Once I Was A Soldier, page 6
“It is, yes! The plans were drawn up many months ago, but I think Miss Iverson would prefer to cancel if she could.”
It crossed my mind that my name was not on the original list but had been added as an afterthought. I never had the opportunity to ask Megan as we had now reached the terrace where Melissa was seated at a white linen-covered table under a sun umbrella with various coloured folders strewn in front of her. She was wearing a bright yellow off-the-shoulder cashmere sweater and a short figure-hugging black skirt. Her lips were a delicious warm red and her skin heavenly tanned. Her eyes cut me in two! She greeted me as though as I was the love of her life returning after years apart.
“I thought you might have gone to Hollywood after leaving Italy, Melissa. That seemed the logical venue for you,” I said as our lips parted and we held each other at arm's length, neither of us wanting to let go.
“I thought about it, Terry. I even contacted that friend you mentioned. I did consider hiring an assassin to kill you for that, but I put it down to excessive exuberance on your part. He's a self-obsessed perverted weirdo and that's a compliment.” We had separated and she was pouring a glass of white wine from a cooler on the table. I took the glass from her shaking hand.
“Are you not having one?” I asked.
“That's presumptuous for you to assume it's for you! I might just want you to hold it for me.”
“Presumptuous, no! I know you too well, Melissa. You want me drunk then to have your wicked way with my body.”
There was a faint hint of a smile from her but she didn't respond in any positive way.
“I never knew him that well, that man in Hollywood. I just did one job for him. That was how I found out that he was in the film business. Thought he might get you an in. Sorry, if it didn't work out. What on earth did he do?”
“He didn't do anything. I never got close enough for him to do anything. It was what he wanted me to do.” She sipped from her wine glass whilst still measuring me up with her penetrating eyes.
She was more beautiful than I remembered. Her physical qualities had not changed much, but perhaps becoming slightly older had defined her appearance as a woman and not the girl I had known. There was, however, an alteration to her voice. It was deeper. It enhanced her appeal.
“Go on then, what did he want? Something sexy, was it?” I asked, smiling with my mind fixed firmly on anticipated pleasures. My objective was too obvious.
“I've moved on since Rome, Terry. I'm not quite so easy as I was,” she replied, straight-faced. “He asked for photos before seeing me; naked ones! Said he shot porn movies and was looking for an English speaking star! Did you perform in one and that's how the two of you met?”
“No one has ever asked that of me before. Would you think I'm qualified?”
“If you have been in any then it's something my solicitors never found out about you,” nonchalantly she remarked.
“You've run checks on me, Melissa? Why?”
“Ever since my first marriage, which incidentally was dissolved a long time ago. From then on I've had checks run on anyone who gets close to me. Admittedly they would have to be very close, but yes, I did.”
“Don't you think it would be better to run investigations before getting close at all, Mel?”
“And that is precisely why you're here, Terry. Your worldliness and your common sense. Plus, of course, some other attributes you possess,” she responded, still without a smile.
“And there I was beginning to believe you never wanted my body. I was on the verge of leaving.”
“I didn't say that, did I? I wish you'd listen and not drift down another avenue. The attributes I referred to were not your bedroom abilities, Mr Jeffries. I was referring to your criminal record and how your history of violence would have led to contacts in that kind of world.”
“I was arrested three times but charged only the once. All three were in self-defence. Your Lord Belsize would have told you that. Not sure how that qualifies me to know many criminals.”
“Your memory for names is impressive.”
“It's an unusual name, Lord, Mel,” I replied, taunting her.
“I'm indulging you with that abbreviation to my common enough name, Terry, but it may not last. Your memory of Lord Belsize's name would not be because you wrote to him twice asking for my whereabouts, would it?”
“I should have thought of that, shouldn't I?” I smiled at her boyishly. “He being a solicitor with an excellent filing system!” That was a mistake, but my interest in beautiful women had seldom come without a price.
“I'm going to come to the point of why I invited you to my twenty-fifth and stop messing with you. There is a lot of catching up on our lives to uncover.”
“And I'm tempted by the word uncover, with its connotations of undressing and nakedness, but I promise I won't mention any beds while you get to that mysterious point.” My boyish smile had turned into a wide grin which fleetingly she mirrored.
“How did Belsize find my criminal record? Tell me the truth about that one or I'm on the next flight home!”
“He had the car wiped clean before you drove it off from the villa in Rome. Remember it was you and he who arranged the dates for shipment. Then it was easy, or so he told me. You were the only one who parked it in the container that was loaded on the ship. The crew only stabilised it. When Belsize's man took delivery in Southampton he took fingerprints. It was from them that your records were found. Your secret is safe with me, Terry. I have no reason not to keep it.”
“So, there's some things about my misspent younger years that, although they never interested you when they were first discovered, do now. Is that right?” I asked.
“I take it you know I'm in the publishing business?”
“I didn't, but go on,” I replied as a good-looking girl dressed all in white with an obsequious smirk on her young pretty face appeared with a tray containing two cups of ready poured coffee. It smelled divine.
