The Hogarth Conspiracy (16 page)

S
LIDING THE KEY INTO THE LOCK OF
B
ERNIE
F
REELAND'S
N
EW
Y
ORK
apartment, Annette Dvorski pushed open the door and dropped her bag onto the hall floor, rubbing her stiff neck. The place was in darkness, which surprised her. Usually there was a maid in attendance when she visited Bernie; she had never been in the apartment before when it was deserted. Curious, she glanced about her, taking in the familiar surroundings, then went into the master bedroom, half expecting the Australian to jump out and surprise her. But she found herself alone and, disappointed, flicked on the plasma TV on the wall opposite the bed.

Bored and a little peckish, Annette moving to the kitchen and made herself a sandwich with some leftovers from the fridge. Tired and stiff from the flight, she ran a bath, pinned up her long red hair, and stepped into the warm water.
Perhaps Bernie has left me a note,
she thought idly. She'd look when she finished bathing. He'd left no message on her cell phone, not even a text.
Odd, because he always let her know if he couldn't make it. Maybe he was stuck in traffic
, Annette mused. The snow was bad in New York; that always held everyone up. But it wouldn't have stopped him from calling her. She closed her eyes, relaxing in the water. Knowing where Bernie kept his cocaine, Annette decided she would take a snort later. Well, why not? Bernie was always open-handed.

She soaped her legs, then her breasts, studying a mole near her left nipple and remembering the LA Dodgers baseball bat. Bernie had told her all about it, delighted that he had managed to get hold of all the players' signatures. It was to be a prize, if she won a point against him the next time they played squash together.
Hah
, Annette thought;
like he ever really beat me
.
I could hammer the hell out of him if I wanted to, but why humiliate a client? Especially one as generous as Bernie Freeland
. Kneading a knotted muscle in her left calf, Annette thought of Mrs. Fleet and felt a twinge of anxiety.

When her employer found out—and she would—about this extracurricular trip to visit Bernie, there would be hell to pay. The two women had always disliked each other, but Mrs. Fleet saw her profit in Annette Dvorski and Annette knew that she could get the highest fees by working as a Park Street girl. So they tolerated one another, occasionally spitting invective and, once, Mrs. Fleet actually hitting Annette during a quarrel. The fact that the madam hadn't raised her voice once during the altercation had made the violence all the more unexpected and shocking. Stupidly, Annette had lifted her hand to hit back, but the dog that was always with Mrs. Fleet had started snarling, and she had been forced to back down.

Annette also knew that her background, her supposedly impoverished Polish origins, nettled Mrs. Fleet so much that the woman had even asked Annette to change her name. But the redhead's stubborn streak had come out. After all, she had said, how many of the johns were interested in a girl's surname? In fact, Dvorski wasn't her father's name; Annette had taken her mother's maiden name after she died, a sentimental, titular memorial to a woman she could barely remember.

Still soaping herself, Annette studied her body, thankful there were no signs of aging even though she was thirty-one. Athletic genes and playing sports regularly had kept her lithe, able to cheat her real age. Slyly she smiled to herself. Mrs. Fleet thought she was twenty-six; indeed, she often said that a whore's best earning days were over when she hit thirty. Well, perhaps
hers
had been, but Annette was relying on at least another couple of good years. Or less if she could just hook Bernie Freeland.

Getting out of the bath, Annette wrapped a towel around herself. She knew she was Bernie's favorite girl; that much was obvious, and it had certainly galled Marian Miller. Annette remembered the dead girl without affection. Marian had been cold, conniving, and self serving, but the news of her death had been shocking. Suddenly uneasy, Annette moved into the kitchen, where dozens of stainless steel doors reflected her image back to her. She turned up the central heating. It was getting very cold now, snow falling outside the window and landing on the balcony; the lights of the apartment building opposite shone like glowworms in the freezing night.

Of course, she had been a bloody fool to spike Bernie's drink. She had only done it for a laugh, but no one could have foreseen his reaction. Annette frowned, remembering how Bernie had leaned down to talk to Sir Oliver Peters, his face sweaty, panicked. Aware of what she had done and feeling guilty, Annette had turned away from the scene, but the word
Hogarth
had caught her attention. Cursing, she tried to hear more of the garbled conversation but could only just make out Bernie saying, “
I've got it.”

Which was interesting. Very interesting.

Of course Annette had told Liza that she had heard nothing. After all, what point was there in broadcasting the news? News that might prove to be very lucrative for her. She knew enough about the art world to realize what having a Hogarth painting would mean, how it would swell Bernie Freeland's already overflowing coffers.

Slumped in a chair, watching the snowflakes land on the balcony, Annette wondered idly when Bernie would get back to the apartment. With the hazy lights opposite watchful and unwelcoming in the falling snow, she suddenly felt isolated and longed to hear the key in the lock, longed for Bernie's arrival to break the suffocating dead silence. Annette's confidence faltered momentarily, but she rallied, remembering the baseball bat, the present she had been promised. Bernie had said that he would give it to her when she came to New York.
Well, I am here now,
Annette thought. Looking for her present would keep her occupied.

Beginning in the bedroom, she looked through the closets, then searched the bathroom, the kitchen, and finally the living room. Lifting the window seats, she paused, wondering where else he could possibly have hidden it. Not in the hall cupboard, so where?

A thought suddenly occurred to her, and, smiling, she left a note for Bernie. Then she pulled on a tracksuit and made for the back stairs that would take her down to the basement gym eight flights below. Annette's fingers slid along the icy handrail; her feet moved noiselessly on the stairs. She began to hurry, and her breathing accelerated. At the bottom of the steps she took a deep breath, then pushed through the double doors into the gym.

