6.The Alcatraz Rose (23 page)

In his office, Kingston turned on his iMac and typed landregistry. gov.uk in the search bar. Land Registry, created in 1862, was a government agency that maintained records of more than twenty-three million titles and evidence of ownership of land and property in England and Wales. The world’s largest property database, it processes £1 million of property every minute. He was pleased to see that his membership was still active and he could submit his search request right away.

He typed in 236 Chiltern Terrace, London NW1 in the space provided and followed the onscreen instructions. In less than two minutes, he had the information he was seeking:

Kingston studied the information, disappointed that no personal names were listed. “St. Giles Partners,” he murmured. Grace Williams had said that her brother had once owned a house in the Chalfonts, Buckinghamshire. Problem was, the Chalfonts comprised the villages of Chalfont St. Giles, Chalfont St. Peter, and Little Chalfont, not to mention the hamlet of Chalfont Common. Grace hadn’t said which.

Rubbing his eyes, Kingston decided that it was too late and too confusing, and that he was trying to make something out of nothing. While waiting for the page to print, he got to thinking. If, by chance, it were Chalfont St. Giles where Reginald Payne aka Brian Jennings had once lived, then there could be some kind of connection between him and St. Giles Partners. The village was tiny. It was speculative leap, but if it proved right, it also meant Jennings could have known the people who owned the house in Primrose Hill and the one in Coleshill, a hamlet that just happened to be right next door to Chalfont St. Giles. What all this implied, he wasn’t sure. “Forget it,” told himself, knowing he was probably chasing rabbits anyway. He put the computer to sleep and went to the bedroom.

At breakfast that morning, he’d solved barely half the
Times
cryptic crossword clues; attempting to finish it would help take his mind off things during supper and beyond. At times like these, the puzzles were the perfect palliative, helping him escape, if for only a while, from pressing problems, like the crucial one facing him now. For the first time—and he couldn’t say why—he had an uncanny feeling that he was getting a little closer to seeing a glimmer of light through the labyrinth of unsolved incidents and crimes. Were only one or two of them connected? Perhaps
more? Or were they all inextricably tied together in some way? A chain of events spanning more than half century had always seemed unlikely, but if the house in Primrose Hill was a link in that chain, he was determined to find out where it led. And he had a plan.

Meantime he found himself struggling to solve the next clue:
Honestly? No, otherwise (2,3,3)—
two letters in the first word, three each in the following two. Staring at it, trying to decipher its meaning, he started to wonder if he might not be better off reading a book rather than putting his already taxed brain through more intellectual gymnastics. Then, just as he was about to put the puzzle aside, he focused on the word
otherwise
, muttering, “another way to put it.” That could be it, he realized: another way to put
Honestly
—an anagram. A few seconds later, after shuffling the eight letters, he’d solved it:
On the sly
.

It seemed, somehow, very appropriate.

“For the last time, no. I’m not going to lend you the Land Rover.” Andrew was calm yet adamant. They were on their second glass of London Pride ale, sitting across from each other in Andrew’s art moderne living room.

Kingston had called Andrew earlier and told him about Sophie’s phone call and visit, purposely playing down the seriousness of Grace’s disappearance, knowing that if he were to tell Andrew the full story, he would instantly see it as yet another tempting-fate situation that Kingston had no business getting involved with.

After the first glass of ale, he’d told Andrew more about Sophie’s visit—not mentioning the gun and stressing the fact that the police were already involved—and then, his nascent plan of action. The underlying motive for doing so was to borrow Andrew’s old Land Rover.

The plan that he’d formulated overnight was simple and involved little or no risk. As soon as possible, he would camp in a car, out of sight, across from 236 Chiltern Terrace and observe vehicles coming and going from the house. His theory was equally straightforward: If the London house and the house in Coleshill were indeed owned by the same person or entity, there was a strong likelihood that the owner or owners would spend their weekends in the country, a time-worn English custom. If
so, it would only be a matter of judgment as to which car to follow. He hoped that this would become evident if and when it happened.

The object of the exercise was twofold: first, to find out where the house in Coleshill was located, and second, to get a good look at the passengers. If Sophie was right—and he now believed she was—that her mother was being held hostage, then it stood to reason that her captors would want to move her to another location as quickly as possible. They would be smart enough to know that the police could return at any time with a search warrant. Grace Williams showing up on their doorstep must have been an unwelcome surprise. And then there was Sophie’s intrusion to complicate matters. They had to move quickly. Getting her out of the house would be their top priority. If Kingston’s hunch was correct, there was a good chance that they would transfer her to the house at Coleshill.

The only hitch in his plan was that to conduct such a surveillance, he required an anonymous vehicle that wouldn’t draw attention or be remembered easily. His mint TR4 was out of the question, and so was Andrew’s pillar-box-red Mini Cooper. But Andrew’s old Land Rover was ideal. Andrew kept it at his house on the river and used it exclusively for hauling construction and garden stuff. It was drab green and showed every day of its fifteen years of use and abuse. But Andrew was being recalcitrant, even though Kingston knew that in the end he would agree.

“I’m really surprised you could come up with something so daft. It’s asking for trouble, and didn’t we all agree it was a closed case? And you even said that Emma was of the same opinion—that it was now a matter for the police.”

“You’re right. I did. But surely that doesn’t preclude my carrying out something as simple as trailing a car to find out where it ends up. As long as all the right precautions are taken, what on earth could possibly go wrong? Even if they spotted me—which is most unlikely—what’s the very worst that could happen?”

