The Society by Karen Guyler (best ebook reader android txt) 📕

someone had tried to throw it on the bed from the other end of the landing. A crack splintered one of the mirrored wardrobe doors, fragments of a smashed up mobile had been ground into the red carpet.

Banks hadn’t died a natural death, Luke would bet money on it.

Had the killer left anything behind? Fast but methodically, Luke rifled through the things Antonio Castillo—Tony Banks as he’d been known in London—had thought worth keeping. Nothing in his master bedroom, or the bare two others to offer a clue why he wanted President Jed Carson killed. Nothing to suggest he could get anywhere close to the figure Luke had given him to carry out the job. Mortgaging this house ten times over wouldn’t be enough. Even less to suggest who had killed him.

“What’s your story, Tony?” Luke asked the silence. “You couldn’t do this on your own, so who’s paying the rest of the fee?”

From Luke’s visit to Banks’ brother state-side, he knew he couldn’t stump up more than a few hundred dollars. Different names, different continents, he probably didn’t know about Banks’ demise. Luke would have to call him. The brother, digging out the number he’d been paid to call if anyone came looking for Banks, had retrieved it from inside a boot at the bottom of a pile of well-worn footwear. Was that a family thing?

Luke looked in the cupboard under the stairs, accessed from Banks’ kitchen. At the back he found a pair of wellington boots, cracked mud smeared on them. He tipped them upside down, knocked them on the floor. An old-fashioned mousetrap fell out of one, snapping its jaws together as it hit the lino.

“What’re you hiding?”

Grabbing a wooden spoon from the cutlery drawer, Luke poked around inside the boot. No other nasty surprises. He risked his hand once he’d checked with his phone torch that the only thing he could see looked innocuous enough. Fingertips tentatively probing, he retrieved the something wedged in the toe.

A crinkled covered little black book.

What would this tell him its owner now couldn’t? Banks hadn’t been sociable, only a handful of names in it. He flicked the pages backwards. Under ‘W’ Rory and a handful of American phone numbers, in Washington DC if he’d remembered the area code right. Under ‘S’ Nancy, ‘O’ Aleksandr, under ‘L’ Duncan, ‘M’ Hunter. Hunter Malone, had to be. And then under ‘B’ more paydirt - Ted and Charles. Charles Buchanan? If Luke had learned anything, doing what he did, it was that coincidences were rare.

He pocketed it and, for the sake of the neighbour, took one of Banks’ suits as he let himself out of the front door, pulling it closed behind him. For the sake of his mission, he took the back door key. Always good to be prepared.

One more step to confirm what he suspected.

19

Eva and Charles blew into the Tate Modern along with a sudden squall of sleet. She hadn’t expected today to take her there.

A succession of similar paintings greeted them featuring a purple square in different positions which interrupted parallel lines of arrows marching from top to bottom. Every arrow that touched a square stole away a drop of purple that slid down the shaft until it dripped into a jagged pool at the bottom. She felt exactly like the squares.

Charles nodded his satisfaction at his idea. “We should be safe here for a while. I need the gents, why don’t you go order something. You have cash?” Charles fumbled a couple of notes into her hand.

“What do you want?”

“I’ll decide in a moment.”

Eva limped through the busy café on the ground floor, ignoring the self-service bar with treats to tempt. She didn’t want anything other than a rewind to when she’d sat down opposite Eric, but that wasn’t on offer beside the crème patisserie strawberry tarts and roast vegetable rye bread sandwiches. A waft of coffee wormed its way into her, the welcome leached out of it. If she stayed there, she’d be sick. She turned around too quickly, twinging her knee, limping back to the toilets where she’d left Charles.

Stuart had told her to treat this like a holiday. Fine, she would. She’d take a long bath, watch a mindless movie, fall asleep in her bed, she could even try to pretend that sounded perfect.

Charles was taking a while. She wandered to the entrance doors, looking out at the tourists rushing away from and towards the dry and warmth of the art gallery. Was that? Eva stared harder. No mistaking it, a sober navy blue wool coat amongst the brightly coloured snow and cold-repelling down and ski jackets of the tourists. Charles walking away from the Tate.

Out into the freezing world, she limped after him. He’d reached the footbridge, heading away from her.

“Charles, wait.” Eva dodged round a group of tourists arranging themselves for a photo. “Charles!”

Why was he leaving?

He walked too fast for her limp, widening the gap between them so he was partway along the Millennium Bridge before she got onto it. He flicked a glance behind him, sped up again. Had he seen one of the people he’d been so worried about last night?

She scanned the not dangerous families and the non-threatening tourists lining the edges of the bridge, taking selfies and group shots of the view up and down the Thames. Could she discount the business men? The lone woman on her phone?

There were too many solo figures between Eva and Charles. Which one had spooked him? Was it whoever had tried to poison her? She felt a rush of warmth towards him walking away, bowed bare head, shrugged into his coat, poor protection against the day, leading someone away from her. But this was her fight.

Her limping-running made her remarkable, exactly as she wanted. Look at me, not him.

Only half a dozen between her and Charles now, five as a man in a long camel coat overtook him. A woman in jeans and a too recognisable fur-trimmed parka, probably not her.