The manager nodded a welcome. “Can I help you?”

“Did Mr. Freeland leave something for me to collect?”

“
Mr. Freeland?
” He appeared surprised, staring at her for a long moment before taking something out from under the counter. “He left this for you, miss. I was supposed to give it to you.” Bernie Freeland was no mug. He didn't want to leave the bat in his apartment, where anyone could find it, and knew it would be securely locked in at the gym. He'd even slipped the manager a heavy retainer to ensure it went only to Annette.

Annette's manicured hand took hold of the bat, which was still wrapped in brown paper. “Thank you.”

“I'm really sorry, miss.”

She frowned. “About what?”

“Well, you know….”

“No. What?”

“Mr. Freeland,” the man said uncomfortably. “He was killed yesterday. In a traffic accident.”

She felt the strength leave her legs. She spoke in a faraway voice that seemed to belong to somebody else,

“Mr. Freeland's
dead
?”

“You didn't know, miss? I'm so sorry. Can I get you a glass of water?”

Shaking her head, Annette backed away, moving out of the lobby, and looked up the stairwell. The stairs seemed to extend upward indefinitely, the echoing gray concrete bitterly cold and hostile. Turning away, she moved to the elevator and pressed the buzzer, her mind a collage of images: Bernie and Marian Miller, half-remembered clips of experiences and conversations, and a name—Hogarth.
Hogarth
.
Hogarth.
At last the elevator came to a stop in front of her, the doors slid open, and she walked in. Luckily, it was empty, and she leaned against the wall, holding on to the baseball bat, her eyes fixed on the lighted numbers overhead. Two, three, four, five … Suddenly the elevator stopped, and Annette tensed, expecting someone to enter. But no one was waiting, and after another moment the doors closed again and the elevator restarted its slow ascent.

Six, seven … Her breathing jagged with anxiety, Annette watched as the doors opened at her floor, then she stepped out. Down the hallway, a young man noticed the striking redhead, and a couple leaving for dinner nodded politely to her as they passed.

She moved toward the apartment, unlocked the door, and walked in.

It was eight-thirty in New York. Winter snow was falling, the lights were on all over the city, and yellow cabs sounded their horns as they limped through the traffic below. As a shaken Annette Dvorski walked into the apartment, she noticed that it was warm again and that there was a light flickering on the answer phone.

But she didn't notice the footprints on the balcony outside, fresh footprints breaking into the smoothness of the silent snow.

Twenty

“L
IKE
I
SAID,
I
'M UP FOR IT.
I
S THE WHOREMONGER GENERAL PAYING
expenses?” Tully asked

“She is. I am now officially working for Mrs. Fleet.” Victor, in a taxi on its way to Heathrow Airport, was talking fast into his cell phone. “I'm going to New York,” he explained. “Catching the next flight, so I'll be away, and I need someone in London.”

“Thrilling. When do I start?”

“You sure about this?” Victor asked. “I told you what happened last night. I was threatened.”

“You were warned off.”

“What's the difference?”

“If the man was attached to the royals, he was just sent to scare you.”

“But what if he wasn't? What if he was working for someone else entirely?”

“If you believe that, why are you still working on the case?”

“I need the money.”

“Not to mention that a Hogarth is involved,” Tully commented perceptively. “Stop worrying about me, Victor; I've got friends in low places. And besides, I've got nothing to lose.”

“No one has
nothing
to lose.”

Ignoring the comment, Tully went on. “Did I ever tell you about my grandfather? He married his first wife, then fell in love with her sister and set her up as his mistress in another town. He died a happy man, having kept his secret for decades.”

“So?”

“After he died, the two sisters congratulated themselves on having feigned ignorance for so long. You see, they knew about each other all the time; it was just that neither of them had liked my grandfather enough to want him around seven days a week. So they had shared him. And all along they had let him think he was Don Juan.”

“What's your point?”

“No one's who they seem,” Tully said enigmatically.

“Are you sure you want in on this?”

“Yes. And don't ask me again. Have you anything to go on?”

“I think I know where the Hogarth is,” Victor said simply. “And if I know, someone else might know too.”

“Be careful. You might not see them coming.”

“I didn't see jail coming either,” Victor said bitterly. “Listen, Tully, there were two men acting as stewards on Bernie Freeland's flight. One man's an old hand called Malcolm Jenner, always worked for Bernie, and the other's a younger man called Terry Shaw. He was new; it was his first flight.” Victor paused. “Can you talk to them if I send their addresses through to you?”

“No problem.”

Clicking off his cell phone, Victor leaned back in the taxi and gazed out the window, thinking of Tully, his mind wandering back, reliving a past memory.

“You and I will live here forever, of course,” Ingola had said, that long flaxen hair flipping up on her shoulders, her eyes narrowing against the sunlight. Behind her a field of linseed had shimmered hotly against the blue crater of sky; a swallow made staccato flights between clouds. “We'll have three children, at least.”

He doubted it but hadn't said so. He was sure that Ingola's career would postpone the birth of children for some time. He didn't mind; her ambition matched his, although her single-mindedness could be brutal at times. But that was her charm: a combination of the sensual and the savage.

“We'll have three boys.”

“Triplets; then you can have them all at once,” he had teased, pausing to look past her shoulder at the man approaching. His voice had tightened immediately. “I thought you said no one knew we were here.”

She had turned in slow motion, her skirt making a half circle in the heat, one hand already raised in greeting.