Stephen Leather - Once bitten

"That's about it."

"You ever heard of a Lisa Sinopoli?" he asked. I recognised the technique, the curve-ball question trying to catch me off guard, so I kept my face straight and looked him in the eye and said no, never heard of her. He didn't appear to be convinced by my "what, me?" act. "Why do you ask?" I said.

"Seems Turner hired a detective to track down someone called Sinopoli. That and whoever was paying the nursing home bills."

"Bills? I don't follow."

"Most of Turner's money ran out long ago, according to Dr Lyttelton. Seems the studios didn't pay their movie stars as much then as they do these days. But his bills have been paid by a bank in LA for the last ten years or so. A dick called Matt Blumenthal had been hired to find out whose account was paying his bills."

"Maybe he thought it was this, what was her name, Sinopaul, who was keeping him. Maybe he wanted to thank her."

"Sinopoli," said De'Ath. "Her name was Sinopoli. No I don't think so, Beaverbrook. I think you should stick to messing with their psyches and let me get on with the detective work. By the way, Filbin tells me you were asking about Blumenthal earlier?"

Another curve ball. "Not specifically. I was just wondering how the case was going, that's all."

"You don't seem surprised, Beaverbrook," he said.

"I don't follow you."

"Filbin told you the victim in the Ferriman case had been identified and that his name was Blumenthal. I just told you that Blumenthal was hired by Turner. And you didn't seem surprised."

Shit. I'd dropped myself right in it. I'd been too busy working out what his next trick question was going to be. I let my mouth fall open. "You mean it's the same guy?" I said, faking astonishment as best I could while mentally kicking myself.

De'Ath looked at me with hard eyes, and I knew he was weighing me up. He shook his head.

"Christ, man, this city sure is lucky that you weren't hired as a detective, that's for sure. Yeah, it's the same guy. There's obviously some connection between Ferriman and this guy Turner. I just wish I could find out what it is. Then maybe we'd be able to find out why she killed Blumenthal."

"Come on Samuel. You still don't have any proof."

"Not yet I don't," he admitted. "But it's just a matter of time."

He seemed a lot less angry now. "What are you planning to do?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Visit the bank, I guess. The one that pays Turner's bills. It's one of those small ones, handles a lot of private accounts." He told me the name. "Ever heard of it?" he asked.

Yeah, I'd heard of it, but I didn't let on to De'Ath and he left the office. I toyed with a gold pen that Deborah had given me for our third wedding anniversary while I figured out what to do next.

At the rate he was going, it wouldn't take Black De'Ath too long to figure out that Lisa Sinopoli and Terry Ferriman were one and the same because the bank that was helping to keep Greig Turner in the style to which he'd become accustomed was the same one that had been collecting the rents for the building she owned on North Alta-Vista. If De'Ath asked the bank manager about Terry, chances were that he'd find the link, though whether or not he'd realise that Sinopoli should now be in her eighties was another matter completely.

I'd really wanted to ask De'Ath if I could go with him to speak to the manager myself but I knew that there was no way I could do that without telling him everything I knew, but I wasn't prepared to do that, not until I'd had a chance to speak to Terry. I watched from the window of my office until I saw De'Ath get into a car with Filbin and drive off and I gave it ten minutes and then drove downtown to the bank, parking some distance away from it because a bright red 1966 Sunbeam Alpine is fairly conspicuous, even in LA.

They were in the building for about half an hour and when they came out De'Ath seemed a hell of a lot more relaxed than when he'd left my office. Filbin drove away with De'Ath talking animatedly in the passenger seat.

I waited until they were out of sight before walking into the bank and asking the girl if the Lieutenant De'Ath was still in with the manager. When she said no, I'd just missed them I pulled a face and asked her for the manager's name, and then asked if she'd call through and see if he could spare me a few minutes.

He was waiting at the door of his office, a dapper man in his fifties in a black suit with a thin grey pinstripe, a crisp white shirt and a small gold tiepin in the shape of a horseshoe in a dark blue tie with small white dots. He had the flabby handshake of an undertaker at the end of a long day and a worried frown on his face.

"You've just missed your colleagues, Mr…?" he said.

"Beaverbrook," I said. I'd already decided it wasn't worth the risk of lying to him because if De'Ath heard that someone had been asking questions about Terry Ferriman he'd know right away it was me. "Jamie Beaverbrook. I work with Lieutenant De'Ath." Which, of course, was true, strictly speaking, and I hadn't actually said that I was a policeman, so if De'Ath threw me up against a wall and grabbed me by the throat and asked me what the hell I was doing pretending to be a cop then I could put my hand on my heart and tell him that there had been some misunderstanding, Samuel.

"Come in, come in," he said and stepped aside to usher me in the office. As I walked by him he patted me in the small of the back as if checking for a hidden transmitter, the sort of gesture which could have got him summoned for sexual misconduct if he'd done it to a woman.

His name was Piers Whitbeck and his office was plush enough to soothe the egos of the bank's wealthy private clients, but not so luxurious that they'd worry about whose money was paying for it. Deep pile carpet, rosewood furniture, comfortable black leather seats and a few tasteful watercolours on the walls. A computer terminal sat discretely on a table in a corner as if silently apologising for its presence in the room. He shuffled behind his desk like a ballroom dancer, sat down, raised his eyebrows, looked over the top of his gold-rimmed half-moon spectacles and asked how he could help me. I wished my own bank manager could have been half as accommodating but I didn't think it worth asking him if he'd consider taking on my overdraft. Not with Deborah and her Rotweiler breathing down my neck.

"I was hoping to catch Lieutenant De'Ath before he went," I lied. "I'm working on the case with him and Detective Filbin, but I came across some new information shortly after they left the precinct house." I made a show of taking a notebook out of my jacket pocket and flicking through its pages. There was nothing written on them, but he couldn't see that from across the desk.

"Lieutenant De'Ath was here to ask you about a Lisa Sinopoli, and payments made from an account to an old people's home in Big Sur?"

Whitbeck nodded. "That's correct."

"Well, just after he left the station, we received another name, and we believe that another account at this bank may well be involved." I looked down at the blank page in front of me. "A lady by the name of Terry Ferriman." I spelled the surname out for him. "I wonder, Mr Whitbeck, if you could confirm that Ms Ferriman has an account at this branch?"

He pushed the spectacles up his nose with the index finger of his right hand. "That is so, yes. In fact, Ms Ferriman has several accounts at this bank." I was impressed that he knew the names of his customers without having to consult his sullen computer.

"Would she be a major client?"

He looked at me curiously. "All our clients are equally important to us, Mr Beaverbrook. We pride ourselves on our standard of personal service."

"I suppose what I'm asking, Mr Whitbeck, is how big a customer she is? Would you be able to give me an idea of the assets she has with the bank?"