“Well, yes I am. I've found gainful employment doing something I love. I was workshy once, but that's another thing I've grown past. These files are some of my clients and agents I deal with.” The girl was tidily stacking them to allow room for the cups. When she withdrew, Melissa continued.
“It all started eight or nine weeks or so ago when I received a short unsolicited manuscript through my mailbox from an unsigned writer. As I say it was short; only five or six pages. Unusually for me the day it arrived was an easy day. My workload had lightened considerably a few months before when I took on two more editors. Business is good, Terry, and far less tedious than one might imagine.” I fashioned an interested look, sipped my strong coffee and lit a cigarette.
“I had time to read it myself. Taken as a whole it was rubbish. Not a story at all, but reportage! It was though very detailed and explicit. For some reason I never tore it up and threw it in the bin. I can't answer why. Sorry, haven't said what it was about, have I?”
“No, but I'm sure you will,” I said, still tasting the coffee and trying to concentrate on what she was saying rather than her.
“It was of an abduction of a woman in her early forties from an address in London who subsequently was found murdered in Luton in Hertfordshire. She was the wife of a jeweller. I made some enquiries of my own, finding out that everything on those pages was true. The event happened, and according to my friend on the Daily Express newspaper in London exactly as this anonymous writer told it. Obviously my first thoughts were that he had merely read about it then wrote it up. But there was a niggling doubt in my mind. Part of me imagined it was a confession. Before you condemn me for being some flighty, unbalanced, rich girl living in the fantasy world of fiction, let me assure you that the life I've led since both my parents died has taught me to be both cynical and selective in who and what I believe. This short elucidation worried me.
“Roughly a week later a letter arrived, postmarked in the UK. The letter was unsigned, however there was a post box number to reply to and I presumed a pseudonym. He asked if I liked the pages he'd sent, if not, he went on—here's another story. This time it was about two girls being killed and both bodies being burnt in a car on waste-ground in the West India Docks, which if my limited knowledge of London is correct are in the East End.” I nodded and mumbled an incomprehensible reply.
“He named them both and gave, as collaboration, some details that my journalist friend could not find reported anywhere.”
“What details were they?” I asked.
“One of the girls had a butterfly tattoo on her left thigh and the other a stud on her vagina.”
“What happened next?”
“I wrote to that post box!”
“That was a mistake, Mel.”
“That's why I need your help, Terry.”
“My help? I'm no private eye, Melissa. Neither am I a great reader of books. I find a newspaper hard going. But isn't it every publisher's dream to find a writer who can add realism to fiction? Perhaps whoever it is just wants to draw you in slowly because he's shy in some way. What was the name he used?”
“That's what first scared the shit out of me, Terry. He used my dead brother's full name: Frederick!”
“Coincidence, Melissa, nothing more.” As I said it I wondered why whoever it was had not just signed it Fred or Freddie. Frederick seemed too formal to be simply chance.
“If those personal details of the two girls can't be found then how do you know they're true? It could all be in his head and he's an undiscovered talented crime writer. It could even have been me. Maybe I'm trying to impress you with a talent you would never have expected?” I said flippantly, as I noticed that although she was holding her hands together the shaking was pronounced.
“I thought of that. You were one of my first suspects!” she replied, unamused.
“I'm ruled out then, am I?”
“Yes! I never had time to tell you of Frederick. We were too busy doing other things than discussing family trees as far as I can remember. I'm frightened, Terry, and there's no one else I can turn to.” There was no semblance of jocularity in her response nor in her mood. Her wistful answer was totally immersed in a strong sense of foreboding. I found myself absorbed by her impassioned plea for help, so much so that I disregarded the opportunity to reply in my usual suggestive manner.
“You said that reading Frederick's name was what first frightened you; was there something you haven't told me that scared you more?”
“There was a postscript after that signature. I have his letter here,” she said as she thumbed through the yellow folders, until from one she withdrew a single sheet of foolscap.
“Here, you read it.” She passed it across the table then walked the few steps to the edge of the balcony and stared into the distance.
It's not only the Irish who have the bullets that kill Iversons
“What was it you said in the letter you wrote back to the post box, Mel?”
“I said you don't frighten me, Terry. Was that so wrong?” she replied with a look of desperation in her eyes.
Chapter Two
Melissa explained how her brother had died and then went on to say that hundreds of people knew, ranging from army colleagues, friends of his and those of the Iverson family. She wasn't even sure that she hadn't told Richard Stanhope or Samantha Rodgers in moments of open conversation. Schools and university could not be discounted either, leaving no obvious candidate to whom to attribute the blame. All I knew was that it was going to be a long investigation.
“You said that the manuscript, and I'm guessing the follow-up letter, went to your mailbox. Is that not the same as your publishing address?”
“No! I don't have an office. I did look around at some but I thought I'd work from this apartment. It was the main reason I bought the place, it being big enough both to live and work in. There are now six of us handling thirty-one authors. I had one of the reception rooms on this level and two bedrooms and a bathroom on the next converted into a self-contained unit that is now my offices. The entrance is just off the lobby where you arrived. It works very well. Somehow or other I feel more intimate with my list here than I would in some sterile space elsewhere.”
