Майкл Ридпат - The Predator

There was definitely no chance of getting Rudy back into the fund. But Chris still had hopes for Dr Zizka. At the very end of their meeting, he had had a strong feeling he was finally getting through to him. There was nothing to be gained by waiting for Zizka to change his mind. Either he would, or he wouldn’t. Chris needed to find out which. He picked up the phone.

‘Zizka.’ The voice was little more than a murmur.

‘Dr Zizka? It’s Chris Szczypiorski, Lenka’s partner.’

For a moment, Chris thought Zizka had fled, leaving his phone dangling, but Chris could feel, as much as hear, gentle breathing down the line.

‘Dr Zizka?’

‘Yes, yes,’ he replied at last. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m fine. Look, I was wondering whether you had decided to change your mind about pulling out of Carpathian.’

‘Ah.’

‘Have you?’

‘It’s difficult,’ Zizka said. ‘I have a meeting with some trustees next week. I’d like to be able to say we’ve gotten rid of this investment.’

‘The markets are jumpy at the moment. I’m convinced you’ll get a better price if you hang on for a couple of months. Lenka got you into the fund with the promise of good returns, and I’d hate you to come out without them.’

Silence again. Chris could feel his heart beating. He wanted to jump into the void, to fill the silence with persuasive talk, but he kept quiet. Zizka was thinking. And Chris knew who he was thinking about. Lenka.

‘All right,’ Zizka said, at last. ‘Why not? Personally, I believe these worries about Germany are all overdone, anyway. It won’t do any harm to wait a couple of months. I’ll stay in. We’ll review the situation in May, shall we?’

‘Excellent. We’ll talk then. Thank you very much, Dr Zizka.’

Chris put down the phone with a whoop. They were still going to lose the Amalgamated Veterans money, but keeping Melville Capital in the fund was a psychological boost both he and Ollie needed.

After that minor victory, there was nothing more they could do at the office late on a Friday afternoon, so Chris told Ollie to go home. He took the tube to King’s Cross station and the train up to Cambridge, looking over his shoulder every few minutes to see whether he was being followed. To his relief, he didn’t spot anyone.

On the train, he thought through his conversation with Marcus yet again. Assuming Lenka was telling the truth and not just trying to confuse Marcus, his conclusions were inescapable. She had said that Duncan had knocked Alex into the sea, but that wasn’t how Alex had died . Alex was fine before Duncan hit him. So he must have died as a result of what happened afterwards.

Someone had drowned him. And that someone must have been one of the three people who dived into the sea after him. Eric, Ian or Duncan. One of Chris’s friends. Someone he had known for ten years.

But which one?

Duncan was too shaken at the time to do anything. Eric was possible. But Ian seemed the most likely. For a start, he was in the water the longest. Also, he was most obviously linked to Lenka’s death. From his e-mails to her, it was clear Ian had had problems with Lenka just before she was killed. Or rather, she had had problems with him. Ian knew Lenka was in touch with Marcus, he knew she was going to tell him something, and he wanted to stop her.

Perhaps he was afraid that Lenka was about to tell Marcus that he had drowned Alex ten years before. So he went to Prague to shut her up. Or paid someone else to.

The idea revolted Chris. But whichever way he looked at it, it was the only one that made sense.

It was dark by the time the train pulled into Cambridge station. Chris took a taxi to Megan’s college. His spirits lifted as he walked through the ancient college gates into the quiet First Court and then passed the sprawling plane tree in front of her building. He looked up: the lights were on in her rooms.

‘It’s so good to see you!’ Megan said when she opened her door to him. Before he had a chance to say anything, she gave him a long, warm kiss. He held her and thought it was good to see her, too.

‘You look a wreck,’ she said. ‘Did you sleep on the plane?’

‘No. Sleep is pretty difficult at the moment.’

‘Come here,’ Megan led Chris to the sofa, and nestled under his arm. Chris liked her room. It had white walls and large windows overlooking the court below. Black painted wooden beams ran across the ceiling. She had done her best to scatter the few possessions she had been able to bring to England about the place. On the mantelpiece were two photographs: one of Megan’s parents sitting on the porch of a yellow clapboard house, and another of a much younger Megan lying on the grass next to her grandmother, hugging an overweight basset-hound. Framed posters of exhibitions long gone by adorned the walls. Next door was a tiny bedroom with a single bed. Cramped, but Chris wasn’t complaining.

‘Tell me what happened,’ Megan said. ‘Did you find Marcus?’

Chris told her all about his conversations with Abby Hollis, George Calhoun, and Dr Marcia Horwath. He told her in detail about his trip to Vermont to see Marcus. But he only gave his visit to Eric’s house a brief mention, and said nothing at all about the double threat he had received in New York. He didn’t want to scare Megan. Having made his decision to continue the search for Lenka’s killer, he didn’t want Megan to talk him out of it.

She listened attentively, interrupting only once or twice for clarification. When Chris had finished, she asked the obvious question. ‘What was Lenka going to tell Marcus?’

Chris gave her his answer.

Megan didn’t say anything for several seconds. Her face was pale. ‘That’s horrible. I just can’t believe it. Do you really think Ian would do something like that?’

‘It was either him or Eric,’ Chris said. ‘I don’t believe Duncan was in any state to drown someone that night.’

‘I’m sure it wasn’t Eric,’ said Megan. ‘I know him too well. It must have been Ian. Yuk.’ She recoiled. ‘And you think he killed Lenka as well?’

Chris nodded.

‘Oh, my God!’ She shook her head. ‘But why? Why would Ian want to drown Alex? They weren’t enemies.’

‘No, they weren’t,’ said Chris. ‘There’s only one reason I can think of. Did I ever tell you I caught Ian taking cocaine on the training programme?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘I only saw him do it the once. But what if he was a regular user? What if he was the one who supplied Alex? Remember, only the American trainees were tested. Ian could have had a lucky escape. But what if Alex was planning to tell Calhoun all about Ian?’

‘So Ian drowned Alex to keep him quiet.’ Megan shuddered. ‘Are you absolutely sure that’s what happened? I still can’t believe it.’

‘No, I’m not sure. It’s my best guess. But remember, we were out of sight of all three of them. It could have been Eric, or perhaps even Duncan himself.’

‘It wasn’t Eric.’

There was something about Megan’s certainty on that score that irritated Chris. He knew it was jealousy on his part, and he wasn’t proud of it. But although he agreed with Megan, he couldn’t stop himself from arguing. ‘We shouldn’t rule him out.’

‘You don’t have to rule him out if you don’t want to,’ said Megan. ‘But I know it was Ian. What do we do now?’

Chris slumped back on Megan’s sofa. He suddenly felt very tired. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Can we go to the police?’ Megan asked.

‘I thought about that,’ Chris said. ‘And the question is, which police? There’s no point in going to the police in this country; no crime has been committed here. We could go to the police on Long Island and try to get them to reopen the investigation into Alex’s death. But we have no hard evidence. Just hearsay and deduction. And as soon as we start explaining what really happened, we’ll have to admit that we all lied to them ten years ago. All that will do is get us arrested for obstructing the course of justice. They might decide to get Duncan on a murder or manslaughter charge as well.’