Cherringham--Last Train to London (7 page)

“So Jack, that thing you sent me. That tattoo? You’re right – we did see that pop up when working the mobs in Brighton.”

Back in the nineties, Brighton had become an outpost for thousands of Russian and East European émigrés. Flashy clubs sprung up, vodka on ice, caviar that you could get nowhere else.

And as mobs are wont to do, there were shakedowns. Rackets. And people who suddenly
disappeared
. Took a while to get that under control …

“Some of the guys who showed up dead had the same tattoo. We had thought maybe it was gang-related. So I did some research for you.”

A sign ahead indicated the narrow road that would lead to the north end of Cherringham. Even more twisty, Jack would need to slow down.

“Go on, Eddie.”

“Sure, but Jack —”

Eddie was a savvy cop.

“What’s this about, hmm? Where did you see this tattoo? And -”a small laugh,“ — what the hell is it doing in England?”

“Eddie – would you believe me if I told you it has to do with a kindly old puppet master having a fatal heart attack? Just – colour me curious.”

For a moment, Eddie said nothing.

“This puppet master. This kindly old dead guy. I’m guessing he’s Romanian?”

Jack’s turn to pause. Eddie had turned serious, the voice less ‘old-friends’ now, more professional, more … concerned.

“It appears that way.”

“Right. Makes sense. Okay, so here’s what we know about vulture tattoos, Jack.”

And for the next few minutes taking those hedge-lined curves slowly, Jack just listened.

Sarah sat at a back table at Huffington’s nursing a cup of tea.

Jack was due any minute, and the café was quiet in the gap between lunch and the gaggle that showed up for teatime.

“Anything else, Sarah?” Doris, a Huffington’s institution, asked her. She had to be well into her sixties, yet she wore the black-and-white uniform of a Huffington member of staff like it was couture, and her mane of silver hair added to the overall effect of gran gone glam.

“No thanks,” Sarah said, smiling. “Waiting for someone.”

A big smile from Doris.

What’s it like to spend your life working in a place like this?
Sarah wondered.

The routine the same, the people the same – God, even the menu probably unchanged.

On one hand, it has to be reassuring; the constancy, watching kids grow up, seeing some move from the village, sharing the joys of offspring wed and the sadness of an old timer whose teatimes were done.

There are worse places to be.

The bell over the door trilled, and she looked up to see Jack, who quickly scanned the near-empty café and hurried over.

“Sorry. I didn’t forget the time but that road back there? Suddenly a work crew had it down to one lane.”

“They do that. You’re lucky you didn’t get diverted.”

Jack smiled. “Would have tested my not in-depth knowledge of the roads around here.”

“You
could
get a navigation system.”

“Right. Not sure I’m ready for someone with an English accent telling me how and where to turn.”

And Sarah grinned at that.

Doris appeared at Jack’s shoulder, probably intrigued by an older gentleman meeting a younger single mum. But then, Doris would have heard the stories. Of who Jack was and what they had been up to.

“Anything for you, Jack?”

Jack looked up and smiled. “Why Doris, I believe so. How about a cup of English Breakfast, and a few of those shortbread cook – um, biscuits?”

Jack’s mid-course correction to his order brought a smile to Doris. Sarah made a note to herself –
should have known Jack would be on first-name terms in here …

“Coming right up.”

Then Jack turned back to Sarah. “So – you want to hear about my little outing this morning?”

She could tell from the tone in Jack’s voice that he was taking this rooting around Otto Brendl’s life seriously – and perhaps he’d learned something in his visit with Max Krause.

The tea appeared.

“Thanks.” Then: “Do tell.”

And Jack described his visit to FunLand.

Sarah started laughing.

“Really? He actually had one of those …”she lowered her voice, “adult-only areas?”

“Yes, ‘sexy, sexy’ as he described it to me.”

Another laugh. “If you like rubber products.”

And Jack laughed at that.

“I don’t suppose you actually went in —”

“Oh, I was tempted. Who could resist? Plus he had a nice selection of plastic vomit and other items perfect for your next lawn party.”

Sarah shook her head. “Unbelievable …”

Then Jack – as was his way … held the smile a bit, as he shifted gears.

