I Spy (7 page)

When he looked round he saw a woman with close-cropped dark brown hair and wearing a blue sailor-style dress coming down the hall towards him, smiling broadly. Just exactly what, he wondered as
she approached, did she have to be so happy about?

“Young Master MacIntyre! How
nice
to meet you...
do
come with me and I’ll take you up to the playroom and introduce you to Arthur and Christina, who can’t
wait
to make your acquaintance!”

For one blissful moment Trey thought he
had
to be dreaming,
that at any moment
he’d wake up in his bed, back in his room at the Pera Palas, and none of this would be
happening...but then he was walking down the hallway, Miss Renyard’s trilling voice bouncing off the silk-lined walls as he dragged his unwilling feet up two flights of stairs (were these
kids locked away in the attic?), and not one word of what she was saying sinking in.

“...and after we have been to the archaeological museum, and had a
lovely
picnic lunch in the park, we shall take a little look at the Topkapi Palace, which I have heard is
quite...”

The fact that this torture was going to happen to him until his father’s work was done was beginning to really get to him, and the thought occurred to him that maybe he could fake some
kind of terminal illness and get to stay at the hotel instead; he wouldn’t even mind if they took him to the hospital.

“...only been with the family a week or so, but the children are
very
nice and I’m
sure
you’ll all get along swimmingly togeth...”

Or maybe,
maybe
, he could have an accident! Nothing
too
serious, just bad enough to mean he couldn’t go off on any trips to yet
more
museums and palaces, as he really
did think, apart from not wanting to spend any time at all with these Limey kids, he had been to more than enough since leaving Chicago.

“...and here we are!”

Trey stumbled to a halt to see Miss Renyard had stopped walking down the wide corridor and was standing by a door. She was smiling at him again, in that way he’d noticed some adults did
when they really
wanted
everything to be all right, but had an inkling that this might not necessarily be the case.

“Shall we go in?”

“Okay...” Trey nodded, and then remembered his manners. “Thank you.”

“What a
sweet
accent!” Miss Renyard chirped as she opened the door and beckoned for him to follow her. “Arthur, Christina – here’s your new
friend!”

Trey was still trying to work out what this Miss Renyard had meant by him having an
accent
– when it was as plain as the nose on a pug dog’s face (as his gramps would say)
that
she
was the one who sounded funny – as he entered the room. The
play
room, he reminded himself. And indeed there was the girl kneeling on the floor surrounded by a whole
gang of dolls – all dressed much like she was, in frills – and the boy, standing at a table covered with an electric train set, the engine clickety-clacking its way round the extensive
track.

“Children!” Miss Renyard clapped her hands. “This is – what
does
the ‘T’ stand for?”

“Trey,” Trey replied.

“Trey...what an
unusual
name.”

“Not really.” Arthur Stanhope-Leigh let out a bored sigh as he expertly slowed the train down to take it through a sharp bend in the track. “He’s called T. Drummond
MacIntyre the
third
, isn’t he...and ‘trey’ sort of means three, so it’s obvious, really.”

Trey did not appreciate being talked about almost as if he was an object, and one that wasn’t even in the room, and felt like boxing this stuck-up kid’s ears to show him just
how
much he didn’t appreciate it.

“Well
I
think it’s a very nice name.”

Trey saw the girl had got up from the floor and he noticed for the first time that, with her mass of blonde, curly hair and big, blue eyes, she was actually quite pretty. If you liked that sort
of thing. Which he wasn’t sure he did.

“I’m Christina.” She came over, holding out her hand, which etiquette demanded Trey shake. “And that’s my absolute
pill
of a brother whom you should really
just ignore. He wants to be the Prime Minister when he grows up,” Christina added, as if that explained everything. And then she finally let go of Trey’s hand.

“Well, now that we’ve all met I think it’s time to think about going!” Miss Renyard nodded and smiled, somehow managing to look relieved and anxious at the same time.
“I’ll go and make sure Cook has everything ready and then tell Stevens to meet us with the car at the front of the house. I’ll send Molly up to get you...”

