Perfect Strangers

The facial expression of the shaven-headed man soured.

‘No he’s not,’ said Ruth, watching him drop his gun on to the stone steps with a clatter.

Lana collapsed on to the ground as the police moved in. Two more of Sergei’s men ran out of the house and put their hands behind their heads. Ruth and Sophie got out of the car and ran towards Fox as another officer and a WPC helped Lana off the floor. She had her hands cuffed behind her and she was weeping, her make-up smeared, any hint of the aloof socialite gone.

‘Sophie!’ she cried desperately when she saw the girl. ‘Tell them this is all a misunderstanding; tell them I was only trying to recover my money.’

‘We know everything, Mrs Goddard-Price,’ said Fox bluntly. ‘And I know you killed Nick Beddingfield.’

Ruth expected the woman to deny it, but her face seemed to crumple and her shoulders sagged.

‘It was an accident,’ she sobbed. ‘You have to believe me. Nick was . . . well, we had a few difficult phone conversations, so I flew back from France and checked into the hotel next to the Riverton. When Sophie left him on Monday morning, he called me to arrange a meeting. I went round, we argued . . .’ Her voice trailed off at the memory.

‘You killed him?’ screamed Sophie.

‘He wanted to pull out of our arrangement. I lashed out, grabbed the bottle on the bath. I didn’t mean to hurt him . . .’ She looked over at her house-sitter. ‘You believe that, don’t you?’

Sophie didn’t say anything; she just stepped forward and slapped Lana across the face.

‘Put Mrs Goddard-Price in the squad car,’ said Fox to the detective.

Ruth could still hear Lana shouting as she and Fox walked into the lodge, leaving Sophie with a WPC.

‘Hey, nice place,’ she said. ‘Almost as nice as your flat.’

‘Don’t start,’ smiled Fox.

‘So who are the goons that had got Lana?’

‘Mercenaries for hire, I suspect,’ said Fox. ‘Sergei Kaskov wouldn’t have had time to dispatch his own men to somewhere so remote. And anyway, he’s too clever, wouldn’t want to take the risk when he will have been aware Lana and Sophie were being watched by the Met and the SEC at the very least.’

Ruth nodded; she had heard Fox talking to Hal Stanton on the way up to Manchester, getting briefed about the Russian crime lord and the US authorities’ suspicions about his link to the Asner money.

Through in the kitchen, they could see Josh sitting talking to a detective, giving a statement.

‘What are you going to do with him? He hasn’t broken any laws, has he?’

‘Leave the police work to me,’ smiled Fox.

‘Yeah, right, Sherlock,’ she teased. ‘We’d have wrapped this case up days ago if you’d just shared a bit more information, like I suggested.’

‘At least you got your story,’ he said.

‘Actually, I didn’t just get one story, I got two,’ said Ruth, the truth of the statement only just sinking in. For what seemed like forever, she had been trying to find out who killed Nick Beddingfield. It had consumed her every waking hour, because the future of the bureau, and by extension her career, depended on it. And in pursuing it so doggedly, she had uncovered something else, something even more amazing: Michael Asner’s missing millions. She had solved a high-profile murder and one of America’s biggest financial riddles in one go. Screw you, David, she smiled. See if you can beat that, she thought, knowing, with satisfaction, that she had saved the London bureau.

‘Listen,’ she said, feeling bold. ‘When I’ve filed the story and you’ve made your arrests, how about you take me for dinner to say thank you for all my help? And somewhere nice, seeing as you’re loaded.’

‘I’m the loaded one?’ laughed Fox. ‘You’re going to be so hot after this story, CBS are going to be poaching you for some highly paid Diane Sawyer role.’

Ruth shook her head.

‘Nah, I’m a newspaper girl, not a television journalist. Besides, I like London and I like the bureau too. I think I’m going to be sticking around.’

‘I’m glad about that,’ said Fox, his blue eyes meeting hers. Ruth felt her pulse quicken, surprised by how much she liked this man.

‘Next Tuesday,’ he said suddenly.

‘Next Tuesday what?’