The Devil You Know

“I don’t know.” Rich put a convincing edge of anguish in his voice. “Look, I don’t think I can take any more of this. I’m facing a murder charge already—a fucking murder charge. Mr. Damjohn, where’s Rosa? She knows about me, doesn’t she? Where is she now? If she goes to the police, I’m fucked. Unless I go there first and get my story in. I can tell them it was an accident, because it was.”

I heard Damjohn’s breath hissing between his teeth.

“Killing someone while you’re trying to rape them doesn’t count as an accident, Clitheroe,” he said with icy calm. “Even on a manslaughter plea, you’d draw down twenty years and end up serving at least ten of them. That’s what you’re facing if you can’t keep your nerve. Rosa isn’t talking to anyone, and neither are you.”

I made a winding-up motion with my index finger—get to the point—and Rich nodded, showing me he understood.

“Where is she?” he repeated.

“What?” Damjohn’s tone was pained.

“Where’s Rosa? I want to talk to her.”

“I’ve already told you that that’s impossible.”

Rich’s voice rose an octave or so. “That was before Peele called in his own fucking exorcist, man. I’m sweating this. I’m sweating it. Okay, maybe I don’t need to talk to her. But I want to make fucking sure nobody else can. You’ve got her out of the way, right? I mean, she’s not still turning tricks? Castor could just walk right in there and—”

“She’s here with me,” Damjohn snapped. “At the boat. I’m looking at her right now. And she’ll stay here until Castor is dealt with. How long ago did he leave you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe ten minutes. Maybe a bit longer.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Where?”

Rich blinked twice, on the spot, realizing that he’d painted himself into a corner. I made the “it’s a book” sign from charades. “To the—back to the archive,” Rich stammered. “I think. I think that’s what he said.”

Another pause. “It’s Sunday,” Damjohn pointed out, his tone gentle but precise. “Isn’t the archive closed now?”

“No, there’s a function on there today. A wedding.”

“At midnight?”

“He—he’s got my keys.”

A longer pause. “You let him take your keys?”

“It’s all right,” Rich blurted. “I already took the keys to the safe room off the ring. He’s only got the archive keys.”

“Well, then that isn’t a problem for us. I’ll arrange for someone to meet him there. Clitheroe, listen to me. Stay where you are. Scrub will come and collect you and bring you out here to the boat. Until we’ve sorted the Castor situation out, which will be soon, this is the safest place for you.”

Rich looked both wistful and tragic. “I can’t do that right now,” he mumbled, his eyes filling with tears.

“You can, and you will. Stay there, and Scrub will come.”

We played charades again. I pointed to him and then waved the matchbook from Kissing the Pink, which had been in my pocket all this while. Rich nodded to show that he understood. “I’ll meet you at the club,” he said.

“What?” Damjohn didn’t sound happy at all at this show of defiance.

“I’ll meet you at the club. It’s more central. I’m—I want to be where there are lots of people, okay?”

“You don’t trust me, Clitheroe?” You could have used the edge in Damjohn’s voice to shave, if you were into cutthroat razors.

“I just want it to be somewhere public. I told you, I’m scared. I don’t want to go all that way out there, in the dark, and—”

“The club, then. You’re closer, so you’ll get there first. Wait for me.” And Damjohn hung up. Rich turned to me for further instructions.

“What’s the boat?” I demanded.

“It’s a yacht. He’s got a yacht.”

“Where does he keep it?”

Rich gave me a look in which a pathetic spark of defiance flared and died. “You think he ever invited me?”

No, that would have been too easy, wouldn’t it? But one idea came to me, even as I was cursing. I turned to Rich again, fizzing and crackling with impatience.

“When he was wining and dining you,” I snapped, “where did he take you?”

“What?”

“The snazzy hotel. Where was it?”

“Oh.” He frowned for a second, then fished it up from somewhere in his memory. “The Conrad, out in Chelsea.”

Bingo.

But it was still only a best guess. And since I was working against the clock, I had to get moving. I pointed to the phone, and Rich held it out to me, which meant that when I swung with the handcuff, he couldn’t get his arm down to block in time. I caught him full in the stomach, putting all my weight into it. He hit the wall and slithered down it, his eyes wide and his mouth gaping. While he was still dazed, I got his hands behind his back and tied a double reef knot around them with the rope that was lying so conveniently to hand.

“Wh—what was that for?” he gurgled when he could swallow enough breath to speak. “Castor, what are you doing? I said everything you told me to!”