“Hello? Remember what happened to this face?” Andrew pointed to his cheek. “Come on, Lawrence. Let the police deal with it, for God’s sake.”

“Sophie’s already been to the police station and filed a missing-persons report. I forgot to tell you that. The police won’t take any
immediate action—you know that—and by the time they do, it’ll be too late. The house will be clean.”

Andrew sighed.

“All right, as you wish,” Kingston said, getting up awkwardly from the Corbusier chair. “I need to move quickly because they’re not going to wait around. It’s now or never. For all I know, they have moved her already.”

“So what are you planning to do?”

“I’ll just have to risk it in the TR.”

“You could paint a Union Jack on the door.”

“Not funny.”

Andrew got up and disappeared into the kitchen. In no time he was back, dangling two keys on a fob between his thumb and forefinger.

“I’m doing this for only one reason, Lawrence, and that is to give you the least possible chance of getting into trouble—to protect you from yourself. If I don’t, I know damned well you’ll go anyway. You might also want to let Emma know what you’re up to. I doubt very much that she’ll approve.”

Kingston nodded, his expression as earnest as Andrew’s. He put the keys in his pocket. “Thank you. I won’t mess up. And I will tell Emma, of course. You can rest assured, too, that if things start to get even the least bit dodgy, I’ll chuck it in and head for home. That’s a promise.”

“All right, then,” Andrew said, still looking disillusioned.

“If it’s okay with you, I’ll drive down to Bourne End this evening and make the swap. I’ll take good care of her, don’t worry.”

“You know where the garage key is, right?”

“I do.”

“Call me if you run into any problems. At Bourne End, I mean.”

“I will.”

“You might want to lock it if you park it anywhere. There’re some tools and other gear in the back that I wouldn’t want to lose.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll take good care.”

“See that you do,” Andrew replied. “Of the car—and yourself.”

Kingston nodded.

He left, feeling much better about his doing the right thing.

23

T
WENTY YARDS UP
from 236 Chiltern Terrace, Kingston parked the old Land Rover on the opposite side of the street, under convenient shadows, between the wide-spaced streetlights. He glanced at his watch: nine
P
.
M
. It was getting darker. As luck would have it, the house was well lighted from a lamppost some twenty feet away. His sheltered vantage point gave him a clear view of the residence and, unless he dozed off, no vehicles could come or go without his spotting them. As he’d expected, there was little traffic and few pedestrians. Those that there were would think little of a gray-haired man sitting in his car with the newspaper propped up on the steering wheel.

Once clear of London’s suburbs, Kingston had made good time to Bourne End, where everything had gone according to plan. The Land Rover had started instantly—Andrew was obsessive about his cars—and Kingston had left his Triumph in the locked and alarmed double garage. In the roughly two-hour round-trip journey, he’d had plenty of time to think about the various scenarios that could soon confront him and how he would deal with them. Though it was prudent to anticipate everything that could go wrong, he knew that trying to second-guess what might happen and how he should react was a wasted exercise. He would have to make snap judgments if and when circumstances demanded it. He must also call Emma, but not until he had something worth reporting. If she knew that he was in a car spying on a house in a wealthy London enclave, where an armed Grace Williams might be held captive, she would call the police immediately.

He put the thought out of his mind.

Opening the flask he had brought with him, he poured a stainless-steel cup of hot coffee. Also to help stay awake, he had the radio on, at a low level, listening to music, trying to imagine being in “their” place—meaning Grace’s captors, whoever they were—and what time they would choose to move her. All of this, of course, depended entirely on if she was captive there—and if so, whether that was their plan.

Night came and both street and pedestrian traffic dwindled from sporadic to virtually none for long periods. There was little or no activity at any of the houses within his angle of sight, let alone number 236. Primrose Hill was now as quiet and ostensibly as peaceful as any village in the Cotswolds. By two thirty he’d eaten the sandwich he’d brought along, as well as an apple, half a Cadbury fruit & nut chocolate bar, and had finished the coffee.

Around four o’clock he had his first scare, when a car approached slowly. It wasn’t until it was almost within forty feet or so that he saw it was a police car. He slumped as low as he could in the seat, praying that they hadn’t spotted him. It passed without slowing, and he let out a sigh and a mute blessing for the dark shadows.

He awoke with a jump and an ache in his lower back. It was still dark, but on the tiny scrap of horizon between the trees he could see the sky beginning to lighten. He looked at his watch: four forty-five. His first thought was that in the forty minutes or so that he’d dozed off, he might have missed something.

Five minutes later, the porch light went on at number 236. Kingston picked up his small Luger binoculars from the passenger seat and held them ready in his lap. For five minutes, no activity. It then occurred to him that the light might be on a timer. But that made no sense—why set it to go on at daybreak? He raised the binoculars.

His question was answered when a heavyset man with shaved head, wearing a suit and tie, emerged from the house. He closed the front door behind him and walked down the gravel drive. A minute later, Kingston saw headlights, and a dark-colored late-model Mercedes Estate pulled up alongside the porch. The man got out of the car and went back into the house. Kingston lowered the binoculars, reminding himself to be extremely careful at this point. The neighborhood would be soon
stirring, and there was a chance of his being noticed by one of the residents of Primrose Hill, a stockbroker or type A personality who wanted to be in his City office at first light.