Trey watched her go, wondering how many people this family had working for them.

“What do
you
want to be when you grow up, MacIntyre?”

“You talking to me?” Trey frowned at Arthur, who hadn’t even bothered to look up as he spoke.

“I do believe I must have been, old chap.”

Trey took a deep breath, aware that Christina was watching him like a hawk and for some reason he did not want to come out of this looking like he’d been gotten the better of.
“Let’s make a deal, okay? You keep out of
my
hair and I’ll keep out of
yours
. That way I won’t have to boot your keister,
old chap
.”

Christina snorted with laughter, Arthur’s ears turned a deep puce and Trey could tell that the next few days were not going to be a cakewalk, by any manner of means. On top of which, every
moment he had to put up with the Stanhope-Leighs was a moment he was unable to spend with Ahmet, watching his father’s back (as he knew all the best shamuses called checking to see if someone
was being followed). The thought of what he might be missing made Trey grind his teeth.

A
hmet closed the car door, and as he went back to the driver’s seat Trey heard Christina call out.

“Bye-eee! See you tomorrow!”

He also thought he could hear Miss Renyard urging Arthur to say goodbye as well (some hope
she
had); he sank back into the seat, giving a desultory wave as Ahmet drove off, and then going
cross-eyed at the thought that what he had just been through was going to be repeated,
ad nauseam
, for some days to come.

“You have good day?”

“No, Ahmet, I do
not
have good day...how about you?”

“I fine, thanking you.”

The two of them sat in a reasonably easy silence for the next few minutes as Ahmet guided the car through the traffic; the last thing Trey wanted to do was go over what he’d done that day,
and he was exhausted from the strain of answering the seemingly continuous stream of questions from both Miss Renyard and Christina about what it was like to live in Chicago. Not to mention constantly
having to stop himself from biffing that sneering worm Arthur, who seemed a real sneaky type. Which reminded him...

“Did you see anyone following you today, Ahmet?”

“Were back again.”

“They were?” Trey snapped upright.

“Yes, that men, from day before today. Different car, but I spot all the same; they follow like lost puppy.”

“Are they here now?” Trey whirled round and looked out of the rear window, amazed with himself for not having thought to check before.

Ahmet shook his head. “Not
you
they like to see. Only
Mr.
Macktire.”

“What happened?”

“Not so much. I just see the car, and two men with it, here.” Ahmet reached up and tapped his rear-view mirror.

“Where’s my father now?”

“I took him Pera Palas – in the room, maybe?”

“And the people who’ve been on your tail all day, you think they’re still there outside?”

Ahmet shrugged eloquently. “I not magic...can’t not see from here.”

Trey couldn’t tell if Ahmet was joking with him or not, but he was more concerned with the fact that, while he’d been traipsed around yet another collection of cultural artefacts, in
the real world a story his father was blissfully unaware of was still unfolding –
and he should have been involved!
And the more Trey thought about it the more it was like the
novelette he’d read recently; in
The Nearly Man
, a hapless detective had always been one frustrating step behind the man he was trying to catch, and he now knew
just
how he
felt...

“You tell Mr. Macktire?” Ahmet asked, interrupting Trey’s thoughts.

“You think I should?”

Ahmet did another of his meaningful shrugs.

“He more than likely wouldn’t believe me, if I did.” Trey shrugged to himself. “But what if something happens to him if I
don’t
tell him?”

They were stopped in traffic and Ahmet raised both hands off the wheel and looked up at the roof as he shook them, like he was offering a heartfelt prayer. “
What
to do, eh?
What
to do?”

Standing in the lift as it cranked its way up to the seventh floor, Trey was still unsure of what would be the best course of action. Experience (“The cheapest form of
education available!”, as his gramps, who seemed to have a saying for almost every single occasion, would put it) had taught him that his father would be disinclined to believe
him
if
he said there was somebody following him, so maybe he’d believe someone else. Someone like Ahmet. But then again, maybe not, and he did not want to get Ahmet into any kind of trouble with his
father.