“How do you get your mail, Melissa?”
“Jack collects it from the mailbox office a block away. And before you ask, Jack has a preference for male lovers. I met his live-in lover at a party I went to last Christmas Eve. That's where I recruited him. Came from Harper Collins. Great pedigree! But why? What are you getting at?”
“I was thinking it would be better to either change the address of your publishing company or change your name. Personally I'd still recommend both as if this man is serious, and I'm not convinced yet that he is, then he could simply follow Jack to here. I know changing everything would cause you problems, but they would be less than trying to find someone with a grudge against you.” I watched her carefully as what I'd said began to sink in.
As she reached across to retake that signed letter I lightly touched her bare arm and felt how cold she was. At that moment my idea of a utopian dream of sexual pleasure was replaced by a wish to just hold her and gently caress her fears away, but I'm a realist having no connection to fantasy. She needed help. My worry was that I was not the best person to help her.
“Is there anyone special who you've pissed off lately who's likely to react in this way, Melissa?” I let go of her arm and watched as she turned that innocuous sheet of A4 backwards and forwards between her hands as though it was a delicate piece of porcelain that would break if she let it go.
“I guess I've upset a lot of people since father died, starting with the Spencers when I evicted them from the estate. Over the years I haven't been the most understanding person. This newish venture of mine, publishing, is a harsh business. No place for sentiment where time and money is concerned. And then there's been my private life. Richard Stanhope tried to sting me for more money before the divorce papers finally went through. He gave me an ultimatum; give him another million pounds or he'd go to one of the national gossip rags and tell how a little rich girl from the north of England saved face by marrying him. He'd elaborate on it all by adding how I'd abandoned all the workers that father had nurtured over the years just for my sexual pleasure. Said that the right reporter would juice it up sufficiently to ruin me. I told him to go ahead and then read how I would ruin his name along with his wife's, listing all the affairs she'd had that Samantha Rodgers had told me. We had kept in touch, Samantha and I, when I was in Italy, but she'd never mentioned his wife at all. I was bluffing but he fell for it. Samantha had told me that part of his divorce settlement from Julia Moncreiffe was a lifetime allowance of a considerable sum of money. The loss of that, if Julia found out why her name was being dragged through the newspapers, was too much to contemplate. He backed down, but was far from happy with the situation.”
“How about men friends since Italy? Left many still clutching their pride to their chests?”
“I don't understand your metaphor, however, if you're asking how many lovers I've had who I subsequently dumped, then there have been a few. More often than not we've parted on amicable terms. As I said earlier, I've changed my approach to men.”
I was not going to overlook that remark without comment.
“I sincerely hope that doesn't apply to me, Melissa. I was anticipating picking up where we left off. You would break my heart if that never happened.” I gave her my most coquettish smile possible.
“You haven't agreed to help me yet, Terry. A lot is riding on that! No, slow down!” she quickly added as I rose from my chair. “Don't read that as a metaphor or simile for something else.” At last, a warm smile lit her face. I was on dangerous ground by broadening our fledgling relationship, and not only from any psychopaths.
In itself, my antecedents being found by a solicitor was not disturbing. The list of illegal transgressions were there to be found if looked for, but behind that legend was the real me and I was not to be unearthed by anyone! Searching into Melissa's past to discover if the threat to her life was real or imaginary was really something I should have at least sidestepped on the way to her bed and at best retreated from faster than an old wily fox on hearing the hounds. But I neither had the guile of an old fox nor was I disingenuous where women were concerned. Every aspect of a woman fascinated me. From their physical appearance to mental agility, from social graces to primal sensuality. I found physicality coupled with intellect to be the most seductive. Melissa had enough of both to blind me to reality.
I'm of the opinion that it's my age that attracts certain women. Obviously there are other things I have going for me as well, however, the maturity of an older man can be reassuring to some, and to others it's the worldly experience they crave from an imagery based around their father. Whether or not that opinion was right, or there was another reason why I found myself warmly invited into so many brief relationships, I'll never know; neither did I care!
* * *
My real name is Patrick West. I'm twenty years and a few months older than Melissa and as far away from a criminal as anyone could be. My name has changed three times before this date, all for different reasons but only one aim. I work for an organisation that is semi-independent from any national or international intelligence gathering organisation that is publicly known. There are no 'M's' or 'C's,' nor numerals in its simple name. Some long ago years Patrick West was a detective in the police who by chance was temporally transferred to another special unit of a similar nature. That small, close-knit unit was disbanded at the successful conclusion of a sensitive case and on the death of its commander. I was injured, narrowly escaping death, taking a long while to fully recover. Notwithstanding that injury, when fit I accepted a new challenge that was put to me by a senior government official, one that I'm now heavily committed to. Melissa's phantom killer did not in my opinion compromise the work I was doing or about to do, in fact, so I argued with myself, it suited my purposes admirably. That opinion was clouded by the pleasurable issues of sex for which I had been cautioned by the man I answered to. It was a caution to be more careful following a nasty beating I took from a client's employee when found sharing the same lecherous desire for his mistress as he had, but mine came a little earlier in the day than his!