And told her that Otto Brendl had a secret: that he wasn’t German, at least according to Krause.

“Eastern Europe? You’re kidding, ”said Sarah.“ But he told Jayne all about his childhood in Erfurt …”

“Krause was pretty insistent,” said Jack. “Plus – on the way back my friend Eddie called from New York.”

Jack took a bite of one of the shortbreads, and gestured at the batch towards Sarah. She took one, dipped it into her cooling tea, and bit off the soggy end.

“He recognised the tattoo?”

Jack nodded, face set. He looked around, their table off by itself. Still he lowered his voice.

“Sure did,” said Jack. “Brighton beach. In the early nineties – just like I thought. So he did a bit of asking around – and he came up with a country. Romania …”

“Romania?” said Sarah, coming to terms with the fact that Otto Brendl was not the man he had pretended to be.

“Yep,” said Jack. “But here’s the weird thing. Eddie tried to find out more – but nobody wanted to know. Mentioned the tattoo in a couple of Romanian cafés and people clammed up. He says it’s not a drugs thing. He thinks it’s politics.”

Jack leaned in a bit closer.

“So here’s the real question, Sarah. If Otto Brendl was really Romanian, why did he pretend to be German? Why did he come here, with a false identity, on his own? Why all by himself?”

Sarah looked away.

Thinking: there were things she could do. Anything was searchable, and with this information, she could do some digging.

“I can do some hunting, Jack. We’ll know when he came here. I can search databanks, check Interpol for missing persons … I’ll get Grace onto it – we’re pretty quiet in the office. Records like that, they have to be somewhere online.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

“But there’s something else we can do. Right now.”

Jack raised his eyebrows, not following.

Sarah filled in the gap.

“Just
how
good was Otto at keeping secrets?”

“Hmm?”

“Did he keep his secret from everyone?”

Jack nodded.

“Jayne Reid …”

“Exactly,” she said. “I think it’s time we paid her another visit – don’t you?”

And with that she took Jack’s last biscuit and stood up.

“Hey,” said Jack. “That was mine.”

“Got to be quick to catch me, Jack,” she said. “And joking aside – this afternoon is piling up for me. Not only have I got to do a food shop but I’ve also got to make up a costume for Chloe
and
wash Daniel’s cricket whites and have them dry by morning.”

“The life of a single mum, hmm?” said Jack gesturing to Doris that he’d left cash on the table.

“Tell me about it,” said Sarah, heading through the teatime crowd to the door.

Halfway down the High Street, Sarah stopped.

“Oh no! I don’t believe it,” she said, turning to Jack. “Look.”

Jack followed her gaze as she pointed at the little shop on the other side of the road.

“What’s up?” said Jack following her gaze.

“Costco is closed. Which means when we’re done with Jayne, I’m going to have get in the car and drive out to the supermarket for the kids’ supper.”

“Kinda odd – just being closed in the middle of the afternoon,” said Jack.

“Been a robbery, hasn’t there,” said a voice next to them. Jack turned. A roundish woman in her thirties pushing a double buggy had joined them. Jack caught an exasperated roll of eyes from Sarah. He figured the woman was one of the army of mums that Sarah knew in the village.

“Hi Angela,” she said.

“I’ve been waiting an hour for them to open,” said Angela. “It was only a break-in, you’d think it was a bank-job or something the way your mate Alan’s playing Sherlock bleedin’ Holmes in there.”

Jack noticed the little police car parked up outside the store: through the window he could just see the figure of PC Rivers talking to the owner.

“Someone filled a bag, did a runner out the back,” said Angela. “Doesn’t surprise me, the prices he charges. I mean, how are we supposed to —”

“Terribly sorry Angela – got to dash,” said Sarah, surprising Jack with the speed she moved away down the High Street.

“Well,” said Angela. “Don’t mind me …”

“Nice to meet you, Angela,” called Jack as he headed off to catch up with his fellow detective.

Why Knot was down a little alleyway off the High Street which Sarah jokingly called ‘Cherringham’s medieval quarter’. Jack knew it from the nearby bookshop and a terrific deli that he liked – he realised he’d walked past Why Knot a hundred times without ever really noticing it.

He’d also hardly noticed the old fashioned jeweller’s next door, which now stood closed and shuttered.

