Perfect Strangers

‘This isn’t a game, Josh,’ she croaked, a sob swelling in her chest. ‘You heard what Andrea Sayer said. When they find out we’re lying, they will screw us.’

‘If they find out we’re lying,’ corrected Josh. ‘He didn’t know squat about your dad, that much I could tell.’

His mouth curled into a grin.

‘You gave him your old phone number, eh? You’re learning, princess.’

‘I’m learning to be a con,’ she said miserably.

‘You’re learning to stand on your own two feet, Sophie,’ he said. ‘And by the way, I loved the bit about the garden swing. Like I said, you’re a natural.’

Despite herself, Sophie couldn’t help laughing.

‘Oh Josh, what are we going to do?’

He puffed out his cheeks.

‘You’re right about one thing. Now we’re in the picture, they’re going to do a full background check on you. It won’t be long before they know about Nick, your dad, everything. And then word will get back to Inspector Fox about where you are and what you’ve been doing. I can’t imagine you’re going to be the Met or the SEC’s favourite person.’

‘Thanks for the reassurance.’

‘The point is we’ve got to move fast,’ said Josh. ‘I reckon we’ve got forty-eight hours tops to find the money.’

‘That’s if we don’t get killed by Uri the Bear first,’ said Sophie grimly.

‘Well, that’s one thing we won’t have to worry about,’ said Josh, walking back to the taxi.

‘What do you mean?’

‘We’re not going to hang around and wait for the Russians,’ he said, opening the door. ‘We’re going to go and find them.’

39

That fence looked pretty high. Ruth looked down at her knee-length dress and her wholly impractical heels. Not exactly ideal mountaineering gear, she thought, slipping off her shoes and hitching up her skirt.

‘Here goes nothing,’ she muttered to herself, wedging a stockinged foot in the crossbar of the fence and hoisting herself up. She had tried ringing Lana’s bell, of course; she wasn’t entirely crazy. She’d knocked on the door and shouted through the letterbox too. She hadn’t really expected the woman to be in, but then it wasn’t the lovely Mrs Goddard-Price she wanted to talk to today. Stepping back into the street, Ruth had happened to look up toward the second floor – and had seen a curtain twitch.

That – and a certain amount of desperation, if she was honest – was what had led her to be climbing over the Goddard-Prices’ fence and into their back garden.

‘Dammit!’ she hissed as her tights snagged on an overhanging bush. They came away with a small ripping sound. Great, that’ll look professional, she thought. Not that scrambling over six-foot railings and a thorny bush was something they taught at journalism school along with shorthand and interview technique.

Scratched and grazed, Ruth finally thumped down on the patio on the other side, tugging her bag to get it free.

After all that, this better work, she thought. Back at Scott’s restaurant, her theory about Lana being connected to Nick Beddingfield had felt watertight. But, trespassing on Lana Goddard-Price’s property, she realised how spurious her thinking actually was. There was only one person she was going to end up putting in jail the way she was carrying on, and that person was going to be herself.

Ruth looked up at the windows with their drawn curtains. The whole place looked quiet and shut up, neglected almost. Presumably Lana Goddard-Price was in no rush to leave the South of France; why would she? If she really was mixed up with Nick Beddingfield, she would have wanted as much distance between them as possible. And Fox had told her that Simon was still in Geneva. But Ruth wanted to speak to Cherry, the housekeeper.

She walked across the patio, skirting around some large terracotta planters, and peered in through the French windows, cupping her hands around her face to get a better view. It looked like a posh living room with white sofas and . . .

She stepped back with a cry as a face loomed up in front of her. She turned her ankle over and stumbled backwards, landing painfully on one knee. She was busy swearing and rubbing her injured parts when the door opened and Lana’s Filipino maid appeared, waving a broom.

‘Cherry. Just who I wanted to talk to . . .’

Th

e woman replied with a stream of rapid-fire Tagalog, most of which Ruth suspected was swearing.

‘You get out,’ she finished, jabbing at Ruth with the broom. ‘I call the police.’