Remember my name, p.30
Remember My Name, page 30
‘I do not think I am a stupid bitch, Dirk. Camila García was the stupid bitch. Trying to break into my room and kill me, dressed as a maid? She must have thought I was an easy target.’
Ackroyd seemed to be paralysed beside his stool, his glass still in his hand. From this angle he looked to Brioni even more overweight than when he’d arrived at the front door. Brioni was pretty sure he wouldn’t be running anywhere any time soon. His voice was shaking as he shouted back, trying to hide his fear with bravado.
‘What are you talking about? Why are you here? Do you want money?’
‘More money, do you mean? No, Dirk, I am not greedy. Five million is enough for me, plus the very juicy data I discovered. I still have that up my sleeve. It is quite amazing who uses Ferryman.’
‘So why are you here?’
Brioni watched through the crack in the door as Nina shook her head, her ponytail swishing. It was almost as if she was laughing.
She had complete control of the situation.
Or thought she had.
How long would it take for the guards to get here?
Nina continued, interrupting Brioni’s thoughts.
‘Why am I here? I would have thought that was obvious. It is payback time. I do not like people who double-cross me, Dirk. Laurence is just weak, I have what I needed from him.’
‘They’ll get you, Nina, the police are watching.’ Brioni could hear the anger in Laurence’s voice.
‘I doubt it, Laurence, this room is soundproofed, remember? The oaf outside did not even hear me coming, and he is going to be unconscious for a few hours. Oh … and I changed the entry settings on the gates. These smart systems are impenetrable unless you know how to break them. The guards will have to climb over the wall and knock down the front door. I think we have a few more minutes.’ She paused. ‘Now, Dirk, just to make sure we fully understand where we are, I know Emily-Jane has enough dirt on you to put you through a very long trial, but you know something, you have some very fancy lawyers, and I am not going to risk you missing out on what you deserve. She is a very clever young lady, Laurence, you should be proud of her.’
‘Put the gun down, Nina. Let’s talk about this.’
‘Talk about what? You leading me on and cheating on your wife? Or do you want to talk about your business associate jerking off while grooming your daughter?’
As Nina adjusted her stance there was a crash somewhere towards the front of the house. Brioni jumped physically.
‘I think that was my cue.’ The sound of another shot reverberated around the pool, and for a moment Brioni felt as if everything had frozen. Then Nina’s voice rang out across the water. ‘Remember my name, Laurence. Whenever you get close to crossing that line again, remember my name.’
Brioni watched as Nina turned and ran straight at the glazed windows at the end of the pool room, hitting them with her outstretched arms, pushing open what had to be a fire door. Brioni expected the security lights to flood the garden, but they remained off as she vanished into the darkness.
Brioni yanked open the door, the heat of the pool and the smell of chlorine hitting her like a wave. To her right, the security guard lay motionless on the ground; to her left, Laurence was standing over the apparently lifeless form of Dirk Ackroyd, looking at him as if he’d just crawled out of a swamp.
Laurence glanced at her, his face alabaster.
‘You’d better look after that guy, and call an ambulance. I think this piece of shit can wait.’
As he spoke, the door from the hallway burst open and two armed guards appeared, weapons drawn. Laurence looked across at them calmly.
‘I hope you’ve got someone on the quay. She went that way. I’d guess she’s a boat waiting.’
Chapter 66
BY THE TIME Brioni got to Alex in the kitchen, Emily-Jane had already found him. Wrapped up in a white bathrobe, her long hair matted from her swim, she was sitting on the sofa beside him discussing, from what Brioni could gather, whether she should do law at Trinity or UCD. His face pale, bowtie loose, he looked up sharply as Brioni came in. If she was honest, Brioni didn’t think he was absorbing all of what Emily-Jane was saying. It did seem to be rather an incongruous moment to launch into university discussions, given the circumstances, but then Emily-Jane was turning out to be quite a surprising young woman.