He watched the operator bring the lift to a halt at his floor and pull the two sets of doors to one side so he could exit; walking out he turned right to go to their suite. Maybe, if his father
had had a good day, and seemed to be in an amenable mood, he could try and work the conversation round to what he
might
do
if
it so happened he
was
being followed. Just to get
his father at least thinking about the idea. Trey was still deep in thought, planning how the conversation might go, when he reached the door to the suite...and found that it was ajar.

If Trey had owned hackles they would have been standing right up on end. As it was, even though it was hot, he felt a shiver run from the nape of his neck to the base of his spine. What could
this mean? The only way to find if it was “nothing” or “something” was to go in. So Trey gently pushed the door open just enough so that he could get his head through the
gap, and then peered in.

So far it was “nothing”, an empty lobby area leading into the sitting room, which was also, as far as he could tell, empty. And then he heard voices coming from the room his father
was using as a study. His father must have a visitor. So now there was only one thing for it: he had to actually go in. Taking a deep breath he pushed the door open a little bit further and slipped
into the lobby.

He knew that, under normal circumstances, he would have marched in and, as he was always being told, really made his presence felt. But these circumstances were not, he reckoned, quite normal.
So, like any gumshoe worth his salt, he quietly made his way into the sitting room (“Keep
schtum
and keep breathing” was, as he was well aware, every private eye’s
watchword), stopping by one of the leather chesterfields and listening. He could still hear the voices – a low, loud rumble from behind the closed study door – but not what was being
said; and then, out of the blue, the burning question of what his next move should be was answered by his father bellowing “GET OUT!” and what sounded like a fist being slammed onto a
desktop. Trey ducked down out of sight behind the leather sofa.

Later, when he reran what had happened, he supposed he’d hidden because he’d felt like he was about to be caught red-handed eavesdropping, but at the time, with the study door
slamming open, it seemed like the only thing to do and the right place to be.

“I’ve just about had it up to
here
with this!”

Trey had never heard his father get in such a lather, even after the unfortunate incident involving him and a rather ugly piece of porcelain – a family heirloom, no less – in which
the statuette had come out distinctly the worse for wear.

“I told you, Mr. Paklov –
I do not know WHAT you are talking about!
”

“We shall see,” the man said in a heavy accent.

Behind the chesterfield, his heart in his mouth, Trey found that he could see everything that was happening reflected in the glass panels of a corner cabinet opposite him; worryingly, he
realized, that meant he could also be seen. But, thankfully, his father and the unwelcome guest were too busy yelling at each other to notice.

“Get out,
now
, or I’ll have you thrown out!”

“You will regret...”

As the man turned to leave the suite, without finishing his threat, Trey caught a fleeting glimpse of him jabbing an accusing finger. He was a stocky, balding individual with steel-rimmed
glasses and dressed in a creased suit which, as he swung round, flapped open to reveal a brown leather shoulder holster. Complete with gun...

In the silence which followed first the slamming of the suite’s door, and then the study’s, Trey sat on the floor behind the sofa, stunned. What was a man –
with a gun!
– doing arguing with his father? What he’d just witnessed was like a scene straight out of one of
Black Ace
’s novelettes, although they didn’t
regularly feature people hiding behind chesterfields wondering what to do next.

Trey started to get up, then sat down again. A little voice was telling him that to make an appearance too soon would be a bad move (how would he explain his sudden appearance to his father?);
so he stared at his watch, waiting as the seconds ticked by and built up into what he considered to be enough minutes so that he could
arrive
home and not have seen or heard anything he
shouldn’t have.

Luckily, his father stayed in his study so Trey was able to tiptoe back out into the corridor, turn right around, take a deep breath and come straight back in again (doing his own bit of
door-slamming) as if nothing untoward had happened. On the outside he tried to look the way he imagined he should after spending the day with the likes of Arthur Stanhope-Leigh, while on the inside
he nervously waited to put his foot in it and say the wrong thing.