The Hogarth Conspiracy (11 page)

But his heart hadn't.

Awkwardly, he went into the galley kitchen and made two mugs of coffee, surprised that he could remember without asking exactly how she liked it. When he went back into the sitting room, Ingola was standing by the window, her back erect, her expression impassive.

He passed the mug of coffee to her, taking care not to touch her hand. She was now his brother's wife; nothing could erase that fact.

“Thank you,” she said, sitting down, aware of the tension in the room, and found herself taking quick looks at Victor. Snatched glimpses, short enough not to stare but long enough to remind herself why she had never been able to forget him. He was slimmer than before, his dark hair punctuated by gray, his eyes slower to show emotion. But the hands and the voice were exactly as she remembered them, and the pull was stronger than ever.

When Christian had gone to collect Victor from Long Lartin but had returned home without him, Ingola had felt her life splinter all over again. For over three years she had tried to love Christian and had provided him with grateful affection. She had even hoped that when Victor left jail, enough time would have passed for Christian to usurp his brother's place in her heart. Nature thought otherwise. Persuaded to marry Christian—having been convinced by Victor that he could never marry her once he had been convicted—Ingola had concentrated on her career. But success made an impoverished bedfellow, and Christian was a penniless substitute for his brother.

When Christian returned home without Victor after his release from prison, Ingola felt anguished, cheated out of a meeting she had lived for. Her Nordic composure clicked into place, but it was halfhearted, and after only a couple of days she knew she had to see Victor.

“How are you?”

He shrugged. “Better than I thought I'd be. And you?”

“Fine.”

“Is Christian a good husband?

“Very.”

“And a good father?”

It was the first reference Victor had made to his nephew. A subject he had thought would be too painful to mention. Jack was the child
he
and Ingola should have had, but he was Christian's son, not his—the child he had wanted with the woman he loved … if he had never been imprisoned. If he had never been disgraced. If he had never given her up.

“Christian's a great father, yes,” Ingola replied, smiling. “Jack thinks the world of him.”

Victor changed the subject. “You're qualified, doing well. Congratulations. I know your career meant a lot to you.”

“You meant more.”

The words were out of her mouth before she could check them. She stared at the patterned carpet, her mouth dry.

“So,” Victor said, ignoring her previous remark. “Christian's parking the car?

“No.”

“What?”

“Your brother isn't with me.”

Unsure how to react, Victor put down his mug of coffee and frowned. “Why did you say he was?”

“Would you have let me in if you'd known I was alone?”

“No.”

“That's why.”

She returned her gaze to the carpet.

“You shouldn't be here.”

“I know that.”

“Ingola,” Victor said evenly, “we made an agreement. I was finished, I was going to jail, and you wanted and deserved a good life. Fair enough; you wanted to qualify, to get on. I understood that. Marrying Christian was the best outcome for you.” He sighed; speaking about it hurt. “We talked it out, remember? Your career would have been finished if you'd stuck with me.”

“You didn't love me enough.”

“Jesus,” he said bitterly. “Couldn't I say the same about you?”

Standing up, she walked into the kitchen. He could hear her running the cold water tap and knew she was cooling her coffee. He didn't know if he should feel relief that she wanted to finish her drink and be gone or fear that she would leave. He wished fervently that she hadn't come, that he could have kept her forever locked in Worcestershire. In the past. Segregated from his future in an apartheid of memory. But she was here, and her hair was still as thick as a horse's mane, and her hands were just as white, and something very like regret made him react harshly.

“Why come here?” he asked as she walked back into the sitting room.

In reply she put down her mug and went to him. Gently she touched his cheek. He shook her off, but she was undeterred. She touched his face again.

“You have to go. You can't be here.”

But her hand stayed against his skin, her fingers tracing the outline of his features, and he remembered her. Every nuance, every scent, every suppressed longing. But he also remembered her stubbornness, her emotional greed.

“Ingola,” he said, his voice wavering. “I can't do this. You
have
to go.”

She nodded, then shook her head, tears in her eyes.

“No,” she said with a catch in her throat.

“This is wrong. I know it, and so do you. Come on—you don't want me anymore. You just think you do.”

Her eyes took on a familiar look of determination, almost defiance. “I
do
want you. I've always wanted you.”

“No—”

“
Yes
.”

“You have to go.”

“I will,” she replied, kissing him, “I will … later.”

They made love as though they knew they would be punished. Every moment was guilty, with Christian the decent, good phantom in the bed between them. But even as he wanted her gone, Victor clung to her, and Ingola fed off the heady mixture of desire and deceit that both of them had created. Created and failed to resist. And somewhere in between, both felt the aching realization of love lost and hope sacrificed.

When Victor woke two hours later, she was gone.

Fifteen

L
IZA
F
RITH WAS SITTING WITH HER LEGS CURLED UNDER HER, WEARING
no makeup, her ash-blond hair hanging around her face. She looked unusually young—and very frightened—chewing the side of her index finger as she watched Mrs. Fleet. She knew that business would be brisk—it always was in the Park Street brothel—but she could hear no sounds from below. In the four-story house, the ground floor was used for the reception of the clients; the first floor housed lounges, and there were offices at the back. On the second floor were the sumptuous bedrooms—soundproofed and discreet—with a separate back exit on the landing. The top floor was off limits to everyone, a light, airy space converted into Mrs. Fleet's private apartment.

The third floor was for the girls. No men allowed. There were only four bedrooms because most of the fifteen employed girls were sent out to entertain clients in hotels, on trips abroad, or on private flights. Knowing that it was in the police's interest to turn a blind eye to her activities, Mrs. Fleet had enough sense not to provoke the undue curiosity of her neighbors and kept the in-house business to a minimum.