The house, outside the kitchen at least, had filled with men in uniform, several in white forensic overalls. The pool room had been taped off and a couple of very serious-looking detectives had taken over the front room. Cressida was leaning on the kitchen island, her arms folded, a rapidly disappearing glass of red wine in one hand. She turned to Brioni.
‘Have they got everything?’
‘I’ve copied everything we recorded and the garda technical guys are going to process it. It looks as if Nina came in this afternoon – the camera caught her walking across the end of the pool to push open that fire door. She must have hacked the smart system and shut down the alarm.’
Cressida nodded slowly. ‘Ready for her escape.’
‘She certainly planned all this. I think Laurence was right about her having a power boat, or maybe a jet ski waiting. She vanished pretty quickly.’
Cressida nodded again, her eyes fixed on her glass. ‘Laurence is in the front room talking to the guards. I think they’re going to have their work cut out trying to find her.’ Cressida paused, lowering her voice. ‘She said he slept with her, didn’t she? I did hear her correctly.’
Brioni moved over to lean beside her on the edge of the counter, keeping her own voice low.
‘Yes. She said he’d led her on – sounded as if he’d made her promises he couldn’t keep. She didn’t sound very impressed.’
Cressida looked at her sideways. ‘And then there’s Kate Spicer. What did he say? They’re very good friends?’ Cressida paused, her tone laced with sarcasm. ‘What’s that supposed to mean? My God. He’s up to his neck in it, isn’t he? Hearing that conversation with Nina at the start of all of this made me think it was just another woman, but it’s so much worse. Now I don’t know what to feel.’
‘You’ve got what you need for the divorce court, anyway. But I think you need to talk to him. See what the truth is. He owes you that, at least.’
Cressida took a sip of her wine. ‘I’m not sure he knows what the word means. Let’s just hope he tells me before the press do. They’re going to have some fun with this – Ackroyd dead, two security guards seriously injured.’
Brioni grimaced. ‘I hope the big one’s OK, he lost a lot of blood.’
‘You were brilliant. I don’t think I could have waited that long with him.’
‘Sorry about your towels, they’re ruined.’
Cressida shrugged. ‘They can be replaced.’
‘Mother? Can I go upstairs and get dressed yet? Have they finished all that fingerprint stuff in the hall?’ Emily-Jane swung her legs off the sofa, obviously ready to move.
Cressida put her glass of wine down decisively. ‘I’ll go and check. What did the detective say when you finished talking to him?’
‘He said they’d be as quick as they could. I should have asked him to get me some clothes when he went up for my iPad.’ She pouted.
‘I’m sure they won’t be long.’ Cressida turned to Brioni. ‘I’m going to talk to Laurence now, get the truth out of him about everything – the women, this deal, the hacking, everything. He could end up in a prison cell and I can’t have this burning in my mind, not knowing.’
Chapter 67
‘ARE YOU SURE you’ll be all right?’
Brioni drew up outside Alex’s apartment complex and put on her hazard lights.
It was hard to read his expression in the darkness as he looked across the car at her and rubbed his face. He’d been pretty quiet since the guards had told them that they could go earlier, had hardly said anything on the drive from Dalkey into the city. He opened his mouth to answer her and then stopped himself, as if he was rethinking his approach. He tried again.
‘Where do you think she is now?’
‘Who? Nina?’
He glanced across at her. Brioni pursed her lips, thinking, and then wriggled to get more comfortable in her seat. She checked her rear-view mirror before answering.
Despite being a main arterial road, it was late and the traffic was quiet now, the glow from scattered street lights reflecting off puddles on the pavements. There were cars parked on both sides of the road, but she couldn’t see any movement as she peered into the shadows. Nina had a habit of turning up unexpectedly; Brioni wasn’t taking any risks.
‘I think she planned tonight very carefully. She went straight ‘out that door – she knew it was there and she knew the path outside took her to the jetty. I think she either went down the coast and into one of the ports south of Dalkey, like Bray or Greystones, or straight into town, up the Liffey. My money’s on her heading south. If I was her, I’d have left a car somewhere and I’d be heading for a ferry port now.’
‘Not an airport?’
