of him: Joshua Keynes was an unpleasant man with a bad attitude towards women.

Jess had also searched for any social networking sites that Sylvie might be on. She’d checked out Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapshot and other lesser known ones, but nothing had shown up. Perhaps, with the job she had, Sylvie was unwilling to share any information online. Or perhaps she used a different name.

Jess had made two visits to the flat in Shoreditch, but no one had come to the door. If Sylvie had returned home at any point, she’d ignored the note that had been pushed through the letterbox asking her to call urgently. Why would she do that? And why wouldn’t she turn up for college? No, this was all smelling really bad.

With another half-hour to kill, Jess tried to call Harry but his phone was turned off. ‘It’s Jess,’ she said after the beep. ‘Can you get back to me when you have a minute? Thanks.’ Next, she rang Lorna and asked if she’d heard anything from Sylvie.

‘Not yet, I’m afraid,’ Lorna said. ‘There is something, though. I had a chat with a few of the girls and found out that her ex is called Brett, Brett Rush. He’s on the same course as her.’

‘Oh, okay. That’s useful. I’m at the college now, but she hasn’t shown up for class.’

‘You won’t say she’s, er … missing or anything? I mean, until we know for sure one way or the other, I think it’s better if—’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll be careful. Harry isn’t around, is he? I’ve been trying to get hold of him.’

‘No, he’s out on a job, but I’ll tell him you called.’

‘Thanks.’ Jess hung up, finished her coffee and continued with her notes. Then, at five to ten, she gathered her things and made her way back to the lecture room. Looking in through the window again, she scanned the male faces for one she might recognise from Wilder’s. But none of them were even faintly familiar. This was probably because she hadn’t been paying much attention to anyone other than Sylvie and Keynes. She tried to guess which of the students was Brett Rush. Her money was on one of the more mature men, especially the blond, well-dressed bloke in his thirties sitting near the front. He seemed more suited to Sylvie than any of the others.

Jess stood back as they filed out of the room. She waited until the chosen one was walking along the corridor before falling into step beside him. ‘Hi. Excuse me, but are you Brett Rush?’

‘No, not me.’ He shook his head, turned and pointed towards a tall lanky boy who didn’t look much older than twenty. ‘That’s him, the guy with the red T-shirt.’

‘Oh, okay. Thanks.’

Jess approached the boy and smiled. ‘Hi, Brett. I’m Jess, a friend of Sylvie’s. Could I have a quick word?’

Brett stopped walking, arched his eyebrows and stared at her. He was handsome in a sullen kind of way, with dark brooding eyes and the kind of floppy haircut that Hugh Grant would have been proud of. ‘What d’you want?’

Although his tone was abrupt, Jess kept the smile on her face. ‘I was just wondering if you knew why Sylvie wasn’t in?’

‘Why should I?’

‘I thought you were friends.’

Brett barked out a laugh. ‘And who told you that?’

‘So you’ve no idea if she’ll be here later?’

‘Just said, didn’t I?’

‘Not exactly.’

Brett wrinkled his nose. ‘She’ll turn up when she feels like it.’

‘So you haven’t seen her since Saturday?’

He gave a jump, his eyes narrowing into two cold slits. ‘What?’

‘Saturday.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘You were at Wilder’s, weren’t you?’

For a moment Brett looked like he was going to deny it, but then he gave a shrug and briefly glanced away from her. ‘So?’

‘Yeah, I thought I recognised you,’ Jess lied. ‘Kind of a coincidence you being there.’

‘And?’

‘And nothing. I’m just saying. Small world, right?’

‘I can go to a bar if I like. There’s no law against it.’

‘No, but there is a law against following your ex-girlfriend around. I think it’s called stalking.’

Brett’s mood suddenly changed, his face becoming tight and angry. ‘I haven’t been stalking her. And you know what? There should be a fuckin’ law about what
she
does. You think it’s right that she sets up blokes like that? It’s sick, man. There’s something wrong with her.’

‘They all have a choice,’ Jess said. ‘None of them have to say yes. None of them have to call her.’

‘Yeah, right. You’ve seen what she looks like. No bloke’s going to turn down a girl like that.’ His lips curled into a sneer. ‘And she gets off on it. I know she does. She loves twisting all those guys round her little finger.’

Jess could hear the anger and resentment in his voice. ‘So,’ she said, attempting to get back to the point, ‘you’ve no idea where Sylvie is at the moment? I’ve been calling her but her phone seems to be switched off.’

‘Disappeared, has she?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t say disappeared exactly, but—’

‘Maybe that bloke in Wilder’s decided to teach her a lesson.’

Jess felt a sliver of ice run down her spine. ‘What?’

‘Maybe someone told him what she was really up to.’

She stared at him, her eyes bright with alarm. ‘Did you tell him, Brett? Is that what you did? Did you?’

Brett grinned at her. ‘Who, me? Now why would I do a mean, nasty thing like that?’

‘Because you don’t like how she makes her money, because she dumped you, because—’

‘She didn’t dump me, lady.
I
dumped
her
. At least get your facts straight before you start throwing accusations around.’

‘Just tell me the truth. It’s important. Did you tell him or not?’

Brett leaned forward and expelled a rush of garlic breath into her face. He lowered his voice until it was no more than a whisper. ‘You know what? Sylvie Durand deserves everything that’s coming to her.’

‘And what would that be, exactly?’ Jess tried not to inhale too deeply. Her heart was thumping in her chest, anxiety merging into fear of what might have happened to Sylvie.

Brett left a short pause before he hissed: ‘What goes around, comes around. It’s karma, babe.. That’s what it is.’ And with that he turned on his heel and walked away.

The woman sitting in front of Harry was in her early thirties, a striking brunette with an excellent figure, high cheekbones and hazel eyes. She would have been more attractive, however, if her face hadn’t been contorted with rage, and that rage hadn’t been forcefully directed at him.

‘So you’re telling me that Josh knows, he bloody well knows that I hired some tart to try and set him up?’

Harry tried to keep his reply as calm and reassuring as possible. He let the ‘tart’ comment pass – the woman was upset – but he didn’t like her for it. ‘We don’t know anything for sure, but there is a possibility.’

‘What kind of a fucking cowboy outfit is this? You’re pathetic, the whole bloody lot of you. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?’

Harry had known there was going to be trouble as soon as Lorna received the call from Jess about Brett Rush. The information had been relayed to Sarah Thorne and now she was here, mad as hell and wanting her pound of flesh. ‘I understand how—’