“Have you heard about Kit Wilkes?” she asked Liza, her tone remote. “He's in the Friars Hospital—”

“In a coma!” Liza blurted out. “He was on the plane with us! First Marian and now Kit Wilkes.”

She sounded unnerved, but Mrs. Fleet remained cool, irritated that she should have to play nursemaid to an unstable whore. Determined that Liza shouldn't find out about Bernie Freeland's accident, she passed the girl a coffee and sat down.
Accident? Like hell it was
, she thought.
Bernie Freeland had been killed
. Calmly, Mrs. Fleet studied Liza Frith. The girl had always proved reliable and sweet-natured, with little temperament. Popular with the clients and sexually uninhibited even for a working girl,

Liza had chosen to go into prostitution because she liked sex, a lazy life, and even lazier money. Intelligent enough to win a place at the University of Manchester, she had left after the second term and drifted into the outer periphery of Mrs. Fleet's radar. A known party girl who loved clubbing, Liza had been recommended by a friend who had worked for Mrs. Fleet's competitor in Argentina. Within a week she was ensconced at the Park Street premises.

But if her employer had an instinct for talent, she also had an instinct about weakness. Mrs. Fleet was never a woman to succumb to a hard luck story or show generosity in supplying second chances; vulnerability resonated in her head like a bee humming against a locked window. And she could sense it now in Liza Frith.

“I think you should stay here for a while, Liza,” she said simply. “Have a rest. Perhaps you're tired.”

“Marian's dead, and Kit Wilkes is in the hospital!”

And you don't even know about Bernie Freeland yet,
Mrs. Fleet thought. She would make sure that Liza remained in ignorance or she might react badly, even become indiscreet. And in a business run on discretion, any intimation of trouble—anything that took the client's mind off pleasure—was bad for the profit margin.

“Liza, don't get yourself worked up,” Mrs. Fleet continued, staring at the girl calmly. “Accidents happen.”

“Marian was murdered!” Liza snapped. “Her head was bashed in. What do the police think?”

“That it was a client.”

“No!” Liza said, shaking her head.

“Someone left thirty pieces of silver with her.”

“Meaning what?” Liza asked, her childish voice raised. “What's that supposed to mean? Marian didn't betray anyone—unless she told people what she overheard on the plane.”

“Which was?”

“I don't
know,
” Liza said vehemently. “I couldn't hear what was going on from where I was sitting. Annette was next to me, and we were talking, coming in to land. Bernie going off like that was a shock. I turned and saw him leaning down to Sir Oliver Peters, but I couldn't hear what he said, just caught the name Hogarth; that was all.”

Mrs. Fleet studied the girl closely. “Nothing else?”

“No. Anyway, where
is
Annette?” Liza asked suddenly, glancing at her employer and wondering why she was so calm. Wasn't it obvious that something was wrong, that the flight had been jinxed in some way? “When we last spoke, she said she was coming here.”

“So she'll come,” Mrs. Fleet replied, composed. She had not seen or heard from Annette Dvorski, but she wasn't going to show concern. Not yet, anyway.

“She wouldn't have still gone, would she?”

It was Mrs. Fleet's turn to look surprised. “Gone where?”

“To New York to meet up with Bernie Freeland. She was planning …” Liza felt herself turning pale. Jesus, why hadn't she kept her mouth shut? She realized from the look on her employer's face, her hard, narrowed eyes, that Mrs. Fleet hadn't known about the assignation. “Maybe I got it wrong.”

“
Annette arranged to see Bernie Freeland?
”

Liza was stammering, trying to cover up.

“I could have gotten the dates wrong.” Liza now mistook the woman's fixed expression for anger. “Annette always gets her dates wrong,” she babbled.

“Shut up!” Mrs. Fleet said, rising to her feet and looking down into the street below. At once the mastiff rose and padded over to her, sitting at her feet.

At any other time the fact that Annette Dvorski had deceived her would have incensed Mrs. Fleet, but not this time. If the stupid girl
had
arranged a secret meeting with Bernie Freeland, she was going to get more than she bargained for. If she was on her way to New York, she would soon find out that her rendezvous was with a corpse.

“You stay here at Park Street, Liza. Do you understand?”

The girl nodded. “I can work.”

Mrs. Fleet considered this awhile, then said, “No, not for the moment.” Perhaps it was better to keep Liza Frith under wraps, away from people and questions. “Just stay indoors.”

“You think I'm in danger?”

“I think you're worried, and you're no good to me in that state.”

“Do the police know about the flight on Bernie Freeland's jet?”

“No,” Mrs. Fleet replied, her tone warning. “And you must not say anything.”

“But—”

“The flight is
not
to be mentioned. Forget it; it has nothing to do with Marian's death. She died in the airport hotel. On her own. I don't want you muddying the water.”

When Liza left the room, Mrs. Fleet stared down at Park Street, at winter trees bleak and bad-tempered against a blustering sky; early London rain had left the roads greasy. From her vantage point, she could see over the London rooftops toward the horizon, where watercolor clouds skittled after one another. Her mind ran over the facts. One of her working girls had been murdered; another was missing, apparently on her way across the Atlantic. And a third, without knowing even half the truth of her situation, was hiding at Park Street.

Mrs. Fleet had grown up in the toughest area of Liverpool, accustomed to violence and intimidation. By hard graft and ruthlessness she had risen to the top of her game, and she liked her status. Not respectable but pretty nearly untouchable. No bailiffs coming to her door, no pimps either, no whores running with sores and willing to blow two men for the price of a drink. It took determination to get away from Scotland Road, a place where there were pubs on every corner and a hooker in every doorway.