‘Maybe, but that’s what you’d expect, and let’s face it, Nina specialises in the unexpected.’
‘But surely they’d stop her? The ferry people, I mean.’
‘If she changes her appearance and uses a false passport, she might get through. But she’s been hiding out for the last few days, so maybe she’s got somewhere she can lie low, and then leave the country at her leisure when the excitement has died down.’
Alex looked thoughtfully out of the windscreen at the raindrops coursing down it.
‘She had everything planned, didn’t she? Well, almost. You know the guards were outside the whole time – one of them told me they were watching Laurence, and the balloon went up when those two security guys turned up. They recognised them as McQuaid’s men.’ He glanced across the car at her. ‘They thought the two stooges had come to intimidate Laurence or threaten Ackroyd or something. That’s how they got there so fast when the first shot went off.’ He paused, taking off his glasses for a moment to polish the lenses. ‘They literally climbed the gate and came in through the patio doors. Between the gunshot and these two guys in black appearing at the kitchen window, I thought we were all going to get shot. I couldn’t believe it could happen to me twice in a week.’
Brioni leaned over and squeezed his arm. She couldn’t resist a smile.
‘Perhaps you’ve got nine lives.’
He opened his eyes wide in disbelief. ‘You couldn’t make it up, could you? And you know how the “hackers” –’ he did the rabbit ears thing with his fingers – ‘called themselves Nemesis? Nemesis was the goddess of divine retribution and revenge – the goddess. I don’t know why I didn’t realise sooner. It was only when Emily-Jane was telling me what went on with Nina in the pool that the penny dropped.’ He paused. ‘Well, more rolled down a mountain, actually. She had to have had this planned for a long time, had the whole Nemesis thing set up ready to go. When she thought Laurence had put a contract on her it pushed her over the edge. She was the one who released the data on the Dark Web and notified the press. We should have realised it was a woman from the start.’
‘She’d sent the flowers before then, though. To Kate and Cressida, I mean.’
‘Perhaps that was supposed to frighten him, to show him she really meant business.’
‘Or perhaps it was just jealousy. She couldn’t have Laurence so she didn’t want anyone else to. Perhaps she thought she’d found her soulmate.’ Brioni pulled a face. ‘I think the way Cressida feels now, Nina would be welcome to him. They certainly have a lot in common when it comes to ruthlessness.’ She hesitated, looking at him sideways. ‘You were getting on very well with Emily-Jane.’
‘We’re going to act for her, if she needs representation. Well, my dad is. Apparently she’s been compiling photographs and information on a whole load of men who were involved in some model agency scam in the States – that’s how she tracked down Ackroyd to begin with. It sounds as if it could blow up. I texted my dad earlier, explained a bit. He’s still mad, but at least I’m not Public Enemy Number 1 any more.’
Brioni let out a breath. ‘I think Ackroyd claimed that title way ahead of you.’
He grimaced. ‘Dad did criminal law before he went into corporate, he wants all the details when he gets back. Emily-Jane says Laurence will fund any lawsuits – he can’t not, really, given all that material she sent to the media. He’s got the money, and the world’s going to be waiting to see what he does next.’ Alex glanced across at her. ‘Emily-Jane wants to do an internship next summer. I think my dad will help there, too. She’s very sharp.’
‘Like her father.’
‘I’m not so sure about that. Laurence Howard thinks he’s clever, but you know it’s a bit like Bismarck’s war on two fronts – really not a good plan.’
Brioni turned in her seat. ‘Alex, what are you talking about?’
‘Women. Too many at once. You can’t play women off each other. It never works. That’s where Laurence Howard went wrong.’
Brioni grinned. ‘I think you’re right there. Still, Emily-Jane got her brains from somewhere. Perhaps they’re from Cressida, she’s pretty sharp, too.’
Alex nodded slowly and Brioni realised he’d moved on in his mind again. He ran his hand into his fringe.
‘Do you think Nina will come back? After me, I mean. I’m the only one who can positively identify that she was in the suite before Camila García was killed.’
Brioni thought about it for a few seconds.