Why Knot was brightly lit, but looked empty. Sarah pushed open the door and Jack followed. The place probably had hardly changed in fifty years: racks of wool, stands of knitting needles, trays of buttons and piles of patterns.

A tall, intelligent-looking woman emerged through floral curtains that masked a storage area.

“Can I help —” she said. “Oh, it’s
you
.”

“Hello Jayne,” said Sarah. “I hope you don’t mind, we had some more questions about Otto.”

Jack watched Jayne Reid sizing him up. He smiled at her.

“I’ve told you everything I know,” said Jayne, ignoring him. “Bringing your American friend along isn’t going to change that.”

“I’m afraid what we have to tell you
will
change things,” said Jack, watching her closely.

“Oh, I very much doubt that,” said Jayne confidently.

Jack saw Sarah catch his eye – he could tell she wanted to run with this. He nodded at her, their short-hand working together as good now as any of the partners he’d had back in New York.

“Jayne, we’ve found out some things about Otto which – to be honest – we don’t understand,” said Sarah. “And we thought you might be able to clear them up.”

Jack could see a tell-tale flicker of concern move across Jayne Reid’s face.

She knows something …
he thought, and watched intently as Sarah told Jayne of his visit to the rival puppeteer and of Krause’s denials of anything to do with the puppets’ theft. Then he mentioned Krause’s assertion that Otto was not German.

At this Jayne grunted.

“Krause!” she said, through gritted teeth. “That bastard would lie about anything – especially about Otto! Is this what you’ve both come here to tell me?”

Jack watched as she walked to the shop door and opened it wide.

“Get out, or I’ll call the police,” she said.

Instead of leaving, Jack went to the corner of the shop, pulled out a fold-up chair and sat on it.

“You really don’t want to do that Jayne,” he said patiently. “You see my police contacts back in New York tell me that Otto was Romanian, and the tattoo he had on his side, you know – the vulture...”

Jack could see from Jayne’s expression that she knew exactly what he was talking about. The trick here, the trick of teasing the truth out of this woman, was not to reveal how little he and Sarah actually knew.

“Yes, you know the tattoo, don’t you?” he said. “Well, they told me how …
important
… that tattoo was. But you know that too, don’t you? You talked to Otto about the tattoo and he explained it.”

He smiled at her – and that seemed to break the spell that held all three of them motionless.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll tell you what I know. But I don’t want it spread around – you understand?”

He watched as she shut the door and came and sat next to him. It was as if she had surrendered.

He caught Sarah’s eye – she turned the sign on the door to ‘closed’, flicked the latch, then pulled another chair out and sat close to them.

“Otto was the kindest man I ever met,” said Jayne Reid. “Old-fashioned – he always opened the door for me. Such a gentleman. But in truth, until he came here, he had a terrible, terrible life.”

Sarah watched silently, not wanting to distract Jayne from her story, listening intently to every word.

“You are right. He was Romanian. His family stood up to the Ceauşescu regime – you know they were the Communist party that ran the country for years? So evil. Otto’s father was in the opposition. He was executed. So Otto took up the cause –
that’s
why he had that tattoo. He told me it was a secret sign for the revolution. But he was captured and tortured. By the Secret Police. The Securitate. You know of them?”

“I’ve read about them,” said Jack. “They were about as bad as you could get. Took their methodology from the KGB. But even more brutal. Cross their paths and you disappeared. I remember after the Communists fell, all the truth came out – mass assassinations, torture, you name it.”

“Otto never liked to talk about it. But I pieced together what happened to him. After they killed Ceauşescu, he was released from prison. He thought everything was going to be wonderful. But those people who had been in the Securitate, they wanted revenge. They were like mad men – they went after everybody who had crossed them. They hunted down the rest of Otto’s family and killed them. Then they came after him. So in 1989 he fled to Germany.”

“To Erfurt,” said Sarah.

“Yes,” said Jayne. “That part was true. But he only stayed long enough to get a new identity. Then he came here.”

“But all these years later – why didn’t he just own up to who he was?” said Sarah.

“By then I guess it was too late,” said Jack, turning to Sarah. “He was in the system. Easier to stay as Otto Brendl.”