‘Honestly, if she thought you were a threat, I think she’d have done something about it then. She knew you were in the shower even if Camila didn’t. Half the country will be looking for her now, so she’s not going to turn up on your doorstep. She’d be sure to be caught.’
Alex let out a ragged sigh. ‘You say that, but she must have been hiding in the house most of the afternoon. She’s like bloody Houdini.’
Brioni twirled her earring thoughtfully. She’d been thinking a lot about how long Nina might have been in the house, was pretty sure she must have let herself in to recce it before tonight.
‘She must have disabled the security by getting into Laurence’s smart system, and then hid in the changing rooms. I hate to point it out, but you were in and out of the pool area all afternoon. If she’d recognised you, and she wanted to, she could have picked you off fairly easily. Just like she did that other security guard. I think she only goes after the bad guys.’
Alex stared out of the front windscreen of the car, his eyes fixed on a point somewhere in the distance as he digested this news. Brioni glanced across at him again.
‘I think you’re fine, really. She’s got bigger fish to fry, as they say.’
He frowned. ‘How do you think she knew? About tonight, I mean?’
Brioni screwed up her nose. She’d given this a fair bit of thought, too, and there seemed to be one very obvious way.
‘I think she’s been listening in to conversations in the house through the smart system. Everything in that house is listening, from the curtains to the lights. I’d say she’s been recording everything since she hooked up with Laurence in the first place. I reckon she’s done this before, too.’
‘Done what? Hacked a load of data?’
Brioni nodded. ‘I did some digging and all the companies she’s worked for before have been leaders in tech, but she’s left them after just a few months.’
‘Leaving a trail of destruction and broken hearts behind her?’
Brioni couldn’t help grinning. ‘I think so. Her apartment is in a pretty swanky area, too. I reckon she was working towards the big one – Ferryman. Now she’s got millions in some offshore account – and you can be sure it’s been moved from wherever Laurence sent it, or converted into bitcoin or something.’
Alex grimaced. ‘I think Ackroyd met his match. He sounds like a right sleaze.’
‘I’m with you. I’m impressed with Emily-Jane, though. She’s a very determined kid. She didn’t like what SpeakEasy were all about, and when her dad wouldn’t listen, she set about finding a way to show him. I doubt she expected to find out the sort of dirt she did, but she played Ackroyd at his own game.’
‘How do you think Emily-Jane hooked up with him? I wanted to ask her earlier, but it didn’t seem the moment. I guessed it was something to do with that model agency thing.’
Brioni put her elbow on the car window ledge.
‘She said something about seeing a news article that connected him with Epstein. She must have put two and two together and recognised that was his vulnerability, then hunted him down online. She guessed he’d need more stimulation of the kind he got at those Epstein parties, but he needed to be very careful with everyone watching Epstein’s associates.’ She paused, tapping the top of the steering wheel as she thought. ‘Emily-Jane said she found a photo of him online and it went from there.’ She frowned. ‘He was obviously bribing Laurence so he could get his hooks into Ferryman, and then found out Nina was the one with access to the data, so he bribed her, too – she said something about him paying her just before she shot him. In his world, money talks and there’s nothing like having all your bases covered.’
‘Doesn’t talk loud enough, obviously.’
‘He would probably have been fine if he hadn’t tried to double-cross her.’ Brioni made a hissing sound. ‘Nina isn’t someone you mess with. Camila García must have got some shock when Nina turned on her.’
‘She wasn’t the only one.’ Alex looked decidedly glum. ‘The press will be all over this tomorrow. I think I’m going to work from home.’
‘That seems like a very sensible plan. The guards will probably want to talk to us again. And I’ll be talking to Cressida tomorrow, I’m sure. I’ll let you know if there are any developments.’
‘So you think I’m OK to go home? There’s no chance of Nina coming after me?’
Brioni smiled across at him. ‘Lock the doors and don’t let anyone in under any circumstances. Except me, obviously. But I think she’s gone now. She had her chance, several times, and she didn’t take it. You must have impressed her.’ Brioni couldn’t resist teasing him.
